Mathijs Kok’s vision on Fs ( also on P3D )

[Afterburner 374]

After conducting a few flights with Majestic Dash Q400 and PMDG 777 (and most other add-ons) on my recently installed P3Dv4, I realized how complete flights can be in that simulator in light of updates breaking stuff in other sims recently, and that this should be appreciated. For example, I loaded the airplane and used GSX for boarding, fueling, etc. and everything works!  The weather, using Active Sky, is 1:1 realistic and works perfectly with realistic upper winds, with no hiccups, pixelated checkerboard clouds or other issues.

The autopilot in the aforementioned airplanes works super accurately and is a joy to use. Manual controls are perfect with a sensitivity that feels just right using my Logitech 3D Extreme (and not like in MSFS, where small movements turn the airplane into a rollercoaster when used in default state). During the 9 hour cruise flight, ASCA provided a variety of cloud formations and textures. No crashes or VRAM problems.

The ATC, for all its shortcomings in the ESP engine, at least instructed me to descend at the right time and did not ask me to climb back up to a higher altitude, as is the case in MSFS. The ATC voices are decent and have variety. Okay, if an airport is busy, you see go-arounds, but there are tools to take control of that. The AI airplanes from Alpha India Group are true to life with realistic flight plans. You hear the ATC giving instructions to other pilots by their true airline name. While descending, no problems with the terrain or with blurry textures; in fact, the sim rendered autogen even from 20,000 feet altitude, and all of the 12 threads of the CPU were busy. After landing, the GSX follow me car led me to the right parking spot. Yes, parking the airplane perfectly and making the marshaller dance "Macarena" can be a challenge, but at least you feel that you made it to the destination, and then you enjoy watching the deboarding of the plane.

All in all, everything works just fine. There is a price tag to the add-ons used during the flight, so it's not fair to compare it with vanilla MSFS. But until the latter sim will reach a state, in which such complete flights are possible with these add-ons, that may take many more years. This is what makes P3D still so appealing to me.

And here is a screenshot from my recent flight from UUEE to KORD. To me, it looks very good even though P3Dv4 has no EA.

2020-11-28_15-50-38-557-jpg.6397 (1920×1057) (hifisimtech.com)

[787flyer 633]

I will make 2 short comments which will hopefully demonstrate the salient points that were missed in Matthias Kok's replies over at their forum (BTW: that post is now closed to further comment due to insults some threw at Matthias which is not the way to behave):

 

Simulator vs Game.

While no doubt MSFS brings a new level of scenery depiction to the arena and it certainly looks impressive, its not consistent yet (but I am sure MS will address this), but for me its about the whole simulator environment and experience (flight model, aircraft handling characteristics, flight planning capabilities , weather).

 

Vanilla comparisons - as mentioned by Matthias K, is not a valid argument IMHO.

The sims we have installed today typically there are a number of add-ons installed or the majority of people flying. I doubt there are many simmers just flying OOTB installations of either P3D or MSFS. The latest Navigraph sim survey will hopefully demonstrate that point.

 

Bottomline: these 2 sim platforms and their competitors all have a right to play in the market serving different user needs.

No sim platform is perfect, but today for what I would like to get out of the sim, P3D offers the best experience overall. For others it is different. I accept that. Thats OK.

In a year or so when the add-on developers are able to make MSFS more complete for my needs, I am sure I will experiment with it.

 

In the meantime, I'll keep purchasing P3D add-ons that make the P3D experience even more realistic.If Aerosoft are not able to cater to that specific demand, obviously I will shop elsewhere- which is what I have been doing! 🤨

 

 

 

 

[out 769]

I'm having my life's best moments of flight simulation with P3Dv5.0, in terms of general experience, aircraft (mainly FSL A32X), scenery, tools and the looks (yes, I don't need my aunt's summer house depicted for my 321 flights).
If/when LM succeeds in improving/fixing their EA, I will need little more. And MSFS is, quite frankly, not what I mean.
As mentioned above and many times around, MSFS will get better in time, but, as Darren explains so well, it has gone the wrong (for me) way since the beginning.
Each to their own, like anywhere else in life.

[virtuali 4,421]

1 hour ago, aldridgem said:

In a year or so when the add-on developers are able to make MSFS more complete for my needs, I am sure I will experiment with it.

Exactly, and this is what almost everybody that hasn't switched to MSFS will likely do as well.

As I tried to explain, so many times, users have the luxury to live in the present, they can make a choice based on the current situation, and they can change it almost immediately when it changes.

For example, a new 3rd party airplane comes with a custom flight model ( maybe a turboprop, since those are STILL broken in P3D! ) and there goes down the drain all that lengthy explanation about why "MSFS it's a game".

Or a new airplane comes with a custom autopilot ( you think FS Labs or PMDG use the default P3D autopilot ? ), and there goes down the drain the useless discussions about how the A320 autopilot is buggy. The *FREEWARE* A320 mod will shortly have a custom autopilot...

While users can change their mind instantly, and switch to another simulator very quickly when something new happens, developers don't have such luxury: it takes time to learn new things, change methods, redo things from scratch so users won't accuse you of "recycle old stuff", and this might take many months or even years.

And that's why we cannot base our developing decisions basing what the users base is doing NOW (although the "user base" is already buying stuff for MSFS faster than they use to ), we need to anticipate what the market will look like in 2-3 years and how the availability of "serious" addons for MSFS will do to it.

Now, since this is still a P3D thread in the P3D forum, I want to say something positive too: if we ever got word that a future major version of the sim had a better graphic engine ( realtime AO, a better/more stable PBR, and a better way to do sloped airports ) and LM made an agreement with, let's say, Google to provide with global scenery coverage, that might change things quite a bit, because we would still have the advantage of a more powerful SDK, but with a much shorter development time for airport scenery and with more commonality with MSFS that could allow making an airport that could work with both with minimal effort.

[GSalden 4,657]

23 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Exactly, and this is what almost everybody that hasn't switched to MSFS will likely do as well.

As I tried to explain, so many times, users have the luxury to live in the present, they can make a choice based on the current situation, and they can change it almost immediately when it changes.

For example, a new 3rd party airplane comes with a custom flight model ( maybe a turboprop, since those are STILL broken in P3D! ) and there goes down the drain all that lengthy explanation about why "MSFS it's a game".

Or a new airplane comes with a custom autopilot ( you think FS Labs or PMDG use the default P3D autopilot ? ), and there goes down the drain the useless discussions about how the A320 autopilot is buggy. The *FREEWARE* A320 mod will shortly have a custom autopilot...

While users can change their mind instantly, and switch to another simulator very quickly when something new happens, developers don't have such luxury: it takes time to learn new things, change methods, redo things from scratch so users won't accuse you of "recycle old stuff", and this might take many months or even years.

And that's why we cannot base our developing decisions basing what the users base is doing NOW (although the "user base" is already buying stuff for MSFS faster than they use to ), we need to anticipate what the market will look like in 2-3 years and how the availability of "serious" addons for MSFS will do to it.

Now, since this is still a P3D thread in the P3D forum, I want to say something positive too: if we ever got word that a future major version of the sim had a better graphic engine ( realtime AO, a better/more stable PBR, and a better way to do sloped airports ) and LM made an agreement with, let's say, Google to provide with global scenery coverage, that might change things quite a bit, because we would still have the advantage of a more powerful SDK, but with a much shorter development time for airport scenery and with more commonality with MSFS that could allow making an airport that could work with both with minimal effort.

By now we all now that you are superpositive about MSFS and negatieve towards P3D...

At this moment you can fly everything in P3D and in MSFS there are multiple issues with the default aircraft. It is impossible to fly a jetliner like the 787 and 747. The A320 only flies reasonable with mods. Even with FSX the default aircraft did only have minor issues.
 

And on the contrary to what you are painting here, more and more people are getting dissatisfied. Even hardcore defenders are now admitting that what has been presented with updates is breaking it compared to the release version. AP fixes that makes turning ac so slow you need at least 2-3x the airspace and time than before.

Surely developers follow where the money is, but then afterwards spitting in the well they drunk from tells something about them.

The way MS/Asobo has communicated is also something that wins no prices. It started so wonderfull but at this moment people are complaining about the lack of ‘listening’ .

The AP issues were scheduled to be fixed first in october, then december, now februari. The main focus is the scenery and that many have paid for the De Luxe version, who cares.

The best prediction for what is coming, is looking how it went till now...

My prediction is that within time MSFS will be mainly used by X Box players who do not care about addon airports. And the addon scenery market will come to a hold when MSFS cannot deliver what they once stated. Or do you think that people want to fly with a small GA aircraft to/from major airports, like you develop. 
And more and more freeware airports are being released for MSFS. MSFS is a VFR game at this moment, not even a Flightsim.

Regarding P3D I do not think there will be streaming scenery within several years if ever. But there is a solid base and it will continue to evolve as we are not the main target. So no worries about a P3D future.

MS stated that Flight was the future sim. MS dropped FSX and Flightsimming in general from one day to the other. Let’s see if they will finish 10 years of MSFS...

[mpo910 2,112]

12 minutes ago, GSalden said:

By now we all now that you are superpositive about MSFS and negatieve towards P3D...

At this moment you can fly everything in P3D and in MSFS there are multiple issues with the default aircraft. It is impossible to fly a jetliner like the 787 and 747. The A320 only flies reasonable with mods. Even with FSX the default aircraft did only have minor issues.
 

And on the contrary to what you are painting here, more and more people are getting dissatisfied. Even hardcore

If I leave my personal emotions "off" and read what Virtuali wrote, I must honestly admit that lots what he wrote is simply already happening. So I don´t see any negative or positive in this reaction.

Of course we have this luxury. And of course I will also try several times a year how MSFS handles new things and how some fixes work. 

And of course, the ONLY thing which keeps me of MSFS right now is at least VR and a complex plane.

After these are in I will try again. So for me his examples fits. And I think I am not alone with this.

For the present it is P3D for me. But in a year or so this CAN change.....not MUST but CAN.

And exactly this is what developers, who CAN not do both, bothers now.

There is a big IF (WILL there be a workaround for issues? Will there be complexity within one year? WILL there be GSX interacting with Planes like within P3D? WILL there be more performance? Will there be better ATC? Will there be enough engagement to get MSFS at much higher SIMULATION Quality levels? And will the platform grow also in that way), and as long this IF is present it will be some twitter between them both for lot of users, not for me, I stay at P3D as longs this will be the status quo.

Marcus

Edited December 1, 2020 by mpo910

[virtuali 4,421]

14 minutes ago, GSalden said:

By now we all now that you are superpositive about MSFS and negatieve towards P3D...

Why you use the "we" ? If you don't understand what I meant, that doesn't necessarily apply to everybody else. I even concluded with a note of hope for P3D...

 

Quote

At this moment you can fly everything in P3D and in MSFS there are multiple issues with the default aircraft. 

You just made my point. Please re-ready what I wrote, and see why.

 

14 minutes ago, GSalden said:

MS stated that Flight was the future sim. MS dropped FSX and Flightsimming in general from one day to the other. Let’s see if they will finish 10 years of MSFS...

If this really happens, and MS would *again* drop the ball on their simulator ( which happened because of the 2008 financial crisis, because MS was required to lay off someone, today's MS is a completely different company ), chances are LM might *again* license the MSFS engine, which would made our choice of developing with it even more sensible than already is.

Edited December 1, 2020 by virtuali

[mpo910 2,112]

12 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Why you use the "we" ? If you don't understand what I mean, that doesn't necessarily apply to everybody else. I even concluded with a note of hope for P3D...

 

You just made my point. Please re-ready what I wrote, and see why.

 

If this really happens, and MS would *again* drop the ball on their simulator ( which happened because of the 2008 financial crisis, because MS was required to lay off someone, today's MS is a completely different company ), chances are LM might *again* license the engine, which would made our correct choice of developing with it even more sensible that already is.

Yes. exactly that is the way it is.

Look back what happened in just 15 Months:

• 15 months ago there was NO MSFS announcement present
• Then a new announcement has bin made
• MOST of users where very very skeptical about this (TRUST ISSUE)
• Then LOTS of them became Beta testers (where is the TRUST issue now??)
• Lots bought
• 12 Months later even over Million copies have sold. So Sim market has grown as fast NO one did expect 15 months ago
• Now we learn about the pros and cons as a users
• developer learn about pros and cons as a developer
• XBOX is the future....how will this influence the developing priorities at ASOBO? Who knows?
• Those who can not develop what they want or how they want are trying work arounds. THIS COSTS Time
• As long as there is no prediction about the speed and deliverables (projects like complex airliners, etc) this will avoid good taken decisions to go P3D or MSFS if you can not do both

This is al happened within 15 months. Now someone should tell me where we are in +12 months from now?

Based on what would a dev decide?

For now income counts and therefor MSFS counts more...as there are lots of new things to be done and users willing to buy.

I think I got the point and hopefully others would see this too....someday 

Marcus

Edited December 1, 2020 by mpo910

[GSalden 4,657]

12 minutes ago, mpo910 said:

If I leave my personal emotions "off" and read what Virtuali wrote, I must honestly admit that lots what he wrote is simply already happening. So I don´t see any negative or positive in this reaction.

Of course we have this luxury. And of course I will also try several times a year how MSFS handles new things and how some fixes work. 

And of course, the ONLY thing which keeps me of MSFS right now is at least VR and a complex plane.

After these are in I will try again. So for me his examples fits. And I think I am not alone with this.

For the present it is P3D for me. But in a year or so this CAN change.....not MUST but CAN.

And exactly this is what developers, who CAN not do both, bothers now.

There is a big IF (WILL there be a workaround for issues? Will there be complexity within one year? WILL there be GSX interacting with Planes like within P3D? WILL there be more performance? Will there be better ATC? Will there be enough engagement to get MSFS at much higher SIMULATION Quality levels? And will the platform grow also in that way), and as long this IF is present it will be some twitter between them both for lot of users, not for me, I stay at P3D as longs this will be the status quo.

Marcus

We only have what we have now and seeing what the updates caused instead of only solved is not a good sign to what way MSFS is heading ...

Within a short time I will be able to fly MSFS with my Prosim 737 NG which is running outside the app and therefore will not suffer from those outside view stutters.

But most people have the instruments onscreen and therefore the faster you fly the more stuttering you will see. 
Add a PMDG/FsLabs ac to it....

The first few months with vids I was very exited, At release I thought that it would be better . Now I see it’s going backwards, like many others are posting about that at Avsim and the official MSFS forums...

Ar this moment MS/Asobo showed that it is too much to handle for them..

All those “ I am sure that it will all be fixed and good” is fading away on the forums...

 

[mpo910 2,112]

11 minutes ago, GSalden said:

We only have what we have now and seeing what the updates caused instead of only solved is not a good sign to what way MSFS is heading ...

Within a short time I will be able to fly MSFS with my Prosim 737 NG which is running outside the app and therefore will not suffer from those outside view stutters.

But most people have the instruments onscreen and therefore the faster you fly the more stuttering you will see. 
Add a PMDG/FsLabs ac to it....

The first few months with vids I was very exited, At release I thought that it would be better . Now I see it’s going backwards, like many others are posting about that at Avsim and the official MSFS forums...

Ar this moment MS/Asobo showed that it is too much to handle for them..

All those “ I am sure that it will all be fixed and good” is fading away on the forums...

 

Thanks for your reply.

But your point: "....like many others are posting about that at Avsim....". is a good one to catch.

These numbers are nothing compared to the total amount of users! Most of them don´t use AVSIM and MSFS forum.

1 million sold copies. Let 50% use the MSFS sim. Still those numbers are much much higher and therefore very valid from a developer point of view.....at least for the next x months! 

Users are there, present,. MOST of them believe in MSFS. XBOX will come too and will push further user growth.

This revenue MUST a developer use to "survive".

What happens in long term is not clear. But that is exactly what virtuali wrote. (AKA "At the moment" / "for now")

With the release of MSFS the "real simmers" have lost on track due the fact the newcomers are way way more users compared to us "real simmers". At the moment we are not interesting enough for some 3th party.

And that will last at least the upcoming quarter/half year.

Marcus 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by mpo910

[d.tsakiris 418]

1 hour ago, virtuali said:

While users can change their mind instantly, and switch to another simulator very quickly

Don't know if that's true for all of us. Lots of simmers have very elaborate set-ups, making it time-consuming and expensive to switch sims. It's for this reason that I - and I'm sure a lot of others as well - only maintain one sim. The one that best fits our needs.

What P3D needs, in my opinion, is a manual downloader of freeware photo and AG sceneries. Start the program, choose the region, download, start the sim and fly. Something similar to FSET, but downloading pre-compiled scenery files, which are distributed BitTorrent-like across the users computers. That would be swell... okay, enough daydreaming.

[JoeFackel 760]

I often hear about this "one million copies sold", but don't let us forget this also includes AFAIK also the Gamepass users who get i for free (more or less). Only a fraction can be called as users of it.

Take all these numbers with a grain of salt. Heck, Steam says i used MSFS for over 115 hours but i maybe have flown 5 or 6 of them until Update 3 broke it beyond repair, the other hours are just failed attempts to reinstall it.

[GSalden 4,657]

1 minute ago, mpo910 said:

Thanks for your reply.

But your point: "....like many others are posting about that at Avsim....". is a good one to catch.

These numbers are nothing compared to the total amount of users! Most of them don´t use AVSIM and MSFS forum.

1 million sold copies. Let 50% use the MSFS sim. Still those numbers are much much higher and therefore very valid from a developer point of view.....at least for the next x months! 

Users are there, present,. MOST of them believe in MSFS. XBOX will come too and will push further user growth.

This revenue MUST a developer use to "survive".

What happens in long term is not clear. But that is exactly what virtuali wrote. (AKA "At the moment" / "for now")

With the release of MSFS the "real simmers" have lost on track due the fact the newcomers are way way more user them "we real simmers".

And that will last at least the upcoming quarter/half year.

Marcus 

 

 

What Addon developers do is up to them. Talking negative about a sim where you gained your money from for years is the point.

In those 1 million copies sold most were  $ 1 trial game pass users and $ 5 for 2 months trial game pass users.

And MS has stated that not only there will be freeware updates like we have now, but also payware updates will be coming.

If the base is not working correctly would you buy updates ?

- - - 

Regarding streaming PR tiles : there is a software and hardware limit on the speed it can be loaded into MSFS. And that we see with jetliners (stutters).

TileProxy was the first App using PR tiles and the limit was 80-120 knots ....

[mpo910 2,112]

5 minutes ago, GSalden said:

What Addon developers do is up to them. Talking negative about a sim where you gained your money from for years is the point.

In those 1 million copies sold most were  $ 1 trial game pass users and $ 5 for 2 months trial game pass users.

And MS has stated that not only there will be freeware updates like we have now, but also payware updates will be coming.

If the base is not working correctly would you buy updates ?

- - - 

Regarding streaming PR tiles : there is a software and hardware limit on the speed it can be loaded into MSFS. And that we see with jetliners (stutters).

TileProxy was the first App using PR tiles and the limit was 80-120 knots ....

I don´t see him really negative writing. Also not really positive....but it´s ok.

Of course, I know about game pass. 

But, be honest, why devs hop to MSFS. Simple, they sell more then before. 

Do I like this? I would be very neutral as long as it is not clear how markets will settle.

I bought exactly 2 Addons for MSFS and the last 3 months 15 for P3D. 

I will not buy for a sim which base does not function proper for my needs. 

Marcus  

[mpo910 2,112]

4 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm still having a hard time believing PUB sold 42 Million copies in about 3 years.  And Minecraft at 33 Million with it's very limited visuals.  And then we had Diablo III at 20 Million sold but Blizzard decided that wasn't enough sales to do Diablo IV for the PC?  Yikes!

Ortho4XP for P3D? 

Cheers, Rob.

Is autogen working or is there a simple usable solution for it? Like XEurope for X Plane?

As it is now, it is to much work for me.

I spent weeks on X Plane to have the whole WORLD in Ortho......

Marcus