Does the “Team” not understand the issue of using promotional materials to advertise features of the sim that actually are not present? This has been an ongoing issue since before initial launch. Some may find it at minimum unprofessional, while others may see it as downright deceptive and false advertisement. If they want to use material like this at least include a disclaimer that features and images may be implemented in a later update. It is stuff like this that makes skeptical persons like myself not very trusting of the development team and Microsoft and question their authenticity on many other issues. That’s sad because they could make honest mistakes but then stuff like this is continuously happening so the first thing that pops to mind is that the “Team” is lying when an issue occurs.
I think you hit the nail right on the head here. When they advertise something yet it’s nowhere to be found in the product, it casts a shadow of doubt on anything the team says after that, be it official statements regarding issues, or anything said in their Q&As.
I’m very disapointed too, water level is still much too hight , flying from Le Touquet to Abbeville along the coast is not very fine.
But this simulator is realy fantastic for VFR ! Thank’s Asobo !
Thank you for your understanding
Help me with the assumed understanding please. What is inferred here?
I’m struggeling to understand why this is still a thing. This has been done since the very beginning of msfs. From alpha testing all the way till now. There’s a constant difference in trailer material versus release.
Even the loading screen with the cessna is still a very old screenshot where they still used the old tree’s and the lod distance was still ehh… how they said it would be.
After world update 3 they somehow choose to take a screenshot from london where half of the photogrammetry was missing.
the water masking was very pronounced in the first trailers. Still i bet not even 10% is even in the game right now.
I also strongly doubt that any of the 4K captured in real time trailers are actually captured in real time. It always look so much smoother and crisper/vibrant then actual ingame footage. Looks more like pre rendered footage. Still be done in the game engine ofcourse. But i doubt it’s recorded in real time.
And ofcourse i’m not sure how their UI works and what’s behind it. But i hounestly can’t believe it will take a lot of time to change some ingame screenshots to actual current screenshots. It’s allready embarrasing enough that they only have 2 screenshots for loading screens.
All in all they make themselfs look like complete amateurs. Wich is strange, because they’re a great developer. The product itself isn’t something made by amateurs. Neither was A plague tale wich was an absolute masterpiece. They worked on many great titles. But somehow they’re unable to polish simple things like ingame screenshots and representive trailers. This whole release still feels like a complete mess in a very early development state. And i believe this is mainly because of small things like this.
The point is: if the watermask work was delayed and the watermask is not there, what have they done the trailer video with? If the trailer video is not the actual gameplay, it should be mentioned in a written caption on the video, otherwise it is false advertising.
Then, has MSFS become free now? Because as far as I remember I paid it 120 $.
As has been mentioned before, the MSFS version for trailors and promo material is not identical to the release version. One of the differences to my knowledge is that the promo version does not include the newest handmade watermasks, instead it is set to show (unmasked) what is on the satellite imagery for the underwater area. This can look fantastic in some areas, but terrible in others - due to clouds and other image deficiencies that this water area may have.
Overall I am almost certain that the promo version looks worse than the release version in most water areas. Of course these “bad” areas will not be shown for promo, only the good ones.
The release version has a safer approach, the areas that have not been handchecked and watermasked have an automatism to let only the blurred underwater imagery show - this prevents unchecked areas from looking terrible. They also use a standard mask which fades the underwater imagery out fairly fast when away from the shore (That is the reason you wont see any reefs that are covered with water and not directly close to the shore).
In general custom watermasking is a very tedious and workintensive process. The results can be spectacular though. To my knowledge Asobo are working on this, but it will take time to progress and custom watermasking may never be finished for the complete planet due to its sheer size.
I’ve just learned to treat the WU trailers with a massive tablespoon of salt. Yeah, they look great, but probably not representative of what the actual sim you and I get to use will look like (at least not yet).
I don’t use many mods with MSFS2020, but two I’ve found that do increase the overall visual presentation are:
-
Global AI Ship Traffic MSFS V1 (Current Version 1.0 by Henrik Nielsen)
This free mod populates the world with container shipping and various other types of shipping. The effect is subtle, often, but definite. -
BIJAN HABASHI - 4 SEASON PACK V4.4 - MSFS
This payware addon reconfigures global vegetation to more accurately reflect indigenous plant species, as well as adjusting tree density and heights to more properly match reality. This is an ongoing project, with more regions being added/refined all the time.
Both seem to work well with the sim, even on my modest rig, and with WU4 (at time of this writing).
Other than that, the single biggest (and by far the most impressive) visual upgrades, IMO, are water masks. Asobo seem to to be adding more with each WU, but - man - progress is slow. To date, you’ll find hardly any in SE Asia, for instance (and I have been looking, believe me). This is a tragedy. Have you seen the Indonesian Archipelago in real life? Really, google it. Imagine the landscapes of Avatar, but for real (sans the floating skyborne islands, sadly).
If I had my way, I’d have a dedicated team working on water masks 24/7. These things make such an impact, so immediately and so obviously, it’s hard to imagine why more effort isn’t spent in getting them added to MSFS 2020’s virtual world as a matter of priority.
Watermarks have had a delay in the past, I’d imagine it’ll show up in the next update
OK, thanks for the explanation, however I don’t see it written anywhere in the trailer. There is no disclaimer.
If I were a new customer and bought MSFS now, I would expect to have the same graphics as the trailer because they don’t state that the trailer is not representative of the actual gameplay anywhere.
I can remember the drama around the game Anthem where even the developers were surprised about the trailer. They just saw what they are supposed to develop.
Hello, thanks for the feedback. I would suggest, to avoid discussions like that in the future, the promotional videos should have a little disclaimer about that.
Funny thing…Asobo is a french company. In France, false advertizing is illegal. If one show and advertize something one can buy, it should be as advertized…The law is very precize about that.
I bought MSFS the very first day at launch time. I think that more than 6 months of patience to get the product I bought is enough. As a french sim enthousiast, I should be proud of Asobo’s work and pride. And sure, this work is tremendous…But I just can’t because I’m feeling fooled day after day…
i love corsica and watermasks are nt present in the beauty s island… disppointed… corsica is in france so asobo, make an effort please !
Has anyone tested if the mask of Baie de Somme was introduced with the latest patch 1.15.8.0?
I had the opportunity to test myself and the answer is no sadly
Water masks are server side changes, so they don’t need to make a client update to introduce it.
Basically it can happen any time, we’ll see if they announce it.
oh okay thanks
@OlieTsubasa443 Just announced on the official discord that they are releasing an update today to add this in.
Indeed, In addition the new NavData, we are also adding the missing “Baie de Somme” watermask.
Thank you for bringing this up to our attention.