Microsoft's answer to ActiveSky

[Kopteeni 819]

2 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

I also hope that there is some sort of marketplace built into MSFS for add-ons/freeware. Cannot take this “download from dozens of different sources” approach anymore.

Yep, imagine having to just click on that Install Addon button in the market place and few minutes later receiving an in-game notification "Addon installed". Then you can go check out that new plane that's appeared in your hangar. All this without even restarting your sim.

[johannes1337 22]

1 minute ago, tonywob said:

I agree on this with you, and this is not what I'm debating with you about 🙂. I'm debating you saying there won't be a need for payware airports because people can make their own easily. Users have always been able to make their own airports in both X-Plane and P3D/FSX, doesn't mean they will do it though.

Personally, I won't spend $100 on a weather addon in any sim, and judging by the shots I don't see it would be needed in MFS. But I'm also 100% certain we'll need airports, as generic default/lego-brick airports will only get you so far.

I have no doubt we'll see lots of freeware and enthusiasm, and I hope we do. It will keep the sim alive and interesting. But believing this alone will be enough for many simmers is probably being a bit naive.

I agree on that as well. I mostly meant that crying about his precious weather add-on is silly, not that all payware needs to be abolished. I'm sure there will be plenty of great payware addons. It will just be on another level that we are used to.

[Kopteeni 819]

2 minutes ago, johannes1337 said:

When I was talking about improving the product itself instead of add-ons I was only talking about airports. When created with their own SDK, it can be considered feedback just like Alpha testers are giving feedback on things like airports already. Of course highly detailed user created content can't just be taken by MS and put into the sim.

More generally, we wouldn't be discussing this right now if it wasn't for open-source projects like the Linux kernel and other important projects. Not everything has to be made commercial. And when there is a large, dedicated community behind a project many great things will come out of it, for free.

The difference is that in Linux case you can download the whole base package for free. 

[johannes1337 22]

Just now, Kopteeni said:

The difference is that in Linux case you can download the whole base package for free. 

Not the best example, I know. That doesn't mean there can't be open-source projects built on top of it though.

[Kopteeni 819]

1 minute ago, johannes1337 said:

Not the best example, I know. That doesn't mean there can't be open-source projects built on top of it though.

True. It's just MS probably can't ever make these open source projects an integral part of the sim just like Laminar is doing with the scenery gateway. They are just way too big to tap into the community's work for free like that.

[Dominique_K 10,149]

Another good thread going astray 😁 ! Why not if this is for a good cause 

Two remarks :

- making sceneries has been for a long time a dimension of the hobby for many of us. When we get a little tired of flying, we make a little scenery, paint an aircraft etc. Not necessarily to publish it as freeware. For the fun of it. 

- We don't know much about the in-game editor that Asobo has hinted to but I do hope we will get an Instant Scenery-like module.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,960]

This topic is about weather. Please keep your discussions to that and not about airport addons.

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

...and there endeth the discussion...

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

Keeping the talk on weather, i am quite impressed by the noise generated clouds and i have always been in favour of it because they are much more realistic than any other 2d generated billboard like cloud texture.
That's also why i was (and am) in favour of xEnviro for XP, with all its limitations and its high price, it still offers a visual experience than other addons simply cannot.

But it's true, sometimes clouds can look a bit more weird but that is the "fun" of noise generated clouds too, i think the situations in which they look great outweights those where they look weird. On top of that, add the fact that Microsoft and Asobo are competent parties, the fact they teamed up with Meteoblue and the fact that it is still an Alpha, and you'll get that there are always margin of improvements.

[devgrp 1,233]

5 hours ago, tonywob said:

I agree on this with you, and this is not what I'm debating with you about 🙂. I'm debating you saying there won't be a need for payware airports because people can make their own easily. Users have always been able to make their own airports in both X-Plane and P3D/FSX, doesn't mean they will do it though.

Personally, I won't spend $100 on a weather addon in any sim, and judging by the shots I don't see it would be needed in MFS. But I'm also 100% certain we'll need airports, as generic default/lego-brick airports will only get you so far.

I have no doubt we'll see lots of freeware and enthusiasm, and I hope we do. It will keep the sim alive and interesting. But believing this alone will be enough for many simmers is probably being a bit naive.

Default airports actually aren't that bad. They look way better than the default ones in xplane and p3d. There is a little airport in Charlotte called wilgrove. I was surprised to see that it looked exactly like the real one. There are no Lego brick buildings like XP. Even airports that didn't get the special attention like others have nice looking 3d buildings 

[sightseer 895]

I can see where a company or individual might create a package of shader based clouds but I can't see much competition for what MeteoBlue does.

[Deleted 250]

21 minutes ago, devgrp said:

Default airports actually aren't that bad. They look way better than the default ones in xplane and p3d. There is a little airport in Charlotte called wilgrove. I was surprised to see that it looked exactly like the real one. There are no Lego brick buildings like XP. Even airports that didn't get the special attention like others have nice looking 3d buildings 

Okay, that's surprising me right now. In a German forum someone breaks the NDA and writes that all airports look the same. So he buys msfs at the earliest, as soon as there is a large selection of add-on airports.

[HiFlyer 9,360]

13 minutes ago, Deleted said:

Okay, that's surprising me right now. In a German forum someone breaks the NDA and writes that all airports look the same. So he buys msfs at the earliest, as soon as there is a large selection of add-on airports.

Well, that might be true for some, but generally I would put that right up there with this:

Keep in mind what I found and posted about a few months ago, which I think many people kind of missed:

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by HiFlyer

[kingm56 1,031]

7 hours ago, tonywob said:

I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're living in a dream world here. There is actually a pretty large freeware community for X-Plane already (although it's died down on P3D/FSX now), and there is so much stuff out there for free for X-Plane if you look, and yet people still make payware and sell it, and make money. 

Yes, there are plenty of games that have mods, e.g. The Steam Workshop, but none of these as far as I know have killed payware products unless the sim itself doesn't allow it.

You're also forgetting that MS aren't a charity, they need this product to make money one way or the other. So having a store with payware products where they get a commission is in the interest of Microsoft as well as the the users.

I believe you're missing the point, Tony.  FS2020 is NOT P3D, or X-Plane, with the latter being populated with generic buildings that look horrendous. X-Plane and P3D 'force' you to buy airports to maintain a reasonable immersion factor.  However, FS2020 default airports are more than a reasonable representation of their real-world counterparts.  As the developers themselves stated: "we like our airports."  Thus, I don't believe users will feel compelled to buy droves of add-on scenery; the default will be better than we've EVER had.  To be clear, I believe there's still a market for upper-end add-on airports (e.g. ORBX, Fly Tampa, and FSDream).  However, the middle to lower-tier developers are being rendered obsolete...

Edited June 14, 2020 by kingm56

[kingm56 1,031]

1 hour ago, Deleted said:

Okay, that's surprising me right now. In a German forum someone breaks the NDA and writes that all airports look the same. So he buys msfs at the earliest, as soon as there is a large selection of add-on airports.

Deleted,

There are a number of people who say they're part of the Alpha just to regurgitate inaccurate information, Have you seen the developers episode on default airports?  I suggest you give it a look: