Still no historical weather options for MSFS?

[vonmar 123]

Will AS for MSFS2020 come with a e.g., 30 day refund policy?

Will it be a free upgrade for MSFS2024?

[Damian Clark 1,272]

Any day now 😉  We're putting some last minute touches on things and adding a few of those "last minute ideas" and trying not to rush it out the door.  While nothing can be perfect, we're really trying to make sure this goes out solid.

[mmcmah 413]

3 minutes ago, vonmar said:

Will AS for MSFS2020 come with a e.g., 30 day refund policy?

Will it be a free upgrade for MSFS2024?

No idea on the refund policy.

From the web page: "Is ASFS compatible with MSFS2024? Not yet, as MSF2024 is not released and details are unknown. We have every intention of making ASFS compatible with MSFS2024 and tuning it for MSFS2024 integration without any additional upgrade/fee required, assuming that major re-designs are not required and existing interfacing techniques will be possible. However, we are unable to guarantee specific compatibility, interface capability or further details of any update/upgrade process required. We will post more information as it becomes available."

[Damian Clark 1,272]

2 minutes ago, vonmar said:

Will AS for MSFS2020 come with a e.g., 30 day refund policy?

Will it be a free upgrade for MSFS2024?

We don't offer refunds or trial periods on digital products, but some resellers do.  Please check our resellers for their policies when it goes live.

MSFS2024 is totally unknown to us and we can't promise anything but we're intending to make it freely compatible if at all possible.

[Maxis 1,867]

3 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

One thing I'd like to propose is the possibility that if those "few more deliverables" are realized from the base sim, you will very likely find other things you will want that you maybe haven't even considered yet.  Many of our most popular AS features were developed out of situational demand during beta testing that we didn't foresee in earlier design stages, and some of them came totally by accident or were a last minute idea.  Being in FS sim add-on dev for nearly 25 years now I have heard "all I need is this one more thing" a few times 🙂

Ill give you that..

No one knows everything ... back in FS9 i was happily flying Project Opensky models with whatever freeware panel that could match with absolutley no systems depth and was very happy doing that. flying vor to vor and ils.

Nowadays i wont touch anything that does not provide a high level/study level simulation of an AC.

So i will agree that your product may provide something yet to be seen in my eyes... I wont know till its tested and reviewed so we will see.

But i thank you for the graciousness in expressing your opinion and i appreciate that sincerely.

Cheers

[btacon 1,815]

8 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Any day now 😉  We're putting some last minute touches on things and adding a few of those "last minute ideas" and trying not to rush it out the door.  While nothing can be perfect, we're really trying to make sure this goes out solid.

Hi Damian. I’ve owned your products for well over a decade now, probably two decades and they were always invaluable to me.   Now with your latest endeavor I’m not sure how much value I will get for I’m truly well pleased with the default live weather, but regardless I will buy it day one because HiFiSimulation has never let me down or disappointed me and I feel even if I use your product seldom it’s the least I can do to repay all of your grace these many years.  Sincerely,

-B

[simbol 5,821]

@Damian Clark My most sincere congratulations.. looking forward to use this with MSFS .

All the best,
Raul

[Mace 1,930]

6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

?  Reading through these threads I don't see any 'vocal minority' or any actual criticism of this guy or his product. 

You kidding?  There's all sorts of quite vocal ignorance when it comes to a weather add-on, every time a thread is made about it.  AVSIM is a more enlightened audience but even there probably half the people don't understand what historical weather is, for example.

[Fiorentoni 4,255]

7 minutes ago, Mace said:

but even there probably half the people don't understand what historical weather is, for example.

I think they understand what it is, just not why it is needed. Can't blame them, it's quite niche even within the already very niche "hardcore flightsimmers". I've exclusively flown with historical weather on P3D when recreating real life flights, except for when they by accident were "live" when I was simming.

[Damian Clark 1,272]

39 minutes ago, Mace said:

You kidding?  There's all sorts of quite vocal ignorance when it comes to a weather add-on, every time a thread is made about it.  AVSIM is a more enlightened audience but even there probably half the people don't understand what historical weather is, for example.

Yes, or OAT/SAT vs TAT, true vs. magnetic, visibility graduation, METAR visibility maxima extension, atmospheric visibility influence, METAR vs global forecast model, TAFs, advanced interpolation and synthesis of multiple data sources, rotational gust variance, inversion layers, icing factors, air stability influence, cape, lifted index, skew-t-based predictions, precipitation factors, and much, much more (all included and refined in ASFS).  Implementing these "niche" features and working with likeminded folks to make this a reality is what excites me most.  Really excited about the future (again) to work on a whole new assortment of new things especially if we ever get a proper SDK.  Thanks for all the support everyone.

Edited April 17 by Damian Clark

[mmcmah 413]

1 minute ago, Damian Clark said:

Yes, or OAT/SAT vs TAT, visibility graduation, METAR visibility maxima extension, atmospheric visibility influence, METAR vs global forecast model, advanced interpolation and synthesis of multiple data sources, rotational gust variance, inversion layers, icing factors, air stability influence, cape, lifted index, skew-t, precipitation factors, and much, much more (all included in ASFS).  Implementing these "niche" features and working with likeminded folks to make this a reality is what excites me most.  Really excited about the future (again) to work on a whole new assortment of new things especially if we ever get a proper SDK.  Thanks for all the support everyone.

You are not helping my obsessive tendencies with respect to checking on the release of this product! 🤣

[DD_Arthur 1,068]

1 hour ago, Mace said:

You kidding?  There's all sorts of quite vocal ignorance when it comes to a weather add-on, every time a thread is made about it.  AVSIM is a more enlightened audience but even there probably half the people don't understand what historical weather is, for example.

There’s vocal ignorance everywhere about everything and everyone if you look for it.

Plenty of people have expressed their opinions, it’s part of what these forums are about. Everyone is entitled to agree or disagree.

Nonetheless I see no sign of some vocal minority here or elsewhere out to get Damian Clark and his products. 

 

[lwt1971 7,422]

3 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

I really don't get why Asobo has to "drop the ball" on anything for us to have any potential success.  I think they've done a fantastic job, they will continue improving.  If you're thinking of AS as in competition with MSFS weather or "replaces" MSFS weather, then please understand, this is not the case at all, not from our perspective.

Generally agree with most of what you said Damien, and I too don't get anyone who thinks that AS is in "competition" with MSFS weather.. similar to those who conspiracy-theorize that MS/Asobo didn't open up weather SDK access yet because they want to "protect" their default weather from competition. MS/Asobo not prioritizing the work to open up SDK access due to other priorities they deem higher is one thing, so is them facing any technical or licensing hurdles in opening up write access to live weather given MSFS's client/server nature... but surely this cannot at all be an issue of protecting or fear of competition because regardless of what the add-on is, it needs the base sim 🙂 So there is no an add-on that could *hurt* the use/sales of a sim, and can only ever do any good for it. MS/Asobo stand to benefit from any add-on however niche or widely popular it is (the absolute worst case can only be they get zero benefit, but so what).

There are various folks on here who might not see the need for AS for *them* yet.. and that's perfectly fine. This also doesn't necessarily mean they don't understand some of what it brings (i.e. historical weather) like some have suggested. I can see how it could be very useful or absolutely necessary for some of those who can only use the sim in the evening hours, as one example.. it's not a deal breaker for me, but that's just my situation.

It's also clear that something like historical weather or opening up the weather SDK is a not a high priority item in the grand scheme of other sim aspects when looking at the overall user base.. and that's per these & other user forums, per the low voted feature requests in MS/Asobo's backlog, etc. But just want to point out one thing, if not enough people are proactively pushing MS/Asobo to open up weather write access, that's just what it is.. it doesn't mean those users are on a campaign against AS (it may well be the case you've encountered a few who're vocally against AS, but I'm not talking about those folks and nor do I understand their intentions).
 

Edited April 17 by lwt1971

[mmcmah 413]

11 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

So there is no an add-on that could *hurt* the use/sales of a sim, and can only ever do any good for it. MS/Asobo stand to benefit from any add-on however niche or widely popular it is (the absolute worst case can only be they get zero benefit, but so what).

Agreed and hopefully MS/Asobo will come around to that line of thinking.

[lwt1971 7,422]

25 minutes ago, mmcmah said:

Agreed and hopefully MS/Asobo will come around to that line of thinking.

Just want to reiterate though that I certainly don't think that's MS/Asobo's current line of thinking (i.e. one of protecting default weather from competition). IMO, the reason they've not opened up live weather write access in the SDK yet is one or more of:

a) It's technically difficult/impossible given the client/server architecture of MSFS, where live weather is calculated/processed in the AWS cloud and then served out to client machines
b) The work to do it is non-trivial and costly
c) The work to do it ranks lower in priority to other work they have planned or are doing currently (including core weather improvements coming in MSFS 2024)
d) There are contractual or license issues with weather data providers like MeteoBlue
 

Edited April 17 by lwt1971