4 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yes, it can of course, but you have to admit that putting 'M$' is hardly the way to get that over. Be as critical as you like, nothing wrong with that, but you surely must be aware that you catch more stuff with honey than you do with vinegar.

I like the metaphor, approve the concept, and will reuse it.

I also think that sometimes some vinegar is needed when something is going the wrong way and too many people around you say it is alright. 

A.

1 minute ago, ADamiani said:

sometimes some vinegar is needed

Yup, especially on fish and chips. 👍

15 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

The principle remains valid: it's payware, not freeware, so we expect some quality standards and promises should be kept.

OMG, when I think about how much $$ I spent trying to paint lipstick on Prepar3D, it seems like what I paid for MSFS borders on freeware!  And then there are the World Scenery Updates, just go fly around Japan in case you've forgotten (not you Adamiani in particular, just anyone who forgets just what they got for the money).  The irony for me is I have disabled almost everything in P3D so it will perform well using the PMDG birds.  I still enjoy P3D, but trying to make to mimic our world is a waste of time and $$, save good 3rd party airports.  

As I see the actual promises are:

1. We're going to release MSFS on Xbox!
2. It's a 10y project!
3. We won't leave hardcore simmers behind!

So far, in the context of all of this, I don't think they've broken a single promise!!!

7 hours ago, Noel said:

OMG, when I think about how much $$ I spent trying to paint lipstick on Prepar3D, it seems like what I paid for MSFS borders on freeware!  And then there are the World Scenery Updates, just go fly around Japan in case you've forgotten (not you Adamiani in particular, just anyone who forgets just what they got for the money).  The irony for me is I have disabled almost everything in P3D so it will perform well using the PMDG birds.  I still enjoy P3D, but trying to make to mimic our world is a waste of time and $$, save good 3rd party airports.  

As I see the actual promises are:

1. We're going to release MSFS on Xbox!
2. It's a 10y project!
3. We won't leave hardcore simmers behind!

So far, in the context of all of this, I don't think they've broken a single promise!!!

As I see the actual promises are:

1. We're going to release MSFS on Xbox!
2. It's a 10y project, WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS!
3. We won't leave hardcore simmers behind!

So far, in the context of all of this, I think they've broken the most important promise: SU5 was a definite downgrade, and after it the product is unstable on many PCs.

A.

26 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

As I see the actual promises are:

1. We're going to release MSFS on Xbox!
2. It's a 10y project, WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS!
3. We won't leave hardcore simmers behind!

So far, in the context of all of this, I think they've broken the most important promise: SU5 was a definite downgrade, and after it the product is unstable on many PCs.

A.

Now wait a minute, they never promised every update was going to excell over the last update.  Yes, SU5 was not all good (compared to SU4 it was mostly as you mentioned a disaster) but it wasn't all bad either.  Somehow they managed to reduce VRAM and SysRAM use by a good 30% and IMO IQ did not deteriorate to the tune of 30%, in fact LOD and trees now are much better it seems to me.  It's such a mega challenge the entire project I give them a A rating thusfar, but that is because I see it is a long project. Yes, there has been and will be fits and starts at this stage of development, but it's moving at a very fast pace and that is the main thing to focus on.  So far IMM all of this was highly predictable with the dual-platform port and struggles on how to do it well.   So once again, try to be patient.  There are actually many improvements that came in SU5, and a lot of problems as well, but as I say def not all bad.

Omg,  the drama.  /cue up the Veruca Salt,  "I want my Sim now,  daddy!" vibes.

It's like there is no life outside the Sim,  and Asobo shouldn't be treated like hard working people with good intentions.  Better to leap to conclusions,   and make accusations.   You might find that  bs welcome in the gaming community,    but not so much by simmers.  

20 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

Omg,  the drama.  /cue up the Veruca Salt,  "I want my Sim now,  daddy!" vibes.

It's like there is no life outside the Sim,  and Asobo shouldn't be treated like hard working people with good intentions.  Better to leap to conclusions,   and make accusations.   You might find that  bs welcome in the gaming community,    but not so much by simmers.  

I kindly ask you not to patronize me. The "I want my Sim now" stuff is totally unnecessary and insulting. And don't make me say things I never said. What is welcome or not in the simmers community depends on what is going on.

In case you didn't notice, the hard working people with good intentions pushed a broken update which was actually a downgrade. A lot of people are getting random ctd's that make it impossible to enjoy the sim. Should we talk about this in a Fishing Forum, or in a Flight Simulation Forum?

As usual, not having anything to say about the sim, people prefer to talk about other people. 

A.

2 hours ago, Noel said:

.........  There are actually many improvements that came in SU5, and a lot of problems as well, but as I say def not all bad.

This is how you see it, but it depends on where you were before. On my system, after SU4, MSFS was stable (no ctd, not even once) and graphically great, with good fps in the areas where I like to fly. Not all sliders to the right, but a very, VERY good compromise. So, well done on ASOBO.

Well done even if water was not wonderful, with strange coastal artifacts here and there, meteo was not great, ATC was laughable, stock liners were mediocre to nonexistent (thanks FBW for an enjoyable 320), flightmodels were approximate, allowing you to load a wing like it will never break and never stall. All this was easily forgotten by me, thinking of the many positive aspects and the general direction toward making the sim better in time.

Exactly when I started to enjoy VFR flights again, like in the days of Flight Unlimited II, here goes SU5: the graphics are heavily downgraded, and the whole thing becomes an unstable mess.

Even if they knew that SU5 was a disaster, with a mandatory update they took away the best vfr sim I had ever seen in 40 years. That it happened exactly when I had programmed my first 10 days off in 18 months from a job that keeps me busy 7/7 and leaves me less than an hour a day for my hobbies, is just an unfortunate coincidence.

Does it make sense?

A.

 

On 8/9/2021 at 6:24 PM, enright said:

After playing the XBOX version, anyone that says Asobo is designing the application with a "console first' mentality is out of their mind.

The XBOX version is a technical masterpiece, but it is obviously an application that was designed for a PC and ported to consoles. The UI requires you to move a cursor over a little "X" in the top right corner of many of the menus to close them. The camera system and many system functions require more button combos than most of the super-secret fatality moves in mortal kombat - those same functions are a single key on a PC keyboard. Even basic flight control can be quite frustrating with a gamepad - I immediately wanted to hook up a mouse, keyboard, and flight-stick.

I also found myself wondering how the average "gamer" would react to the experience since it isn't much of a game - just as on the PC, it's a simulator. There's little to no instant gratification or reward system - you have to invest time to get some enjoyment out of it. In other words - they absolutely did not "dumb it down" and develop a basic "MS Flight" type of experience for XBOX, and then port that to the PC. They developed a fairly hardcore PC simulator, and ported that same advanced experience to the XBOX.

They did pretty much exactly what everyone on this forum (myself included) hoped they would do.

Because of all of this - if you have an older PC and can't afford a $3,000 gaming rig, or if you are somewhat tiered of dealing with drivers and OS Updates - an XBOX Series X is a great option, as long as you hook up a mouse, keyboard and flight stick.

Final thing to note: the sim looks absolutely stunning on an OLED TV screen - makes it hard to go back to a LED monitor, even thought he PC experience is far better (VR, etc..). LG / Sony need an affordable <= 40 inch OLED PC monitor option. The improvement in quality is so drastic, it offsets some of the downsides (e.g. long-term burn-in risk, etc...).

Asobo has no platform preference.   There are not really the type of team to get into the PC/console kid war.     

8 hours ago, Tierborn said:

Asobo has no platform preference.   There are not really the type of team to get into the PC/console kid war.     

Who said that? Besides, there is no "kid war" going on.

Asobo, or more accurately Microsoft, have commercial interests. That's all.

I hope (and I think WE should hope) that the PC part will be commercially relevant. So relevant that they will maintain two (slightly) different versions for the two platforms.

That's all.

A.

2 hours ago, ADamiani said:

I hope (and I think WE should hope) that the PC part will be commercially relevant. So relevant that they will maintain two (slightly) different versions for the two platforms.

That's all.

A.

I think everyone can agree with these sentiments.  While I agree this is not really assured, after all the plug could be pulled at any time, I just see all indicators suggesting otherwise, so I remain a step or two higher than hopeful, to very promising.  After all, they certainly know how to do this and SU4 was a tipoff of that.  In fact, were I an oddsmaker today I would give maybe 8:1 odds in favor of supporting Win 10 PC at least to the point of exploiting the hardware differences, if not an SDK at least as robust as P3D's as that relates to desktop simmers. 

17 hours ago, ADamiani said:

As I see the actual promises are:

1. We're going to release MSFS on Xbox!
2. It's a 10y project, WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS!
3. We won't leave hardcore simmers behind!

So far, in the context of all of this, I think they've broken the most important promise: SU5 was a definite downgrade, and after it the product is unstable on many PCs.

A.

So bloody dramatic.  They released a major performance update that went a bit too far for some PC users and introduced a raft of new bugs - probably due to the magnitude of the code changes.  They are already working on fixing those bugs.

Yes, it was a "downgrade" for some people, yes that is unfortunate, and yes I understand anyone not pleased with that since the updates are mandatory.  But beyond that, people really need to get a grip with the broad proclamations about how "it's back to game status", or "Aha! They only cared about Xbox all along!" or "bwoken pwomises!" and childish nonsense like that.

Asobo are probably operating on timelines that aren't entirely of their own preference or design since they aren't the publisher.  They are already hard at work on fixing the issues introduced by the update, which if nothing else demonstrates that they are indeed ISSUES, and not unearthed proof that they really only care about little Billy and his Xbox.

They ported a sim to a console.  They backported impressive performance optimizations made for that venture to PC, which had some unintended consequences.  Beyond that basic reality, people really need to get off the soapbox with the broad declarations.

Bugs are a reality of game development these days.  P3D is far more "mature" software than MSFS is and has been iterated upon for years, and their major version updates STILL cause headaches for large numbers of people if the P3D forum here is any indication.  The only major difference is that the updates are mandatory for MSFS, so you can't just rollback and wait, which exacerbates the impotent rage.

6 hours ago, ADamiani said:

Asobo, or more accurately Microsoft, have commercial interests. That's all.

Based on watching interviews with the team, I have come to believe that they have both passion and pride in their project... 😉

Yes, SU5 broke some things for some people..  On my rig, SU5 is actually stable, and once I increased the LOD sliders to 200, the scenery is pretty good again, and the performance increase most welcome.. so I am optimistic 🙂

25 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Based on watching interviews with the team, I have come to believe that they have both passion and pride in their project... 😉

Yes, SU5 broke some things for some people..  On my rig, SU5 is actually stable, and once I increased the LOD sliders to 200, the scenery is pretty good again, and the performance increase most welcome.. so I am optimistic 🙂

I'd leave the passion and pride on the ASOBO side and all the rest on the MS side.

Guess who pumps in the money, and consequently takes decisions?

A.

11 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

Guess who pumps in the money, and consequently takes decisions?

I understand that, and have lived through MS cancelling FSXI and subsequently cancelling MS Flight... so yes, they call the shots and can pull the plug.  For now, I am going with the "glass half full" view of MSFS 🙂