A lack of respect for the client

Multilingual ATC? English be spoken in aviation :smile: (and that says I as a non-native speaker).
Btw improvements of in-game ATC would give me personally the least incentive to upgrade.

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Fortunate or otherwise, this is the way MSFS has been for as long as I have followed the game.

Multi decimal place accuracy has never been a defining criteria.  Instead it has emphasized a broad audience that might not care about absolute precision, but are more fascinated with “the flight experience” in general.  “I can fly a plane!” has been more important than uncompromising realism.

Their emphasis has always been broad playability and an engaging environment.  They want engaging game play with as realistic an environment as the technology would allow.

It is designed for the lower class simmer who doesn’t have the tens of thousands of dollars to invest in a simpit.  People like me who make do with what we have is probably closer to their target audience.

Admittedly, accuracy is important, and MSFS understands that - but it has never been, and will likely never be - a primary goal of the sim as it is in other flight sims.

MS has always left the absolute and uncompromising realism to others like X-Plane and Flight Gear, and if precision modeling is that important, you should consider a different sim.

The “big iron” players are important, and the cockpits I have seen are fantastic, but MSFS has never been designed for the hard core simmer.

This is the way it has been, is now, and forever will be, amen. :wink:

If it upsets you that much, find a sim more suited to your vision of what a sim should be.

========

In my case, I have both XP-11 and XP-12 and they are excellent sims, but the scenery leaves much to be desired.  My major goal in simming has been sightseeing, not tubeliners, and I really like “boldly going where I have never been before”, or going to places I’ve been years ago and seeing how they have changed over the years.  This is what I want and MSFS has always fulfilled that need wonderfully.

Does that make me a casual wannabe punter?  Maybe.  Do I really care?  Nope.  As for me, the accuracy is reasonable enough and the scenery is jaw dropping.

=============

What really burns my biscuits is the entitled attitude of segments of the MSFS community.

As Dr. Laura Slessinger once said in The Care And Feeding Of Husbands, “You have forgotten to be grateful.”

MSFS is as good a simulator as I have seen, warts and all, and I am humbly grateful that I live in a day and age where I can experience this level of detail without a supercomputer and a Top Secret clearance.

What say ye?

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Not everyone is flying 300 passengers into KLAX, there are probably tens of thousands of local pilots that can hardly speak a word of English 
 and anyway I’m talking mostly about dialects of the countries you visit, Microsoft A.I. is already well capable of it.

P.S. MSFS is for everyone, not just English speakers

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Well said, and that is exactly my observation too.

I personally do not really have a problem with it, and it certainly does not upset me. I would like some deeper systems simulation here and there (particularly in the business jets, which, imho, would be an excellent basis for more), but I don’t need the scientific fraction-of-a-decimal approach that other simulators may claim as long as it doesn’t feel way off. My response was to the guy who wanted cockpit builder needs to be taken into more account, and I tried to make a point that his kind was not what Microsoft is targeting in the first place, so we are on the same page here. I am by no means a cockpit builder, and I too make do with standard plastic controllers :smile:

I’ve done quite some real-world piloting, so I know what it feels like, and MSFS does indeed come pretty close to actually conveying the “right” feeling, taking all factors into account. Good enough for me.
That and the vibrant community is why I’ll stick with it, rather than with something else which most commercial developers have more or less abandoned by now anyway.
Except X-Plane which is pretty good, and I’m using that for some things that I find lacking in MSFS.
Good that there are multiple sims to choose from 


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Shall we take bets on if the infamous white dot will still be there? Lol.

I’m personally taking a wait and see approach. Most of what’s being said so far is all speculation, so why get so worked up over it? I’ll withhold my judgement until we have more official details on future support of the current sim, pricing of the next one, and the feature set between the two. I would love missions, which is something I miss from FSX, but I wouldn’t likely pay full price just to get one feature. But if they offer an introductory price of $30 for existing owners, I could pay that.

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Yep!

I have an “I wanna!” list too.

After decades in the hardware and software space - ranging from punched cards on “big iron” mainframes to DEC PDP-10s, to the dawn of personal computers (8 bit, 65535 bytes of ram and a cassette player), all the way to multi-core beasts with graphics cards from Hell, I have seen it all, designed hardware for almost 100%, and programmed most all of it.

I know from the bitter reaping of experience that the users are never satisfied.  Of course obvious regressions should be addressed, but feature creep is part of the nature of the beast.

The best we can hope for, (without supercomputers and high-end graphics workstations), is an approximation of reality.

Fractions of a decimal place accuracy comes with a lowering of the scenery quality.  Massive scenery and jaw-dropping graphics comes at the expense of absolute accuracy - because there is only so much silicon to go around.

I feel a debt of gratitude toward those who have given us a simulator like this.

To quote Isaac Newton:  “If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”

So it is here.

What say ye?

The thing is, these goals don’t have to be opposed to each other. I think everyone’s different wishes would be reasonably possible for MSFS to implement. I don’t think the casual gamer would be unhappy with well-functioning physics and aerodynamics. Rather, they would probably think it was fun. These goals don’t have to cost Microsoft a fortune, either. If I’m not mistaken, AeroFly and FlightGear have implemented JSBSim. I think the casual gamer would find it exciting to fly the Cessna into a Thunderstorm. Just to see what happens. As much as the serious home cockpit builder wants to have weather radar and avoid this thunderstorm.

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My take on this is that the bugs/wishlist fixes were becoming an insurmountable task under the current MSFS code and the best thing to do, therefore, was to start afresh. I think FS2024 is, largely, the bug/wislist fixes. And if so, well worth paying for again after four years of MSFS support.

People saying the current sim was never fixed — sorry, but a product covering the entire world will NEVER be perfect.

If you don’t like the look of FS2024 (now quite sure how one can succinctly make that decision based on a two-minute trailer), no one’s gonna make you buy it. And if you’d rather step away from the platform entirely as some sort of boycott
 that’s your choice.

Just let the rest of us eagerly anticipate the release of the next chapter of the franchise


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That is honestly an interesting list

Trimming I have not found to be a problem at all,
Ground effect is there, though it could be improved
Constant crashes are still a mystery as the vast majority seem to not have them.

That leaves atc and taxiing.

Taxiing has been dramatically improved over fsx days but is one area that xplane excels.

Xplane 12 also has better ATC now, but xplane 11 definitely did not.

In short, I get what you want, but temper your expectations. What you want is hard and to your original question, noone has nailed all of it. Xplane 12 is better in a couple of these areas than MSFS but worse in others.

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Not to diminish your excellent comments, I would beg to suggest that it might not be so simple.

We don’t have access to their source tree or the design documents, so I would suggest that none of us are competent to have an opinion.

One thing that may well have happened is that they may have “coded themselves into a corner” where earlier decisions that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, turned out to be bad ideas.  Or at least pathways that boxed them into a corner.

I have done this so many times.

I create a design summary and discover that it’s impossible to do what I need to do, so I go back and start fresh.  Making different choices, I discover the critical roadblock has moved from HERE to THERE, and I’m still stuck.

Or, it works but it’s such a borked up mangle of patches, Band-Aids, exception cases and just plain spaghetti code, that you just chuck the whole lot and start again.  (Also known as “refactoring” the code - another way of saying it’s a total pile of GAGH!)

None of this is simple or easy.

I’m going to reserve judgement untill the pudding comes out of the oven.

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The announcement for 2024 was made on the Xbox Games Showcase.
Key word: Xbox

Remember the impact the XBox release had for the PC Version of MSFS ? :wink:

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Worth noting, MSFS 2020 was the only AAA XBOX Studios game released in the holiday season of 2020, everything else (including the Xbox release of MSFS) was pushed back a year because of this little thing called COVID.

The other AAA game of note to release that season was Cyberpunk 2077, a game so buggy upon release, Sony did something they had never done before. They removed the title from their store until it was running acceptably.

MSFS was similarly buggy upon release, but being PC only at the time, folks could just throw sheer horsepower at it to get it to run. So it didn’t get the bad reputation upon release Cyberpunk got.

It is worth noting because the version folks got in 2020 of MSFS was not ready to release on both systems, and the Xbox version took another year to finalize.

Had the sim released on both console and PC together as intended, a year late, because of COVID, nobody would have noticed the clouds had to be rolled back and rebuilt
 and those of us who remember the release build know the original clouds were one of the main resource hogs. They barely worked on PC, and could’ve never worked on Xbox.

Now clouds look as good or better than they did. Still not perfect, and certainly different than they initially were, but of similar quality
 it just took an extra year to make them work.

We only got MSFS when we did because Xbox Studios was in a COVID panic, and didn’t want to push everything back. So they rushed MSFS out the door for PC only, in a barely functioning shape. And luckily, Cyberpunk got all the bad press instead of MSFS for doing something similar with their title in the midst of a global pandemic. CDPR just made the well publicized mistake of releasing on consoles a year before they should have, when their PC build was good enough to run if you threw enough HP at it.

TLDR: MSFS could only run on PC when it was released in 2020 because the pandemic had set all studio a back by 6 months to a year
 but it released in a shape that was NOT what MS/Asobo had intended. And the 2021 GOTY Edition much better represents what they had hoped to release on day one. A living breathing world shared between console and PC. Until they finished the clouds, they couldn’t share with consoles.

We forget our history sometimes, but 2020 was the Wild West for game developers. It was a weird year.

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True that!

What programs have you programed, just out of curiosity?

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But if they forget the hard core simmers I think they are in trouble. I have a feeling Xbox MSFS players dose not stick around for years like hardcore simmers do. I also imagine Xbox players with a big P dose not have the money hardcore MSFS users have.

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Please understand it is a AAA first party title released day one on Game Pass and it really is the first ever flight sim franchise on console, so of course there is a more casual player base as not as many have had a chance to get their equipment, not as much console gear even exists, but it is a first party AAA release, free day one to folks who have Game Pass, which is almost all Xbox owners.

Xbox and Game Pass are one of the key reasons we even have MSFS 2020, let alone 2024. I can’t fathom them dropping the sim aspects from Flight Simulator. They know their base. They know who log hundreds of hours of flight. But it is also a flagship Xbox title, and it sells Game Pass subscriptions.

They really are the same base sim. And Marketplace addons make most of the 3rd party content available. Just plug in a mouse and keyboard to your console. Or a game pad to your PC.

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I could tell ya’ but then I’d have to kill ya’.

Just kidding!

Hardware upgrades (boot GE 4020 mainframe from ROM for example), interface electronics, various utilities, industrial test software (in 8080 assembler on a Kaypro I and PC’s), and a whole bunch more in various languages.

It’s really a list, some NDA, some confo, others uninteresting, (reprogramming floppy boot code), and a whole list of others.

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So, what’s a “hard core simmer”?

  • Someone with a $10k - $20k (+) simpit?
  • Someone who flies tubeliners?
  • Someone that spends a lot of time on the forums dissing the X-box or more casual simmer?
  • Someone that thinks GA VFR sightseeing isn’t real flying and that they are somehow beneath consideration?

I strongly object to these characterizations of folks and the corollary implication that they are somehow secon-class simmers.

IMHO, ANYONE who spends time here, participates in the forums, makes CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions and comments, no matter what/how they fly are “hard core” simmers.

In any event, everyone here deserves the highest respect and consideration.

============

Personal note:
I am getting sick and tired of the entitled comments that certain individuals keep saying, that only some small subset of all simmers represent the “cream of the crop” and by implication that those others who play X-box or don’t fly tubeliners with massively expensive simpits are a lower class.

Many of us would LOVE to have the space or money for a simpit, but that’s not the case.  Us “sub-class” simmers are here, having fun, and deserve better.

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Sometimes I get my GTA on and buzz and barnstorm the crowded airports in my Tiger Moth or F-35 just to know these, “Serious simmers” might see me having fun. It warms my heart.

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Ha! the same hardcore simmers that refuse to buy anything in the marketplace because content is encrypted, you mean those hardcore simmers? 
 What they spend on their hobby might be enough to keep Nvidia happy and Austin Meyer supplied with luxury biscuits but Microsoft profit very little beyond their initial MSFS purchase 
 and without the vast amount of captive market xboxers you hold in such distain there is no way MS would have even dreamed of reviving their old flight sim platform.

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Well said!

:+1:

Maybe there should be another forum somewhere dedicated to the so called, “hard core” simmers where they can flex and leave those of us who enjoy the sim alone.

I don’t object to any type of simmer, no matter what/how they play, just so long as they realize that their gameplay isn’t the only, or even the best, way to play for everyone.

Yup!

There’s nothing that compares to buzzing the Moscow Kremlin or trying to land a Cessna in Red Square!

Then, the next day repeating it at The White House in 'DC, busting restricted airspace around the Capital building, or landing on The Mall.

P.S.
I don’t play every day because, though retired, I have a life outside simming and MSFS is an “as available, when possible” hobby for me.

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