As a simmer since FS98 and an Airplane Single Engine Land and Airplane Single Engine Sea-rated pilot with time logged in both rotorcraft and sailplanes, and with a UAS Part 107 certificate, I’d like to state how promising MSFS2024 has been once we get past the hiccups of launch.

To start, the software runs on ultra settings with complete smoothness on a current high-end computer. Gone are the days of the sim being built and released with the idea of future hardware being needed to enjoy it. Not only does it run smoothly with so many more assets, but the world is shown as the most detailed we have ever seen.

No corner of aviation has been left behind. With this sim, a user can pursue, with deep depth, every known category of flight—minus perhaps astronaut and space travel. In addition to free flight, we now have a career mode and weekly challenge modes covering all kinds of interests, giving more things to do in the sim with what seems to be no easy pass. It seems great thought has been put into how the sim can be used to teach aviation to a completely new user at the same standards one would expect from a real flight instructor.

To dive a bit deeper into the career mode, the syllabus seems to be created to help users learn to crawl before walking, teaching all the important items in short lessons with an honest rating system. I wish we had the ability to create different profiles for this, as these lessons would be highly useful for letting someone use the sim to learn how the controls feel—especially for pilot friends who know how to fly but aren’t used to the feel of simming in 2D and not flying by the seat of their pants.

As a matter of opinion, I feel flight schools could recommend the training lessons in career mode as a helpful tool to prepare for their real-life lessons, more so than any prior version has ever been capable of. I feel Asobo nailed this part as well as many others.

I probably won’t ever partake in any of the challenges, but there is a user base of casual simmers and more hardcore gamers who I feel will greatly enjoy the challenges and achievements of these weekly tournaments.

And if the free flights, career/training goals, or challenges for competitions weren’t enough, they also included an artist outlet with the photography mode—something we simmers are known for, taking and posting screenshots.

In multiplayer, there seem to be intercom channels to use, and finally, we can have historic weather from the past 24 hours. Now, if only they could expand that rolling window of weather to allow a flight to start where, for example, if a rain/snowstorm just passed through prior to starting, the ground would still be wet or snow-covered even though it is no longer raining or snowing. That would be a great use of the feature.

The fundamentals of flying seem greatly enhanced and will give X-Plane a run for its money in the area of “feeling” right and no longer being on rails.

Folks, the map is the size of this planet! The only way to get a bigger map is to use a bigger planet. It’s something we can view from above or now get out and explore a bit.

Our marketplace addons will carry over. The days of having to rebuy, install, or shoehorn an addon have been reduced to nearly nada—a wish I’ve always requested in feature requests. (Now, just to get Pilot Controlled Lighting!)

Asobo and the team that created this new sim should be recognized for all these great achievements. There was a time when the closure of ACEs Studio left us simmers with a bleak outlook on ever reaching this level of physics modeling, computer performance, and eye candy that represents a living world of all aspects of aviation.

So yes, the launch wasn’t what anyone wanted, and yes, there is work to be done. But two months from now… two years from now, the mature sim will be everything I have been hoping for over the past 25 years. No more having to turn a blind eye to limitations.

13 minutes ago, Ident said:

But two months from now… two years from now, the mature sim will be everything I have been hoping for over the past 25 years.

Yes, this is the part I'm excited about. I can finally run a brand new sim in extreme detail on my machine at a cool 60-100 FPS in 4K!! It's just smooth and the rendering engine is clearly a massive upgrade. Looking forward to all the improvements and bug fixes, but already the sim is in excellent shape (server issues aside, of course. They have fixed that, at least for where I live), and will only get better. 

I managed a full flight in one of the GA Aircraft, and i have to say it looks fantastic, the handling and inertia was there, ground handling was a dream, and no more swerving across the runway as soon as you touch down. I have to say, maybe i got it wrong, i just hope they can get these bandwidth issues sorted for everyone.

To be fair, it has got slightly better each day, but still a way to go yet.

Do you realize there are still thousands who can not use the sim ? Regardless of the sim future; until this is not fix is a fail; and the managers are responsible.

There are plenty of other threads which one can go and comment on that deals with the current obstacles facing the team. This post is all about seeing the potential and showing respect for what the team of developers have created as a base sim.

But yes, I realize a lot of things including the ability to not feel entitled and be humble and thankful. Also yes, the managers are responsible...for receiving my praise.

9 minutes ago, Ident said:

There are plenty of other threads which one can go and comment on that deals with the current obstacles facing the team. This post is all about seeing the potential and showing respect for what the team of developers have created as a base sim.

But yes, I realize a lot of things including the ability to not feel entitled and be humble and thankful. Also yes, the managers are responsible...for receiving my praise.

Yes I share with you the sim is beautiful; however;  it need a streaming infrastructure to run which is also part of the sim; to me is the whole thing; the beauty of the sim but also the technology behind it to push it; at the moment the praise to be fair is only on the artistic part of the sim; with the cloud architecture at the moment not working for many; some did not do a great job some did.

While true Marc, a scout that sits in the stands with an eye for talent doesnt bypass an investment because on that day, the player is not ready for the big leagues. Its unfortunate that we have fellow members unable to enjoy the sim due primarily to it popularity and additionally to infrastructure demands exceeding expectations but I'm keeping the baby and draining the bathwater.

2 hours ago, Ident said:

The fundamentals of flying seem greatly enhanced and will give X-Plane a run for its money in the area of “feeling” right and no longer being on rails.

 

This means a lot, since you are a real life pilot. I'm reading over and over again, the praise from real life pilots on the flight model and ground handlng in MSFS 2024.  

And I agree with you the base is there. It's like the world's biggest diamond but the diamond is in its orginal form just discovered from the mine, all rough and unpolished.  But the base is there, it's the world's biggest diamond. It simply needs to be cut to the right shape and polished. When it's properly cut and polished, it will sparkle and shine ever brightly. That is the current state, amd future possible trajectory of MSFS 2024.  They need to fix the bugs (especially the server issues), the 3rd party devs need to port their add-ons over, and then I think MSFS 2024 will really shine.

Edited November 21, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

The thread title immediately brought back memories of the punch line to the old 'Microsoft Sex Joke'.  😀

Edited November 21, 20241 yr by airernie

I am actually finding flying in 2024 more challenging.  Crosswind with no aileron input - bad!  Landings are no longer a given, more and better control inputs are required.  The sense of weight and inertia are there with the possibility of the aircraft getting away from you quickly.  I just bounced on a landing several times - 2020 has made me a little lazy on the controls. 😁

 

With today seeing improvement on my side i thought i would try a couple of Airport addons from Msfs2020, EGPH v2 from Pyreegrue is stunning, and no issues,   don't know how, but it looks even better in 2024, EGPE freeware off Flightsim.to again excellent, EGCC was ok, but  it's getting long in the tooth, and i don't think it ever got any updates. Inibuilds Heathrow was good, and the big thing i am noticing now, is there's no stuttering anywhere, even with the sheer amount of folk cued to take off. You could never get that before in 2020. I think this sim once these issues of CTD's, and Internet are solved, you will think differently.

Still struggling a bit to get things set up how I want them, and have had a mixed experience with the quality of the scenery so far although I'm 100% sure that's because the servers are still on their knees. But even so, in amongst all the sweary abuse hurled at my screen and all the curses aimed at Microsoft in general, I'm already finding lots of things I like, and I too am totally happy that this is going to turn out to be an utterly magnificent sim for my sort or purposes at least, i.e. very low and very slow world exploration mostly.

Still not interested in any of the role-playing stuff in any form, and don't care about accuracy of the actual flying part, but free flight is going to be wonderful in this enhanced world.

So overall, yes, a big thank you to MS and Asobo, although someone somewhere needs a knee in the knuts for the joke that was (is) the launch.