Does MSFS 2020 Diminish The Importance of Aerofly?

[nickhod 425]

Since the MSFS 2020 trailer, I must admit that I've hesitated on spending as much time and money on Aerofly.

When I first found Aerofly, I figured that this would be a great platform for the future, and that X-Plane would be unlikely to catch up in terms of performance and visuals. I thought it might be something I'd still be using and adding to in 10 years.

If I'm being honest, I can see FS2020 sweeping everything else aside. Clearly, there are a lot of unknowns, and a deal breaker would be it not supporting VR, but that seems unlikely.

With the streaming Bing orthophotos and photogramertry, there's not a lot other sims can do to catch up in this area as they wont be able to license it.
Even in areas without photogrametry, FS2020 will likely have global airport coverage, great looking clouds / weather, multiplayer and complex aircraft systems working out of the box.
It becomes hard to see a reason why Aerofly will stay relevant, which is a huge shame.

If development of Aerofly was iterating rapidly, I'd be more optimistic, but the pace of improvements is not quick by any standard.

What do others think?

[Jude Bradley 659]

I don't see flightsims as competition with each other, but complimentary. There is no perfect sim out there otherwise we would all be using it.

 

[Murmur 3,941]

Nickhod I agree with you. The big unknown of course is performance. If MFS will use a modern engine which produces high fps and gets rid of its trademark blurries & stutters, I don't see how AFS2 will stay relevant (and along with it, XP and P3D as well). If the new MFS will still have a clunky, slow engine, then AFS2 could stay relevant (well, as relevant as its sales figure show today...).

[pmb 5,137]

That's a justified question which I am concerned about, too. IPACS has been answering such questions several times in the past stating "they don't consider any other sim as competition". This may be true, but unfortunately their customers may not follow them in this. As Murmur says, if MFS will hold what it promises - which still has to be seen, and I remain cautious in my judgement - AeroflyFS2 users and potential customers will flock away, whatever IPACS considers as competition.

I will not make any prediction on P3D, given their future has been a big question mark for mere mortals ever. However, I see two groups of XP users. The first ones have been just now switching as "everyone" (including devs like ORBX) does. The second ones are the diehard users who have been fanatic XP evangelists for decades, and I am sure no alternative in the world, as good as it will be, will make them switch, so this might have a chance to survive.

I propose though, to not go into P3D and XP any further, as this was not the original question.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited August 5, 2019 by pmb

[188AHC 2,138]

I don't see topics such as this as justified at all. It is far too early to kick this can down the road.

And as far as topics like this go this will, unless locked, create another "my sim is better than your sim" argument. 

I think this whole issue is a wait and see proposition rather than raising a ruckus at this time.

 

[188AHC 2,138]

I unlocked this topic per a member request so the developer can receive feedback as to his continued development of his Aerofly tool. 

I still believe it's too early to be asking this as we have just found out about MSFS and we still know very little about it. 

 

[pmb 5,137]

20 minutes ago, Flamingpie said:

This topic has been brought up on their forum too and IPACS indeed said they don't look at other sims but a lot of people are not spending money on AFS2 already because of the MSFS announcement. So in order to create a future for AFS2, IPACS really needs to speed up development. And this has to be done RIGHT NOW. Which is why we have to be vocal about this RIGHT NOW. 😉 If we start saying AFS2 is losing it only after the release of MSFS it will be too late already. 

Agreed. One hurdle seems to be that IPACS refuses to outsurce branches of development. I even tried to convince a couple of developers who I know to include AeroflyFS2, but this never materialized because of shortcomings of the SDK.

I think (and probably have read somewhere) they're doing this because of fear 3rd parties might destroy stellar performance, which objections certainly are not unfounded, seeing like all kind of addons make an initially quite speedy naked Prepar3d crawl as addons stack up. On the other hand, ORBX had contributed a few feature-rich AeroflyFS2 sceneries, including moving elements, which did not compromise performance, thus it seems to be viable.

This said, it is virtually impossible to develop a full-featured simulator by 2+3, take or give 1, developers these days. I agree to Flamingpie I would like to see it prosper because of (i) its performance which I am not sure even MFS will be able reproduce (ii) its visuals, which I like best among the present sims (MFS has to be seen in real action yet).

Once more I think Flamingpie is right, we - the present users - should make IPACS aware of our doubts right now. I have been simming for 30 years now and seen quite a number of - even excellent - sims come and go. It would be pity to add another one.

Kind regards, Michael

[nickhod 425]

15 minutes ago, pmb said:

Once more I think Flamingpie is right, we - the present users - should make IPACS aware of our doubts right now. I have been simming for 30 years now and seen quite a number of - even excellent - sims come and go. It would be pity to add another one.

Yeah, I agree with both comments above. I'd like to see Aerofly continue to do well and be a credible MSFS 2020 competitor, but the bare bones, like weather, need to be in place for that to be realistic.

My concern is that IPACS seem to prioritise attaining near perfection in one very narrow area (like the R22, much promised ATC, or A320 avionics), rather than incremental improvements to basic stuff (e.g. overcast weather, simple rain, or AI cars on major roads). Furthermore they refuse to talk about a roadmap, while MS are already sharing theirs.

I agree with @pmb that X-Plane will have a die-hard fan base that will stick with it whatever. It's also unlikely that FS2020 will offer the depth of simulation that XP offers from the start.

Anyway, for now I'll "keep the faith" and probably buy the Piper, the 152 and Lukla and enjoy what's available at this time.

[AOB 78]

It is very easy to criticize. I was looking at some real vs sim pictures here this morning and the glaring obvious fault was the water in the sim vs real photo. That said, AFS2 is still my go to simulator and will be for quite a while I think.It has too many good points. 

[edpatino 1,964]

I think it's too early to comment on MSFS20, but certainly it'll represent a huge threat to the existing simulators, being AFS2 in my opinion the weakest of all them in terms of development and lack of evident features (but certainly very good strong points like VR performance and smoothness, but these don't make it a complete simulator). Making things worse for AFS2, IPACS behaves like they were alone in the universe.

Cheers, Ed

[AOB 78]

Lets be positive guys. It was threads like this that preceded the demise of Flight sim World! I would really hate to see AFS2 go.

[pmb 5,137]

12 hours ago, AOB said:

Lets be positive guys. It was threads like this that preceded the demise of Flight sim World! I would really hate to see AFS2 go.

I tend to disagree here. I see (at least) two cardinal errors from DT: (i) Development strategy (notably SDK/3rd party strategy) itself was basically flawed. (ii) DT marketers tried to treat us as first graders instead of adults. Reactions in forums where just the echo to that.

Any prospective flightsim developer can and should learn his lesson from this. In this respect the AeroflyFS2 forum is in another class right now. While I still would like to see more roadmap info, you can discuss technical matters with the devs and get qualified answers and help there.

Kind regards, Michael

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I am new to Aerofly FS2..  I've added a handful of freeware aircraft, Utah, Colorado, Switzerland and some free Northern Washington scenery.  I do not see myself getting Microsoft's next product, now that I have AFS2.  I already have P3DV4, and Xplane11.  I have already added a 2TB SSD drive for the rest of the add-ons I wanted.  Given Aerofly's FS2's amazing speed and performance, beautiful vistas, and well color matched photo scenery, I now have a third sim which I can enjoy, and it is now 2/3rds of my simming already.  It loads so fast, does not crash, and its interface is simple and intuitive.  I feel it is for those of us who have flown in real life, but want to sim in a relaxed mode to see the world we missed from above, either as business travelers, business GA pilots, or in my case, occasional Light Sport and Trike Flying.

I am so happy I purchased AFS2, my 2TB SSD expansion, made it all possible.

John

[fboes 4]

As there are already some competitors on the flight simulator market, discussions like this thread may help to sharpen a vision for a single product like AFS2 to stand out from its competitors in a special way. Looking at Aerofly FS2 its USP is ease of use (I am still very proud of my 11 year old godson to have learned to land a Boeing 747 with Aerofly FS2), performance, VR integration and (like it or not) shop/download/update solution via Steam (for regular people who do not like to give their credit card details to yet another company, or copy downloaded files into some obscure directory location).

If you are into ultra-correct procedures, simulating the most obscure planes and helicopters, or blowing stuff to pieces, there is simulation software out there which Aerofly FS2 does not even need to start to catch up to, because the effort needed to get there is stellar.

From my point of view AFS2 has to go for new features not available in other simulations. Why is everybody (including me) so keen on getting his or her fingers on Deadstick, even though it promises to have only one scenery, one plane and no multiplayer? May it be because it promises to contain a business meta game? A sense of belonging, because your career as a freelancing pilot may be affected by every single flight - and a bad decision my ruin your stacked up efforts (and invested flying / playing time)?

So ignoring the usual call for making product A more like product B (or why product C is way better than product D), maybe this discussion helps us to find out what Aerofly FS2 could do differently from its competitors, to sharpen its profile and stand out from the crowd in its own special way.

Here are some ideas of features I am constantly missing in simulations:

• Seeing the player as a person living in the simulation! Why not have the player create a pilot, with a log book, recorded flying time and travelled kilometres, unlocked achievements. Well, maybe restrict the pilot to a certain set of planes on creation? Or only allow to start from airports you have already landed at?
• Ratings for your flight! In Solo Flight at the end of each flight I remember to have a map showing with little dots where I have flown, and if I managed to have an efficient flight. Why not show the deviation from the most efficient route, the glide scope, or how hard the landing was, gaining a rating for this. Even in Tiny Sim you get a rating for your landing. Why are we even using simulators when there is nothing in there showing us how to fly better?

What are yours?

[KBUR 178]

I'm not in a thrill of anticipation because of this new MS2020 simulator, not at all, not at all  !!!  -- and I'm full of denial against this streaming/subscription concept MS wants to plant on simmers.

My favourite flight sim arenas are highly comprehensive combat flight sims, like DCS and Falcon BMS 4.34 and the helicopters of X-Plane.  But before X-Plane my favourite civilian sim was Aerofly FS 2 - especially its Robinson R22.

But IPACS decided in their wisdom to change the original flightmodel of the R22 (which was top notch regarding its Expert Mode) to something more user friendly and defused vs the previous one - now advertising it as " more realistic" - just ridiculous - and my interest on the Robinson decreased immediately, because its special feeling of almost beeing airborne vanished !!! 

And its this last "prank" of IPACS which pulled the trigger inside of me and made me really upset and frustrated about their company policy and strange decissions, not mentioning their excetptional low pace of development. 

But - fortunately - there is X-Plane and its wonderful range of helicopters I can choose, and even XPlane's sceneries look much better with the right addons (like the new ORBX Innsbruck) compared to AFS2.

Besides, XPlane's light engine is exceptional in comparison to AFS2.  Howsoever: why should I fool around with Aerofly FS 2 any longer ?

For me the right question and reasoning would be: 

Do the Developers of AFS2 Diminish The Importance of Aerofly because of themselves ?

Answer:  Yes, they do !

Edited August 12, 2019 by KBUR