Although I have to admit that both the scenery and aircraft in MSFS look fantastic, somehow I just don't find it as much "fun" as older versions.  Is it just me?

There are very few addons for it relatively speaking compared to legacy sims so that may be one reason for it.

Personally I find it more fun. In legacy sims the world has looked the same for a decade. Here the scenery is real, the weather and lighting seems different each flight and a world I have only just started exploring.

Edited November 11, 20205 yr by sanh

I find FS so much more fun when bush flying in Washington/British Columbia/Alaska. 

It depends which way you look at it.  I have had to change my approach to the sim.

I was always a tube-liner flyer in FSX.  I loved the Aerosoft Airbus series and flew them 90% of the time, but now I am trying all of the light aircraft in MSFS and I am really enjoying it - enough to make me consider actual lessons in a C152 or C172.

And then there are all the places I am flying around where I have been on holidays.  virtually all of the Canary Islands, and all around Florida.  

And then then it is so easy to change the weather or time of day on the fly to add a different complexion to it.

I am having so much fun it should be illegal!  😄

Edited November 11, 20205 yr by bobcat999

I recall three major steps forward in MSFS scenery evolution. One was from just polygons to textured tiles from 4.0 to 5.0 The second was the inclusion of Elevation Mesh with FS2000. And now the third is the transition from Landclass to Photo worldwide. All three were a new quality each, in my eyes.

I was already fascinated by the beginning of the transition from LC to Photo in X-Plane and P3D, notably via ORBX True Earth, but this was still limited by storage space and the workload to make it.

While I wouldn't disregard older versions which had (and in a sense still have) their charm, I have definitely more fun with the present scenery and I don't see getting tired so far.

Personally, I also like the GA planes which I fly like the C172 or the Bonanza, but I don't find them so much a new quality over the former ones. Wouldn't judge the airliners myself.

Kind regards, Michael

For me the single biggest plus is the scenery, just the fact that I know 95% of where I spawn is going to look amazing and almost photo real.  On previous sims I always stuck to area I had scenery for which was a lot, but not enough to cover the globe so I pigeon holed myself to the same areas - got boring after a while.

I do really enjoy using MSFS and prefer the visuals compared to what you get in P3D.The main problem is for me, I like flying PMDG/FSLabs aircraft. 

I just can't wait and hopefully it will eventually come to get some actual decent 3rd party aircraft in the sim. Such as like PMDG/Fslabs/QualityWings etc. Then thats when MSFS will go up another level for me personally. As it will then have great aircraft and also great visuals. 

Edited November 11, 20205 yr by MattGarner

Like others say in this thread, it depends. 

I just loaded into CYVR to check performance with the new patch. Live weather worked, it looked amazing, performance has increased ever so slightly, the aircraft looked wonderful.

I compare this to last night where I flew my trusty PMDG 737 from KPSP to KPDX. I did it at night so I wouldn't see the ground nor clouds. It was satisfying, but boring as heck. Fingers are crossed that, within my lifetime, there'll be great addon aircraft for MSFS.

So, if you're a procedure flyer who likes things by the numbers, there's the old standby sims. But, for the joy of flying thing, MSFS is pretty much the winner by far. I find myself flying 85% MSFS and 15% the other sims.

FWIW

I was always a general aviation flyer, so this sim is fantastic for me.  I can totally see how it wouldn't be the same for someone into airliners and other complex aircraft.  This sim shines when you are looking out the window.  I haven't even touched any of the jets in this sim yet. 

I uninstalled my other sims, except for vanilla FSX which I haven't touched in ages in time for MSFS to be released, so any "flying" I do is in this sim.

The airliners don't have the equipment that allow you to navigate.  I find that it's really just a flight plan to go from A to B.  There's no easy way to change aircraft without go to the menu (or using the dev console) and no easy way to look up frequencies or facility info, etc.

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

now I am trying all of the light aircraft in MSFS and I am really enjoying it

Exactly! I went from PMDG 737NGX all the time to learning to lean that Bonanza!

I’m a total GA guy now in, what? 4 months?

Since, PMDG is way out in the future I’m looking forward to more GA releases.

I’d love to see some Pipers, I know a Seminole is coming, but a Cherokee and a Malibu steam gauged would be lovely!

I'd got so used to flying the same airliner route in FSX that it may as well not have had the rest of the world in it. I've now flown in Papua New Guinea, the Antarctic and every continent in MSFS, and mainly in GA or the Citation. It's way more fun now. Once I eventually get my yoke, I'll try the airliners more often, but GA will dominate my flying time regardless.

2 hours ago, andyjohnston.net said:

I just don't find it as much "fun" as older versions. 

Andy(?)

Firstly, and I am being totally pedantic here, there is no previous versions of this sim.  I don't know why I mentioned that LOL

Personally, I find it much more fun than P3D or XPlane11, mainly because I use the other platforms for the more complex aircraft which you do have to take somewhat more seriously.  

I do however, see MSFS as a much, much more serious contender in these stakes once the SDK accommodates the 3PD aircraft developers like  FSLabs, PMDG and to a slightly lesser extent, Quality Wings and Aerosoft among others. This is mainly because the other platforms have a lot of catching up to do with regard to out of the box scenery. This too will eventually happen.

These aircraft and utilities developers will surely come to MSFS and then it will be a free for all, for simple as well as complex GA aircraft and the complex, systems deep tube-liners along with some complex GA aircraft. In the interim, we have Robert Young,  FlyByWire Simulations and the WorkingTitle group doing amazing things to aircraft in this platform already. 

In the meantime, I am not complaining and my glass is three quarters full (and looking forward to a near future top up)

Regards

Tony

PS the latest update has gone "bottoms up" for me .... I downloaded and installed with no problems, replaced the Community folder, replaced/reinstalled my modded aircraft all successfully. I then went to the content manager and reinstalled 28.3BiB of 28.7GiB when I had a power failure.  Thereafter, I could not get past the "checking for updates" and had to uninstall the lot and re-install from scratch again. Currently at 15Gib of 97.8GiB. However, it all looks good at this stage ... wish me luck LOL

Tony 

2 hours ago, andyjohnston.net said:

Although I have to admit that both the scenery and aircraft in MSFS look fantastic, somehow I just don't find it as much "fun" as older versions.  Is it just me?

It's because we're missing our high fidelity addons.....  GTN/GNS, Active Sky engine, PMDG, FSLabs, Majestic, A2A, Realair et al

For me the navigation part has gotten better with mods from the creative guys at WorkingTitle but still it's ASobo-broken and they'll need to work on their Garmin avionics.  I want to be able to navigate, reliably.

MSFS 2020 is amazing for me. I have a modest system and the sim is incredibly smooth. I have most settings turned up and it looks spectacular at 1440p. This has been a pretty hassle free experience for me. Looking forward to more planes in the future and continual upgrades to the base environment. I know a lot of people were upset about this sim in the beginning but I think 6 updates have put it on a very solid path. This sim is next gen in every way with tons more to come in the future. 

No brainer purchase if you are into this genre.  

Edited November 11, 20205 yr by RobJC