The exact quote from Randazzo was this:

Quote

The day that Jorg Neuman and this team announced Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, they saved the simulation community. We were already seeing it, you know, simming was dying. In June of 2019, I figured we had 5 to 7 years more before it would be over.

Mind you, I think Randazzo was probably saying this from the viewpoint of PMDG. I am pretty sure that either XP or P3D would have continued to fill the void and flight simulation wouldn't have really died without in the 5 to 7 years after 2019 without MSFS 2020, so perhaps he is exaggerating a bit. But the overall message I get from Randazzo was that flight simulation was really stuck in the mud for the decade after FSX's last patch, and the gap between the latest video game technology and flight simulation would keep growing (yes, I have mentioned this before, but in 2019, XP and P3D were still using 2D trees - the trees in MS Flight from 2012 looked better the 2D trees we had in flight simulation in 2019).  For that, I am glad that MSFS 2020 came along, and now MSFS 2024 has pushed that technology even further (yeah, MSFS 2024, especially Career Mode is buggy, but when MSFS 2024 works, geez, it is gorgeous).

 

Edited December 22, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Randazzo ! What a funny false name he uses on his forum, LOL!

I believe he's actually referring to the full spectrum of flight simulation.

I believe he's not counting on the many developers who were still active although the amount of sales might have not been as good as ten to 15 years before, and now had to shut their doors.

Yesterday Ray posted about the closure of Hervé's site - sors.fr - one of the most representative of the good old days, and one where users could, for decades, obtain a worth of information and freeware to use with FSX and P3D.

So, while I do like MSFS for all it brought of good to the simmer community, I am sorry for those who saw their activity affected in such a way that they simply couldn't keep on 😕  

I remember when I returned to flight simulation after a long break of several years. I bought P3D and remember thinking how clunky everything was ,requiring all the orbx world add ons to try and make it presentable.

Things had just not progressed much from FSX and the whole thing had a cottage industry feel to it, I remember thinking to myself someone needs to come along and rip this up and start again with a brand new sim, bringing home flight simulation into the present day.

Thankfully that’s exactly what’s been done, and to a level way beyond my expectations.

Maybe it’s just me and I’m a control freak but relying on a streaming sim leaves me feeling very exposed and helpless. I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to correct AFCADs and parking positions and I have the tools to do that in P3D. I don’t see how that is possible in a sim where little or nothing resides on a user’s computer.

If I was able to have some control over my sim setup it might convince me a move to a streaming one was in my interest.

But then I’d lose utilities like Aivlasoft’s EFB which is central to my flight planning and of course Radar Contact which remains highly effective 20 years since I started using it.

It’s not my intention to compare sims. Just trying to explain why a move would be so difficult for me.

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Maybe it’s just me and I’m a control freak but relying on a streaming sim leaves me feeling very exposed and helpless. I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to correct AFCADs and parking positions and I have the tools to do that in P3D. I don’t see how that is possible in a sim where little or nothing resides on a user’s computer.

If I was able to have some control over my sim setup it might convince me a move to a streaming one was in my interest.

But then I’d lose utilities like Aivlasoft’s EFB which is central to my flight planning and of course Radar Contact which remains highly effective 20 years since I started using it.

It’s not my intention to compare sims. Just trying to explain why a move would be so difficult for me.

From what I’ve gathered from your posts over the last few years, you’re one of the people who are set in their ways and afraid of change. My old man is the same way, towards life in general.

But, it’s the new age of flight simulation, and what you’ll gain from moving to the new sims, far outweigh what you’ll lose from the older ones.

I just done a flight in the Fenix a321 from the Gold Coast to Sydney in MSFS2024, and while the sim needs some work, after an experience like that. There’s no way I’ll ever consider p3d again…. Or even 2020 for that matter. The feel of the aircraft, the atmosphere, the colours, the lighting, the way the runway lights break out from the clouds at dusk. Incredible.
 

But, as they say, it’s up to personal preference. 

I swear I read the title as "RSR saved sim community from slow bleeding death". That's what they call Freudian I guess...

18 minutes ago, rick celik said:

From what I’ve gathered from your posts over the last few years, you’re one of the people who are set in their ways and afraid of change. My old man is the same way, towards life in general.

I’m not afraid of change. I have a lot of GoFlight kit all programmed for P3D. It’s a lot of work to do it all again for another sim. Plus I have the MCP for Boeing so it won’t work with an Airbus.

Did I mention having to buy the PMDG737 / 777 for a third and second time too? 😉 So it’s not just being resistant to change. It’s the practicalities of a switch too not to mention a considerable financial investment in P3D.

No Radar Contact either. 😟

38 minutes ago, rick celik said:

Por lo que he podido leer en tus publicaciones de los últimos años, eres una de esas personas que se aferran a sus costumbres y tienen miedo al cambio. Mi padre es igual, en lo que respecta a la vida en general.

Pero es la nueva era de la simulación de vuelo, y lo que ganarás al pasarte a los nuevos simuladores superará con creces lo que perderás con los antiguos.

Acabo de realizar un vuelo en el Fenix A321 desde Gold Coast a Sydney en MSFS2024 y, aunque el simulador necesita algo de trabajo, después de una experiencia como esa, no hay forma de que vuelva a considerar el P3D... O incluso el 2020, para el caso. La sensación del avión, la atmósfera, los colores, la iluminación, la forma en que las luces de la pista se abren paso entre las nubes al anochecer. Increíble.
 

Pero como dicen, eso depende de las preferencias personales. 

It is not fear of change is a matter of whether you are satisfied or not and the industry already has it very well studied so that what many of us are satisfied today tomorrow will not, they want every last dollar of your wallet, because it is not just buying the addon or software of the day is also investing a lot of money in new hardware.

 

Many times it is not even money, it is the time you lose in configuring, installing and leaving everything as you want.

Regarding what that guy says I guess it was already difficult to fool his customers by selling the same thing without innovation in other simulators and now he has returned to make money with his usual addons with the usual bugs and problems. Others on the other hand have been advancing and innovating and I never saw them complaining.

 

Edited December 22, 20241 yr by Aglos77

18 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m not afraid of change. I have a lot of GoFlight kit all programmed for P3D. It’s a lot of work to do it all again for another sim. Plus I have the MCP for Boeing so it won’t work with an Airbus.

Did I mention having to buy the PMDG737 / 777 for a third and second time too? 😉 So it’s not just being resistant to change. It’s the practicalities of a switch too not to mention a considerable financial investment in P3D.

No Radar Contact either. 😟

But isn't that part of the 'set in your ways' mentality, I see this exact same reasoning in friends and family that are older than me. They find every excuse along the way not do something, even though that can easily afford it, they have all the time in the world and they know doing some of the stuff they claim to be time consuming is in fact just a few hours of work and then you're set for years. I seem to recall you talking about your last P3D install taking weeks after you got a new PC, installing all the airports and setting everything up. The time you spent doing that, you could have installed and set up a new simulator and probably in half that time. 

So may not be resistant to change but let's be honest, you inherently have a lot of reservations against MSFS and that will stop you every step of the way, even if everything was served on a silver platter. But it's human nature and P3D works for you, so respect for sticking to what you know and what works. 

If there is one thing I learned from my old man, don't try to change him or introduce new things. It's pointless. He may find out for himself one day, he may not, but trying to provide a steer is never going to work. Let them do whatever makes them happy, even if they are decades behind the rest of the world. 

2 hours ago, Fielder said:

Randazzo ! What a funny false name he uses on his forum, LOL!

His name is Robert Randazzo 

1 hour ago, Fiorentoni said:

I swear I read the title as "RSR saved sim community from slow bleeding death". That's what they call Freudian I guess...

🤣🤣🤣

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

Yesterday Ray posted about the closure of Hervé's site - sors.fr - one of the most representative of the good old days, and one where users could, for decades, obtain a worth of information and freeware to use with FSX and P3D.

So, while I do like MSFS for all it brought of good to the simmer community, I am sorry for those who saw their activity affected in such a way that they simply couldn't keep on 😕  

But at the same time, I commend Jorg and the MSFS team for bringing many new people to flight simming, and even bringing some old blood back to flight simming (ie. I am "old blood" because I had used multiple flight sims from Microsoft, leading up to FSX, and then stopped flight simming for about a decade). We are truly in the golden age of flight simulation because of MSFS - flight simulation has not been as vibrant and full of so many 3rd party developers today, even if the majority of those 3rd party developers are focused on MSFS.

Another thing I want to commend Jorg for is attempting to bring more people into flight simulation with the Career Mode in MSFS 2024.  I think Jorg realized a lot of casual flight simmers get bored of flying from point A to point B with no real objective.  And when I say "casual flight simmers," I am even referring to real life pilots!  There are several real life pilots (including one that is not current and I think he has an expired license) I know on Twitch who stopped streaming MSFS because they simply got bored of flying with no real objective.  One good example is Squirrel.  He is a real life pilot, and spent a lot of money on peripherals for MSFS, but aside from when MSFS 2020 was released, he only streamed MSFS 2020 very briefly when something new came, like the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, etc.  I think he spent no more than a few days streaming the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, etc. It was a no brainer that he would stream MSFS 2024 when it was released, but for how long would he stream it for?  Turns out that Squirrel was streaming MSFS 2024 for almost a month!  What kept Squirrel engaged was Career Mode.  There are several other real life pilots I follow on Twitch who are mostly streaming Career Mode because they enjoy it.

Jorg's plan was to take some of these casual simmers, including real life pilots, and try to convert them into long time flight simmers with Career Mode. It's a pity that the release of MSFS 2024 was so poor, and there are so many bugs with Career Mode.  I think the Career Mode bugs and the first few days of MSFS 2024's release really killed the momentum of Career Mode in converting some casual simmers into long term flight simmers.  But that's probably what Jorg's plan was and he deserves praise for his vision (but maybe not praise for the execution of it, lol).

In any case, we are still in the golden age of flight simulation, thanks to MSFS and Jorg's vision.

 

 

Edited December 22, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

RIP flight simulation. It's been replaced by flight simulation simulation. 

MSFS has indeed 'saved' the flight sim community from the stuffy old days of real world accurate physics and aviation science.

We no longer have to suffer planes that have annoying systems that absolutely refuse to behave unless you use a checklist in the right order and can be thankful we now have beautiful liveries and UHD rivets. 

We don't have to be afraid of flying in the dark with our appalling Ifr skills as the whole landscape is lit up in infra red brightness and /or runway lights are visible from the moon now. 

Most of all the frustrating and predictable boring behaviour of sims that always take exactly the same time (usually a minute!) to load up a flight! Where's the fun in that!!? We want to sit in nervous anticipation to see whether the sim will load at ALL today, and when it finally does we can make threads here about our success or failure. 

I could drone on here like your typical old Vater but there is no point as scientific fact has been replaced by social media level opinion. 

It's got NOTHING to with the age of the simmer. It's to do with vision and understanding. We put blinkers on the horse to make him or her run faster in a straight line and not be distracted by what he might see along the route. If you take a step back it's obvious that our most respected devs have embraced compromise and raw sales volume instead of stuck in the mud, old timer, luddite accuracy. 

Simming is for everyone, no issues there. Except the new crowd love to trample on any dissent, especially criticising traditional sims at every turn. It's not enough that they have their world to play in, they won't acknowledge that we have ours too. 

I use fsx, p3d and msfs. My sim is better than my sim which is better than my sim. I'm allowed to make comparisons as I enjoy ALL of them. Each has strengths and weaknesses, to me it's always the individual aircraft that is why I 'fly'. 

If you can't back up your opinion with facts and instead have to fall back on personally insulting the person making the comment your 'views' are what's damaging flight sim discussions, not the existence of other sims. 

Is there anybody here who would let their family members fly on a real world plane designed and built by Asobe /Microsoft? 

I certainly wouldn't want to take a seat on some of the monstrosity fsx Freeware planes out there either but somewhere in the middle lies excellence. Please let me continue to enjoy it ☺️

Edited December 22, 20241 yr by sloppysmusic
Tippos everywhere..