New MS Flight Sim shown at E3

[YVRLHRDXB 321]

The new flight might have a few graphical flaws which is understandable seeing how it's probably in early beta but it blows P3D and any 3rd party scenery package out of the water. The amount of detail is insane. 

I'll be holding off from upgrading my PC and buying any 3rd party add on's and wait for the new Flight Sim which looks to be a game changer.

Edited June 11, 2019 by sl55on20s

[C2615 319]

Instead of grabing and restricting those add-on developers, why don't they sold "Add-on slot" to customer?

10 slot for start and if you wanna add more, no matter where you get it, pay for the slot...

 

Sorry for providing BAD ideas....

[eslader 1,783]

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

The PC is an afterthought behind smartphones and consoles.

I've been reading ideas like that for years now and I still don't believe it. You can't play Witcher 3 on your phone. Or Assassin's Creed. Or GTA. 

In the time between now and when this new FS is supposedly coming out, the PC will see a new Borderlands, Dying Light, a Doom remake of all things, Halo Master Chief is going to be released for PC, MechWarrior 5, and of course Cyberpunk 2077 by the same guys who made Witcher 3 which may well be the most anticipated game around and has been since they announced it a couple-three years ago. And that's just a small sample of the big titles coming out for PC. It sure doesn't look like a back-burner platform to me, and I don't think it does to people in the gaming industry either. 

I agree with you that lots of games are set up to generate money via DLC but... Well, if that was a great moneymaking scheme for flight sims, then Dovetail probably wouldn't have walked away from their idea. Flight simmers are different - they're generally either casual players who are not going to pay 50 bucks for an airplane, or they're hardcore simmers who will plunk down $100, but only if it's PMDG-level. 

Neither one of those groups is going to be impressed by being nickel and dimed for every little thing like normal games try to get away with.

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

MS isn't going to cater to "flightsimmers" with their new game.  Flightsims are a niche market and if they did cater to us, it will be a big flop. They will want to sell millions of copies for $59.95 each. Plus probably another $29.95 for each DLC aircraft and maybe even DLC airports. This game will be designed from the ground up for VR and online play. I think even Eagle Dynamics should be a bit worried about it, as the MS app will probably have combat modes.

[GCBraun 2,392]

39 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

MS isn't going to cater to "flightsimmers" with their new game.  Flightsims are a niche market and if they did cater to us, it will be a big flop. They will want to sell millions of copies for $59.95 each. Plus probably another $29.95 for each DLC aircraft and maybe even DLC airports. This game will be designed from the ground up for VR and online play. I think even Eagle Dynamics should be a bit worried about it, as the MS app will probably have combat modes.

Microsoft won’t, but 3rd. Parties will.

It is called Flight Simulator...

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

You seem convinced that there will be third parties. Examination of all other recent video games yields evidence to the contrary.

[Alan_A 1,650]

[HiFlyer 9,359]

4 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Aerofly hasn't figured anything out with regard to performance unless you count leaving out key features and add-ons.

LOL!

You remind me of Snave, explaining flatley years ago all the incontrovertible technical facts of how Outerra could never possibly do..... all the things it now does.

As always, I will wait a few years and  come back to waggle my eyebrows at this stuff.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I note from the screen grabs that this truly does seem to be from Microsoft's version of Google earth. with (probably) Lidar-scanned cities, and all of the advantages (realism, accuracy) as well as all of the disadvantages, (obvious scanning errors leading to misshapen buildings, no night lighting, and sometimes very odd tree-structures)

This is apparently supplemented with some (probably) hand modified roads, almost definitely custom airports, and 3d water in many areas though I note the video showed at least one weird vector waterway.

I saw (probably) shader-based, Outerra style grass, and lots of animal, vehicle, and human animation.

Clouds looked suspiciously like the latest multi-layer implementation of TrueSky

There were many other things, but all in all this looks essentially like Google earth (Bingle earth?) with the kitchen sink thrown at it. Probably cities will look absolutely great as long as you keep a respectful distance, but not good enough to fly a copter down between most buildings, where the illusion will fall apart, just like Google earth at near ground level.

It's gonna be an interesting Frankenstein of a program, but Microsoft will probably only need 3rd party help with airports, with most of the rest being data and AI driven.

The impact on the existing third party ecosystem if this became the dominant civilian simulation........ Hmmmmmmm......

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the lack of night lighting and some pretty bad GE textures

[irrics 1,517]

No night lighting - yet. 

 

I would be totally shell shocked if they don’t have a plan for it.  This is Microsoft, not some tiny new two bit operation.  

 

Flight was a misstep under an entirely different regime.  They know the expectations if they are going to revive the FS brand I think  

 

The Dubai stuff in the video, as one example, had some night lighting. 

Edited June 11, 2019 by irrics

[vin747 316]

I wonder if MS folks are reading thru these forums and feeling the pulse of the target audience.. Hope we are their target audience and not the GTA teenage crowd! 

[HiFlyer 9,359]

7 minutes ago, irrics said:

The Dubai stuff in the video, as one example, had night lighting.

Unfortunately, it didn't. If you've ever seen Drzewiecki designs New York, you'll see they use the same Google earth style tech and answer the night lighting problem the same way. By placing dynamic street lighting in such away as to illuminate the buildings.

Not-so-good up close.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

4 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Aerofly hasn't figured anything out with regard to performance unless you count leaving out key features and add-ons.

That’s always been a myth.

Go and fly aerofly in the A320 - which has mid-weight systems ie a partially-functional MCDU - over some full-fat Orbx scenery. You’ll still be able to lock at 120 frames per second.

FSX and P3D are based on old tech that wasn’t even well optimized in its day (FSX was a slideshow on release, of course, but that wasn’t standard for even complex games at the time). X-plane is not much better, it MAY get better with Vulcan but who knows.

Aerofly has a modern engine, and it shows. 

With P3D, we’ve managed to get shadows, PBR and other newer tech shoehorned in, but a flight sim based on a 2019-spec engine is going to be a while different ballgame.

[irrics 1,517]

@HiFlyer

 

Interesting stuff, we will just have to wait and see - obviously - lol

I personally just refuse to believe with this long to go still that they would do such a poor implementation of night lighting for the final product, especially in the context of how great the rest of the visuals are. 

 

I am going to stay hopeful and positive.

This thing isn’t even releaseing for probably a full year if not more. 

Edited June 11, 2019 by irrics

[anden145 2,285]

10 hours ago, vortex681 said:

An interesting overview of cloud gaming here: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-current-state-of-cloud-gaming/

The last paragraph is worth noting:

"Lastly, latency is still one major barrier to making cloud gaming akin to playing on a high-end rig, so don't expect flawless gaming 100 percent of the time. But, while I don't see cloud gaming changing the cultural landscape of PC gaming any time soon, it could be a useful service for anyone without gaming desktop or laptop, or super casual gamers. PC gaming enthusiasts will be a harder sell."

Yearh, well... thanks for the article, but (not to be rude) I don't really care about, what some arbitrary article (or 'analysis) says about cloud-gaming. If I look around, I could probably find other 'analysis' from all the so-called-self-proclaimed-experts of the IT/Gaming world, who could 'prove' the opposite. 

What I was talking about and which was my original point was, that I thought (it was my own opinion and analysis) that cloud-gaming was on the rise and is the future of computing. It's already happened and gaining popularity within the business world of IT and as computers, chips and gadgets (phones, tablets, laptops etc) are getting more and more advanced, smaller and are gradually taking over (or sharing) more and more tasks in everyday life, I think we'll see an increase in cloud-infrastructure (and by that different sorts of cloud-gaming) for the more heavy number-crunching. 
This development will also increase, as more and more people are getting access to the Internet and are getting improved connectivity and faster and faster bandwidth. Fiber-optics networks and the usage of future wireless technologies and cellular networks (5G etc). 

Of course, this is - again - just my humble analysis. Call me naive or idiotic - but I think the future is in the cloud. Google Stadia, Shadow PC services (which actually are two different approaches to the same thing... but it's still Cloud-Gaming, non-the-less.) etc. 

And yes, it's not for everyone and cannot fulfill everyone's needs and expectations (at the moment) and it has drawbacks... but I'm fairly certain, that some time down the line (no, I'm not talking tomorrow or next year - I'm talking 5-10, maybe 20 years!) I think we'll see a totally different layout as to how people are gaming and an immense increase in flexibility - remember - with cloud gaming, you can literally game anywhere. 🙂