Why did Progress seem to stop?

[Stavros 295]

25 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I'm become used to that kind of statement as a way of whistling past the graveyard in the previous era, but I'm gradually becoming used to the idea that nowadays there may actually be in truth (relatively) huge numbers of Flight Simmers....

I mean, there's hard data - 5,665 current MSFS players on Steam right now, which doesn't even include people who are using the Microsoft Store version or Xbox version. 6,900 on Vatsim in the last 24 hours as well. These numbers were unheard of just a few years ago.

[lwt1971 7,417]

Aircraft development wise, many are in the pipeline and some imminent (and of course many already released), and all the major dev houses are focusing on MSFS per their latest statements. So I wouldn't say aircraft development has slowed down, quite the opposite actually. Some examples:

• some of sim's default fleet have received substantial updates by Working Title via the AAU1 and AAU2 sim updates: Citation Longitude, CJ4, 787-10, 747-8
• A2A to release its Comanche for MSFS targeting for this month (July): https://a2asimulations.com/2023/06/26/auto-draft/
• PMDG 777 in development, also 747 for release after the 777
• Fenix A320 V2 in development which substantially updates the already released V1: https://fenixsim.com/blog/
• FSL's airbus (like A32x) and Concorde for MSFS in development/testing
• A bunch of aircraft by JustFlight (already released like the Bae 146, imminent like the Fokker F28, and various in development)
• iniBuilds A300 in development: https://forum.inibuilds.com/topic/19484-inibuilds-a300-600-for-microsoft-flight-simulator-development-update-fsexpo-houston-2023/
• iniBuilds have been releasing various other aircraft (i.e A310 last November in 40th anniv sim update), and more to come
• various helicopters released and also in development: https://www.helisimmer.com/msfs
• Milviz, Aersoft, other dev houses pretty much the same
• Maddog continuing to update its MD-80 for MSFS
• etc

Edited July 10, 2023 by lwt1971

[BrianW 124]

On 7/5/2023 at 7:29 PM, paulyg123 said:

Drz never did KSEA or KPAE or KMIA

Paine Field should be coming soon, they're working on it now and just posted some photos today.  

Generally speaking I think the demand for detail has also increased, so scenery and aircraft now take much longer just due to customer expectations.

[dave2013 1,130]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:11 PM, Stavros said:

5,665 current MSFS players on Steam right now, which doesn't even include people who are using the Microsoft Store version or Xbox version. 6,900 on Vatsim in the last 24 hours as well.

This may well be a significant increase in the number of flight simmers compared to the past, but it is still a paltry number when you consider how many people there are in the world.

Flight simming has always been a niche hobby.  I think that it takes a special kind of imagination and love of exploration, and/or just a simple love of aviation, to be a flightsim enthusiast.  I've been flightsimming since 1984 and I'm amazed at the progress that has been made in the hobby, but there are times where even I get a bit bored just flying from place to place.

On a related note, I believe that the release of MSFS 2024 is all about money.  Asobo/Microsoft's sales of MSFS 2020 have likely fallen over time and they need a fresh infusion of cash to keep everything going.  I'll be surprised if MSFS 2024 is something revolutionary and heaps better than MSFS 2020.  We'll see. 

Dave 

[lwt1971 7,417]

4 hours ago, dave2013 said:

On a related note, I believe that the release of MSFS 2024 is all about money.  Asobo/Microsoft's sales of MSFS 2020 have likely fallen over time and they need a fresh infusion of cash to keep everything going.  I'll be surprised if MSFS 2024 is something revolutionary and heaps better than MSFS 2020.  We'll see. 

Given what they've actually said and presented about v2024, and given the success of v2020 and MS/Asobo investing in doubling the team size to 500+ I believe it's not at all about money.. and they don't seem to be in need of cash infusions given all this increased investing, and of course also given the deep pockets of MS. As to how much better/different v2024 will be compared to v2020, that of course can only be truly be seen once it's released, until then we can only go by the details given in their FSExpo presentation and interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPhScg_FINE
https://www.helisimmer.com/interview/msfs-2024-helicopters-future-msfs-2020
https://msfsaddons.com/2023/06/25/exclusive-interview-with-jorg-neumann-and-sebastian-wloch-we-are-in-the-pursuit-of-the-perfect-sim/
etc
 

 

[n4gix 4,947]

Wow! I'll just have to set up my sim in my new home. It's been packed away for over a year since my move.

[CaptainAddOn 56]

20 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Given what they've actually said and presented about v2024, and given the success of v2020 and MS/Asobo investing in doubling the team size to 500+ I believe it's not at all about money.. and they don't seem to be in need of cash infusions given all this increased investing, and of course also given the deep pockets of MS. As to how much better/different v2024 will be compared to v2020, that of course can only be truly be seen once it's released, until then we can only go by the details given in their FSExpo presentation and interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPhScg_FINE
https://www.helisimmer.com/interview/msfs-2024-helicopters-future-msfs-2020
https://msfsaddons.com/2023/06/25/exclusive-interview-with-jorg-neumann-and-sebastian-wloch-we-are-in-the-pursuit-of-the-perfect-sim/
etc
 

 

My take is that those 500 developers are very, very likely to be almost entirely made up of content developers at Asobo. What we really know about MSFS 2024 is:

 - The engine is pretty much the same. Good enough for backwards compatibility at least. Hard to quantify what they really mean when they say the significantly enhanced engine.

 - They are leaning into career mode, which implies a lot of content will be provided in the box (specific sceneries set-up conducive to career tasks + aircraft in the box that are needed to complete these missions, minimally)

- They are dramatically increasing the amount of content that will be streamed and going even further cloud first. I take this to mean there will be a massive amount of content developed to the point where they don't just need to stream terrain/scenery, but even are getting to the point where they need to stream textures, aircraft, etc. to make it accessible on console and most PCs.

 

Overall, a nice thing for the community, but for third party developers, I would be very, very scared that Microsoft will pull the rug out on my current active development efforts. I think the slow progress is because everyone is reluctant to staff up due to this risk. There already are many instances where aircraft shown in the 2024 trailer look to effectively be clones of existing popular payware aircraft on the marketplace. If Microsoft puts out the perfect sim with a standing army of 500, then what role do add-ons play in that?

[lwt1971 7,417]

2 hours ago, CaptainAddOn said:

My take is that those 500 developers are very, very likely to be almost entirely made up of content developers at Asobo. What we really know about MSFS 2024 is:

 - The engine is pretty much the same. Good enough for backwards compatibility at least. Hard to quantify what they really mean when they say the significantly enhanced engine.

 - They are leaning into career mode, which implies a lot of content will be provided in the box (specific sceneries set-up conducive to career tasks + aircraft in the box that are needed to complete these missions, minimally)

Well, we don't know the engine is pretty much the same do we... they have stated the three main/large focus areas for revamp, one of which is the core sim engine as well as aerodynamics/physics, the other two are missions and the digital world (visual representation, weather, etc). Yes, hard to quantify until we get more details, but from what we've gotten so far it's also naive to say that the engine is "pretty much the same". Seb starts talking about the core sim improvements from this timestamp https://youtu.be/VPhScg_FINE?t=507 and that seems like substantial changes to me. The physics changes showcased were quite impressive, as is the coming ability to define the aircraft geometry in a more fine-grained fashion to truly take advantage of the multi-surface modelling and CFD tech in the FDE (it's also been a very highly requested feature from aircraft developers). And that's just what they chose to show as examples of improvements, we'll get to know all the details and deep dives in the coming months.

 

2 hours ago, CaptainAddOn said:

Overall, a nice thing for the community, but for third party developers, I would be very, very scared that Microsoft will pull the rug out on my current active development efforts. I think the slow progress is because everyone is reluctant to staff up due to this risk. There already are many instances where aircraft shown in the 2024 trailer look to effectively be clones of existing popular payware aircraft on the marketplace. If Microsoft puts out the perfect sim with a standing army of 500, then what role do add-ons play in that?

Firstly, as I cited above in my post there is no "slow progress", far from it and quite literally the opposite given the amount of 3rd party add-on aircraft that keep coming out and/or are being worked on for release soon. Given that almost all of the major 3rd party devs (PMDG, A2A, FSL, Milviz, iniBuilds, JustFlight, etc) recently come out and explicitly stated they are either focusing solely or mostly on MSFS, that also shuts down this myth about slow progress. Robert.R of PMDG as part of his FSExpo update also said they are actually hiring and expanding their team (https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/255933-03jul23-recap-of-a-fun-trip-to-fsexpo-2023: "... and with our current efforts to expand our team, our product footprint and our capabilities- most of the team who attended the show this year felt strongly that we should consider adding a booth footprint to our attendance next year" ). All in all, looks like the 3rd party devs are doing quite fine and are anything but scared or holding back 🙂 

Secondly, to your point of MS/Asobo default aircraft conflicting with 3rd party add-ons, that certainly doesn't appear to be a problem so far during the first 3+ years of 2020, and in this interview https://msfsaddons.com/2023/06/25/exclusive-interview-with-jorg-neumann-and-sebastian-wloch-we-are-in-the-pursuit-of-the-perfect-sim/  Jorg addresses this very question:

Vasco: How do you balance the risk of “sherlocking” developers when introducing new base features in the platform that have also been worked on by third parties? For example, the planned improvements for AI traffic or the introduction of more animals, which is something other devs have done.

Jorg: I mean, that’s the nature of an open platform. I pay attention and ask our Marketplace team to reach out to all the plane developers and ask them to share their roadmap with me so I know what they’re working on, with the intent to stay clear if there’s an overlap. The A380 from FlyByWire is a good example: we’re not going to make an A380 because they’re making one. A lot of the planes that we’re making are historical planes. There’s not much overlap there.

In MSFS 2024, there’s a new set of aircraft coming in. It’s not possible to avoid all overlap, but if there is, I engage with the team that has done something similar and see if we could work something out. Sometimes there are elements, like camera systems, where there could be collaboration.

Many of the planes we’re making now are made by third parties and that’s working great. Airports, the same thing. The Asobo team can focus on the platform while we make airports with Gaya, Orbx, NZ Simulations.

Now, we need to look at things that are a little more interesting. Let’s call it the guts of the system. We need to be careful. This needs to be maintained for a long period of time, and we need to be comfortable that any collaboration is maintainable, otherwise it could potentially harm the platform. An area where we have taken this approach is with Working Title. They are making avionics and improving our base sim, and our confidence in them is high.

That means Asobo can work on other things, very specific things. There are some features where people are doing interesting stuff and we’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis. If there is a collaboration possibility, how is it maintained? How can we support the platform long term? Every piece of code in the platform needs to be supported. I think that’ll be the determinant if we can collaborate with someone.
 

Edited July 13, 2023 by lwt1971

[Matt Sdeel 46]

On 7/5/2023 at 8:56 PM, ZLA Steve said:

Curious who you consider the "big 4" to be apart from PMDG and maybe Orbx?

Hmmm... I would think Carenado would qualify as big.