Water Masks - Comparison

[Shack95 2,658]

8 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I just feel we are not getting the complete truth now.  They made an excuse a few months ago that Bing updated the masks when it was high tide without them realising, so the water masks changed and the textures went missing. 
Can this really happen?  Do the tides really make the water lose all of its texture in the Bahamas etc?  

 As far as I remember that was just an example. They didn‘t say it affected the whole world. It was just about Arcachon Bay. I have no idea why the masks are gone but I‘m sure there‘s a good reason. That said, I agree that the communication in this regard hasn’t been the best.

Anyway, they said in the q&a that it’s only a matter of days till the next water mask update will be out and that it will contain all the masks shown in the videos so the problem might be solved in a few days. 

[Dominique_K 10,149]

23 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

 Do the tides really make the water lose all of its texture in the Bahamas etc?  

.  Corporate machinations again maybe  🙁

I doubt that  it makes a difference in the Bahamas where  the tidal amplitude is low and even more in French Polynesia  where it is quasi-inexistant. It would make a huge difference though in the Westerm coast of mainland France (Mt St Michel !) or I suppose in the British isles. 

No corporation machination. We start from the premise that they listen to what we say. We are now quite a few to think that we might be a little optimistic in this regard. 

 

 

[DylanM 1,069]

1 minute ago, Shack95 said:

Anyway, they said in the q&a that it’s only a matter of days till the next water mask update will be out and that it will contain all the masks shown in the videos so the problem might be solved in a few days. 

Here's hoping. They had also alluded to a list / gps coordinates of updated areas with masks, so rolling this out soon through data updates will go a long way in allaying concerns.

[ivng 57]

I definitely bought the sim because of promo videos.

Was dissapointed when things didn't look the same in game (especially lack of reefs).  Felt cheated, then calmed down by reading this forum - understood this is expected given strategy for long term development.  Glad to see others think the videos are misleading and that it's normal to expect things to be as advertised.

Was also dissapointed by the world map, but that one's on me.  The ads and pre-release chatter made it seem that the world map would be souped-up Bing.  I remember thinking to myself: "it will be amazing to explore world map in-game given engagement of all the hardware resources as compared to in-browser viewing - should be an amazing Bing experience".  What we got instead is a grey blob with hardware resources preoccupied with rendering border of the screen (hangar in in the background).

As mentioned, this is completely my own fault for making assumptions, but I'm just an average consumer and my decision to 'get into this' was influenced heavily by the marketing campaign.  We all ended up buying a thing that's different from demo videos.

[Noooch 1,084]

@ChaoticBeauty I strongly suggest you post a comparison thread on the official forums for the next Q&A when the voting system will be in place again in January.

Unfortunately this is the only chance we have to be heard by them and truly make a difference.

[CFIJose 5,485]

This is how class action lawsuits get started. We have been sold a lie. 😀

Edited November 29, 2020 by DJJose

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Found Samoa and Timor Sea! Latter was a bit of a challenge as searching for the name did not turn in anything specific. Rewarding though, as the area looks great in the Bing Maps app. Not too bad in-game, but could have looked better with proper water masks...

I believe that's all for the Oceania trailer now. Will move on to the next trailer when possible.

9 minutes ago, Noooch said:

@ChaoticBeauty I strongly suggest you post a comparison thread on the official forums for the next Q&A when the voting system will be in place again in January.

Unfortunately this is the only chance we have to be heard by them and truly make a difference.

I have the feeling this won't do much. Even with the last Q&A where the relevant inquiry was one of the top-voted threads, Jayne asked the question and we got a response which appears to have been dishonest now. But if the water masks are yet to be implemented two months later, I will definitely be posting those comparisons in the forums so that more people can realise the severity of the situation.

[scotchegg 4,186]

Apparently the last Q&A session said an update to watermasks would be pushed out to servers over the following days:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/water-masking-its-just-so-beautiful/127979/156

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Hopefully they will let us know if/when this update is released and which areas are updated. Either way I will be checking Oceania again next weekend.

[DaWu 779]

False advertising nothing else. 

[bobcat999 8,483]

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

Apparently the last Q&A session said an update to watermasks would be pushed out to servers over the following days:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/water-masking-its-just-so-beautiful/127979/156

Yes, it would be great if they published the map they talked about as well.  Then we could go and find them. 

[captain420 3,099]

Does anyone know if the Hawaiian islands are suppose to have water masks?

[BijanStudio 896]

26 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Does anyone know if the Hawaiian islands are suppose to have water masks?

Some parts of hawaii did have it but now they are gone.

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

The overall impression I got (without any real evidence) was they mistakenly thought they could just do the water masks automatically but got that badly wrong and are now stuck slowly manually adding the masks one area at a time and it is going to take forever.  i suspect part of the issue with the original "automatic" system is the height data in tidal regions is going to be all over the place.

The other potentially related issue I am seeing is in areas like Australian East coast where they seem to  have added some masks manually, the beach waves breaking onto the sand are actually frozen.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[scotchegg 4,186]

7 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Apparently the last Q&A session said an update to watermasks would be pushed out to servers over the following days:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/water-masking-its-just-so-beautiful/127979/156

 

Sorry, I was just quoting a post on the official forum but now having had the time to listen to what Seb said, he could simply have meant updating the watermasks just takes a few days, not that it would be the next few days. Anyway, it seems like there are a couple of bugs to fix first but then it would be a backend data push rather than a sim update.

Having listened to him myself I'm not sure if this really is a quick bug fix and data push or he's just describing it with typical Gallic nonchalance:)