The 3rd Party Dilemna.......

[HiFlyer 9,343]

So.....

Ever since the first in-depth descriptions of this new sim, there's been speculation (and even some cheering) about the possible death of the necessity for third party scenery.

After release of course, it became clear that default airports and planes, while generally of a higher standard than even seen before, could still benefit from the greater details extant from the existing retailers of aviation simulation add-ons.

But.... To what degree?

I look at the options available to date in the marketplace and find myself...... Curiously unexcited.

The planes so far are not especially inspiring, and in no way raise any bars, while at the same time already well type-represented in the sim itself.

Nothing to see here. Yet.

So what about the airports? Again a bit of a meh for me, thus far.

Interestingly, some of airports released are already represented as in the sim "enhanced" with a degree of polish and detail that makes purchasing the third party version seem like much less of an upgrade than would have once been the case when choosing between payware and default.

In fact, (as I found myself discussing with a developer friend) unless one is particularly familiar with a given area, or find it of particular personal/emotional interest, there's probably only modest incentive thus far, to make the leap from default to payware.

This holds true not only for well known areas, but even for tiny airports that are were heretofore many payware developers bread and butter.

If one of these is your home airport, then payware might be attractive, but for most of us just flying through on a lark, default may, for the first time almost ever, be more than sufficient.

And that doesn't even take into account the burgeoning explosion of freeware that seems to be rapidly accumulating out there.

It makes me wonder, on their various private forums, what the developers think of all of this?

Meanwhile, I myself am watching carefully, as always, this time with my money still firmly in my wallet, and feeling that Microsoft has already heaped such a bounty on my plate that I might not build up any real hunger for more, for several months at least.

I'm looking around, and I wonder what others think?

[JughedJones 197]

I'm with ya. 

 

Theres a number of aircraft i can't wait to ponyup for,  but scenery? 

 

KPDX from Flightbeam (which should be coming out anytime now) will be a day one purchase.  

 

Everything else though, like you say, out of the box is more than good enough for me.  

[Ricardo41 5,935]

I agree, payware scenery developers have to work really hard to convince me to open up my wallet. 

What I've seen so far is nice, but there is no excitement on my part. Because flying into the default airport is also really nice. 

[Ilari Kousa 116]

You'll eventually want more detail for sure. I did get the 182, but apart from that I have a list of "trusted" devs, to which Carenado does not belong. I'll be limiting my purchases to the devs on my list only. Even the launch-day Orbx content has been underwhelming to say the least.

[RobJC 2,069]

I am in the same boat. Do I really want to bloat up this sim with countless add-ons only to have performance issues down the road? And even if I wanted to pony up for my home airport (KDEN), it was already included in the premium package I purchased. I think my budget will be reserved for airplanes. The rest of the budget will go into hardware.  

Edited September 12, 2020 by robnhood

[JacquesBrel 639]

I agree that regarding airport scenery, it all depends on how much detail you're content with. For P3D I bought nearly every Italian airport released, and I'll most likely do the same for MFS. A large part of the flying experience for me is arriving at an airport or airfield that looks and feels like a place of its own. What I enjoy about flight simulation is mostly the travelling simulation part of it. I prefer to skip some of the intricate systems management part of flying and just enjoy the sensation of travelling to someplace I'll most likely never visit in real life. And to get that experience I need something more than just the generic airport scenery. With all the fantastic ground and city scenery that MFS has, I can't wait to add even more to the experience with lots of third party airport scenery.

[virtuali 4,419]

Comment from my 12-years old son, when he first saw the MSFS trailer:

"the graphic is fantastic, but the airports are not that good"

[Nedo68 533]

55 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I'm looking around, and I wonder what others think?

as i said before market changed completely, the time before msfs needed good addons

if you remember how the old out of the box flight sim world looked compared to today.

Landmarks is the new investment, interesting things who dont affect your FPS and especially your HDD space.

New Aircraft will allways be worth, but we cant expect really good new airplanes right now,

the Devs need to learn & understand msfs first, this needs time, but then, just wait we will be flooded.

[warbirds 555]

I will try to keep this sim addon free. The airports I like such as Innsbruke  and Pago Pago are as good, if not better, than their payware versions for P3D

[kerosene31 349]

I was just flying over the Caribbean (default scenery of course) and I am just amazed.  I remember buying a Flight1 product in a past sim to basically make those islands into something other than green patches in the water (and it was a great product at the time, I spent many hours hitting those islands).  Now though?  I simply don't need it.  

I fly mostly smaller GA stuff and I'm super impressed with the detail at small airports (at least so far).  Even though I'm sure they are not as detailed as they could be and not totally accurate, they are more than believable.  I'm not one for bigger airports and ultra-realistic gates anyway.

Quite simply, I don't even want to know what I've spend in scenery in past sims, but I will now be spending a lot less in scenery.  

Even my home airport (KBUF - Buffalo) is quite good.  There's some oddities that need to be cleaned up, like a grass parking area that simply wouldn't exist (we're not digging your plane out of the snow!).  Still though, overall the GA area is mostly accurate.  

Even back in FSX, default airports meant those boring rectangles that might have looked kinda-sorta like a building.  Those needed to be upgraded, they were just so bad. FS2020 goes so far beyond that.  

I can definitely see myself buying a lot less.  That's not to say there isn't tons of room for improvement, but I don't feel compelled to even browse it so far.  

[Steve Dra 7,574]

53 minutes ago, robnhood said:

And even if I wanted to pony up for my home airport (KDEN), it was already included in the premium package I purchased. I think my budget will be reserved for airplanes. The rest of the budget will go into hardware.  

Good strategy, however.....FlightBeam's KDEN is a masterpiece in my opinion and as your home airport, you should look into (if you have already), how much worse the "Enhanced" KDEN is than @Mir // Flightbeam creation.

And at $14 for this content....it is an amazing deal when you consider the pricing structure simmer's have been accustomed to over that last few decades.  And if you own the previous version....its $10!  I spent more on lunch today!

I'm kinda' in the same frame of mind as most here...esp. those who have software lists like this they had to create just to keep track of all their purchases over the years. 🤪

Here is something that is important to me, and I hope it is for others as well.

Although we should not have to worry about the health of payware devs in a perfect world, sadly we live in no such world, and here is my philosophy:

Our hobby (passion) is a very niche' market....I can only imagine that devs have a tough time clearing enough profit to actually buy some of the creations they make (Pretty Sure RSR at PMDG is not flying around in a BBJ because of his prosperity in making airliners in flightsim).

Anyway, I'm in a place in my life that $10, 20, 50 is not going to have me eating Raman noodles for the next 3 months, and that money, when spent on things I've deemed will bring me satisfying entertainment, will quickly exceed the ROI margin when I use it in the sim for a certain amount of time. 

This hobby, no matter how much we want to believe is expensive, is absolutely cheap when compared to other "Hobbies".  How much is a good set of clubs?  How about that Bass boat with the Merc 150 on the back so you can get to your favorite fishing spot 3 mins faster than everyone putting around with a measly 50 or 75?😄   And if you want to get into a real expensive hobby...try REAL aviation.

OK.....off the soap box...LOL.  Where I was going is about supporting the good devs in this community that have a proven track record of producing great titles, and supporting them.  I would have purchased FlightBeam's KDEN for the old P3d price for the reasons listed above, as you saw....they actually restructured their pricing model, offered it for $14-15, AND....offered 30% off for previous customers! 
Let's see...a dev who makes great products, supports them well, prices them in line with a retail model that is as different from the previous sim as sun is from the moon, oh AND supports loyal customers with discounts on new products...regardless if "It's a completely new format, we have to re-code everything, so hence, we have to charge you more....we don't work for free" 🙄

Yep...that checks all the boxes for me when evaluating if a dev gets on my "must buy from them" list.  and FlightBeam checks them all, in my opinion.  So I'll support them....(steps off the soapbox he snuck back up on...LOL)

And a shout out to @virtuali at FSDT.  As you can see from my "partial" list of scenery...I've determined his shop is on my Trusted vendor's list as well. 😉  (but not buying a thing from him until he releases KDFW for MSFS!) 🤣

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Steve Dra
spelling

[Steve Dra 7,574]

23 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Comment from my 12-years old son, when he first saw the MSFS trailer:

"the graphic is fantastic, but the airports are not that good"

LOL.....from the same mold huh?  I hope you have him coding scenery in MSFS! 🙂

[UAL4life 237]

Eh default “premium” airports couldn’t even be bothered to have tarmac lighting, I’ll take any 3rd party any day. 

[SirKibble 16]

 I agree with you to an extent but the difference between the default handcrafted KDEN to the msfs 2020 flightbeam KDEN is almost as big as the difference between Blueprints KDEN and the P3D flightbeam KDEN.

Anyways if you don’t fly into an area often then maybe you don’t need 3rd party since the handcrafted ones are decent but if you fly into it often I recommend 3rd party since it’s basically replacing generic buildings or a bare bones custom airport. Just remember to always read reviews before buying. Aircraft are indeed top priority however.

[Tuskin38 6,449]

I'm waiting for Canadian airports.

CYYZ and CYUL are the ones I want the most.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Tuskin38