8 minutes ago, Mengy said:

No, I can't do that.  I've been flying in FSX / P3D for well over a decade now and it feels like it.  I've been craving a better simulator for a very long time but P3D was my only option (Xplane is nice, but I think P3D is better) and lets face it, P3D feels like a slightly improved FSX because thats exactly what it is.

Now, finally, a better more modern sim is coming, and I'm so happy aobut it I can't even express it into words.  I'm not buying anything for P3D ever again, I'm ready to migrate to something better, and yeah I'm more than willing to build a new high end PC and leave all my DLC and addons behind to do so.

Sticking with the old sims isn't an option for me.  Not even slightly.

Hope the new sim meets all your expectations.

1 hour ago, PATCO LCH said:

Hope the new sim meets all your expectations.

Oh I do not think it will meet ALL of my expectations.  I've loved everything we've seen of it so far but its the things we haven't seen I'm worried about, like ATC and such.

Still, what we have seen has been enough to convince me.  The excellent flight modeling, the outstanding weather modeling, the modern graphics,  the accurately modeled world to fly in, these are the main things which matter to me in a flight simulator and the new MFS seems to have its bases covered in spades.  I'll improve any shortcomings with DLC if I have to, just like I've done with every other flight sim before it.

I'm excited to simply go flying all over the world sightseeing in places I'll never get to see in real life.  Mixing my love of flying with real world exploration sounds awesome to me.  To me, starting over with the DLC spending is worth that cost.

As Dave Ramsey points out, an "investment" is something that you expect to go UP in value, such as stocks or real estate. For that reason, a car is never an investment, since a car begins depreciating the moment you drive it off the lot. A car is simply a consumer expense. By Dave Ramsey's definition, add-on airports are never "investments" because you can't reasonably expect them to go up in value. Add-on airports are consumer expenses. The OP is depressing himself with flawed definitions.

I suggest that the demand for add-on airports in MSFS will not be as great as it has been for either P3d4 or XP11. The default airport buildings in the two existing sims were either modeled/textured manually or are just generic "LEGO block" composites. The autogen building models in MSFS are created by an automated process and the textures are then generated from aerial imagery. Up close, they may look a bit crappy, but from farther away, they may be acceptable to the vast majority of MSFS users. Just take a look in Google Earth, Google Maps or equivalent at a 3D view of any airport. Is it good enough for you? The MS version might be just as good.

So, as a result, there may not be an overwhelming need to buy third party airports. And even if there is a need, the updates may just consist of higher definition textures and not the modeled buildings themselves.

On 1/2/2020 at 8:45 AM, curt1 said:

I'm sure many of you experienced 'Black Monday' on Oct. 19, 1987, as it was the single largest stock decline in U.S. history.  People saw their investments just evaporate, and it took a long time to rebuild their savings.  As happy as I am with Microsoft and Asobo, I'm feeling the pain of another kind of investment crash, that being my P3D airport investments.  Did all that airport money just disappear with no value going forward?  The thought of that is really depressing, and I hope somehow the value of those purchases can carry over to the new sim.  Maybe, just perhaps, the default airports will be so good that I won't need payware to the same extent, but I doubt that at the moment.  So, what do you all think? 

I have a spreadsheet of flight sim expenses totalling thousands of dollars in the FSX/P3D era.  I'm ready to write it all off for MSFS because it's the platform of the future and the sim of my dreams.  

On 1/2/2020 at 2:45 PM, curt1 said:

I'm sure many of you experienced 'Black Monday' on Oct. 19, 1987, as it was the single largest stock decline in U.S. history.  People saw their investments just evaporate, and it took a long time to rebuild their savings.  As happy as I am with Microsoft and Asobo, I'm feeling the pain of another kind of investment crash, that being my P3D airport investments.  Did all that airport money just disappear with no value going forward?  The thought of that is really depressing, and I hope somehow the value of those purchases can carry over to the new sim.  Maybe, just perhaps, the default airports will be so good that I won't need payware to the same extent, but I doubt that at the moment.  So, what do you all think? 

I think you are right, you will have to suck it up for a while. Microsoft and Asobo are building a platform in Microsoft Flight Simulator, you'll not get 1000's of custom airport or planes, but guess what 3rd party developers do best, airports and planes.

Hopefully though that investment has already provided many hours of enjoyment and will continue to do so, the flight experience is the key so may be just continue to use what you have until you can consider some new purchases in the new sim to provide a like for like experience, afterall you can't fly from all those airports at the same time now can you.

Good luck!

7 hours ago, Mengy said:

Oh I do not think it will meet ALL of my expectations.  I've loved everything we've seen of it so far but its the things we haven't seen I'm worried about, like ATC and such.

Shouldn't need to worry there. It will be difficult for them to make a worse ATC than FSX, let alone get near the abomination that is XP11. ATC should hopefully be the same or better when it gets added to the simulator's list of features.

2 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

Has anyone noticed that the names in this thread, as far as I can tell, are not to be found in any of the MFS2020 threads? I wonder why.

78 btw.

Um, I'm only there because I have to be... Honest! FS95 forever!!! 

I looked up 3MY in Peoria, IL, and it looks outstanding in Bing maps.  If that is truly the foundation of MSFS airports, which would also be enhanced by Azure, then my starting this thread was probably a mistake.  I just have doubts about the technology covering thousands of airports and how they will look compared to my payware collection (which is quite large).  I could just stay in P3D indefinitely, but after seeing those clouds in the trailers it would be difficult to not move forward.  Hey Microsoft, how about a screenshot of 3MY to settle my concern? 😉