Cristi_Neagu

Not only have RXP used the Garmin Trainer for decades with permission (Flight1 too), but why would Microsobo be policing the internet for mods they don't sale, that don't violate their licence agreement?

So Microsobo is going around demanding that certain addon developers show proof of licencing from Garmin, but they seem to be totally fine with other developers making and selling Garmin GPS mods... I could understand them doing that if it was a question of selling the mod on the marketplace, but them going out of their way to shut down these projects...? I may be biased towards conspiracy theories, but if that doesn't sound like an attempt to hide how feature incomplete the in-game Garmin units are and how weak they are compared to, say, an RXP unit, then I don't know what does. Which brings up an interesting question. Is Microsobo asking anyone else for licences? Do you think they asked modders for licences from Boeing? Airbus? Textron?

Sometimes I think we need a dedicated safe space here for all the "oh god FS2020 is the best thing ever and it does no wrong and it's the most perfectest perfect thing ever, how can others live without it!?" victimized flight sim snowflakes to hang out in. Then they won't have to deal with the adversity and disappointment of people pointing out that all is not right with FS2020 and that the emperor hasn't got any clothes on. I can also treat this with the same level of casual irreverence. Or, you know, maybe we can stick to the actual argument. But sure, throwing around unwarranted insults is fun, albeit less educational. We can do that too, I suppose. It's fine with me. I mean, I'm just some nobody. I don't represent a major decision maker involved with FS2020 or Microsoft, I'm not a public figure for any company, so I suppose I don't have to be as careful with what I say and how I say it. Oh, and before you say that my mock quote above does not in any way represent what your opinion is, I would like to point out that your mock quote above also doesn't represent my opinion, and this has not stopped you from making it. This has started as a response to people claiming that FS2020 provides a less exclusivist environment for developers, whereas P3D and X-Plane were very elitist. So this is in response to those claims, and I believe that it is pretty obvious that the range of possible addons has been restricted compares to P3D and X-Plane. As I have said above, it can be argued that those addons aren't necessary, or desired, or feasible, but that's besides the point. The fact that you cannot make the equivalent of ActiveSky in FS2020 means that choice is now limited. And while it cannot be denied that what Microsoft, Asobo, and WT have done has enabled a lot more developers to start producing addons (which, despite the fact that this does lower the average quality of addons, I am convinced is a good thing), the range of addons is limited. We get more content, but there's less variation. What's more, Microsoft have centralized the market in one place. Before there were a bunch of stores, and all of them were pretty much equal. If for some reason you couldn't sell on one store, no worries, there's another just as good. But now Microsoft's store is where it's at. That is the place to be, especially when FS2020 arrives on the Xbox and that is the sole place where you can buy addons. And Microsoft set the rules for what you can and cannot sell on there. Is it still the case that you cannot sell any addon that depicts guns? I would also argue that this is a much more elitist and exclusivist environment that ever before. Again, you can argue that these things are good, that they're better, that they make sense. My argument has nothing to do with any of that. I am not saying that it's a good or bad thing. I am saying it's a thing, nothing more, nothing less. Why should I? I made no such claim. In fact, I made it pretty clear that if Microsoft wants to completely close down access to developers, that's their choice. Please read my posts with more care. Apt description, considering an electric hovercraft doesn't have the range, speed, comfort, capacity of a Chevy, and no person in their right mind would pick an electric hovercraft as their daily driver. And It would be fine if those developers couldn't sell tires and gasoline anymore were it not for the fact that we have had several people here claiming that despite this electric hovercraft not having tyres or needing any fuel, developers can sell more things than ever before.

I don't see why you need to change the subject, and misconstrue my words in the process. No one has said you haven't spent your free time, no one said you haven't crafted a modification to a default plane, no one said hundreds of thousands of users didn't download it, no one said you didn't enable the technology shift brought by Microsoft and Asobo, no one said the project wasn't enabled or that it wasn't helped by the simulation developers, no one said it wasn't promoted, personally or otherwise, by the publisher. No one said any of that, so I do have to wonder why you brought all that up. I am not here to score brownie points or victim points or any other kind of points, and I would hope you would agree with that. So let's not throw red herrings at each other, as it's beneath us both. What I have said (and I can only defend my words, not someone else's) is that the entity that is in charge of deciding which path FS2020 takes with regard to third party addons has decided that a whole slew of addons are no longer possible. In terms of what developers can create FS2020 has brought nothing new to the table. Sure, they have new ways of doing some things, ways which are in many respects better than what they had before (which is evidenced by the many, many people who have created addons for the first time), but every single addon that can be created for FS2020, can be created for P3D or for X-Plane. But the reverse is not true. There are quite a few addons which are very popular with P3D and X-Plane which can no longer be created in FS2020. And it's not because developers don't want to use the new toolset or use the new paradigms of FS2020, it's because the functionality does not exist to enable these addons, and the functionality is meant to not exist. You may argue that these addons are no longer necessary, or they're no longer desired, or that the problems they solved no longer exist, or that they were a pain to use. Sure, all that may be true. But it doesn't negate the fact that they are no longer possible. Any way you look at it, FS2020 has restricted the possibilities of 3rd party developers and it is thus restricting their creativity. There may be more developers making more addons, but those addons do less things. And that's what the argument is about. Can the same not be said for you? Just because some people are salty about technology choices (such as using the Garmin Trainer to deliver a high fidelity recreation of a Garmin GPS unit), it does not mean they get to pain with whatever brush they feel like. Couple of problems with that: 1. Sure, people had attitude. Sure, the community was small. But at no point was there any kind of authority saying "you cannot develop this". The sims were as open as they could be, especially X-Plane, the files were readily accessible to everyone, and anyone was free to develop whatever kind of addon they wanted, and they could sell it on the market platform of their choice, despite other people grumbling about it. But now we have Microsoft deliberately closing off parts of the sim. They have created the de-facto marketplace for FS2020, one marketplace to rule them all, and they're the gatekeepers, telling developers what they can and can't sell. I'd rather have those grumbling old timers that I could safely ignore rather than a gatekeeper physically blocking development. But that's just me. 2. As I said above, yes, FS2020 has brought many people to the developing table, and that is a good thing. But making it impossible to inject weather in the sim, for example, is not a requirement for that. All these new developers aren't here because you restricted development freedom, they're here despite that. Sure, but I don't see what this has to do with any of the points I made. There was no need to restrict access to the sim's core in order to achieve this. In fact, had you not restricted access, maybe we'd have even more developers around. Look, as has been said above, please don't try to misconstrue my words. Please stay on topic. Listing your achievements, whilst they are commendable, undeniable, and have had a positive effect on the community, has nothing to do with the argument put forth. I never said there hasn't been an increase in developers, or in users. I never said the new technologies being introduced are bad. What I said is that the undeniable truth is that FS2020 has limited the realm of possibility for addon developers. HiFi Simulations and RXP are but two examples of this. Until such time that developers can do in FS2020 what they used to do in P3D that remains a fact. And as I keep repeating, I am strictly referring to what they did, not how they did it. Don't make this about DLLs vs WASM, cause it has nothing to do with that.

I know I keep banging on about this, but what can I say, it's what I am most familiar with: @RXP is currently blocked from the market place, and the best reason anyone has managed to figure out is that it's because RXP is selling addons which do not conform to Microsoft's vision of what FS2020 addons should look like. As far as I know, no one seemed to wonder if RXP might want to sell something other than Garmin units on the marketplace... And even worse, this isn't just a block on marketplace access. RXP has been trying to get in touch with Microsoft and Asobo for quite a while now in order to get assistance with some issues which would benefit many other developers, but as far as I know there has been no response from Asobo or Microsoft. You can find more info here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/open-up-communications-with-reality-xp/392140 Second on the list would have to be HiFi Simulations, who have been told flat out that there will never be any support for weather injection, and that's final. So there is no support at all for such addons. Next on the list would have to be any developer that wants to introduce a custom flight model. This is another type of addon that is not permitted. And lastly, any developer that wants to protect their IP and not have code out in the open is also out of luck, as there is a lot of pressure towards open source addons. I will admit that I think there has been a bit of a change in direction on this, and I think there are some steps being taken to protect developer IP, but the point still stands. Now, in any of these cases one can say that this is Asobo's project, they're working on it under Microsoft's leadership, and they can steer it in any direction they choose. And yes, that's true. If they want to limit addons to a very specific paradigm, that is their choice. But if that's the case, I don't see how anyone that supports this can complain about some supposed culture of exclusivity that allegedly existed in the past, whilst also claiming FS2020 is allowing developers all the freedom they never had.

@Alpine SceneryIf I said something that is wrong, you are more than welcome to point it out and tell me why it's wrong. But what i get instead is an ad hominem. So it sounds to me like you're arguing with me for the sake of arguing. You sound like a public defender trying to protect the dream team. Well, i'm not here to attack the dream team. I'm here to point out that as things stand right now, FS2020 will not be capable of supporting the same level of addons as FSX. If you look back through the posts, you'll see that most everyone else is doing that with my posts. I always say why i say the things i say. I explain myself to what i consider to be a sufficient level, and i point out where you can get more info on certain topics, such as the JustFlight forum. And what do I get in response: the equivalent of "FS2020 is simply better!" whether that is true or not. Like i said: please point out what i said that's wrong, and tell me why it's wrong.

You quoted someone literally talking about the Arrow crashing into the beautiful scenery because of FS2020, so... 1. That doesn't make them any less privileged in their access to the simulator code. Name any other developer that has that level of access. 2. PMS50 did the same with the GNS530/430 and the GTN750. Did PMS50 get to work with Asobo too? Either way, this has nothing to do with why WT is working so closely with Asobo. This is about the fact that all of the claims that the SDK is extremely capable and amazing come from developers that either have Asobo actively working to deliver the features they need and want into the sim, or from developers that have that capability themselves. I see no one saying "Well, we've been trying for months now to open a channel towards Asobo and to get a marketplace application, and that hasn't happened, but hey, at least the SDK is absolutely amazing and we can do everything we want in it". Sure, that might be because such developers are too busy developing to post stuff like that.

That's like a chef telling a customer: "Do you have nay Michelin stars? Then how can you possibly know if that chicken is raw?"... If that is aimed at me, then i would ask you to point out where I made any claim that comes from anything other than what a third party developer has said. I personally don't know when WT started working with Asobo, but I do know it must have been prior to the official announcement, unless anyone is ready to claim that announcement was as much a surprise for WT as it was for us.

To paraphrase Treebeard: We post long threads because it's worth taking the time to write them. Another developer in a most privileged position... Well, what they did with helicopters was to completely bypass the FS2020 internals, so...

That quote doesn't prove that it's possible to build complex aircraft via WASM. For starters, no one knows what methods PMDG are using to build their addons. Secondly, where is this complex aircraft from PMDG that RSR is referring to? It's not on the market. That quote only shows that at the time PMDG didn't believe any major roadblock stands in their way. That's all. I have not moved any goal posts, as it is evident from your inability to provide any quotes of mine where i make any of the claims you say i made. As i have stated from the beginning, this is about FS2020 never being as good as FSX was if things going the way they have. You keep claiming i somehow said FS2020 is incapable of any addon of any kind at all, which is a lie. And then you proceeded to imply things i never said. This is indeed pointless if you're going to put words in my mouth. Have a nice day.

Wrong. I said: And by "good", i am referring to the ecosystem built around it, not just the default sim that comes out of the box. The two are not mutually exclusive. Go on JustFlight's forum in their thread on the Arrow for FS2020 and go through the posts and you will find many instances of the developers talking about compromises they had to make because of the core FS2020 internals. The wing geometry cannot be defined as it is in real life cause that will lead to deeply unrealistic flight behaviour. The engine cannot have the same performance as the real life one, because the way the engine model is made in FS2020 simply does not allow it. And i'll ask one more time: Quote me where i said that the SDK is not capable of producing any airplane at all.

Look, if you're going to keep ignoring what i say and instead prefer your own opinion of my words over my actual words, what's the point of this? Care to quote EXACTLY where i said JustFlight doesn't have an aircraft on the market for FS2020 right now? Pray tell, where did I say the SDK is limiting airports? And just having addons on the market doesn't mean they're better than their FSX/P3D counterparts. Who are you even arguing with? Where did I say there is NO functionality in FS2020 whatsoever? Either quote me or stay on topic. If your next response is as completely out of touch with anything I said as this one is, i won't bother responding.

1. That was 2 months ago. A lot happens in two months. Until I see a proper 737 announced and showcased by PMDG (or even a DC6), the situation remains as it is. 2. PMDG are working directly with Asobo. They are one of the privileged few, hardly representative of the larger developer community out there. 3. There aren't just "marginal developers". JustFlight is saying it, so is MilViz, AIG, Indiafoxtecho, RXP, etc. The one message i've seen from anyone from A2A talking about development for FS2020 hinted at the same issues. In other words, pretty much anyone that doesn't have a favoured position with Asobo is pointing out just how restrictive the development environment it. Whilst a lot of those freeware addons are quite good, it's quite a stretch calling them "beyond anything released for FSX". No FS2020 plane on the market today flies right. All of them have some sort of compromise. I invite you to frequent JustFlight's forums, where the developers point out various problems in the FS2020 flight model they have to contend with, which usually leads to compromised behaviour. And freeware airports look better because the game looks better overall. I am looking at FSX while also taking into account the vast and varied ecosystem it has created. You choose to ignore it, and I also think you are entitled to your opinion. But the fact is that FSX allowed developers to expand its functionality, while FS2020 locks developers in a sandbox. This is the reason why FS2020 can never be as good as FSX in the current status quo: FS2020 can never be more than what it already is. The only thing FS2020 does better than FSX at this point is graphics. Even the ATC system in FSX is miles better than the one in FS2020. And the only thing that matters here is how open the platform is to third party developers. I've seen P3D videos that looks just as good as FS2020. In fact, they look better, because they have fully functional airliners, fully functional traffic, fully functional weather, fully functional weather radar, fully functional ATC, fully functional everything. Also, i invite you to explain to everyone here exactly how is FS2020 so much better. Does it get better weather than ActiveSky? Does it have better flight models than A2A? Does it even have better ATC that doesn't want you to climb into the flight levels on short final? And how's the real time traffic? And if you're going to say "well, those are all addons!", you're simply missing the point. FSX has been abandoned because P3D came along. If Lockheed Martin never made P3D, FSX would be just as alive as it has always been. And at this point, the difference between P3D and FS2020 is night and day. Sure, you need a better computer to run it, and it will require third party addons, but i've seen P3D look just as good as FS2020, taking away the one advantage it has. So currently, if you want to fly/use the next generation aircraft and addons bringing you the best realism, you need to move on from FS2020 into P3D.

Well, there's two viewpoints out there, sometimes overlapping. Some people do indeed criticize the unfinished state of FS2020. I partly agree that this is not entirely fair, as the sim is quite new, and the devs are actively working on it. There is an argument to be made for it being released too early, however. And other people criticize the direction the sim is going in. Giving the devs time in this case is the worst thing possible, since the longer we wait, the worse things get. As far as I see, the set of tools the SDK will make available to third party devs is simply not sufficient to deliver the same quality of addons as FSX. And that is by design, as the devs keep quoting security concerns that have never been a concern in more than two decades of flight simulation. And even ignoring that, the sandbox environment does not actually solve the problems quoted by the devs. In conclusion, a lot of us are comparing FSX to FS2020 because, if things keep going the way they are, FS2020 will never be as good as FSX. Sure, it will have nicer graphics, but that's about it. Whilst we all like nicer graphics, that is the very last thing one should be concerned with when it comes to a sim. But with FS2020... that seems to be the main concern. Why, I wonder, if the end goal is a sim?

Microsoft doesn't support ransomware in Windows either, but unfortunately it still happens. Not to say that external flight models are equivalent to malware in any way, but just to say that developers don't always get what they want. At this point in time, based on all the actions and communications from Asobo, the only conclusion i can arrive at is that they do not want third party developers overriding the flight model. You can say (as many have said) that i am interpreting this in the most negative way possible. Thing is, i am not interpreting anything. I am simply going by what they are actually saying, and any other more positive opinion would be interpretation. I cannot know how Asobo are going to act on this. It may be that like many other companies before them (Sony, for example, if anyone ever had custom firmware on a PSP before...) they may decide that it's simply not worth chasing after these loopholes and just allow developers to use custom models all the while officially saying that they're not supported. That's fine. They may even decide to officially support the practice, who knows. But it is also a possibility that they may actively seek to plug in loopholes used to replace the flight model, or call it an infringement of the EULA or whatever, and try and shut this addons down. It's an extreme possibility, but it is a possibility. So I don't know what they'll do, but I know what they said. And third party developers hacking into the sim (which is not necessarily a bad thing as it is common practice with FSX and P3D) does in no way change what Asobo have said.

I am not aware of anyone other than HiFi offering a true weather radar data source. Still, they're being left out of the FS2020 party. Even so, if there's one sim that can offer volumetric precipitation data, it's FS2020. We'll just have to see how long it will take them to expose that information towards developers. After all, it did take quite a long time for HiFi to provide that data, and even longer for PMDG to integrate it in their cockpits.

And have they contacted you? I'm not the one pulling out Asobo's game plan out of a hat, or pretending like i know exactly why NASA is releasing the models that they are. I am basing my opinion on Asobo's actions, on the things they say and do, and on the common practices of developers, and i am more than clear when motivating why I say the things i'm saying. If you have an actual reasonable argument to make, i am more than happy to be proven wrong. But i do not care for dismissive personal attacks.

First off, even though in a lot of aspects the FS2020 flight model behaves more realistically than the old model, the old model does not have the obvious and gaping holes that the new model has, issues which i have pointed out earlier. Secondly, replacing the flight model in FSX and P3D is pretty common place. I highly doubt any of those producers used the default flight model in their addons. I am fairly certain PMDG use a custom flight model. I know for sure that they completely bypassed the engine logic, as well as many other systems. So no. They weren't using that model, and that's the whole point: they had the choice. Asobo.

And despite of that, X-Plane still allows you to plug in a custom flight model. This isn't about whose flight model is the best. This is about the fact that there is no one size fits all solution. It is impossible for the FS2020 flight model to ever accurately reproduce every single airplane ever in every single possible flight condition. Even if it technically is possible, 10 years is not enough development time. That's why i have always only been advocating for official support (or at the very least official recognition) for the ability to override the default flight model. Everyone wins. Developers get to stop wrestling with the default flight model and produce highly accurate addons, I get way better flight dynamics, you get to go on using the default flight model, and Asobo get to stop listening to me whine.

So? Most of those people bought it for the scenery and the looks. The ones that bought it for other reason are the ones expressing their disappointment all over various forums. And most of the addons coming out are indeed sceneries. And so what if there's way more content being produced for FS2020 than for any other sim? It's all in the lower brackets of fidelity, with less exceptions than you can count on the fingers of one hand. I'd rather have a handful of quality addons than millions of useless ones. What's actually funny is how you think that's a sarcastic statement, when in fact it is pretty factual. Yes, Asobo have a roadmap for continued development and they're spending a lot of effort addressing the needs of gamers in their VFR sim. The needs of simmers in their flight sim... not so much. There are HUGE issues with the flight model that have barely been acknowledged. Slats still don't work. Swept back wings are broken. Playing around with wing dihedral is a dangerous gamble. And every single landing and takeoff requires more knowledge of drifting around corners in Forza than it does aviation knowledge. And so far I haven't seen much indication that the devs have actually acknowledged these issues. Last i saw rudder problems being mentioned in a Q&A, Seb was talking about rudder response in straight and level flight, not on ground. And all of these issues would be nothing-burgers if they would allow developers to replace the default flight model, which they don't. So even if the flight model becomes as good as it can be, it will forever be a generic flight model that is trying to accommodate everything from a Top Rudder Solo 103 to an Airbus A380. And even though doing that is a stellar achievement, everything will simply feel generic. So it will never be good enough for anything other than a generic addon. So the question is: What does anything you said have to do with what the post you were responding to was saying?

Well yeah, i just happened to see it being mentioned, thought it might help 🙂

I remember someone on the FS2020 forums saying it's because of the salty mod, whatever that is. Not sure, cause i don't use the 747.

According to Matt from WT, "My goal is to enable as many developers as possible." I believe Asobo have expressed that view on many other occasions. And this isn't about holding anyone's hand, this is about basic functionality that a lot of well established developers are asking for. The people who give them money.

True. But point still stands. And because i like to play devil's advocate, a much better counter argument here would be that we don't know how much of P3D's revenue comes from commercial clients.

Well... it depends. For starters, P3D isn't even available for consumers. It's meant for commercial clients. I doubt that a considerable portion of them are looking to move to FS2020 in the near future. And when it comes to consumers, a lot of the old P3D users are still using it. Some are also using FS2020, some have stopped using it altogether. But i don't think P3D have lost enough people to enter a death spiral. And if things keep going the way they have with FS2020, a lot of the people that have moved over to it will return to P3D, as I have. It's true that this issue lies in the hands of the developers. This hobby has always been in the hands of the developers. It is true that quite a few of them have found a very lucrative market in FS2020 (probably why CS was so desperate to enter it with such a poor release). But quite a few of the big developers are still around, supporting P3D as before. We'll see what the future brings for P3D, especially if they keep upgrading their capabilities. And while i don't think its position is as strong as it was before FS2020 was announced, i don't think we can quite call it either way right now.