Key things MS Needs to do (it won't be easy)

[snglecoil 1,828]

2 hours ago, tjstreak said:

So, are  you willing to invest $10,000 in this sim, repurchasing all of the addons you already own?  Or are you going to be satisfied with the default aircraft and the default sceneries?

I think the hope for many of us is that this new sim won't necessitate spending $10,000 in add-ons. This is a broken mindset created by the void in a robust 1st party marketplace for so long. I do hope that there will be the ability for 3rd parties to provide quality offerings especially in aircraft. But for me personally, I hope that the days of spending hundreds of dollars on basic weather and scenery are a thing of the past in this new sim.

[Mengy 814]

2 hours ago, tjstreak said:

So, are  you willing to invest $10,000 in this sim, repurchasing all of the addons you already own?  Or are you going to be satisfiedt with the default aircraft and the default sceneries?

Speaking for myself, YES, absolutely.  As long as the new MFS is a very capable modern simulator which surpasses the current batch of sims in capability while also fostering an open market for addon development.  If MS does this properly then yeah I'm ready and willing to start over with a better platform for future growth.

I remember when I made the jump from FSX to P3D.  I was hesitant because a lot of my older planes I own for FSX never did work well (or at all) in P3D, it meant I had to leave those purchases behind and move on.  I'm glad I did because moving to P3D was the right decision for me as it is far more capable than FSX ever was, and many of the planes & scenery I've bought since for P3D are leagues better than anything I own for FSX.

If the jump from P3D to MFS2020 is just as big then I'm super willing to make the transition.  Bring it Microsoft.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Mengy

[LHookins 3,103]

4 minutes ago, Mengy said:

I remember when I made the jump from FSX to P3D.  I was hesitant because a lot of my older planes I own for FSX never did work well (or at all) in P3D,,,

I was surprised when several of my older aircraft already had P3Dv4 versions.  Check the latest downloads.  Sometimes the P3Dv4 version is included at no extra cost.

I'm still waiting for a  couple of my A2A aircraft to be updated to v4, and one of my FS9 vintage aircraft required me to write some code to do the conversion myself.

I don't expect any of these aircraft to get updated to MSFS2020, especially without having to buy them again, but you never know.  I didn't expect it with P3Dv4 either.

All that money people have spent on scenery may not be necessary.

Hook

[TravelRunner404 596]

All this talk about rebuying add ons. I don’t get the logic of people with this. 

Add-ons are not antique furniture. They are depreciating assets. You do not own $10,000 worth of addons anymore than you own a $3,000 MacBook from 2008. You can try to tell your insurance company all you want that it’s a $3,000 laptop after a fire but it’s not.

Do you guys play the same golf course and think, “I have to rebuy this course every time I want to play a round?” You just ask yourself if it’s worth it when you make the next purchase.  

Almost everything you own is losing value to something newer and better. That’s just a fact of life. Either accept what you have and use it and don’t move on or realize that if you want to play with the latest and greatest you have to pay.

 

[simmerhead 885]

3 hours ago, tjstreak said:

So, are  you willing to invest $10,000 in this sim, repurchasing all of the addons you already own?  Or are you going to be satisfiedt with the default aircraft and the default sceneries?

Why would I? I can see a lot of starving children needing those $10.000 more than a spoiled flight simmer ... I haven't spent that much on flight sims since I started out in the 1980s, and there is no way I will justify such spendings in the future either. 

First of all, I don't intend to repurchase all the addons I own. I didn't do it going from FS9 to FSX, and I surely didn't do it going from FSX to P3D. Some addons weren't any good, some developers I came to dislike and some addons I just didn't need as technology got better over the years. If the trees in the new sim is good, I don't need to repurchase ORBX HD Trees, and if the clouds are good, I don't need REX Soft Clouds etc. 

Secondly, waiting for the new and improved addons is part of the fun. It will force me to try out other aircraft, other scenery and do other things in the sim than the hard to beat habits I have with P3D - doing mostly the same flights in the same scenery with the same aircraft.

Thirdly, I still have pimped up versions of FSX, FSX-SE, P3D v2, P3D v3 and P3Dv4 - They're not going anywhere... 

And as I said in my original response, addons are a must, so that would imply that I would not be satisfied with default aircraft and scenery only. But, there is a god chance some of the default stuff will be quite good. I've had tons of fun with default aircraft and scenery in both FSX and P3D. My most used aircraft is the default Robinson R22. It is great fun and the absolute best craft to use while exploring high detailed scenery. I've flown so many hours with it I can land it on a stamp and explore every inch of a detailed airport. 

Edited July 3, 2019 by simmerhead

[vortex681 806]

13 hours ago, pracines said:

Should companies dictate to us consumers, or do we decide? - what are we consumers, white mice? or are we lab rats? "Do as we're told"?

But no one will force you against your will to go for the new sim. It's absolutely your choice.

9 hours ago, tjstreak said:

If it is not backwards compatible, it needs to have every scenery, every airplane and every feature currently available with P3d on day one.

Why? What about FSX, X-Plane and AF2 users? As I said above, no one will force you to buy it. If you want to be able to use your P3D add-ons, stick with P3D and you'll be happy.

4 hours ago, tjstreak said:

 

4 hours ago, tjstreak said:

Microsoft's best shot is to hire some of the Dovetail programmers.  But that is hardly a sterling recommendation.

Did you try FSW? In my opinion it was showing a lot of potential when it was cancelled so, given the financial and technical resources MS could throw at it, I wouldn't be worried if this happened.

Also, those of you complaining about the amount of money you have invested in your favourite sim, can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you still use ALL (or even most) of the add-ons you bought over the years for it? Most of them will probably have been replaced by newer versions or technically better products from different developers. I have many aircraft and scenery add-ons which seemed cutting-edge at the time I bought them but which I haven't even looked at for years - just purchases, not investments.

Edited July 3, 2019 by vortex681

[SmokeDiddy 262]

As long as I don't have to buy a subscription to run the sim from my pc, I'll deal with the add-ons somehow...I might have to hock something of value or make the wifey skip a few meals a week, but so be it. But I'd like a usable and extendable core sim, not some donkey word not allowed thrown together for a quick sell, but the folk up in here are much smarter than to bite on that and you can take that to the bank!  It just seems, at a high level, that if MS charges a subscription for this sim, and I'm not saying they are, it had better be pretty dad-gum good.

[pracines 823]

36 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

But no one will force you against your will to go for the new sim. It's absolutely your choice.

That is what I said, it is our choice.

Context; MS will need to be sure that they do not go with an unacceptable (to us flight simmers) sales/pricing model just because the gaming industry has fooled gamers with it....i.e. train simulator. MS would have easily dominated ( and set the good standard for ) the train sim market to this very day if TS2 was released as advertised, with worldwide routes as default, with "FSX/ESP levels" of detail, like was stated. But DTG steps in (Run8 is no different), and the world will never be covered (never ending Nickle and Dime to death).

Gamers (& train simmers) tolerate this kind of thing, flight simmers have not and will not, I truly believe MS knows this.

[petabread 67]

I personally would like something new. I hope this is a new engine. 3rd party developers can take advantage of new technology to make new products. If Microsoft has a default weather engine that surpasses what’s on the market now then great, if there is room for improvement then someone will step in. Everyone is stuck in the whole fsx/p3d era because it’s been the same sim for 13 years. That has never happened. Back in the day products were released every 2 years. I switched to x-plane because I wanted something different from fsx/p3d and some 3rd party developers started price gouging. 

[Superdelphinus 718]

5 hours ago, pracines said:

That is what I said, it is our choice.

Context; MS will need to be sure that they do not go with an unacceptable (to us flight simmers) sales/pricing model just because the gaming industry has fooled gamers with it....i.e. train simulator. MS would have easily dominated ( and set the good standard for ) the train sim market to this very day if TS2 was released as advertised, with worldwide routes as default, with "FSX/ESP levels" of detail, like was stated. But DTG steps in (Run8 is no different), and the world will never be covered (never ending Nickle and Dime to death).

Gamers (& train simmers) tolerate this kind of thing, flight simmers have not and will not, I truly believe MS knows this.

What do you mean “tolerate”. It’s basically a running joke how much it would cost to add all the dlc for train sim, and is it really that much different from the current state of flight sims? Flight ‘simmers’ seem to tolerate paying money for extremely limited ‘features’ which would never fly in the broader gaming market (the oblivion horse armour fiasco put paid to that). 

If I was looking at the flight sim market I’d be thinking, bloody hell, they’ll pay for anything - quids in boys!

unless I have missed your point. 

[pracines 823]

20 minutes ago, Superdelphinus said:

What do you mean “tolerate”. It’s basically a running joke how much it would cost to add all the dlc for train sim, and is it really that much different from the current state of flight sims? Flight ‘simmers’ seem to tolerate paying money for extremely limited ‘features’ which would never fly in the broader gaming market (the oblivion horse armour fiasco put paid to that). 

If I was looking at the flight sim market I’d be thinking, bloody hell, they’ll pay for anything - quids in boys!

unless I have missed your point. 

The Topic is, what the new MSFS needs, and a point about how it was priced/sold was included. A response of (paraphrasing) 'we have to go with whatever MS says because that's the way it is now'. And I responded a resounding NO we don't. 

In order to understand my point you must know flight sim history, MS train sim history, and be able to look from the outside in.

If a child, from anywhere in the world, interested in aviation and in turn flight simulation acquired FSX-SE today, they could fly out of any part of the world w/o having to buy a single add-on.

If a child, from anywhere in the world, interested in trains and in turn train simulation, acquired any train sim available from any time, they will be limited to portions of train routes in just a few countries (even if they bought all add-ons available!!!). VERY DIFFERENT situation for newcomers.

Flight simmers don't tolerate this limitation/situation, and we have stuck with FSX before letting MS try MS flight on us. So in context of what I originally responded to, and as a closely related (simulation of a real world transportation system) example (train sim), it does not matter if something is new and trending in the gaming or any industry, flight simmers are very different, we don't go with anybody else's flow, we have our own way/standard.

This is why MS says what it says on the front page of the new MSFS website. I bless them for this statement.🙂

When the new MSFS is released, we should compare it with Train Sim World and compare the value.

[G-RFRY 1,712]

One potential problem for DEVs if we assume that an SDK is available is the time to develop a product, this could take them away from the present sim product development or at least slow them down as they try and stretch there resources.   

[Skywatcher 133]

2 hours ago, rjfry said:

One potential problem for DEVs if we assume that an SDK is available is the time to develop a product, this could take them away from the present sim product development or at least slow them down as they try and stretch there resources.   

If the likes of PMDG have not been informed, then something isn't quite right. MS will either be offering a flight game and the likes of PMDG will not be required or MS will be developing their own high end add-ons. Either method results in negatives for the user.

[vortex681 806]

1 hour ago, Skywatcher said:

MS will either be offering a flight game and the likes of PMDG will not be required or MS will be developing their own high end add-ons. Either method results in negatives for the user.

Why? Firstly, not everyone wants a PMDG (or similar) aircraft. I'm certainly not interested in anything PMDG produces and wouldn't see the lack of that type of aircraft as a negative. Secondly, PMDG doesn't necessarily need to be involved to produce study-level aircraft. Thirdly, and as long as third party devs are allowed to produce for the sim, I'd rather have a solid, basic sim (as far as aircraft are concerned) that allows me to add what I really want. Plus, not having highly complex aircraft by default would probably keep the cost down.

Edited July 4, 2019 by vortex681

[G-RFRY 1,712]

No third party can tell what they know if they are involved standard response will be don't know just as they do with there own products you will be the last to know.  

Edited July 4, 2019 by rjfry