Here we start at metacritic

[GCBraun 2,319]

This so-called ****-storm is pretty normal whenever a new blockbuster title has some launch hiccups. This happened, for instance, with titles like No Man's Sky or The Elder Scrolls Online (in a much more severe manner btw) and nowadays both titles are pretty well rated on Steam.

When all the dust settles and quality add-ons are available, I have no doubt in my mind that MSFS will be the premier flight simulation platform.

Edited August 20, 2020 by GCBraun

[Colonel X 1,427]

11 minutes ago, DylanM said:

You really like your x-plane echo chamber don’t you...the writing is on the wall though, no matter how much you try and fight it on this forum...

Umm I just reasonably commented on a post. What's your deal?

[trainplane3 97]

31 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I see that the top review right now is from Avsim stalwart Jabloom, giving it 5/10:

A beautiful game that's a buggy flight simulator. I'll give it a chance, but it needs work. The Autopilot is a mess. The "live" weather isn't real time . The AI traffic is lacking. The user interface is bewildering and complicated. The default aircraft like the scenery, are stunning but don't match up in realism to those designed for XP11 and P3d5.. Don't expect good performance unless you own a recent PC with a high end GPU

"Don't expect good performance unless you own a recent PC with a high end GPU".

Uh...Ya? It's like they built a sim for future hardware. That's not a issue with the game, it's a issue with your PC. Although it could still use optimization and especially DX12. Remember when Crysis came out? It was still a good game but it was tough to run back then.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

30 minutes ago, trainplane3 said:

"Don't expect good performance unless you own a recent PC with a high end GPU".

Uh...Ya? It's like they built a sim for future hardware. That's not a issue with the game, it's a issue with your PC. Although it could still use optimization and especially DX12. Remember when Crysis came out? It was still a good game but it was tough to run back then.

I’m not sure why you’re debating me, it’s not my review. I was just amused to see a well-known name at the top of the “useful reviews” list on metacritic.

Edit: i’m running a i9 9900k overclocked on water with a 2080Ti. Pretty sure there’s no issue with my machine! And MSFS runs pretty well for me, not perfect but then again i’ve just left it on ultra so far, no slider tweaking to date.

Edited August 20, 2020 by OzWhitey

[mazex 419]

Well, this pretty much lines up with what I predicted in my post "whiners and fan****". 

So us that are able to see the incredible core simulation engine that has a crappy installer and a bunch of child diseases will have to go there and balance it out.

I wrote a review on Steam yesterday, even though I really would have liked to do that next week after having tested it more...

Edited August 20, 2020 by mazex

[shivers9 1,173]

42 minutes ago, trainplane3 said:

Uh...Ya? It's like they built a sim for future hardware.

UH...Like how far into the future Dude....Like UH...party on dude....cool man.

[d25bev 47]

User reviews are pointless. It's mostly either idiots giving it 0's because they hate it but ignore all the good things or idiots giving it 10's because they love it but ignore the bad things.

[trainplane3 97]

29 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I’m not sure why you’re debating me, it’s not my review. I was just amused to see a well-known name at the top of the “useful reviews” list on metacritic.

Edit: i’m running a i9 9900k overclocked on water with a 2080Ti. Pretty sure there’s no issue with my machine! And MSFS runs pretty well for me, not perfect but then again i’ve just left it on ultra so far, no slider tweaking to date.

Sorry, I wasn't debating you. Just commenting on that specific review you shared. MSFS runs fine for me as well.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

4 minutes ago, d25bev said:

User reviews are pointless. It's mostly either idiots giving it 0's because they hate it but ignore all the good things or idiots giving it 10's because they love it but ignore the bad things.

That’s exactly right. There’s no way it’s a 10 OR a 0, but 80% of reviews score it as one of those two numbers. 
 

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

On 8/20/2020 at 9:36 AM, Der Zeitgeist said:

Hmmm, that's actually not as bad as I thought it would get. With a lot of the negative reviews being installation and technical issues, it will probably be averaged out over time.

Now, after a few days, user reviews are already starting to turn out more positive.

[Steve Dra 7,175]

In my limited experience in flight simulation,

I've disregarded all reviews for the simple fact that I'm one who must see it, not read about it, to be ever be influenced to buy it and spend my "Hobby" time with it.

Everyone viewing this post and knows the what the initials FFTF stand for, or knows that "Buffer Pools" are not swimming areas reserved for floor buffers, can consider themselves someone who's at least had the desire to increase the performance of their favorite hobby, Flight Simulation. (some view computer/application tweaking as a hobby in itself....don't confuse them with Simmers, who tweak to have a better simming experience, not to claim they were able to achieve 100 fps on max settings, or OC to 5k (on all cores) on air with Hypertheading on, running at 4k...you know the type.) 🙂

Anyway, the only reviews that will even cause me to raise an eyebrow or even read past the 1st paragraph, are ones from who I know are actual flight simmers, experienced ones who genuinely know what "Steve's DX10 Fixer" is (whether they actually used it or not), or to really impress me, know that  LM actually conspired with Pete Dawson to schedule releases around his vacation schedule. (I am a true believer in that conspiracy, hehe)

I could literally go on forever, name-dropping item after item that only experienced simmers could identify and speak confidently about, but you get my point.

The pics below are what I see on my machine (8700k, not OC'd HT on, no affinity settings touched, yadda yadda, older TITAN (Maxwell) 12GB).

I took a short trip from Rota Naval base in Spain (I did a lot of my growing up there) to Gibraltar.

Here is the drive-in theater where I experienced my first real kiss (from a girl not my Mom, lol).  Out of the box, name one previous flightsim that has this level of detail of a place as obscure as the drive-in theater on a Naval base overseas?  (you know the answer)

On my way to Gibraltar, I was greeted with this sunrise...again...we need to name any previous sim that looks this good out of the box.

Another....with Gibraltar in the distance.

On the way back to Rota...I spot this wind farm...all animated extremely well!

After a little further sight seeing around the world (and we can finally do that at a level never known to us before without thousands of $$ and Gigs or Terabytes of "Ortho" (OMG you have no idea how much I never want to hear that word in my hobby anymore) to buy, load, unload or otherwise become an Ortho Manager as your hobby vs a Simmer who just wants to see the world.

I'm sure most of you can recognize where I am here. 🙂

And for those wondering about a Georgia landmark...I'd say out of the box they pretty much nailed it.

And flying at 25,000 over the land of the Kiwi....NEVER has a sim looked this good out of the box...period.

And....finally....to prove I am the quintessential flightsimmer....my very 1st flight in MSFS (care to guess what the yellow arrow is pointing to??) Completely accurate (the autogen house it plopped there of course is not an exact replica....but at 1500ft or higher, you're just gonna go OMG...the streets, the landmarks...nailed it (even the pools in the neighbor's yards).   I literally flew IFR (I follow roads) from my local airport and navigated to my house...NEVER has this been possible in a previous sim.

Folks, far be it from me to tell you what you think this new simulator is, or is going to be for YOU.....but for me....this "IS THE DROIDS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!" LOL (I know, not grammatically correct...but I was mis-quoting a movie here...give me a break!).

Does it fit the bill for airliner flying?  Of course not...no experienced simmer will argue with that....but for true VFR experience....we're 97.23% there...out of the box.  Raise your hand if you're happy your ortho-management days are over.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Steve Dra

[OHN767 82]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:34 PM, VBHB said:

They're more trouble than they're worth. 

If it wasent for them you would not have a flight simulator, remember that.

[airlinejets 709]

On 8/20/2020 at 3:01 AM, VBHB said:

The console attention deprived kids will try it and move on back to Fortnite pretty quick which will be good for the Community.

Lol, that's the intended audience.

[ca_metal 1,965]

Well, 20+ years ago I was a gamer that became a simmer. I don’t see what’s the problem on having gamers trying it.

Believe it or not, this sim needs a broader audience if we want it to get high investments on the years to come. Simmers won’t sustain this sim alone.

[Steve Dra 7,175]

2 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

Well, 20+ years ago I was a gamer that became a simmer. I don’t see what’s the problem on having gamers trying it.

Believe it or not, this sim needs a broader audience if we want it to get high investments on the years to come. Simmers won’t sustain this sim alone.

Yep.....I have absolutely no objections for gamers to dip their toe in and see if they want to fly planes more realistically than in GTA, and don't drop the game after an hour because they can't smash or kill anything. 🙂

They are absolutely who MS/AS were targeting, if there was any doubt when they announced at E3 vs the actual flightsim conference going on at the time (was viewed initially as a solid slap in the face to the FS community, but MS/AS explained the rational, and it makes perfect sense from a marketing/financial standpoint).

I predict if even 10% of the folks who buy MSFS and become like you ca_metal  (gamer-to-simmer convert)...the flightsim community will more than double....which has obvious benefits for the community.   

We were already made painfully aware that simmers alone won't sustain the industry when MS dropped the mic and walked away years ago. 😉   Let's hope that 10% is gonna be enough to keep them around for a while longer this time 🙂