59 minutes ago, Sticky said:

If no SDK, their sales would fall flat within a short time.  It wouldn't surprise me though for a mega corporation to make such a bad decision.

Let's get the facts straight - despite what Raz from PMDG and everyone else has said.

Rob- whose post count has gone from thousands to under ten in the last month or so started this. Bl**dy irresponsible and entirely without foundation has suggested there will be no SDK.

In Margaret Thatcher's words; "Don't give him the oxygen of publicity" .: For word not allowed it be. Totally unsubstantiated and just ...nothing.

I see BS. It smells like it, looks like it. Forget it and move on. 

Come on people, let's at least keep it real.

There will be an SDK. Your biggest challenge will be keeping the likes of PMDG the hell away from it.

Because if they do get near it - it's going to cost you a couple a hundred of your hard-earned...

and from what I see so far - they're superfluous to our needs. MS has it covered. It looks amazing and "Dev" free. Thank God.

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by Guest

And another thing; I've been simming for years now - can be measured in decades.

A little piece of me dies every time I have to pay out for a piece of scenery or a "study-level" aircraft.

Really hoping MS are going to kill this parasitic industry hanging out the back of their wonderful simulator.

I, for one, will not be sad to see the lot of them doing a CFIT.

2 cents well spent.

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by Guest

@ganter

lol - You are passionate with your opinion, I will give you that! (love the passion actually).

I can't say I need the study level stuff to "die", at least not personally, but I do think the pricing is a bit eye rolling on some of it.

The pricing I'd like to see get a lot better is airports also.  That really would be best sold as regional "packs" for more sensible pricing.  This situation of one-off tiny GA airports for $20-35 is just - bleh..

But again - I don't need "study level" airports to the degree we often see either.  The inside of the control tower or terminal are simply not things I care about in a Flight Simulator.

All in all, I really hope some component of this new FS version will be an integrated way to handle 3rd party purchasing and management, at least as one optional way anyhow.  Nothing would be better for some developers than having to compete side by side in a unified App store for FS.

It also would massively help with discoverability of new add-ons.  Almost nobody in the mainstream is interested in combing weird forums all over the place to find stuff and then worry if it's vetted and any good or not.

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by irrics

13 minutes ago, ganter said:

Rob- whose post count has gone from thousands to under ten in the last month or so started this. Bl**dy irresponsible and entirely without foundation has suggested there will be no SDK.

We know that Rob often doesn't stay close with the truth. In fact it isn't the question if they distribute an SDK in an open manner. The simple truth is planes are no longer really developped in tetx files but normally you have quite sophisticated tools  Laminar uses WED in an extremely open manner, but they can license their tools as they like. And the simple truth is: If it is based on a simple subscription models companies like A2A and PMDG won't be able to survive in this market. But for Microsoft and some other developers it can work.

I'm thinking we (Avsim) is going to need to start another Hard Drive donation run if we don't get this sorted out soon. I'm not sure our server is going to handle all of these posts.😂

Like anything else, greed consumes.

2 minutes ago, 188AHC said:

I'm thinking we (Avsim) is going to need to start another Hard Drive donation run if we don't get this sorted out soon. I'm not sure our server is going to handle all of these posts.😂

lol - sort of goes to show maybe why MS reinvested in this space.

There's a lot of pent up passion here waiting to be freshly capitalized on!

2 hours ago, tronied said:

Ok, last one. Heres the view of the meteor crater in Windows Maps:

Top Pic

 

And here it is in Flight Sim and you can see more autogen coming into play:

Bottom Pic

It's surprisingly accurate with it's tree placement as I thought it had just guessed those in the above box and placed them arbitrarily around the river, but they do match bushes that are actually there. Furthermore, the autogen seems a bit gung-ho with the rock placement in the lower box 😉 It decided to dump two loads of boulders on the road. Still, nice to see it's making an effort and compared to Windows Maps it looks night and day.

[EDIT] Can't seem to fix those embedded images for some reason. Will work if you click on them though

That comparison between MSFS2020 and Bing Maps is amazing.

 

I can't wait to fly over my house in this new sim!!!!!  😄

We've seen scenery add-ons over the years boasting "fly over your house!" Or the first thing you would do when the new version of MSF came out was fly over your local area, airport or house first. BUT! this may be the first time you actually can fly over your house out of box (or download) rendered in 3D! 😲

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by reignman40

7 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

If this is accurate then it’s a dead-end product before release IMHO.  Microsoft can’t possibly keep up with the pace of add-ons we have for P3D/XP, not to mention the many extremely high quality aircraft from PMDG, FSLabs, Leonardo, MJC, Aerosoft, and several others.

I'm not sure I'd be so hard line on that Rob.

Even if they did go all in-house, who's to say they don't see this as a big long term opportunity and they start hiring on great developer talent to tackle it?

Besides that - how many of the current "great add-ons" have been trying to tackle broken things in the base Sim (like weather and regional scenery and lighting and cloud textures and other textures, on and on). 

If they get those things to a point of being more than good enough right out of the box, the 3rd party needs already drop way down from where they are now -- that's a good thing to most everyone other than 3rd party devs in a market getting possibly consumed by MS work.

The past is not a great predictor of the future here.

Again - too many are too wedded to thinking about things through the lens of "how it's been" and not "how it could be".

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by irrics

5 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

From Robert at PMDG via FSElite

”Randazzo, along with other developers has made comments in reference to Microsoft’s decision to develop add-ons themselves rather than allowing third-party developers access to their platform”

If this is accurate then it’s a dead-end product before release IMHO.  Microsoft can’t possibly keep up with the pace of add-ons we have for P3D/XP, not to mention the many extremely high quality aircraft from PMDG, FSLabs, Leonardo, MJC, Aerosoft, and several others.

I’m hoping it’s not accurate.

Cheers, Rob

Quite frankly,

at this point I consider your posts in this thread to be FUD.

This is reflecting really poorly on Lockheed Martin.

13 minutes ago, 188AHC said:

I'm thinking we (Avsim) is going to need to start another Hard Drive donation run if we don't get this sorted out soon. I'm not sure our server is going to handle all of these posts.😂

I wouldn't wanna discuss this future MFS title anywhere else on the internet with anyone else but here on AVSIM first!!!

 

8 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

From Robert at PMDG via FSElite

”Randazzo, along with other developers has made comments in reference to Microsoft’s decision to develop add-ons themselves rather than allowing third-party developers access to their platform”

If this is accurate then it’s a dead-end product before release IMHO.  Microsoft can’t possibly keep up with the pace of add-ons we have for P3D/XP, not to mention the many extremely high quality aircraft from PMDG, FSLabs, Leonardo, MJC, Aerosoft, and several others.

I hoping it’s not accurate.

Here are the quotes:
 

Quote

• In 2005 Microsoft began to explore how to monetize the secondary add-on market for themselves.
• MS Flight was the ultimate effort by Microsoft to monetize the secondary market by forcing developers such as PMDG to work solely through their marketplace, develop under license restrictions and move customers toward a subscription based model.

Plenty of other developers can, do and will fall into line with whatever Microsoft proposes - just look at Steam.

I see a developer who doesn't want to give up the freedom of developing and charging as and how they wish.
Nothing to suggest that all 3rd party developers will be locked out, just that they either choose to accept the terms on offer or don't get a look in. That's not a surprise.

It may even benefit the simmer as everything is brought under one roof (store) and prices are brought down because of volume sales that all developers can only dream of right now.

Edited June 13, 20196 yr by F737NG

I'd agree with that and I'd add the fact that I'd take anything the Devs have to say at this point in time with not just a pinch of salt but a ton of salt.

MS has taken everyone by surprise - in true MS style. Including the so called Big Devs.

2 minutes ago, TechguyMaxC said:

Quite frankly,

at this point I consider your posts in this thread to be FUD.

This is reflecting really poorly on Lockheed Martin.

Right?

Randazzo knows nothing, the other developers know nothing and FSElite reproduces it as accurate info. 

Noone should be spreading those rumors like it was something real.