Quote

I have to say, from what I've seen so far on YT, I'm pretty disappointed in who Microsoft have apparently selected as testers

Remember that the youtube videos are NOT from alpha/beta testers, they are from youtubers who were given access to make promo videos for MS...completely different.

alpha/beta testers were drawn pretty randomly from those who applied and met the baseline HW requirements.

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by keithb77

40 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

You probably don't understand why but the above quote is just spot on correct. That is why MS hired a bunch of gamers there in France to put this together. They are 100 percent after Little Johnny's lunch money. That is for the most part why these forums have been a dumpster fire for a year now. It is not a bad thing. It's all about sucking in the dollars. It may progress into something more like a flight sim as time goes by, but it is becoming more and more clear as the release approaches. Good for you in breaking the code.

Change France to England and you have pretty much described, Dovetails Game's Flight Sim World.

Seems like you are getting your developers and your flight sim's mixed up, but that really was a company who only cared about little Johnny's lunch money.  Look at there attempt at a sim on the ESP platform and then this and you can see who really cares about the community and who just wanted to make money of the license. 

5 minutes ago, rickjake said:

FSX, FS9, etc, were all entertainment software, designed for the average person to enjoy flight simulation.  Just like the new MSFS will be. It was all the add-on programs like radar contact, ProATC, etc, The plane developers like PMDG, FSlabs, etc, Scenery developers like Orbx, Flytampa, etc, that made the simulator for us die hard enthusiasts.  I see MSFS to be no different. MSFS will be the new platform that third party developers will build on to give us "OUR" next Gen flight simulator that we are all want. 

Exactly. This has been a strategy which worked pretty well and I am sure will do with MSFS as well. And THIS was one of the main failures of Flight!, which as such was a good base system. However, the developers failed (deliberately, caused by mismanagement) to create a 3rd party-enabled ecosystem of extensions into ambitious planes, ATC extensions, AI addons and the like -  and failed.

Kind regards, Michael

32 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

So if anyone is looking at preview videos right now and is getting worked up about how the ATC uses certain phrases, let me just say right now that you probably won't be happy with MSFS at release and the ATC will be the least of your problems.

Priceless! just like a Mastercard

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by RamonB

 

10 minutes ago, LHookins said:

It is perfectly acceptable to stick with whatever sim you are currently using.  In fact, there will be advantages to doing that.

They're making a sim tailored to the first time flight simmer.  Some of their design decisions won't be popular with the hard core simming crowd.  

If an improved ATC is that important, someone will make it and sell it as DLC.  

Hook

3 minutes ago, pmb said:

Exactly. This has been a strategy which worked pretty well and I am sure will do with MSFS as well. And THIS was one of the main failures of Flight!, which as such was a good base system. However, the developers failed (deliberately, caused by mismanagement) to create a 3rd party-enabled ecosystem of extensions into ambitious planes, ATC extensions, AI addons and the like -  and failed.

Kind regards, Michael

Thank you, this is what I've been tryin to say in my last 2 posts.

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by hangar

12 minutes ago, keithb77 said:

Remember that the youtube videos are NOT from alpha/beta testers, they are from youtubers who were given access to make promo videos for MS...completely different.

alpha/beta testers were drawn pretty randomly from those who applied and met the baseline HW requirements.

Indeed. Without going into detail, a lot of alpha/beta testers are highly qualified, most of them higher than me. I would never say the same about most of the YouTubers, although I wouldn't put all of them into the same pot.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by pmb

19 minutes ago, rickjake said:

FSX, FS9, etc, were all entertainment software, designed for the average person to enjoy flight simulation.  Just like the new MSFS will be. It was all the add-on programs like radar contact, ProATC, etc, The plane developers like PMDG, FSlabs, etc, Scenery developers like Orbx, Flytampa, etc, that made the simulator for us die hard enthusiasts.  I see MSFS to be no different. MSFS will be the new platform that third party developers will build on to give us "OUR" next Gen flight simulator that we are all want. 

 

THIS^

It's always been this way and It may take awhile for MSFS to appeal to the die hards. Atleast many developers were given early access to the SDK this time. All I know is I am ready to go to something modern that can actually use.... MODERN HARDWARE.

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by reignman40

16 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

I guess I just don't understand, with all the time and effort that was put into this, why that needs to be the case. But I will see for myself in a week I guess.

It's like that with every large development project, you simply can't please everyone.

There's limited time, limited resources, limited money, limited personnel available for development. And all of that with MS accountants breathing down their neck to get this thing released as quickly as possible, all in the middle of a global pandemic and recession. They have to make compromises to get the best possible product for the largest possible number of customers, and I think they will succeed with that.

1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

People here will simply need to accept that MSFS is not and does not try to be a replacement for P3D or XPlane, at least not out of the box.

 

That statement could use some more clarity, although it is helpful that you added that last bit in the end. It's like saying that smart phones are not trying to replace the old bricks we had before... Yes, for study simulation it cannot be a replacement out of the box because there are no study level aircrafts available for the sim yet. But comparing default to default, it seems to me that the native airplanes (at least the GA ones) are much better quality and higher fidelity than the native ones in p3d and xp11. 

The important part here is how Asobo is trying to facilitate 3rd party addon developers so that the sim can be the home of the next generation of high fidelity, study sim addons. In my mind, after reading the piece from Mathies Koch (spelling sorry) from Aerosoft, and hearing Asobos multiple entries on youtube, and seing the tech in action, there is no doubt in my mind that it is competing with xp11 for 1st place when it comes to being the best platform for aviation simulation. Those parts are not dumbed down to be a "game". 

With that being said, you know I am not the person to put on the rose tinted glasses and only see the good bits. I know there are bits there that are even far from perfect. 

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by Andreas Stangenes

22 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

It's like that with every large development project, you simply can't please everyone.

There's limited time, limited resources, limited money, limited personnel available for development. And all of that with MS accountants breathing down their neck to get this thing released as quickly as possible, all in the middle of a global pandemic and recession. They have to make compromises to get the best possible product for the largest possible number of customers, and I think they will succeed with that.

I understand what you're saying, but they seemingly could have made some pretty small tweaks that, while imperceptible to the layperson/gamer, would have made a world of difference to (at least some) hardcore simmers and pilots. In other words, a gamer wouldn't know the difference if the ATC phraseology was correct or not. So why not just make it correct? That's what is hard for me to understand.

But I suppose you're correct about the whole pandemic thing. We've all been impacted.

52 minutes ago, reignman40 said:

Are there places in the world where they actually say DECIMAL?

Everywhere else in the world 🙂

50 minutes ago, rickjake said:

FSX, FS9, etc, were all entertainment software, designed for the average person to enjoy flight simulation. 

See I think that's a proven fool's errand. How many casual gamers do you know who do any flight simming whatsoever, be it FS9, FSX, P3D, XP? I've literally never met one.

Just now, NZ255 said:

Everywhere else in the world 🙂

Correct, that's what I mean by ATC being very Euro-centric.Which I guess is fine. Decimal vs. point isn't the thrust of my complaint.

 

1 minute ago, mtr75 said:

In other words, a gamer wouldn't know the difference if the ATC phraseology was correct or not. So why not just make it correct? That's what is hard for me to understand.

The developers probably didn't know much about ATC either.  They never had time to properly research it.  Maybe hiring a domain expert would have helped, but then they'd have to totally rewrite the ATC function, and that wasn't considered important enough to invest the resources.  In this case they did the best they could with the time they had.  If it's important enough, it will be created by a third party and sold as DLC.

I strongly suspect they didn't have much experience with FSX/P3D flight model tweaking, or autopilot tuning, and a bunch of other stuff.  They've made some interesting and very welcome changes to the config files though.
 

1 minute ago, mtr75 said:

How many casual gamers do you know who do any flight simming whatsoever

Expect a lot more with the apparent target market for MSFS.  Earlier flight sims wouldn't appeal to casual gamers with no interest in airplanes.

If it's not obvious, the hard core simmer is not the target market.  It has some features for the hard core, but it's only a start.  Let the DLC developers fill in the gaps.

Hook

46 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

That was their goal with Flight as well, and look at how that turned out.

See, I guess I should have just known better. From day 1 I kept saying, I'll believe it when I see it. And then over the months of "it's going to be perfect, the most amazing simulator ever made, the graphics will embarrass P3D" and on and on and on, I started believing the hype. And a week before it's released, it seems like you are telling me I was right all along.

Sigh.

I think, you are did not see FSX, P3D or XP11 without add-ons (espacially without scenery or weather add-ons) for a very long time. No, MSFS can't be perfect in all aspects. But sure, MSFS will be much more better in the most significant things. It will be noncomparable better in the default global scenery, it will be noncoparable better in the lighting system, it will be noncomparable better in the weather system and it will be noncomparable better in the default planes. And some more, it will be comparable or better in flight dynamics and it will be comparable or better in the default ATC with promised progres in next ten years. Still it isn't enough for 60$ only???