5 hours ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

They will be pushing water mask updates via the streaming data, some of them in a few days. There could be a map to show which areas are being updated.

Apparently the Around the World trailers are using developer versions that could be months away from public release.

This was always what I figured, when people started pointing out the discrepancies - it was some internal build of the sim with better masking that wasn't available to everyone yet.  Glad to hear the better masking is finally going to start rolling out.

Kudos to these guys, the honest and transparency is so refreshing

4 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

I don't think that's the case.

Those videos are recorded on internal builds, the masking will either come in a future update, or even just added via the back end.

 

I haven't seen this mentioned, but they said in the Q&A that they were overwhelmed by the response for and X-Plane-like Gateway Scenery system. They said some people even e-mailed in powerpoints explaining/pitching it.

It sounds like they might go forward with it.

Edited November 26, 20205 yr by Tuskin38

Quote

Those videos are recorded on internal builds, the masking will either come in a future update, or even just added via the back end.

This is what the posted as the official dev answer on the MSFS forums (bold/italic emphasis mine):

Quote

World data is continuously changing and getting better. Trailers are showing the latest updates to the world that are released in one of the next upcoming big update. Water masking of some areas in Asia was updated with previous updates and is already in the sim. So usually there should be no more than a few weeks or a month of delay between some new world feature visible in a trailer and the game. This applies to all improvements to world data including water masking. We could do our trailers based on the current public version of the data ; but then, just a few weeks after the trailer is out, it would already be obsolete and the sim would look better than the trailer… And we can’t update the trailer once the world has been updated, would be too much work for our video team. So we produce a trailer that contains the latest data, even if it is a few weeks to release.

Some of the Around the World videos have been out for multiple months and the water masking isn't in the sim yet.  So I find this answer to be suspect.  Edit:  There was some good discussion in the actual Q&A video about at least publishing a map of the areas that have been done, which would be nice for us to be able to see anyway.

On Betas before releases to ensure things like things  like 3rd party aircraft don't break - "We know it's urgent"...."But it might be Q2 2021".

Microsoft definition of urgent...9 months after release.

Edited November 26, 20205 yr by marsman2020

It's not like they're hiding water masking from us. We know the sim is very much capable of this. Just some backlog.

7 hours ago, Steku said:

Try to fly true IFR, with paper charts and checklist in VR.

All very true, but the games industry is pushing VR far more aggressively. Multi monitor support will turn into even more of a niche than before.

Do we know what the pricing looks like for this simulator for the years ahead? Will they change the title to MSFS2022 and ask for a new purchase/license?

I see their timeline/plans are reaching as far as 2023. Is there enough revenue from the purchases to keep this going? Not really understanding what the intent is with the versions/pricing.

Asking this as I’m wondering, with all this work being put into it and keeping these people on the payroll, where is there revenue coming from? Can’t imagine the sales are that high?!?!

Edited November 26, 20205 yr by Drumcode

4 hours ago, Drumcode said:

Do we know what the pricing looks like for this simulator for the years ahead? Will they change the title to MSFS2022 and ask for a new purchase/license?

I see their timeline/plans are reaching as far as 2023. Is there enough revenue from the purchases to keep this going? Not really understanding what the intent is with the versions/pricing.

Asking this as I’m wondering, with all this work being put into it and keeping these people on the payroll, where is there revenue coming from? Can’t imagine the sales are that high?!?!

Good question, my gut feeling is that they will rely on the marketplace revenue plus I think they may add few extension packs that we can buy, but new title, I don't think so. If so , they would have named it MSFS2020 officially. I guess for now they made very good revenue that made Phillip Spencer happy.

But I am not worried about it anyway , is Microsoft and they will find a new way how to make money out of MSFS 😉

Edited November 26, 20205 yr by omarsmak30

7 hours ago, Drumcode said:

Do we know what the pricing looks like for this simulator for the years ahead? Will they change the title to MSFS2022 and ask for a new purchase/license?

I see their timeline/plans are reaching as far as 2023. Is there enough revenue from the purchases to keep this going? Not really understanding what the intent is with the versions/pricing.

Asking this as I’m wondering, with all this work being put into it and keeping these people on the payroll, where is there revenue coming from? Can’t imagine the sales are that high?!?!

Asobo are going to release periodic paid DLC packs for stuff like helicopters, plus whatever ongoing cut they are getting of sales on the in-game marketplace.

Beyond that, I'd have to go into a long winded explanation of how Microsoft's current thinking works on games.  Long story short, they care about driving engagement in Game Pass, more than they do selling individual copies.  So with that in mind, they'd have little to gain from just slapping an unnecessary "2022" on a new box in a couple of years.

The fact that they called this Microsoft Flight Simulator, and not Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, should also be a pretty un-subtle tell that they see this as an ongoing platform to build on, and not something to sequelize.  Asobo and Microsoft themselves have said they aim to support this platform for a decade if all goes to plan.

Flight Simmers have a voracious appetite for add-ons, giving Asobo virtually limitless possibilities for things they could eventually make and sell to support the platform.

Apparently no comments about quirks like the props not feathering 😕

Heck ! This is "basic" stuff that I really can't understand how not yet addressed ???

Edited November 26, 20205 yr by jcomm

20 hours ago, peroni said:

ATC and ATIS improvements coming in sim update 3, end of february

What are the improvements proposed...?

4 hours ago, Scottoest said:

Asobo and Microsoft themselves have said they aim to support this platform for a decade if all goes to plan.

Wonderful is all I can say to that idea.  Now if they would kindly resuscitate Links Golf Sim, w/ the same 10y service life I might...never leave the house 

41 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Apparently no comments about quirks like the props not feathering 😕

Heck ! This is "basic" stuff that I really can't understand how not yet addressed ???

Basic for the initiated for sure but the project is massive and they have other areas to address before getting to the finer points, which one might argue for the less than initiated won't include prop feathering since 98% of their coming Xbox flyers don't have a clue what 'feathering' is anyway!  Veteran simmers probably would have preferred they get those basics covered first then improve scenery and atmoshperics after but the latter likely will not sell as many copies initially.

Finally had a chance to watch the whole thing - I was actually really impressed Jorg was taking notes from the chat and bringing items up for discussion, and that Seb is still happy to go really deep down the rabbit hole with an answer...😆 Jayne did a great job of curating as much input as possible too - good job folks