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MSFS Crosses Two Million+ Players

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1 hour ago, Janov said:

I would like to warn anyone to think that XP12 will look better or even on par with MSFS - LR has neither the manpower, resources or data to achieve that. It will look a lot better than XP11, but it will not leapfrog MSFS.

Well would be naive to expect X-Plane 12 to have the same graphics as MSFS and for their defense, I honestly don't think X-Plane 11 graphics is bad comparing it to P3D/FSX. However, If they would just really bring us is an advanced weather system and volumetric clouds, I would be really super happy. I think Ben in the X-Plane dev blog mentioned that they are already working in these and Vulcan was just the first step.

Also I proposed in that feedback website in regards on-fly-ortho, if they just allow dynamic loading of orthos without the need of restarting the sim, that by itself is a big win and pretty sure Oscar and the other folks of orthos4xp can somehow add the streaming feature for ortho4xp that can work with X-Plane (of course won't be perfect like MSFS but something better than nothing).

 

Anyway, the future of simming looks bright either for X-Plane or MSFS :).

 

Beste Grüße,

Omar 

Edited by omarsmak30
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AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 64GB DDR5 6000MHZ RAM, RTX 2080Super 

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- The steam data is excellent for looking at trends.

- the 2 million number is pretty useless as the sim is on gamepass. 

- Steam msfs concurrent users down 59.82% since september., but interestingly the number is decreasing each month still (down another 5% in the last month).

- this is not what asobo would want to see - this is supposed to be a 10-year project, so they would be hoping for a slow but steady increase in the active player base. 

- keep an eye on that downward trend over the coming months. If it continues, it may be an issue given the large dev team assigned to this project (x-plane has less steam users, but also many less devs who need to be paid!)

 

 

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Oz

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Let’s all celebrate that our niche hobby has now produced the fastest selling simulator of all time!  I know some want to pan it, but it is impressive and clearly shows that MS will be in it for the long haul, especially since it is a showcase for their Azure technology. 

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4 hours ago, Janov said:

Note that I wrote "depth" not "graphics" or "performance".

Good try, but, what you wrote was 'I think the "depth" of FSX was a lot deeper (even 3 months into its life)'. (my underscoring). I think that's a bit of a stretch to say the least.

Note too, that I made no mention of graphics at all in my comment concerning both sims upon or near-after release, all I referred to was that FSX wasn't performing well until it had four major patches - one of which was literally eight years after its initial release - not forgetting the recompiling it underwent at that time too.  It's also difficult to claim that FSX had greater depth at that point in terms of content compared to the more recent MSFS. But let's examine and consider this:

While both feature worldwide airports and scenery, this is of an order of magnitude far greater than that of its predecessor for MSFS as we know. More crucially and beyond this however, there is a built-in real-time scenery editor in the more recent simulator offering which is easy to use, as evidenced by the explosion of freeware efforts we've seen in the past three months and the extremely rapid appearance of a multitude of payware airport offerings, most of which can easily utilise the export option from Blender (etc) to compile extant 3D models in a suitable format for MSFS.

But leaving scenery aside, both FSX and MSFS have lessons, trials, missions, challenges etc, and whilst certainly different from one another, for both sims these do have merit so I'd say honours were even on that score. Likewise, both have multiplayer capability which is somewhat improved in MSFS, however, despite the fact that there are a few more 'controller' options in FSX, it wasn't until FSX-SE's release in 2014 that stability issues were finally put to bed in terms of multiplayer, so I think I'd score that one 50/50 to be fair.

Built-in ATC is somewhat improved in the more recent offering, not by very much, but it is an improvement nonetheless, so that slightly edges it, if not by very much. Built-in weather appears to be a bit hit and miss regionally in MSFS; personally I've found it to be pretty accurate myself (in Europe), although this is not everyone's experience in the US it seems, and it's difficult to compare this to the default FSX weather since pretty much everyone ditches that for a TPD option as far as I'm aware, and there is now this option for MSFS too, so despite the fact that the cloud depiction and lighting is vastly better visually in MSFS, let's score that one even.

Whilst both feature lots of aeroplanes of various types and in various liveries, no default FSX aeroplane featured a flight management computer whereas many of them do in MSFS. Having said that, FSX does have choppers (albeit featuring the flight modeling which was dumbed down a bit from its better and more tricky original FS98 depiction), and it has gliders too. In fairness, I think this does indeed mean there is a more interesting variety of default aeroplanes in FSX. Notwithstanding the lack of functional FMCs in FSX which was a major omissions from the default jets, I would still give this aspect of variety to FSX simply because of the inclusion of jet fighters, choppers, old prop aeroplanes and such, which is indeed a greater and more interesting variety than what we see in MSFS.

A built-in patching system, a built-in marketplace for scenery, aeroplanes and such, varied purchasing options and an optional subscription-based ownership choice, plus the shortly-forthcoming XBox capability too, offer much wider accessibility, appeal, serviceability and expandability than is/was the case for FSX, and this is undeniably something which has been a catalyst for a large uptake since release. It's true that FSX, in its SE iteration of 2014 via Steam has done much to wider its appeal but this was eight years after the initial release of FSX, and since MSFS is also available via that platform as well as all the other aforementioned options for access and expansion, I think this one is a score for MSFS in terms of depth and variety and certainly for patching.

To be fair on this last point, there have been some patching glitches for sure, but one look at the notable lack of forum threads on tweaking this and that setting (affinity, 3Gb switch, and so on) in MSFS to gain FPS or prevent BSoD etc, when compared to what was the case for FSX with these topics being a regular forum feature for literally over a decade, is in itself quite telling. And this isn't even mentioning how much more the new sim leverages modern hardware, yet ,manages to look good on even a modest computer.

So in conclusion, I think the only major tipping point in terms of FSX having possibly more depth upon release, is the variety of aeroplanes and the glaring omission of choppers and gliders in MSFS. There is a TPD glider on the way very soon,  a regional jet and a couple of old prop aeroplanes, so this gap is narrowing, albeit if you open your wallet. Beyond this point to argue, I think it is a fallacy to suggest that MSFS lacks depth in comparing it to other sims, particularly when comparing like-for-like at the point where they'd been out on sale for three months or so.

 

Edited by Chock
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Alan Bradbury

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There is no proper context to the statistics in most cases. A few people noted a few things that were interesting. It actually doesn't tell us much, since we don't know how much MSFS is actually making and the only thing that matters is the bottom line (or at least multiple bottom lines of how multiple things are interacting), and you won't find that out unless the game were a big enough piece of the overall pie for them to include it in one of their stock updates or one of the professional broker reports.

I would guess that the game will be successful enough over the long-term due to all the 3PD purchasing activity combining with the low cost of running these servers. It is however only a guess, and people continue to speculate in here like they "are in the know", but we are all guessing. It's not expensive at all to do what they are doing, Xplane has plenty of resources to do it as well (most any even small company does), the problem isn't the servers or Azure or any of that stuff, the problem is the complexity of the Orthoimagery (hence color correcting and texturing over it like Asobo did). Well, Asobo didn't really color-correct it fully, but they used tricks to hide the issues (detail texturing on top). It can be done by a smaller company and similar things have been done by small gaming companies before, but the problem is you need the right people, regardless of how small the team is. Right now, Xplane doesn't have the right people, but they have been at least attempting to increase their artistry abilities.

Like others though, actually using orthoimagery (since NAIP isn't great), would be a hard task to collaborate from all the different sources unless they made a deal with Google (and as pointed out isn't very likely). As far as live streaming the data, that is not difficult in the grand scheme of things and that is NOT the issue. People keep repeating that it is some huge hurdle, games stream all kinds of stuff and have been for years. Streaming ortho into a game is just not a big deal at all, having the Ortho setup and having your textures working to look halfway decent is the real battle and labor cost. Asobo was a game dev company, Xplane is not. I still hold out hope however, as having 2 good looking sims is better than 1.

I'm not sure Xplane's answer is Orthoimagery, they could also try to use regular Landclass textures. The problem is they'd have to do it in a cutting edge way, and that takes a long time, but the technology is kind of there (mostly) to do it if you are cutting edge. Landclass can eventually re-pass up how Ortho currently looks, but to do so again requires cutting-edge techniques and the mtns will be the issue (but I've seen it done in some things where it can look good, even procedurally generated mtns).

Just because it can be done good by a few people, doesn't mean enough people know how to do something good, which is the core of the problem in graphics and artistry. Sure it can be done, but who can do it at that same quality, that is why people in VFX and gaming industry go with names they know and recognize instead of hiring outsiders where quality is an unknown factor. This unknown factor is what Xplane is and will continue to be for a while, whether or not they can solve it remains to be seen.

 

Edited by Alpine Scenery

AMD 5800x | Nvidia 3080 (12gb) | 64gb ram

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These numbers are great overall for a flight sim.

Yes, there is a decline in player retention and that's an issue with every game. DCS suffers a lot with player retention due to the complexity.

We will see big spikes when VR and X-box versions hit. And we will see a spike when helicopters hit and they might have other plans too that we don't know about.

Player retention usually improves over the life of a product as the developers get better at retaining and incentivizing players to stay.

And MSFS has the best chance for any flight sim to retain it's userbase with its built in marketplace and server streaming features.

And someone said it's all about the bottom line and this is just marketing.

That's not true at all. Marketing matters immensely. Even if MSFS only breaks even for MS, it will still be a success. It's advertising Azure, Bing Maps, Gamepass and the new Xbox. That is worth more than paying $60 for the sim.

It's a halo product in that sense and will drive business for Microsoft beyond just the title.

Just focusing on declining concurrent users on Steam is so incredibly shortsighted and misses out on the true reach and ROI.

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FSX | DCS | X-Plane 11 | MSFS 2020 | IL2:BoX

Favorite aircraft currently: MSFS Savage Cub

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4 hours ago, BigDee said:

I bought FSX in 2008 and it was a great product. No errors and no problems at all. I seriously don`t know to what you are referring to when you talk about 8 years. At that time there was long ago no Aces Studio any more existing. In 2008 to 2009 when I used to play FSX I didn`t experience any problems. It was a solid product. So point 2  - 8 years - is senseless.

Try reading my post again, and actually pay attention to what it was responding too and what I wrote in relation to that. But in case you can't be bothered, I'll help you out... For a kick off, if you bought FSX in 2008 as you say, FSX had been out for TWO YEARS at the point you purchased it (it originally went on sale in October 2006), so it had been patched twice and tweaked again for the inclusion of an expansion by the time you bought it, i.e. it was not the version which came out in 2006, nor was it like that three months after its release date either.

The following year after its initial release, (May 2007), FSX received its first patch (SP1) which addressed numerous issues including content glitches and errors, tweaks to autogen multithreading, plus several issues with some TPD stuff which had come out by then. It also addressed some problems with purchasers being unable to activate their product, which had required you to make a (very convoluted) phone call.

Six months after SP1 came out, MS released SP2 which further tweaked and sorted out some graphics problems and some multiplayer issues. At around the same time as SP2 was issued, the expansion for FSX (named Acceleration) was released (late 2007). This incorporated SP1 and SP2, but it was a necessary purchase if you wanted to use some add-ons which required the expanded engine modeling parameters which were added to FSX for the included P-51 racers in the Acceleration package. So if you wanted for example, the A2A Accusim B-17, you needed to purchase the Acceleration expansion in order for it to work since that made use of the Acceleration engine modeling features not in the original sim versions, nor in the service packs.

There were some other problems with this expansion too, notably the fact that one of the bugs, which occurs only in the Standard Edition, is that the Maule Air Orion aircraft used in a mission has missing gauges and other issues, because it was a default aeroplane only in the Deluxe Version of FSX. Following this, there were a series of different 'bundles' available both on disk and as digital downloads, although there are some problems with the digital download versions (which is why I and many others like me have ended up buying FSX quite a few times - three times in my case). Some issues continued in multiplayer between people with Acceleration and people without it, or various patches, and this wasn't really sorted out until 2014, when Dovetail stepped into the ring.

If you've managed to read this far, here what the 'eight years' bit was referring to: In December 2014 (yes, that's eight years after the initial release of FSX), Dovetail Games released FSX Steam Edition. This included the following: All the content from the original Deluxe Edition, all the content from the Acceleration expansion pack/both official Service Packs plus some of the more well known unofficial 'tweaks'. It also uses Steam's multiplayer since the original FSX used Gamespy, which no longer exists. Other tweaks included improved stability on more recent versions of Windows OS and minor performance tweaks including a complete recompile using Microsoft's Visual Studio version 2013, which I'm sure even you will notice from that name, was not around in 2008 when you bought FSX.

So, effectively it took eight years for FSX to reach its present SE iteration, and it took approximately the same amount of time for FSL to develop an Airbus A320 for it, not least because many people (for several years) were claiming it was impossible for FSX to actually support the complexity of the A320 (until FSL proved everyone wrong). Is that all clear enough for you?

 

Edited by Chock
forum glitch typos

Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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6 minutes ago, Slides said:

That's not true at all. Marketing matters immensely. Even if MSFS only breaks even for MS, it will still be a success. It's advertising Azure, Bing Maps, Gamepass and the new Xbox. That is worth more than paying $60 for the sim.

It's a halo product in that sense and will drive business for Microsoft beyond just the title.

Just focusing on declining concurrent users on Steam is so incredibly shortsighted and misses out on the true reach and ROI.

I said "or how multiple bottom lines interact", so yah it is true in that sense. 

I agree however that the statistics don't tell us much, would have to study them longer and know more, but don't have time to worry about it (nor the care).

Right now, I consider MSFS a success as far as market reach, it appears to be doing fine. As far as technical issues, well that's a mixed bag, but hoping it improves.

I obviously think it is going to work or I wouldn't have just spent 150 hours correcting the entire Eastern US for elevation errors 🙂
Asobo could break all my work in just one patch or one update, that's the cruddy part, but I love the Eastern US scenery so I did it partly because I felt like those blobs of errors were messing up my enjoyment of the game.
Still a ways to go, but I am much more pleased with the game once I got some of those elevation errors out of my face, since I now mostly fly in the EASTERN US.

But yes there are some serious issues, like Asobo breaking the DEM with all these elevation errors (or malfunctioning autopilots), but at least they also gave us a way to correct it (though I sometimes wonder if that might be a little sadistic).

 

Edited by Alpine Scenery

AMD 5800x | Nvidia 3080 (12gb) | 64gb ram

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Yup, a few big Azure contracts might be enough for MSFS to break even if they can be attributed back to MSFS being a technology demonstrator for those business use cases.


FSX | DCS | X-Plane 11 | MSFS 2020 | IL2:BoX

Favorite aircraft currently: MSFS Savage Cub

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For most of you it may come as a surprise, but xplane scenery system, is already, for the most part able to compete with MSFS.

look at xplane SDK, also for what features are missing.

xplane has no need in photogrammetry, it already has something that can achieve similar results as facades art assets can take complex 3d shapes out of data, other objects and clutter can be attached to it (stairs, flags, even helipads!), can be PBR, has night lightning effects and animations, and with no mesh artifacts. Pretty much, the only advantage that photogrammetry has over .facs are the actual building colors then again those colors are low res textures mixed with inherited mesh defects.

xplane has no need to stream super detailed meshes out of the box, it still can ship lower res world and then tessellate it.

xplane also does not need orthoimagery as 99% of the baked on-to orthos data is available regardless of imagery and xplane already uses much of it, hence we are only talking about the actual art work.

what xplane DOES need, is a new art team to nuke all of the outdated art assets, open art assets for modern vegetation and another great MSFS feature- ambient sounds.

So they did hire an art team, they have a particle system that if opened to scenery can help in rendering 100x better looking trees than MSFS along with actual scenery effects which MSFS does not have, and they already have FMOD for sounds.

We are yet to see the full potential of xplane's scenery system since it still needs a couple of features (tessellation and compute shaders for terrain textures), but also the transition to Vulkan which gives so much performance even more when they work on multi-threading the simulator. Let's see what there v12 has to offer.

 

 

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😂😂😂

demagoji-nedir.jpg

Edited by OSM
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the Steam charts reminded me when I first looked at reviews on Steam early September right before purchase and saw this:

SNDsUN4.jpg

 

but then later I noticed this about Commander Shepard,......DOH!

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6858761-Commander-Shepard/

And he has 217,000 followers on Steam !

Edited by Fielder

Ryzen5 5800X3D, RTX4070, 600 Watt, TWO Dell S3222DGM 32" screens spanned with Nvidia surround 5185 x 1440p, 32 GB RAM, 4 TB  PCle 3 NVMe, Warthog throttle, CH Flightstick, Honeycomb Alpha yoke, CH quad, 3 Logitech panels, 2 StreamDecks, Desktop Aviator Trim Panel.

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I would say Commander Shepard certainly has experience with computer games and can therefore safely pass recommendations 🙂

And its not like he just recommends every game!

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