Speaking only for myself, I'm not married to a specific platform. I'm married to the experience it gives me. I was a longtime MSFS user since 4.0, and once X became more or less abandonware, I knew there was no hope for the constant memory issues and other things I had to deal with just to get a point A to B flight done. So I switched to XP10, reconciled myself that the limitations that were there were not dealbreakers (mainly seasons), and got to work setting things up to my liking with scenery, addons, etc. The same applies to XP11. Right now, my XP11 install, while a bit underused at the moment, is set up to my liking. I can fire it up and enjoy nice flights, whether GA or long haul, and enjoy a good simulated flying experience over ortho terrain. You could say I'm pretty content.

Along comes the MSFS2020 announcement, and they have presented me with possibilities that fill in some of the limitations that XP currently has. While information on seasonal effects are lacking at the moment, there are certain aspects I've missed since my previous MSFS experiences. I used to belong to a Caribbean-based VA (Tradewind Caribbean, for you oldtimers) and grew very fond of flying in and around the area. Unfortunately, X-Plane lacks the sort of tropical feel that previous versions of FS with addons gave me, and ortho data is sparse and covered with clouds so the area has been largely abandoned by me for my flights. What XP DOES deliver on is great bushflying experiences, and I find that's the primary sort of flying I do, and mainly up in the Pacific Northwest and Yukon areas. MSFS2020 looks to bring the best of both worlds to me with the extreme detail it presents, and I'm looking forward to it. Yes, this seems like I'm focusing on the eye candy aspects of it, and that's absolutely correct. My reasons for simulated flying are to relax and take in the simulated landscape below me and the better it looks, the better my experience. The fact that they're moving to a surface-based flight model similar to X-Plane's is just an added bonus on the potential fidelity of the feel of flight, and I look forward to more details on that. 

This isn't about loyalty or tribalism to a particular platform. I've enjoyed and still currently enjoy X-Plane. I look forward to the next generation in this hobby, and right now, it looks like MS is poised to deliver it.

I just watched the latest insider video of 10/10 and I think it's safe to say X-Plane is in trouble.

I think in every simmer there are the tendencies to enjoy the visual experience of flying and the technical aspect of it. The more you lean towards the visual aspect, the more likely you are going to be satisfied with MSFS2020 as your only simulator...and will likely not purchase any future iteration of X-Plane.

There is the other extreme group that won´t even buy MSFS2020 until it incorporates some of the more technical aspects, for example study level aircraft.

Then there is the middle ground that is curious and wealthy enough to get both, even if only to see and test what they have to offer. I think this is by far the biggest portion.

X-Plane will loose customers, that is for sure (camp 1). It will - and that is my estimation - not loose so many to become inprofitable. So it will be here to stay, I think.

Jan

 

4 hours ago, Janov said:

I think in every simmer there are the tendencies to enjoy the visual experience of flying and the technical aspect of it. The more you lean towards the visual aspect, the more likely you are going to be satisfied with MSFS2020 as your only simulator...and will likely not purchase any future iteration of X-Plane.

There is the other extreme group that won´t even buy MSFS2020 until it incorporates some of the more technical aspects, for example study level aircraft.

One other group that's somewhat related to the above "extreme" group, are those who have certain specific aircraft they enjoy flying, and they aren't going to dive headfirst into the new MSFS until those aircraft show up. And at a competitive quality level compared to what's available in their current sim. It will take years to build out the MSFS fleet of high-quality aircraft models, especially since it looks like 3rd party developers are only just now being brought on board. 

I'm in this group, especially since it looks like rotary wing aircraft might not make it into the initial release. That's going to keep my flying XP for a while, while still checking out MSFS. For others, it might be a DC-3, or a WW2 fighter -- again at the quality level we're used to in our current sims. 

I personally will definitely check out MSFS, if you are a flightsimulation hobbyiest there is just no way around that. I am very curious how Asobo is going to solve some of the more intricate problems.

One example: If you look at some airports in Google Earth 3D, even those in an area with great picture quality, you can see some very ugly artifacting "underneath" buildings, jetbridges and other overhanging structures - basically anything that isn´t visible from a certain cone above. I highly doubt that Azure will be smart enough to recognize and correct those artifacts reliably.

My personal hunch is that when MSFS comes out there will be quite the "postnatal depression" amongst some of the fans that are right now willing to bet their life on the fact that it will be perfect and just the sim they have always waited for.

I am happy for them being so enthusiastic and full of joyous expectations. I just hope that there won´t be too much gnashing of teeth when the product doesn´t live up to those expectations.

Heck, I don´t think even flying in a real aircraft could be as nice and realistic as these people think MSFS will be! 😂

Cheers, Jan

 

5 hours ago, Janov said:

X-Plane will loose customers, that is for sure (camp 1). It will - and that is my estimation - not loose so many to become inprofitable. So it will be here to stay, I think.

I don't actually doubt that X-Plane will carry on as normal, but the main issue that bothers me is if 3rd parties will also find it worthwhile to continue making addons for it. If sales substantially drop then it will cease to be an attractive platform for many third-parties and this will have an even further negative effect on the simulator. All the attention recently from the big-houses (Even A2A announced their first XP product) may now just be short-lived. 

33 minutes ago, Janov said:

My personal hunch is that when MSFS comes out there will be quite the "postnatal depression" amongst some of the fans that are right now willing to bet their life on the fact that it will be perfect and just the sim they have always waited for.

Indeed, I think once the dust settles, it won't be all shiny and new and it's going to take a while for the third-party addons to catch up. Quite frankly, I'm really tired of seeing this sim mentioned everywhere like it's the second-coming of Christ. The hype train speed is big with this one.

Although LR haven't made any official statement regarding the sim, I think Ben hinted at it on the latest blog post here in the last paragraph https://developer.x-plane.com/2019/10/x-plane-11-40-beta-8-anda-roadmap-update/. I believe updated lighting and atmospherics (including clouds, weather) is what this sim needs to concentrate on now, as it's impossible to compete with the default scenery.

Edit: Some comment from Ben regarding the competition

Quote

Lighting changes have been on our roadmap for _at least_ a year before this writing, if not longer – it’s something we considered almost immediately after shipping v11. So while they may become more important due to changes in the competitive landscape, they’re changes that we absolutely WOULD make even if we did NOT expect to have direct desktop competition. That’s true for a lot of our planned updates.

 

Microsoft FS2020 definitely looks quite amazing out of the box and comes with some quite extraordinary technologies in terms of weather and autogen and the way everything is streamed to the host computer.

Even so, it will be lacking in the study level aircraft department for a while and helicopters will also be completely lacking initially so I'm sure most hardcore simmers will be using at least one of their preferred "old" sims with MSFS2020. Another thing I stumpled upon was the frequent emphasis about VFR - I'm wondering if initially the sim will be lacking IFR features?

Anyways, I completely agree with Tony, that LR needs to focus on particularly weather which seems to be lightyears ahead in MSFS2020.

13 minutes ago, tonywob said:

 I believe updated lighting and atmospherics (including clouds, weather) is what this sim needs to concentrate on now, as it's impossible to compete with the default scenery.

 

In the meantime, I've put a little fireworks of cinematics together to show that X-plane 11 is still quite extraordinary - hope you enjoy it :

 

Edited October 12, 20196 yr by drrasmussen

30 minutes ago, drrasmussen said:

Microsoft FS2020 definitely looks quite amazing out of the box and comes with some quite extraordinary technologies in terms of weather and autogen and the way everything is streamed to the host computer.

(snip)

Anyways, I completely agree with Tony, that LR needs to focus on particularly weather which seems to be lightyears ahead in MSFS2020.

I keep reading comments like that about how weather will be an extraordinary advancement in the new MSFS, but I'm not seeing any evidence of that. What I'm seeing are pretty cloud pictures and lighting through the clouds. Which is nice and will help sell the sim, but it says nothing about how realistic and dynamic the weather modeling is.

Is all of that weather dynamic? Is it modeled in 3D, or in stacked layers? Is there vertical convection (both ways) inside a towering CB? How are transitions smoothed between sequential real-world injected data? How good is the in-flight icing model? I still have my skeptic hat on, until we know more. MS hasn't shown any clips of flying through heavy weather so far, or any clips long enough to show whether clouds are in motion. There is that one spectacular, towering thunderhead in the initial reveal trailer, but we don't know yet if that's a moving, dynamic system, or just a static painting on the skybox.

I hope I can remove my skeptic hat once people can actually fly the thing, and not just look at pretty pictures and videos. I'd love to fly in better weather. But nothing has really been shown of the weather systems that indicate a massive advancement, other than how pretty it looks. 

This could still be an area where Laminar could seriously move things forward, if Austin cares enough about it. Ben's comment at the end of the latest dev blog post mentions that after Vulkan/Metal in 11.50, they want work next on lighting and the "atmosphere." I hope that's a hint about better weather modeling in XP12. 

1 hour ago, drrasmussen said:

In the meantime, I've put a little fireworks of cinematics together to show that X-plane 11 is still quite extraordinary - hope you enjoy it :

That's a really fantastic video, thanks. This should be an official trailer for X-Plane

35 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

or any clips long enough to show whether clouds are in motion.

One of the insider videos is a time lapse of clouds forming/disappearing and moving with the wind. That alone makes it significantly better than the current XP weather.

Anyway, it is possible that (at least at release) MFS will be focused on VFR and without ATC. Good thing that LR will be focusing on improving light and atmosphere. I hope they also include other environmental features like water bodies and rain/snow. And improved ATC (wasn't Austin working on that?) could be another important feature helping XP compete.

But maybe equally important would be improving performance, significantly more than what they showed so far with their internal Vulkan version. Especially for VR which will be ever more important for flight sims.

The two big problems I see are a new weather system and seasons. I suspect those are a lot of work, and I wouldn't bet both of them will be ready for XP12 (but I hope I'm wrong).

So these are the big challenges I see for XP. No improvements for environmental visuals+weather, ATC and performance would position it squarely behind the competition. Improved visuals+weather, ATC and performance would allow it to compete nicely.

2 hours ago, tonywob said:

That's a really fantastic video, thanks. This should be an official trailer for X-Plane

Thanks a lot, Tony! LR are welcome to get in contact when XP12 is ready for release LOL 😆

2 hours ago, Murmur said:

One of the insider videos is a time lapse of clouds forming/disappearing and moving with the wind. That alone makes it significantly better than the current XP weather.

I remember that video, and it does show changing weather. But it was something of a visual gimmick (IMO), because it was shot from a fixed position and heavily time-lapsed. That isn't something you'll ever normally see in a flight sim.

We have moving clouds and changing weather in X-Plane too. The clouds may not evolve and "flow" as nicely as in that MSFS clip, but it would be interesting to see a comparison shot the same way. You'd want to be manually fussing with the weather settings to get the changes too, which might have been done for the MSFS clip. I don't think there's an easy way to do that in XP, but maybe someone will try it. 

Anyway, the point is that we won't see the MSFS sim looking like that clip. If you're surrounded by clouds and they gradually thin out, it will be because you're flying into new weather, not the weather changing rapidly around the plane. It's more important how the atmosphere responds dynamically in actual flight.

2 hours ago, Paraffin said:

We have moving clouds and changing weather in X-Plane too.

With X-enviro you mean? Because default clouds are static.

Anyway, since weather visuals are after all 90% of what matters to 90% of simmers, the gap to fill here is immense, if we're talking about competitivity and the capacity of retaining users and hence 3rd party developers.

Having a new complex weather system with vertical air movements etc. would be attractive to many simmers, but only provided that also visuals are improved compared to now.

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

With X-enviro you mean? Because default clouds are static.

Clouds and their shadows move with the wind in SkyMaxx Pro also, and yeah, I'm not talking default, just what's possible in the current XP.
 

Quote

Having a new complex weather system with vertical air movements etc. would be attractive to many simmers, but only provided that also visuals are improved compared to now.

I agree that's going to be a large percentage of the user base, but "serious simulation" also means IFR flight, where weather dynamics are important and there is nothing interesting to look at. 

On 10/12/2019 at 5:38 AM, Colonel X said:

I just watched the latest insider video of 10/10 and I think it's safe to say X-Plane is in trouble.

I agree here.

To me, X-plane waited too long to make any serious advances to address some of the longstanding issues (like weather, clouds).

FloogleSim's YT vid has almost 1M views for his preview of MSFS, IGN's 3 minute vid has over 500k views. There are so many people who are just blown away by what MSFS is bringing to the table, and the $$$ potential will call the 3P DEVS for aircraft and airports.

I think that the Devs will abandon XP along with the users. Vulkan isn't out yet, and MSFS is due to release the Alpha soon, which will cause more of a buzz.

I think that XP will end with Vulkan (no XP12), and LR will just focus on the mobile app.

I would not buy XP at this moment, and save the money (for all of the addons that XP needs) to go towards MSFS, PC build etc.