I've never known a time like this in our hobby. In recent weeks, I've bought JF's Vulcan and BAe 146, Burning Blue's Farnborough and Old Warden ( now with free airshow add-on ), Flying Iron's Me-109G and yesterday AzurPoly's Bronco. All this on top of perennial payware favourites, plus all the freeware aircraft, airports, repaints and utilities.

Standing back for a moment, I remember when Aces Studio was disbanded, people were confidently predicting the demise of civilian flight simming. Look where we are now, and with MSFS2024 coming soon. Asobo and Microsoft come in for some stick at times, but compared to just 5 years ago, we are in a different universe.

What's the point of this thread ? Just to express my astonishment at what we've gained in such a short space of time.

And now we have FBW's A-380 coming, along with Flying Iron's Fortress and a full set of B-52s from Sim Works Studios. Where does it end ? I hope it never does.

Hear, hear. 

I like your enthusiasm with this very positive mood! 😃

4 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

Hear, hear. 

There, there.  If fact...we can go everywhere in MSFS. 🙂   I've visited all my childhood homes in MSFS and the level of detail in each of them is astounding for as obscure some of them are.

Best time to be a simmer no doubt.

Totally!

Apart from the occasional server side slowdowns/weirdness, MSFS is so good at the moment I have to say I'm not even particularly excited about MSFS2024. I'm still buying loads of addons for 2020, and will probably do so right up to the 2024 launch. Of course I'll buy 2024, but if they'd never announced it I'd be just as happy to carry on as is.

30 minutes ago, Steve Dra said:

There, there.  If fact...we can go everywhere in MSFS. 🙂   I've visited all my childhood homes in MSFS and the level of detail in each of them is astounding for as obscure some of them are.

Best time to be a simmer no doubt.

My previous detached bungalow is a block of flats and my current detached house is a semi in MSFS.

From what I have heard, it's going to be much better in MSFS 2024.

At least two of my previous homes are in photogrammetry areas though.

Its good at the moment but I'm still very optimistic with Microsoft , they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

1 minute ago, jason74 said:

Its good at the moment but I'm still very optimistic with Microsoft , they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

Ah, a glass is empty observation, on a positive thread.

Well, he did say that he is optimistic

Edited April 19, 20242 yr by Christopher Low

57 minutes ago, jason74 said:

they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

MS is a business. Every product/service they sell needs to contribute to the net profit line, otherwise (unsurprisingly) it gets pulled.

I hope you don't use a Google product/service: https://killedbygoogle.com/ – that's quite the list!

 

1 hour ago, Steve Dra said:

Best time to be a simmer no doubt.

Yes. Though there are some annoyances with the base sim, there's been more top-tier, boundary-pushing payware, a plethora of freeware, and more detailed and technical default content than we've ever had in flight simming.

Great time to be a simmer regarding software and hardware...

Edited April 19, 20242 yr by virtualstuff

1 hour ago, jason74 said:

Its good at the moment but I'm still very optimistic with Microsoft , they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

I think you mean pessimistic, don't you ?

1 hour ago, jason74 said:

they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

Even if they did, you cannot deny what they have accomplished in such a short time so Kudos to MS and Asobo.

Edited April 19, 20242 yr by CarlosF

1 hour ago, jason74 said:

they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

Any sim developer can pull the plug at anytime. Y'all need to get over that PTSD because MS gave y'all 27 nonstop years of support before they pulled the plug but that part is always forgotten. Why can't we be optimistic enough to think at least of the next 24 years for a revival of the franchise that is currently making more money than it ever did?

2 hours ago, jason74 said:

Its good at the moment but I'm still very optimistic with Microsoft , they pulled the plug and abandoned us once and I feel they will do it again eventually

Except they didn't. Unlike any other simulator or game on this planet, they actually allowed the base platform to be sold for both professional and entertainment use, which allowed Prepar3D to happen. So playing that old violin shows you don't know how good you had it.