The leaks seem to have permanently changed the community’s opinion, and I feel it’s for the better. 
 

Before the leaks started to spring up, we were all collectively hyped about the new sim and had really high expectations. 

But after multiple leaked videos of the sim in it's Alpha state, the community’s opinion seems to have permanently changed. 

Everyone has now tempered their expectations for the base sim and are more understanding of the long-term development plans set out by Asobo/Microsoft and are more appreciative of the same. The general community finally understands that no project of this massive scale can be released without any imperfections. 

We also have a much better view of how and where third-party developers fit in and contribute to the betterment of this sim.

In my opinion this is a good thing both for us and also for Asobo/Microsoft. The amount of any uproar that could arise from people who had unrealistic expectations could be potentially have been curbed as well. 

I don’t know if this was the kind of tone Microsoft wanted to set had there been no leaks, but I feel like they could have communicated the sim’s shortcomings a bit more clearly and openly instead of presenting us with cherry-picked screenshots week after week. A full-flight video as per popular community request could have achieved this. 

If anything, it reassures is that they definitely have a solid long-term development plan. 

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by FAZZ3

Could not have said it better! 
 

thats why i would prefer them to market it that way to avoid disappointment in some people. 

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by Lukamak

Does that mean we have to expect updates like P3D does? Wouldn't that imply that third party addons need to be adjusted everytime? Or is that only necessary when changing the core code?

5 minutes ago, 737_800 said:

Does that mean we have to expect updates like P3D does? Wouldn't that imply that third party addons need to be adjusted everytime? Or is that only necessary when changing the core code?

This is the positive side of MSFS more restrictive API. Addons talking to the core sim should not break so easily.

Actually, I was getting pretty tired of the hype on the official site and quit doing more than quickly skimming the new animated-gif-like videos and screen shots. (Actually, I watched the feature videos, but only once each.)

It was the first leaked videos that got me interested in MSFS again.

Hook

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by LHookins

9 minutes ago, 737_800 said:

Does that mean we have to expect updates like P3D does? Wouldn't that imply that third party addons need to be adjusted everytime? Or is that only necessary when changing the core code?

Doubt it. The whole point of sim seems to just have an extremly reliable base ro build on. I am sure no changes will be needed

Amen. Time to lift the NDA.

Yep, I've been staying far away from the AS/MS marketing team releases and all the bubblegum laced threads for many months. The leaked vids have caught my attention. I might even buy it now, thanks to the them! 😁

Why hide behind NDAs at this point? Don't answer, it's rhetorical. 

Greg G         

1 hour ago, Chocorua said:

Why hide behind NDAs at this point?

Mostly because the NDA is still essential to keep the haters from spreading things Microsoft doesn't want you to know.  Besides, it's still a work in progress. 🙂

Edit: I should have said, "keep the haters from bashing MSFS".

Hook

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by LHookins

Quite sometimes before the leaks came up, some of us have pointed  to obvious scenery problems shown in what you call the "cherry picked" screenshots and clips (mesh, water, trees, yes trees etc.). Not maliciously but to tell the team to be aware of them.  The quasi-unanimous answer of the rest of our fellow simmers was then 'its only an alpha, its only an alpha, its only an alpha' 😁... The alpha mantra. Everything will be ironing out before the beta. You bet.

I didn't care much for MS PR which sounded too often like addressing the 14 yo that I am no more but  it was not MS fault if people couldn't believe their own eyes and incidentally other posters. 

The leaks changed  only one thing. We saw moving aircraft. Beautiful but moving strangely for some which is unsettling for a simmer of good standing. Except for the new devotees who will never find anything wrong. XP has theirs, P3D has theirs, the new sim has theirs. They need to believe.

Now I invite you to read the FS20 twitter account or some forums like reddit etc. The main expectations are 'when do I get into the alpha', 'will I see my house' etc ?  They care for the leaks as much as the first apple they put their teeth in. 

 The leaks have confirmed that not everything will not be up to what we  wish. No surprise. In that sense, it has not changed my expectations.  It has not changed the new devotees of the Asobo revolution either.   The discussions around them may have tempered the expectations of those who have followed the movie unwinding since June 2019 not too regularly. 

I think the reactions across the web show how short-term peoples' memories tend to be. The September 30th event, in my opinion, remains the strongest source of information we've received. We were able to read/watch content creators in the sim community discuss their personal experience with the pre-alpha build, as well as read/watch the Q&A session with the developers where many of these content creators asked the questions many wanted asked.

While that event wasn't the end-all-be-all of it, especially considering much was still unknown, I feel like the information we got was great because it came from sources that were NOT Asobo/MS (w/ the exception of the Q&A, of course). Those reviews have kept me grounded in a state of excited optimism, while also understanding it's clearly not going to be perfect. It's also given me optimism that the dev team is excited about working on this for years to come (and not just squashing bugs, but fleshing it out w/ extra depth, e.g. VR, helis, etc.). 

I'm reminded of my old sociology professor telling us (paraphrased), "I mostly ignore the evaluations I get from students that are 1/5 stars or 5/5 stars. Those types of extremes aren't usually very helpful, and are often not based in reality." 

Well said, OP.

Personally, my expectations were not affected much by the leaks (alright, I'll admit it, I was a little shocked at first by the infamous GTA 5 Airbus 320 at SFO video, but I've recovered since). Maybe it's my mind playing tricks, but I vividly remember that when I first heard about FS2020, Asobo and/or MS said something about this being a 10-year project. I interpreted that as a "constant work in progress" statement, which honestly did not and still does not surprise me in the least. The scope of the project is so vast, there is no way I expected perfection on release date (or ever, for that matter).

8 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Quite sometimes before the leaks came up, some of us have pointed  to obvious scenery problems shown in what you call the "cherry picked" screenshots and clips (mesh, water, trees, yes trees etc.). Not maliciously but to tell the team to be aware of them. 

 

You don't think it was deliberate to release the 'cherry picked' screenshots with flaws here and there? Of course they know of the little flaws here and there throughout the sim.  They 'play' it too. At least one screenshot if not more every time had an obvious flaw in the scenery or something else. That was no accident. 

ASOBO are under pressure from MS and that was their little way of buying some more time to make it as reasonable as possible on release day.

 

 

 

So a little birdie told me... 

17 minutes ago, Dermot McClusky said:

We were able to read/watch content creators in the sim community discuss their personal experience with the pre-alpha build, as well as read/watch the Q&A session with the developers where many of these content creators asked the questions many wanted asked.

Obviously I missed that one, can you send a link to the vid?

16 minutes ago, Turpentine said:

Asobo and/or MS said something about this being a 10-year project. I interpreted that as a "constant work in progress" statement, which honestly did not and still does not surprise me in the least. The scope of the project is so vast, there is no way I expected perfection on release date (or ever, for that matter).

But what I don't understand is, when it's meant to be a 10 years project. How are they financing the whole project, when the release is in less than one month? Psychologically speaking isn't that very demotivating for a team, when they get all the money now, need to work for another 7-8 years and getting no reward for it? Or are there maybe any cost coming to us in the future like upgrade packages after further three years of development?

4 minutes ago, 737_800 said:

Obviously I missed that one, can you send a link to the vid?

In September 2019 MS/Asobo invited and flew numerous youtubers and game reviewers to Seattle for an event where the invitees were able to interview the dev team and play about 6 hours of the pre-alpha build. They were then given B-Roll footage (not allowed to record their own) and told they could say whatever they wanted to on September 30th. Here are some examples:

Frooglesim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj8h6yibHHc & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpBCZvuRXog

Catstrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ell9nsy5c&t=872s

Three Grumpy Simmers (this one is a bit too long...):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDw524Nj9E

Flight chops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrJs0jK4a1g&t=628s

 

Endgadget: https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-30-flight-simulator-2020-hands-on-pre-alpha.html

 

There's many more that you can search around for (even AirForceProud95 was there and did a short vid), but this will at least show you what I was talking about.