Be careful what you wish for: a cautionary note

[fta2017 160]

Microsoft has shown and continue to show absolute contempt for the developer community, and it’s inexcusable.

Furthermore we have seen the emergence of a vile breed of trolls who gleefully announce the death of the current simulators and seem to desperately want FS development companies to fail.

What folly!

I guess once the novelty of MSFS has worn off and the reality sets in that most of the world is not photogrammetry or has poor Bing source orthos, and that there are only a dozen aircraft at best, then these same people will be wanting the development community to bring fresh new content to them.

Problem is, it may just be too late - because Microsoft’s shortsightedness and lack of 3PD engagement probably killed off third party content because some marketing team decided they should show off a pre-alpha 18 months ahead of release since it made for lots of ‘ooh ah’ moments and gave Phil Spencer something else to show rather than the lacklustre list of titles at E3 and XO19.

It seems despite their protestations Microsoft really have not learnt from their bumbling of the MS-Flight debacle.

Edited November 17, 2019 by fta2017

[sanh 823]

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Not a conspiracy, just business ... I have no idea why Microsoft felt the need to announce a product over a year or more from it's targeted release date, do you? 

Microsoft must have been aware of what making this public would have done and has done to the existing developer community ... or are you suggesting 3rd party sales haven't drastically dropped off for the development community?

I agree, Microsoft aren't stupid ... they're a well oiled marketing machine and to think they wouldn't be aware of the impact this extremely early announcement (and yet still have not delivered anything to anyone) would have on the development community seems a tad naive.

Microsoft could have and should have:

1.  Contacted the development community first (which they did to some degree).

2.  Provided the development community with an SDK so they can start working on making products available for the MSFS and more importantly flesh out bugs and missing elements and provide detailed feedback.

3.  Once most of the issues have been flushed out (which may push target dates), then 1-2 months prior to actual release target, make the announcement and provide "release candidates" to the end user community to bang on and see if anything major comes up.

This approach would have kept a healthy development community, would most likely improve Microsoft's sales number (on PC anyway) on release day because "more content" would be available so there would be less "missing" features.  However, Microsoft elected to NOT go this route ... they obviously have a game plan and 3rd party developers aren't a big part of that plan at this point in time.  If they were, it wouldn't have been executed this way.

Microsoft could have said to Asobo, it's been 3 years in development (MS indicated started in 2016), we need to show something even when it's not really ready (and it clearly is not ready without an SDK from my perspective).  Again, that's just business and the nature of delays, not a conspiracy.  Eventually this will get sorted out, but there will be developer hard times and causalities over the long premature waiting period that I feel could have been avoided but wasn't.

Cheers, Rob.

  

I disagree with this. How many add on providers bang on about their products a year before release? It's not unusual and can even be considered normal. Getting the word out is a good thing and encourages more first day sales through anticipation.  It also means you can get initial feedback on what people are looking for and invite people to test the alpha build which is happening around now.

Their job is to deliver and sell the best product possible and make it a success. What it does to the existing community should not be relevant. The strong will survive. New developer entrants will join when hundreds of thousands of new first time simmers with an xbox game pass subscription decide to download ms2020 at no additional cost. The community will grow again.

Also not sure about the "3rd party devs are not a big part of the plan" statement. I just watched a fselite interview with ms on youtube where they said they have contacted 60 of 200 (something like that) 3rd party devs on their list so far. Hardly seems ignored. PmDG recently announced they will exclusively release a plane for ms2020.

Providing sdks when you have not finished development is no easy thing since it restricts the devs from moving the goal posts as they add new features and annoys developers when you make significant changes, which is expected in an unfinished product. So much easier providing a settled SDK at the end that 3rd party devs can rely on even if it means it's delivered later.

Personally I think the ms approach has been fantastic. It's been open and humble and I think they will deliver a game changing product.

[fta2017 160]

Again, so shortsighted.

Without 3rd party devs over the past 15 years there would be no FS community, nor would the hobby have progressed to the stage it has now with the rich depth and variety or addons which have extended FS2004/FSX/P3D/XP11 well beyond their original designs.

Releasing a developer-crushing sim and then expecting “the strongest to survive” just smacks of ignorance and a lack of understanding about trust and building a loyal audience.

If you truly believe that MS are properly engaged with “60/200 developers” then you’ve definitely drunk their Cool-Aid.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I think that 3rd party aircraft developers will be welcomed. But the need for scenery and airports seems vastly diminished in MSFS, at least based on what's been made public so far.

[simbol 5,773]

23 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

I think that 3rd party aircraft developers will be welcomed. But the need for scenery and airports seems vastly diminished in MSFS, at least based on what's been made public so far.

I wouldn't reach this conclusion yet.. let's wait until we see a video on the ground around an airport like KMIA, KORD, EGKK and EGLL.

There is not way for any sim to provide high detailed airports everywhere around the world.. more over flight sim users are very demanding.. they will probably notice things like taxi signs are 3cm short as per real word, the gate numbers are not as airport X changed it 6 months ago, the color of the grass is not the right green, etc. you get my drift..

S.

Edited November 17, 2019 by simbol

[sanh 823]

4 minutes ago, simbol said:

I wouldn't reach this conclusion yet.. let's wait until we see a video on the ground around an airport like KMIA, KORD, EGKK and EGLL.

There is not way for any sim to provide high detailed airports everywhere around the world.. more over flight sim users are very demanding.. they will probably notice things like taxi signs are 3cm short as per real word, the gate numbers are not as airport X changed it 6 months ago, the color of the grass is not the right green, etc. you get my drift..

S.

That is 100% correct. They have modelled 400 cities in high detail apparently and the number of cities worldwide is in the thousands.  There will be sparse areas. ORBX and other scenery providers are still in the game and may potentially have a bigger new audience to sell to.

[simbol 5,773]

2 minutes ago, sanh said:

That is 100% correct. They have modelled 400 cities in high detail apparently and the number of cities worldwide is in the thousands.  There will be sparse areas. ORBX and other scenery providers are still in the game and may potentially have a bigger new audience to sell to.

And I bet even the airports withing such modelled cities are not up to "current flight sim users" standards.. 3rd party developers are needed to take the Job and fulfill the demand. 

Which is the reason why there are some concerns being expressed on this thread..

S.

[chapstick 2,757]

1 hour ago, fta2017 said:

Releasing a developer-crushing sim and then expecting “the strongest to survive” just smacks of ignorance and a lack of understanding about trust and building a loyal audience.

If you care so much about developers, why didn't you call out this dude for saying he "can't wait" for MSFS to fail? What about those devs? 

On 11/13/2019 at 11:13 AM, Bobsk8 said:

I can't wait until the day when many people invest a ton of money in MS2020 and DLC for it, MS decides that it isn't generating enough income like they did with Flight, and shut it down. And if you don't think MS would ever do something like that, you are living in a dream world. 

Bunch of hypocrites ITT.

[Bobsk8 12,492]

27 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

If you care so much about developers, why didn't you call out this dude for saying he "can't wait" for MSFS to fail? What about those devs? 

Bunch of hypocrites ITT.

I can't argue with someone that makes no sense. Sorry>>

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

I wouldn't reach this conclusion yet.. let's wait until we see a video on the ground around an airport like KMIA, KORD, EGKK and EGLL.

About 4 years ago I decided to model KILM for my own personal use, using Sketchup and 3ds max. After about four months I had every building modeled and textured and all the runways, aprons and taxiways, etc. done also. Fast forward to today. It's much easier to crank out terminal buildings, hangars etc. using OSM building footprints, leaving more time to texture the buildings. With the data and resources available to MS, automating such a process is not just a possibility, but very likely. 

People purchase 3rd party airports for a number of reasons. The sim's version may be out of date. The sim's version may be an unrealistic bunch of Lego block buildings. The sim's version might use low res texture sheets. Thus, the improvements of most 3rd party airports over the default versions are substantial and worth the money. But if the terminals look good and the airport is up to date, the relative improvement over the stock airport may not be worth the money. 

[boctal 2]

Change is difficult for most, especially when it comes to something you are passionate about. I suggest everybody take a deep breath and wait and see how this plays out as we simply don’t have all the answers yet and probably won’t for quite some time. There’s no reason to belittle those that have a differing opinion. For me personally, I see no reason to render judgement on a product (or development team) that’s still in development. It’s normal to be skeptical and your criticisms might come true, but you have to be willing to accept that in the end, they could be unfounded. We simply don’t know yet. 

[FDEdev 955]

6 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

There was absolutely NO need for Microsoft to do this ... announcements 1-2 months prior (with a demo/trial/RC) to a "solid" release date would have exactly the same sales benefit for Microsoft while retaining a healthy support structure (development community).  

Poor Microsoft/Asobo.  The first time in flightsim history they doing the right thing and actively listen to the community and you want them to give the users a feature complete sim just to beta test for errors.

I very much prefer the new Microsoft/Asobo way!

Nobody wants another FLIGHT disaster.  

Edited November 18, 2019 by FDEdev

[Rocky_53 1,566]

I'd like to ask the question... has anyone seen any close ups of trees, houses, airports in this sim? I've been looking very carefully at some of the videos, and although the sim looks amazing while flying at, for example, a couple of thousand feet,  the few times I've been able to see a fairly close image of a house or area of trees, the resolution is pretty poor. Very similar to Google Earth if you get too close to such items in the 3D city mode. I think there will be plenty of opportunities for third party devs to continue their work with this platform, supplyinhg hi-res airports, sceneries and aircraft.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Rockliffe

[simbol 5,773]

47 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

I think there will be plenty of opportunities for third party devs to continue their work with this platform, supplyinhg hi-res airports, sceneries and aircraft.

This is what I been trying to say.. you can have "GENERIC" building autogen for airports, but with the latest requirements to build object with PBR is very diifcult and long to create individual buildings and airports layouts for every single airport in the world. No AI computer is going to help here..

Anyone that has attempted to create a 3D modesl with P3D, XP and even Unity using PBR will understand what I am saying..

S.

Edited November 18, 2019 by simbol

[honanhal 1,420]

I genuinely don't understand this argument that MSFS has somehow been announced "suspiciously early." If anything, I was shocked when the news came out about it because it had been kept such a good secret for the roughly two years it had already been in serious development. Hell, the thing looked practically ready for release when we saw the first images!

I for one would find it a lot more suspicious if this thing was announced just before release, having been kept under tight wraps through its entire development lifecycle. That certainly wouldn't speak to confidence in the project or a desire to have a constructive back-and-forth relationship with the community. Instead, the way Microsoft/Asobo have announced it a year ahead of time shows both that they feel good about what they're going to offer and aren't afraid to build anticipation (because they're not afraid it'll be let down) and that they value community feedback and engagement.

In other words, they're actually doing this right. In my book, that's worthy of praise, not condemnation and vague, conspiratorial insinuations.

James