2 hours ago, Sticky said:

I think I know why Dovetail packed up so quickly...

Dovetail had an issue selling FSW.  It was not as wildly popular as one would have thought.  Plus, the "beta testers" (the one's who immediately beta test products when first released to be the first to find issues) found too many issues and demanded immediate hot fixes.  The hot fixes resulted in even more issues and finally the 2-3 team members, working for Dovetail,  decided it was time to call it quits and they did.  I personally think they were having issues getting around the Microsoft license for FSX.  It definitely was not the threat of MS Flight 2020.  In fact, Dovetail, being a company located in Europe, would have had a more difficult time getting knowledge of products being developed in Redmond, Washington.  Third party developers and/or beta testers, working with Microsoft to develop add-ons for the product, would likely have violated the MS NDA before the product was first announced (it is hard to keep a secret) and we would have known about it soon after the product was first being developed.  Dovetail continues to provide support for FSX-SE and updates where they can.  My two-cents.

3 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

Off topic but...

I love his quote from their forums, "That's why we spend so much time on Connected Flight Deck. Flying an Airbus on your own is silly and illegal. It's like simulating a heart attack of your co-pilot in every single flight." 

Never thought of it like that but it makes a lot of sense.  I am sure people have a lot to say about their final product in sim but it's a good philosophy. Maybe there will be some cool audio recognition in MSFS since windows and the whole Cortona thing and their technology seem to be big on that type of stuff.

Same Mathijs:

„We didnt implement any failure simulation as most real life pilots never face any aircraft failures in their entire career“

(which is a highly debatable statement)

They only promote realism where it fits 😉 But connected flightdeck is a great opportunity to add failure simulation to future products, as those are the moments you really need 4 eyes and 4 hands

Granted, they clearly don't look like Rex clouds but another one of those "waiting for the go-ahead to say something" statements, which would be odd if they weren't involved in some way? What would Rex bring?

6 minutes ago, Woozie said:

Same Mathijs:

„We didnt implement any failure simulation as most real life pilots never face any aircraft failures in their entire career“

(which is a highly debatable statement)

Haha, touché. I think that’s a terrible philosophy.

Who doesn’t fly with failures at max? Otherwise it’s just boring!

 

8 minutes ago, Sethos1988 said:

Granted, they clearly don't look like Rex clouds but another one of those "waiting for the go-ahead to say something" statements, which would be odd if they weren't involved in some way? What would Rex bring?

why not, it would absolutely make sense for Microsoft to focus on areas where they have the knowledge and resources (engine and earth data) and “outsource” other elements like aircraft (Aerosoft) and weather depiction (Rex) to 3rd party studios. This would fit to their statement that they are working with industry leading developers

I wouldnt be surprised if HiFi Soft is onboard as well

1 minute ago, Woozie said:

why not, it would absolutely make sense for Microsoft to focus on areas where they have the knowledge and resources (engine and earth data) and “outsource” other elements like aircraft (Aerosoft) and weather depiction (Rex) to 3rd party studios. This would fit to their statement that they are working with industry leading developers

I wouldnt be surprised if HiFi Soft is onboard as well

Well, it wouldn't make sense if the clouds are a TrueSKY product, Rex has little to do with that. Just thinking about what else they could provide outside of clouds; textures? expertise? perhaps work on their upcoming advanced weather engine?

10 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

Haha, touché. I think that’s a terrible philosophy.

Who doesn’t fly with failures at max? Otherwise it’s just boring!

 

I once had the opportunity to sit in a real simulator from LH. I sat down in the pilot seat with my VA friend in the copilot seat. Ready for takeoff on the runway. The instructor started and I interrupted him. blabla I know how to fly that thing. I am a FSX pro! And I took off. I flew some circles and landed easily again. I told him: You see easy!

So he challenged me. Put me into the final approach, at night. I laughed: Challenge you call that? So I continued when suddenly everything started to beep and blink. I tried to keep the approach stable but the sidestick did not responde. I crashed into terminal 2. Well he simulated a complete hydraulic failure LOL! 

No thx I dont need this in my sim. No way I am gonna learn emergency procedures and how to fix failures. By beeing able to fly without failures I know already more than 99% of mankind. Thats enough for a hobby 😄

I have watched the video's over and over and I may be wrong but TruSky comes to mind, it could be that they have gone from DTG FSW to Microsoft.

20 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

Dovetail had an issue selling FSW.  It was not as wildly popular as one would have thought.  

That is putting it mildly, given that they gave it away for free to a bunch of people (such as myself).

Looking at the Steam stats, it averages around 10 players. That compares to an average of 2,137 players for FSX-SE, which is not bad for just one version of a 2006 game.

Steam makes it very easy to track what is actually being used. FSW peaked at an average of 79.2 players on release, and then it was all downhill from there. In short, initial uptake was very modest, and then most people kind of went "Meh", and moved on. As Dovetail were working on it, adding TrueSKY etc, the miniscule player numbers continued to fade. It was never going to be a viable prospect, based on the data.

FSX sold a million copies in the US in the first 2 years post-release, and I think it ended around 3 times that world-wide. I suspect that's the sort of numbers that Microsoft would like to see with MSFS, as they seem to be approaching it as a AAA title. It won't equal the upcoming Halo for sales (Reach sold over 11 million copies), but it could certainly do well. I often see flight simming described as a "niche" hobby, but that certainly wasn't the case in the past. People love to see the world - look how popular Google Earth for recreational use. A world-wide flight sim with great graphics - which MSFS certainly seems to have, based on that trailer - can have some serious mainstream appeal.

6 minutes ago, Sethos1988 said:

Well, it wouldn't make sense if the clouds are a TrueSKY product, Rex has little to do with that. Just thinking about what else they could provide outside of clouds; textures? expertise? perhaps work on their upcoming advanced weather engine?

Do we know if its really TrueSky? The main selling point of TrueSky is that it looks like true skies, so any other product that claims the same would look exactly like TrueSky (you cant beat that logic, can you? 😉 )

in regards to a possible REX involvement:

On 6/10/2019 at 5:45 PM, stonelance said:

This is being developed by the publishing group at MS which works with external developers to develop game\entertainment products.  It is possible this is the "best developers" they were referring to, and not any in the flight sim industry.

This could become a joint project with lots of external knowledge helping to shape this new sim. If Microsoft really goes this way the sky is literally the limit 🙂 this would be an absolutely commendable move by MS and just shows how serious they take it.

Just now, Woozie said:

Do we know if its really TrueSky? The main selling point of TrueSky is that it looks like true skies, so any other product that claims the same would look exactly like TrueSky (you cant beat that logic, can you? 😉 )

Of course not but Rex suddenly pulling magical, volumetric clouds out of their butts, that beat every other single solution on the market, just doesn't seem plausible. Plus, you can tell these solutions apart as they definitely aren't 1:1 to real clouds. Every variation of volumetric cloud have their own visual signature.

3 minutes ago, Woozie said:

This could become a joint project with lots of external knowledge helping to shape this new sim. If Microsoft really goes this way the sky is literally the limit 🙂 this would be an absolutely commendable move by MS and just shows how serious they take it.

Devs who say "we had no knowledge about this" are very likely telling the truth. PMDG and Orbx fall into that category.

Devs who say "we have no comment at this time" - or similar vague statements - are either under NDA, or pretending they are under NDA to seem cool!

From what I've seen, Aerosoft and REX fall into the second category. Have any other developers made evasive, 'NDA-like' statements since this product was announced?

5 minutes ago, Sethos1988 said:

Of course not but Rex suddenly pulling magical, volumetric clouds out of their butts, that beat every other single solution on the market, just doesn't seem plausible. Plus, you can tell these solutions apart as they definitely aren't 1:1 to real clouds. Every variation of volumetric cloud have their own visual signature.

REX is as good as anyone out there at cloud textures. They're pretty good at modelling pseudo-3D clouds, based on sprites. They're not great at coding (I never really like their actual programs, though they've got a loss less buggy over the years) and they have few weather engine runs on the board. Is that useful to Microsoft? I doubt they'd be tasked by themselves with developing the weather side of MSFS, but they could have been consulted or involved in a limited capacity.

6 minutes ago, Sethos1988 said:

Of course not but Rex suddenly pulling magical, volumetric clouds out of their butts, that beat every other single solution on the market, just doesn't seem plausible. Plus, you can tell these solutions apart as they definitely aren't 1:1 to real clouds. Every variation of volumetric cloud have their own visual signature.

unless new tech allows them to pull this out of their bottoms

but yeah, they may have a consulting role rather than providing assets, IF they are really involved in this...

Just a quick point - it's not original, others have touched on it at various moments in this thread, but to make it concisely, under one roof, so to speak...

There isn't a single monolithic entity called "Microsoft."

There's a company by that name that's had different leaders and different policies over time.

The Microsoft that shut down ACES and screwed up MS Flight was led by Steve Ballmer.

The Microsoft that's developing MSFS 2020 (or whatever we're going to call it) is led by Satya Nadella.

Very different leader, very different company.

Doesn't mean that they're going to get it right this time.  But the fact that they failed in the past doesn't by itself predict failure now, because... different "they."

In the same way (but moving, maybe, in the opposite direction), the Boeing that's struggling with the MAX isn't the same Boeing that built the B-17 or the 747.  The Boston Red Sox that reversed the curse weren't the same ones that suffered under the curse - different players, different ownership, they only had the name, the uniforms and Fenway Park in common.

Am hoping - cautiously - that Microsoft can do its own kind of curse-reversing this time.

Edited June 11, 20196 yr by Alan_A