Orbx’s John Venema has taken to the Orbx forums to issue a statement on the development status for their long-running series of openLC products. This article covers both the long-awaited openLC Africa and also openLC Asia.
John started the forum thread by saying that development for openLC Africa has been ongoing for over 2 years. Ever since openLC South America was released, the development of Africa has been on and off, with the intention of releasing the product at the end of 2017 / early 2018. The delays were attributed by changes in priorities for the developer, which turned out to be TrueEarth Netherlands for AFS2/P3D, research and development on Orbx Global for X-Plane and also porting TrueEarth GB South to P3D. Whilst various screenshots has been shared over time, the Orbx team have yet to receive the beta code from the developer. John added, “For that reason, I have hidden that preview topic for now as I do not want to give anyone the impression that a release is any closer than it is. We are working with the developer to ensure we do receive a beta for OLC Africa.”
Unfortunately, the news doesn’t end there. John also mentioned that the other openLC pack focusing on the Asian region, “may never see the light of day.”
Whilst John is disappointed at the news, he did go on to add that there are many reasons as to why software development roadmaps forcibly change from time to time. Elements such as market conditions, business priorities and other reasons are why things sometimes don’t always work out as hoped. Technologies also change and advance during development, which can also cause delays and hinder projects. However, in spite of this, it was also added that “Orbx has a solid track record for delivering most of what we announce in our roadmaps […].”
Whilst the news may not be the best, John concluded the forum thread by stating that if the team can make any progress with openLC Africa, then they intend to test and ship it as soon as possible. Should there be any news, the team will inform the community.