https://parallel42.com/blogs/news/2024-testing-has-begun-more-info-soon

Looks like we might be waiting longer than anticipated for our favorite 3rd party addons to come over to 2024.... lets not uninstall 2020 just yet. 

25 minutes ago, rick celik said:

Looks like we might be waiting longer than anticipated for our favorite 3rd party addons to come over to 2024.... lets not uninstall 2020 just yet. 

Yep.  Microsoft should have granted 3rd party dev. access to 2024 at least a month earlier (if not more) for feedback - especially if they're going to claim most addons will port over without issue.

There will always be problems with backward compatibilities on a new sim, but there seem to be some important "niggles" to figure out in short order.

A large percentage of Parallel 42's add-ons falls into the categories that Microsoft mentioned explicitly would not work out of the box (UI, rather relevant terrain changes, functionality changes, and so forth), so I'm not sure why anyone is surprised.

Incidentally, they allege that Microsoft said that “virtually all add-ons will work” and Microsoft literally never said that. 

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by Abriael

In one week we will all know. But i am not surprised in the least by this news. It will be an awesome product. Just not on November 19th.  I am patient. No problem! 

1 hour ago, Abriael said:

A large percentage of Parallel 42's add-ons falls into the categories that Microsoft mentioned explicitly would not work out of the box (UI, rather relevant terrain changes, functionality changes, and so forth), so I'm not sure why anyone is surprised.

Incidentally, they allege that Microsoft said that “virtually all add-ons will work” and Microsoft literally never said that. 

Respectfully have to differ on that as It’s on their zendesk help page https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/12702272798364-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-2024-FAQ

Yes there are a few exceptions and we fully expected to be problems with those utilities etc.

But we do also offer a number of scenes which I think falls into the “all add ons” bucket that was implied. 

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by Ed Correia

Literally this is what it says on their website…

With very few exceptions, virtually all add-ons that work in Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) today will function in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

1 hour ago, Abriael said:

and Microsoft literally never said that. 

They literally did

also if you look at the dev support forums there’s a ton of outstanding bugs on there for backwards compatibility. Theres no way they’re all going to be fixed by Tuesday 

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

8 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

if you look at the dev support forums there’s a ton of outstanding bugs on there for backwards compatibility. Theres no way they’re all going to be fixed by Tuesday 

Yeah, that's why imho maybe early access should have been given sooner to 3rd parties for bug reporting but, it is what it is, and I'm stoked for 2024. 

Almost every transition to a new sim version has had some major bumps - remember the FSX release?  They had to bring in a new lead - Phil Taylor - for some major salvage work.

At least the update cycle now is so consistent that if they prioritize correctly, things will hopefully fall into place much sooner.

 

AzurPoly 

 

[MSFS 2024 Plans]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is planned for release in exactly one week, the 19th of November. As Marketplace third party developers, we have been entitled to access an Alpha build a few weeks ahead of time in order to test all our existing MSFS 2020 products in the new simulator and provide feedback to Asobo.

As you may know, Microsoft announced that all add-ons that work in MSFS 2020 will function in the new simulator (see FAQ here: https://www.flightsimulator.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-2024-faq/). As of today, we can say that it is not the case yet, and we (with other developers) raised several bugs to Asobo, for issues happening in MSFS 2024 which did not occur in MSFS 2020. We do not know if all of them will be addressed before the release (i.e. in less than one week). Some of them are blocker to consider the aircraft as flyable.

Our goal is to have all our aircraft 100% functional in MSFS 2024, and for free (we will not charge our customers for their already bought aircraft to work in the new simulator). We hope that simulator core bugs will be fixed as early as possible, and we are currently deploying small updates in parallel to fix minor bugs on our side. We will flag our products as "compatible with MSFS 2024" only once it is the actually the case, which could happen later after the simulator release.

In addition to the retro-compatibility topic, we plan to create native MSFS 2024 add-ons (i.e. not compatible with MSFS 2020) for our existing aircraft, to take profit of all the new features of the simulator (career, missions, etc). With some hindsight, we consider that creating a native MSFS 2024 add-on based on an existing MSFS 2020 aircraft represents at least several weeks (probably few months) of work, as the new architecture is very different and is introducing significant changes to our workflow. Hence, an upgrade fee may apply for those products, but it is a case-by-case decision that we will have to take.

Lastly, Microsoft announced that weapons display will soon be authorized in both MSFS 2020 & 2024 (only static objets, not functional). This is good news for us as we will be able to get rid of our weapons patches, and Xbox users will finally be able to display weapons. Our aircraft will be progressively updated once we have a precise date.

Of course, we will keep you updated about all news related to MSFS 2024!

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by MarcG

2 hours ago, irocx said:

Yep.  Microsoft should have granted 3rd party dev. access to 2024 at least a month earlier (if not more) for feedback - especially if they're going to claim most addons will port over without issue.

There will always be problems with backward compatibilities on a new sim, but there seem to be some important "niggles" to figure out in short order.

I reckon they had too much to do near crunch time and got caught out, hence the lack of preview builds/codes for marketing, a major lack of actual marketing, no beta period to help iron out bugs. It may well of needed another 6 months in the oven, either way let's see what happens from next week, the default stuff should be well good enough for the time being before the community mods & SDK catch up.

3 hours ago, irocx said:

Yep.  Microsoft should have granted 3rd party dev. access to 2024 at least a month earlier (if not more) for feedback - especially if they're going to claim most addons will port over without issue.

There will always be problems with backward compatibilities on a new sim, but there seem to be some important "niggles" to figure out in short order.

They were probably adding or polishing features up to the last minute.  At least they have a Dev Alpha test phase to give 3rd party developers some time to test and make changes to their add-ons in preparation of the MSFS 2024 release.  In large software projects like this, you plan for certain features and fixes by a certain deadline, but when the deadline comes, you find that you are far behind where you thought you would be.  It happens like this all the time with large software projects.

I expect a bit of a bumpy release to MSFS 2024, as a lot of add-ons may not work very well on November 19th. But I think within 2 to 3 months, the 3rd party devs will have had enough time to make the most critical fixes for MSFS 2024, and probably most of the add-ons will be working quite well in MSFS 2024 by the end of January in 2025.

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

6 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

They were probably adding or polishing features up to the last minute.  At least they have a Dev Alpha test phase to give 3rd party developers some time to test and make changes to their add-ons in preparation of the MSFS 2024 release.  In large software projects like this, you plan for certain features and fixes by a certain deadline, but when the deadline comes, you find that you are far behind where you thought you would be.  It happens like this all the time with large software projects.

I expect a bit of a bumpy release to MSFS 2024, as a lot of add-ons may not work very well on November 19th. But I think within 2 to 3 months, the 3rd party devs will have had enough time to make the most critical fixes for MSFS 2024, and probably most of the add-ons will be working quite well in MSFS 2024 by the end of January in 2025.

Exactly. This product will almost certainly need a few months more before it is considered solid by most. They will get there. Really looking forward to this product, but my expectations are minimal on day one. 

I’m really looking forward to 2024. I’ll keep 2020 for a transition period of a few months. I had zero expectation of 100 percent of addons working on day one, or even month one of release. 
This product and the SDK are still very dynamic. So I think giving the SDK over to 3rd parties much earlier probably would have made little real difference as it would have been in a less advanced state.

I plan on flying low and slow for a bit to explore the new low alt quality.

A2A seemed pretty happy with their product. And for Fenix etc I can still go back to 2020 for the short term if I need to. 
 

I’ll admit it may be tough going back to 2020 if the quality of 2024 is much higher! Haha! 

4 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

They were probably adding or polishing features up to the last minute.  At least they have a Dev Alpha test phase to give 3rd party developers some time to test and make changes to their add-ons in preparation of the MSFS 2024 release.  In large software projects like this, you plan for certain features and fixes by a certain deadline, but when the deadline comes, you find that you are far behind where you thought you would be.  It happens like this all the time with large software projects.

I expect a bit of a bumpy release to MSFS 2024, as a lot of add-ons may not work very well on November 19th. But I think within 2 to 3 months, the 3rd party devs will have had enough time to make the most critical fixes for MSFS 2024, and probably most of the add-ons will be working quite well in MSFS 2024 by the end of January in 2025.

One month just isn't enough for devs to get to grips with this, especially when they will be competing for sales with other devs who have had access to the SDK for many months now.
(and that's ignoring the non-Marketplace devs who still don't have access)