The ironic thing about his answer to the icing question was that he said “We are building a sim, not a game”, implying that he thinks the current situation with icing is realistic and changing it would make it less realistic.
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That was not related to the icing? He said ‘we’re building a sim not a game’ because somebody in chat got ‘mad’ when he said game earlier. He jokingly responded to that ‘we’re building a sim, not a game’.
He didn’t say the current icing is as real as it gets. 
I was a bit disheartened from from watching the Q&A. Basically what I got is:
Anything eye candy: “Oh we got this and it’s coming.”
Almost everything related realism: Glazed looked over their faces or a smile, followed by a, “Errrr…uhhh…this is backlogged…it’s on the list…we’re looking into it…” etc.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this and being too critical. I would love to be proven wrong, but with a console release, and other than the FBW mod, I don’t think realism improvements are at the top of their list. At least not in the short term.
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Oh, right, fair enough. I didn’t see that in the chat.
I’ve just watched it again and he seems to be saying that the problem is that people don’t like the “visual aspect” of the icing. He says nothing about the affect it has on the flight model. The fix he proposes seems to be to allow people turn down the visual aspect of the icing, or to turn icing off all together.
That seems to me to be missing the point. I think most people want icing; they just want it be realistic, both visually and in its effect on the flight model. If it’s realistic then there is no need for the user to tweak it.
Perhaps some people would want to alter the amount of icing in order to make the plane easier or more difficult to fly. I have nothing against them adding some means to do that, but the default setting should be there is an accurate amount of icing, per what would happen in the real world.
His answer stats at around 31:30 in the clip, in case I’ve misunderstood what he said.
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Yep, you are right, Its pretty obvious what is their main focus, they’ve said, that main focus is console release atm so I wouldn’t expect some huge improvement in realism until then, sadly. They for sure don’t want to end up like CD-projekt with their Cyberpunk console release which was literally a disaster.
Martial has some nice ironical reaction when excessive icing was talked about and he said: “well it is a simulator” Yea of course it is a simulator but that icing is not real at all, every professional pilot can confirm that.
And second thing which was a little bit concerning to me was when Sebastian was talking about that they want to be this sim accessible for every one and that is the reason why we don’t have strong up drafts and downdrafts and many other things because people wouldn’t understand it.
Well… yes, that is good for people who really don’t have much knowledge about aviation but for real life pilots or hardcore simmers it is not very good attitude according to me. How can you have the most realistic simulator out there when on the other hand you are intentionally not implementing those things into the sim?
For example if I don’t want to learn all the aircraft systems and spend hours learning stuff I will not play DCS but Ace Combat.
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I guess there is nothing wrong with making the sim accessible to all levels of knowledge and experience but the primary focus should be realism and then they could add a “true to life” and a “game” mode or something in which you can go up / down / left / right / lots of noise / less noise and fly over your own house GTA V style? At least don’t dumb everything down for all of us.
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You are right, I have to correct myself, it is not bad if they want this sim to be for everyone, it is good both for their sales and also for newcomers to flying but as you said, there should be some settings or slider or something for beginners and for more advanced users. “True to life” should be with all aspects of realism, according to me.
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But isn’t this contrary to Jorg’s “A simulator for simmers”?
Is FS2020 a simulator for everyone with a “Simmers Expansion Pack DLC”?
Is FS2020 a simulator for simmers with a “Dumbing Down Experience Pack DLC”?
Is FS2020 a simulator aimed for simmers at its core but designed for gamers essentially?
You can’t please everyone but there must be some clear product positioning indeed, because “for simmers” doesn’t rime with “dumbing down up/down drafts”, doesn’t rime with “icing is just visually wrong” either.
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There are many of us right here who actually do this for a living. Not to mention a few of us who professionally train people to do this for a living.
You want the right answers, ask the right people. I’ve got over 10,000 hours of turbine dual given.
-Ken
CFI, CFII, MEI
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What’s your opinion of the icing, Ken?
For a sim-game it would be quite overkill to hire a MEI for some general IFR knowledge, wouldn’t you agree?
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I don’t know, I’m not sure if an average (IFR) flight simmer with no real life experience knows anything about for example temperature corrections? What icing feels and looks like? There are a couple of things enthusiasm and loads of simulated flights can’t replace.
if they are going to ice you up on the ground then they need to provide the option of deicing and anti-ice services. Considering that I have gotten caught in actual severe icing, noting that I have encountered in the software has really exceeded that.
I have seen lots of residual icing on unprotected surfaces after flying through just moderate icing.
Plus in the real world, there are lots of different types of icing whereas the software only seems to simulate one type.
Well the sad fact is that the simmers community will always be smaller in comparison with gamers (no offense there).
Which means that the main focus will always be the biggest community, which means more users, more money.
They know for sure, that for most of the people are visuals the most important factor out there. And to tell the truth, I think that every one of you would do the same, it is simple math.
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If it is a technical IFR question or a technical aircraft question then they should go to the experts. Would you ask some random guy off the internet how to program the DX12 API or would you go to Microsoft?
BTW, I am not angling for a job.
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A comment here that has nothing to do with any issues discussed, but does pertain to the Q&A session.
Every time they referred to MSFS as a “game”, I could just imagine some of the people watching twitching and getting a case of Forest Whittaker eye…
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But its not gamers that will sustain that sim for years
Once they have fly a couple of times around their house and do the landing challenges they’ll be bored and not really play again.
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The bean counters at MS who have a heavy influence in the decision making process (sometimes all of it) only look out to the next couple of quarters at most, that’s where the biggest sales, profits, and their biggest performance bonuses come from. They care little about the longetivity or the lifespan of the sim and where things will be 3, 5 or 10 years from now. In a year or two, those folks will be steering other new projects.
Can someone please clarify this, if I understood it correctly, the replay tool is going to be a simple one with no timeline … etc (I think their internal tool is advanced), however Seb mentioned that you’d click record and replay later, so it won’t be like FSX or X-Plane, isn’t? If I need to click record, that will be bit annoying 
I simply suggest the twitch videos get timed text later once the live footage is over for, I’m sure together with many other simmers, I got trouble understanding Seb and Martial, Jörg is doing ok as he’s based in the US. No offense.
BTW, the latest one was still the best Q&A twitch ever, thanks to all those amazing guys Seb Martial, and Jörg.
Jörg, in particular, was doing amazing again.
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