7 minutes ago, Chock said:

Well, it's that old chestnut of game vs sim, which as we know is really more about what the user uses something for than the content itself; what someone calls it is largely a matter of pride from people sitting in their basement with their super-authentic Boeing 737 cockpit, who obviously use it to simulate stuff.

More than twenty years ago, I was positive: coming all the way from FS2, FS95 to me was a full fledged Flight Simulator.

Then one day, a training captain invited me for a few hours to one of their company's MD80 Level D simulator.

OMG.

Ok. Game. It 's a game.

As usual, it's a matter of perspective.

A.

10 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

 

If this guy is Lewis (the A2A PR guy), he is an old simmer in spite of his young age and has been in the hobby for years and I believe he knows more about it than you 😋 ! 

I play games for about... 27 years or so? I mean I only dipped a toe in game development, but I would say I know what a good game is and needs, since I played hundreds of them. You also don't even have to develop aircraft or games to know what they features they should have. 

Why would him being an A2A PR guy make him more qualified to talk about missions and other game aspects of MSFS then anyone else?

The only thing he will have more knowledge about is the technical aspect of developing something like that... but even then looking at other developers, he could be very wrong as well.

9 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

More than twenty years ago, I was positive: coming all the way from FS2, FS95 to me was a full fledged Flight Simulator.

Then one day, a training captain invited me for a few hours to one of their company's MD80 Level D simulator.

OMG.

Ok. Game. It 's a game.

As usual, it's a matter of perspective.

A.

Yup. Before I commenced my flight training for real, I read several piloting books from cover to cover, then wrote out my own version of all the content of them in a notebook which was effectively writing my own book on flying, and whilst doing that, knocked up a stick and rudder out of literally a wooden pole and two flat planks which I hinged to a base-board and tensioned with a bungee chord so I could practice coordinated movements of my feet on rudder pedals with the movement of a stick. No visuals of any kind, just an arrangement of bits of wood to get me used to moving my feet in concert with moving a stick. So this was genuinely a simulator I used for training, albeit a really basic one. Evidently all that stuff worked, or at least didn't do any harm,  because I got sent solo after seven hours and fifteen minutes of dual, so If that very unsophisticated training method I used doesn't tell people that you could use a flying game for training, which is far more sophisticated than my heath-robinson training sim, I don't know what would.

Edited August 12, 20214 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, guibru said:

For A2A, not until next year. 

Source on this? 

10 hours ago, captain420 said:

Have any of you heard any news from these 2 developers regarding MSFS development? I miss their 172's and 182's and the QW787. It's been a year that MSFS has been out and no word yet.

until A2A releases, i bought this yesterday and it's amazing!

 

 

54 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

The guy is quite knowledgeable, and in his answer I find something I don't like about the impossibility to write custom programs in a modular way. If this is true, I was wrong because the potential of this platform is not that high.

Let's hope Lewis is really joking and possibly even hiding some ongoing development on their part: I really miss their aircraft.

A.

Or.....if you'd done lots of development for military trainers in well defined ecosystem with known addons (ESP, P3D) then again you may not be in a hurry to write new modules etc in the new environment then convince those customers that Asobo is now more knowledgeable modelling your trainer than Lockheed Martin (heck, what would they know about military stuff.....  🙂 )

1 hour ago, RobF2 said:

Unless someone challenges the A2A mantle ala-Fenix.......

Yup.  I think the market will ultimately resolve itself in this situation.  If there is a demand for high fidelity, "study level" GA planes, another developer will step in if A2A doesn't.

Look at FSLabs.  FSLabs never declared they were working on the A320 for MSFS.  So Fenix stepped in.

If A2A doesn't want the $$$ there for the taking, somebody else will fulfill the role.  To be honest, if A2A had always intended to come out with more MSFS products (aside from their Comanche), I think it's advantageous to declare it up front.  Yes, by declaring it, it puts pressure on A2A to develop the product, and people will continually hassle them on when it will be released.  But at the same time, if you're a big dog like A2A, and you declare it, it can ward off any potential competition.

Had FSLabs declared they would make an A320 for MSFS last year at the time of MSFS's launch, it may have potentially scared Fenix away and Fenix may never have come together as a company to make the A320. Now, FSLabs are stuck between a rock and a hard place for the consumer home market.

MSFS has always been and is a game as of today, like A2A's business manager said yesterday, due to lack of custom programming features, the neglected SDK and a comedy, gamey, arcade, twitchy and entertainment flight model that is hyper-optimized to be operated with Xbox video game controllers first and foremost. The primary focus of MSFS producer Mr Jorg Nuemann has always been video-gaming and not 'flight'-simulating.

For example, this guy has allegedly been able to take off and land safely in a twin-engine plane in MSFS 2020 by using nothing but “careful manipulation of the throttles”: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/real-world-pilots-please-state-your-feedback-about-the-flight-model/150771/14

Another video example of MSFS' comedy flight model, in the custom, FBW A320. Specially hilarious is the landing: Microsoft Flight Simulator - "Realism" - YouTube

Another example: the approach flyback bug was reported on 20th august, 2020. Several hundreds of bug reports , articles and “phd thesis” have been written about it since then. It's almost a year now and Jorg has done absolutely nothing about it: Approach flyback bug - Not fixed as stated in SU5 - Bugs & Issues / ATC & NAVAIDs - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

For aircraft software developed by hardcore, top-end, high-fidelity developers like A2A, PMDG, FSLabs, Torquesim, Hotstart etc to perform as accurately as they do in MSFS, the base platform needs to be a simulation platform, not a video-gamey platform. Both PMDG and Fenix could release their 737 and Prosim A320 (respectively) tomorrow, but they will always be affected negatively not only by the unfinished, buggy and comedy flight model but also other elements such as the "unlive" weather, which Jorg won't allow to be overridden by something infinitely better, such as Active Sky. 

Unfortunately, despite repeated claims made by the producer guy Jorg that MSFS will first and foremost be a sim for simmers, it is still a console-based entertainment video game a year after release. 

 

33 minutes ago, kakihara123 said:

 he could be very wrong as well.

Canned (built-in) missions are not the A2A business and, I would add, it is only a segment of flight simulation. 

They do aircraft,  some of the best. They have developed over the years a simulation of the piston engine for the ESP which is their core asset. And they have said working on a turbo engine simulation.   

What Lewis says is that they seem not be be able to reconcile what they do best and MFS because of its game dimension. Nobody can really be surprised here. Even Asobo acknowledged that they still have a lot to do. But he should have known better than using that sort of vocabulary knowing the sensisivity of the community to it 😄. I feel some frustration there.

For the record, I answered him on their forum. Here is the thread  P3D vs MSFS - The A2A Simulations Community 

6 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

3rd party developers want $$$.  They need to put food on the table and pay their bills and rent, just like the rest of us.  There is no $$$ in for P3D now for the home consumer market.  P3D is quickly becoming obsolete for 3rd party devs for the consumer home market.  As for X-Plane, 3rd party devs can make $$$ for the time being, but who knows for how long.

Good thing you're not a 3rd party dev though.  You would go bankrupt with your type of thinking.  

Since the release of MSFS, I have split my spending 50/50 between it and X Plane.  I am looking forward to the next version of X Plane after the two teaser videos that have been released.  

I suspect there will always be room for a sim alongside MSFS.  X Plane is not going down the road of individual buildings in the right place, but the current version allows accurate VFR navigation with just $20 of addons.  I still want to fly my favourite aircraft in X Plane that are not available in MSFS, so will be supporting both sims.

4 hours ago, GCBraun said:

In the P3D forum this post would be (rightly) deleted in minutes. Let's see how long it takes here...

Surprised that we haven't had mods liking the post 🙂.  Yeah that sounds bad, but unfortunately, it's also reality in here.  After all,  a post slamming MSFS by someone with 10 posts on that profile, and liked by someone who has only posted recently on the P3D forum.    Ahh well.. more people to the ignore list 🙂    Forum is much nicer now I have about 10 people on ignore..  hardly seeing any issues at all with MSFS.. just positive comments.. including post SU5 🙂

Graham

36 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Since the release of MSFS, I have split my spending 50/50 between it and X Plane.  I am looking forward to the next version of X Plane after the two teaser videos that have been released.  

I suspect there will always be room for a sim alongside MSFS.  X Plane is not going down the road of individual buildings in the right place, but the current version allows accurate VFR navigation with just $20 of addons.  I still want to fly my favourite aircraft in X Plane that are not available in MSFS, so will be supporting both sims.

Yeah, but the question is, if there will be enough people like you as the years pass by for X-Plane.  Like right now, there are still people that purchase P3D add-ons.  But the number of people purchasing P3D add-ons are so far and few, most 3rd party devs can't make any money off of it.  Hence, Aerosoft, JustFlight, FS2Crew, Milviz, and others have stopped new products for P3D because they can't make a profit off their new products for P3D (but they may still support existing P3D products).  I'm sure there are even still people purchasing add-ons for FSX but they are also very few.

I will say, Austin has finally figured out his priorities for X-Plane.  He neglected the graphics for so long, it allowed a nice big opening for MSFS to walk in and become the de facto #1 home market flight simulator.  But Austin realized his mistake (better late than never), so you can see in all the X-Plane previews lately, it's all about improving the graphics for X-Plane.  

In my opinion, it's unknown if there will be enough space for two home market flight simulators, if the technology gap is very big between the two, as it is now, assuming the price is comparable, because I think the home market flight simulators share many characteristics of a homogenous product.  If X-Plane 12 can close that technology gap, then maybe it will survive.  Even if X-Plane can close some of the technology gap, there is another issue with pricing, in that you have to spend a lot of money on add-ons in X-Plane and purchase an extra hard drive to store your ortho in X-Plane.  For new customers to MSFS and X-Plane at least, they will dislike having to purchase extra add-ons in X-Plane just to match MSFS, and then have to purchase an extra hard drive to store the ortho for X-Plane.  And I believe Austin doesn't want to stream satellite/photogrammetry data (which MSFS doesn't charge for either) so there will always be this particular technology gap between X-Plane and MSFS.

 

Edited August 12, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane X-Plane 

Did you see X-Plane in the topic tite or content ? It is about QualityWings and A2A, none of both having ever worked for X-plane. 

You X-planers are leeches, everything thing is good to suck a good thread in the MFS forum 🤣.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 20214 yr by Dominique_K

A few thoughts:

- If A2A wants to remain relevant in the consumer GA market they’ll need to come to MSFS, full stop.  However maybe they don’t want to do that…if they can stay on the ESP platform by shifting their business to professional training/military contracts maybe that’s a better business move for them than investing the time to figure out MSFS, who knows.

- We now have a living, breathing DC-6 in MSFS so I find any comments about MSFS not being able to support complex/custom aircraft hard to swallow.  As has been mentioned in this thread it seems to be more desire/priority than ability.

- Glad to hear that QualityWings is working away on their 787.

Just now, regis9 said:

A few thoughts:

- If A2A wants to remain relevant in the consumer GA market they’ll need to come to MSFS, full stop.  However maybe they don’t want to do that…if they can stay on the ESP platform by shifting their business to professional training/military contracts maybe that’s a better business move for them than investing the time to figure out MSFS, who knows.

- We now have a living, breathing DC-6 in MSFS so I find any comments about MSFS not being able to support complex/custom aircraft hard to swallow.  As has been mentioned in this thread it seems to be more desire/priority than ability.

- Glad to hear that QualityWings is working away on their 787.

Lewis just did a little bit of backpedaling 😉...

  They had kinda empirically reconstructed the piston engine simulation in FSX/P3D  and I can understand it is hard or least takes time to redo the same in a different programming environment. And there is this mysterious thing that Scott Gentile said in June they always wanted to add to their simulations and that they negociated for it with ASobo or some third parties.