Time to enjoy what you have

[Christopher Low 5,337]

3 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

I am not sure if you were serious but VR plumbing simulators are indeed a real thing ...

I really did not need to see that picture

Edited September 23, 2021 by Christopher Low

[scotchegg 4,170]

3 hours ago, ADamiani said:

It is happening and they are.

Been away with no Internet connection in the last weeks?

Is this an example of the respectful discourse you advocate so frequently for others?

Presumably you have examples we can verify your claims against?

[neil0311 366]

Thanks Roy! It’s what I’ve been saying as well, and glad I’m not alone. You’re 100% correct.

[neil0311 366]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:38 AM, Ridvan Celik said:

Great post, however as paying customers I don’t think constructive criticism to help push the sim in a better direction is doing any harm. Especially coming from experienced simmers such as you and I. 

The operative word is “constructive” and many of the posts here and on the official forum haven’t been constructive. And even when they have been, they often lack the understanding of how things are done and why.

Some on the forums assume that Asobo flips a coin and make decisions on the spur of the moment, and that if we suggest in the forum that they do “this or that” that someone at Asobo reads it and thinks “yeah…we should do that” and then changes course. That’s not how it works. They’ve either already thought about it, and rejected the idea, or they’ve already thought about it and it’s planned but within a schedule that’s not apparent to us.

[Ricardo41 5,936]

16 hours ago, ADamiani said:

Which essentially translates in: "Praise Asobo, praise Microsoft, love your sim and never complain."

 

I eagerly await your evidence in support of this claim.

[neil0311 366]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:41 AM, Langeveldt said:

If we couldn't discuss what was right and wrong with the sim, what would be the point in any of us being here?  A strange post.  I think if he didn't preface it with being 85 and an MSFS veteran he'd have been shot down. 

I think you’re missing his point and the point.

No one is saying don’t discuss the sim, but much of the “discussion” tends to be ranting, whining, nit picking, negativity for the sake of negativity, repeating the same thing over and over, and often without perspective.

If I understand Roy correctly, he (like me) has been using the sim for decades. I enjoy the sim for what it is, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a lot better than versions before it. And whether people want to accept it, Asobo has been way more active and provided way more in the way of fixes for bugs than the Aces team ever did.

Yes…they should probably scale back the features and focus on stability and bug fixes. I think they understand that, but also probably have specific milestone commitments. It’s a balancing act. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by neil0311

[kaosfere 3,115]

You know what would help keep threads like this that are meant to be generally positive and encouraging from being dragged down by certain folks into yet another battleground?   If the more well-intentioned participants would simply ignore those who make efforts to do so: they're going to try regardless and there's no point responding and feeding into it.  If you struggle with suffering fools gladly, just chunk them into your ignore list instead, it makes it a lot easier.  (Ask me how I know.)

Back on topic, I thank @Roy Warren for his comments, and for the follow-ups that make clear, in spite of the determined assertions of some, that he did not mean to say that everything is perfect, or that people shouldn't expect more.   Believe me, I know the sim's not perfect, and there's plenty of room for improvement.  If that weren't the case I wouldn't have started making mods to improve it over a year ago now, or spent much of the past year helping to found and build a growing company focused on making it even better than it is now.

I think that perhaps my position may help me be a bit more understanding of the current state of play than others, and I've tried to impress some of that perspective on folks here, to varying degrees of success.  Working with folks at Asobo and Microsoft on an almost daily basis I can see that they're not incompetent school boys in over their heads, nor are they evil corporate overlords with devious plans to rob simmers of their hard-earned money by tricking them into buying a video game.   They are, almost to a person, intelligent, dedicated, passionate folks who care about aviation and flight simulation and want to make the sim the best thing it can be for everyone who wants to use it.

And that is an almost inordinately tall task, especially when combined with the additional simultaneous demands of introducing a bunch of new technology that's never been used in flight simulation before and keeping some degree of backwards compatibility with a couple decades of legacy code and knowledge.  What's been achieved so far is, frankly, amazing, and I think the warts and rough edges, and the high expectations people have, show the massive potential of the platform and what can be accomplished with it with enough time and effort.  (Including my time and effort.)

Some may well say "maybe if the task is so big, you shouldn't take it on, then."   But I'm reminded of the (possibly apocryphal) words of one of the legends of my favorite soccer/football (depending where you are) team:

"It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory."

I don't foresee failure in the future.  I really do think this platform will be an amazing success for years to come.  But even in its current state, with the dissatisfaction some have, there's more than enough glory there to enjoy if you're willing to look for it.   I choose to look for it.   I'm glad others do, too.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by kaosfere

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

4 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Believe me, I know the sim's not perfect, and there's plenty of room for improvement. 

I have been flightsimming since FS2.. and no version was ever "perfect"..  but it is interesting to me that in less than one year, the entire Avsim group that I fly with on a weekly basis has moved from FSX/P3D to MSFS as their only sim. 

We all had tons of Orbx scenery addons in previous sims, and now have only a select few.. 

There already are some nice addon airplanes and no end of freeware airstrips all over the globe..

Our group flights have never been better.. 😉

I am sure we each have our own list of bugs that need to be fixed which reminds me that in previous sims, we typically had a forum topic dedicated to listing issues and bugs..  maybe we should do that again, and keep the complaining out of the general topics.. Just a thought.. 🙂

[ADamiani 470]

6 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Is this an example of the respectful discourse you advocate so frequently for others?

Presumably you have examples we can verify your claims against?

Oh yes, absolutely.

In fact, I gave you the benefit of doubt.

A.

[ADamiani 470]

5 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

I eagerly await your evidence in support of this claim.

You'll only need to look at some posts of the past weeks.

Have a nice day

A.

[ADamiani 470]

2 hours ago, neil0311 said:

Yes…they should probably scale back the features and focus on stability and bug fixes. I think they understand that, but also probably have specific milestone commitments. It’s a balancing act. 

I agree.

And I find it natural that people who are experiencing issues like ctds or reduced quality push to have more stability and more quality. Especially when there has been a timeframe in which both quality and stability were higher.

A.

[ADamiani 470]

1 hour ago, kaosfere said:

You know what would help keep threads like this that are meant to be generally positive and encouraging from being dragged down by certain folks into yet another battleground?   If the more well-intentioned participants would simply ignore those who make efforts to do so: they're going to try regardless and there's no point responding and feeding into it.  If you struggle with suffering fools gladly, just chunk them into your ignore list instead, it makes it a lot easier.  (Ask me how I know.)

.......

I don't foresee failure in the future.  I really do think this platform will be an amazing success for years to come.  But even in its current state, with the dissatisfaction some have, there's more than enough glory there to enjoy if you're willing to look for it.   I choose to look for it.   I'm glad others do, too.

I don't foresee failure either, and I think that the guys at Asobo are great and have achieved a lot. 

What I do not agree with is the binary classification: either you love the sim or you hate it.

No. I think they have done a great job, to the point that I thought I had finally found my VFR sim. At the same time, with SU5 they broke a few things, I find the immersion is worse now than it was before, stability has been an issue for many, so I think writing about this in a forum is the right thing to do.

Again: does it make me forget the many good things they have done? No.

Am I a bit worried for what used to be great and is now not so great? Yes. But life is great just the same.

That's all.

A.

[cobalt 798]

On 9/21/2021 at 9:42 AM, Roy Warren said:

Some day after I'm gone, maybe we could land at an airport.  Rent a car. The drive around explore the town with something like Google Street View..  But for now what we have is awesome.

Roy

Roy, great post. I have a very similar story. Just want to point out that we can right now do what you just asked for, in many areas of MSFS. There are several freeware driveable cars available at https://flightsim.to/c/aircraft/driveable-cars/, including a Mercedes. Driving these cars doesn't work everywhere (especially where photogrammetry is on), but in most places it's great. I have had a ball driving around the streets of Manhattan, using Little Nav Map to keep track of where I am. With photogrammetry off, the scenery is crisp and detailed right down to street level -- amazing. Try it at night! Driving country roads is also very enjoyable. Incidentally, the flightsim.to also has driveable boats, so you can go boating anywhere you like.  Who needs planes? Just kidding, of course.

Edited September 23, 2021 by cobalt

[bean_sprout 1,201]

31 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

You'll only need to look at some posts of the past weeks.

Have a nice day

A.

You mean all the positive ones right??

bs

[Roy Warren 426]

I never envisioned all the input and attention this post would bring about.  I think it's good to get the silent majority to come out like they have, from both sides of the discussion.  That's what forums are for.  I set by silently for years reading all the post and never posting anything, until I couldn't hold back any longer, and now it did and WOW!

One more thought I had after reading all this.  What if in August of 2020 Asobo said we have this simulator we've been working on, but it still has some bugs and features we need to fix, so  are going to wait until we get them all worked out before we release this sim.  If we release it now the wrath of AVSIM will come down on us.  So we'll tell them it will be October of 2023 before it's released. 🥺

What would be your choice?

Roy