So I was listening to the very recent interview of Jorg Neuman and Sebastian Wloch with Threshold, and a question popped up that are the devs planning on updating the default aircrafts to study level to which Jorg Neuman quite clearly answered with a no. Reasoning behind was that it would leave various 3rd party devs out of business. Ok that is fine and I am totally cool with that since an aircraft development takes years of hardwork and should be left to the likes of pmdg, qualitywings, aeroaoft etc.
So that leaves us with the scenery. Now I am sure many of you must have seen the recent announcement of Sydney city by orbx https://www.facebook.com/487392368083415/posts/1695347637287876/. That looks absolutely gorgeous by the way. How are the devs at Asobo planning to wrap their heads around this ? Are they going with the same approach they are taking with the aircraft development? Intentionally leaving enough space for 3rd party developers to populate the world with detailed cities ? If thatās the case, I will be severely disappointed. Or, what happens to the value of this Sydney addon once the devs do decide to update the bing data of that area? Or will they even do this ? Orbx wonāt be happy that is for sure. What if they are sitting on detailed bing data but not willing to update because some 3rd party devs came into an agreement with them for selected areas ? If what I am saying is true, Sydney and many other areas might never get updated by Asobo.
One other thing Jorg Neuman mentioned in the interview is that they are planning on updating selected regions one by one. They are in contact with almost every government and some of the imagery is as good as 25cm. But we are still waiting for that to happen and the scope is yet to be seen.
Now I know this is all just guesswork and I might be completely wrong but it doesnāt hurt to discuss the topic (respectively) here with you guys. Please share your thoughts.
Regards
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Personally I think you have a valid argument in suggesting areas have been left out intentionally so payware can fill the gaps. Right now there is no other rational explanation that I can think of that would explain it. It doesnāt sit well with me but it is what it is.
As for Sydney? Already there are a few guys making some good freeware stuff for Australia, so perhaps support them instead of lining the pockets of the likes of Orbx who before long will swamp this sim with whatever they can knock together and sell. Personally Iāll eat the best thing one of my dogs can turn out before I go down that route.
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Update after FS update. Just speculating, but maybe you have to pay for the update. Thatās the reason why I havenāt planned to buy anything. A lot of issues were fixed by the freeware community and itās growing fast.
I would say be patient. Anyway, Iām satisfied as it is. I prefer to fly difficult situations and concentrate on instruments. I donāt need SIXT or McDonalds signs at the airport or in the city 
It depends and I know of several mega billion $ corporations build themselves with that strategy. I believe, the platform itself has become rather complex and if we look at the history of any sim, quality flight models have come from 3rd parties. With that, it is a strategic choice to focus on the platform to provide advanced ecosystem like variable wind effects, hooks to provide real world weather , advanced terrain generation etc.
Weāve already witnessed the magnitude and complexity of the undertaking via issues that have been reported and will require a significant amount of focus just to get them right. So, why invest in a place where end users will anyway go for 3rd party add ons?
In this modern architecture with cloud streaming and all that, the proper way to support 3rd party scenery improvement is to Partner with the original team, do the work on your side team and for the player you purchase or subscribe to those improved assets, which get delivered to you natively through the same pipe. So if I subscribe to the Orbx worldwide scenery project, It streams me better assets. As Orbx continues to expand their reach, more and more areas automatically improve - I donāt need to Install anything. Heck I donāt even need more storage. Their logo literally shows up in my game somewhere, and it tells me all their updates, a map of what is improved and how, and i can monitor their progress simply by checking in game I donāt need to guess what Iām seeing.
Msfs can even support multiple scenery teams and companies in healthy competition with eachother, and as a player you simply subscribe to the one whose work you prefer best.
Thatās the way to do it.
Not side teams working completely independently that now are off doing their own thing totally disconnected from the roadmap of the product, offering offline assets for tiny areas that donāt support the native architecture or streaming and are built by disconnected teams, or even worse, on a part time volunteer charity basis with limited tools and experience. Doesnāt work with collision detection. The mass airflow simulation doesnāt see the objects. Certain aircraft always stall over top of it. On and onā¦ incompatibility and inconsistency. I donāt consider those people heros at all. All they do is prevent us from ever getting a Real solution to something that was absent in the product. They do it for their own ego or boredom, and the results are never as advertised.
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Sounds perfect, but I doubt that will happen. And who should pay for it. Again the user or MS @superā¦
You think lining Orbxās (or others) pockets is the solution via a subscription service ? Iāll walk away from this sim before I go down that rabbit hole.
Iād rather buy some of these ācharity part timersā you so condascendingly labelled a coffee or two for the work theyāve done rather than be pigeon holed into paying some overrated scenery house for the privilage of getting the London City *&Ā£# up on a bigger scale
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They confirmed that future regional updates will be completely free.
I meant the ORBX addon not MS.
Iād be happy if they got the planes to a decent level (not study), reliable interface/game, good physics engine, worked on tweaking the base scenery as much as possible (fix bridges, roads, rendering issues, light issues, etc.), a working ATC, decent weather engine, and a well done SDK. With that 3rd parties and community can carry the torch too for the next 10 years. I donāt mind payware planes, and if I fly a region a lot maybe Iāll buy a scenery add on if I want more detail. Out of the box MSFS looks way better then FSX after spending hundreds of dollars in scenery addons. The world is huge, and people fly it in different ways. Just get the base mechanics working well, and we can go from there.
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I havenāt heard or seen this statement of Jorg about their aircrafts, but if thatās true it actually makes me see those devs a bit different from what I used to before.
I get that this sim is supposed to be a platform for further development by 3rd party companies, but arenāt there enough aircraft types out there to be sold and brought into the sim by others? I already see a huge wishlist by the community in this regard.
Asobo just put in a few as a starter package so to say and I see no reason to not bring them to perfection (as far as possible oc).
But to say, we leave that for others to do so they can sell them, is just lazy if I may say so.
Those few aircrafts wich come with the game wouldnāt have stolen any money from any company.
Thatās just making me a bit sad, as I was hoping for some serious improvements to Asobos aircrafts in the future.
Now Iām just goin to save up for a 3rd 172 from who knows who to have a somewhat realistic plane in the sim?
I fail to see how updating the small number of default aircrafts towards study level would have any meaningful impact on the likes of PMDG, Qualitywings, Aeroaoft etc.
PMDG will still have all 737, 777 and all the other variants of the 747.
Aeroaoft will still have all the sub variants of the A320 family and other Airbus stuff.
etc etc etc
Do you have any idea how long it takes to develop a āstudy levelā aircraft? Many GA aircraft are already included in the price and the small bugs will be fixed soon. If youāre talking about airliners, well, you wonāt get them under 100$ even in FS2020.
Have a look at P3D or x-plane. After you have calculated your investment we can talk about it further.
Iām really on the fence with the whole aircraft thing because I can see why they would be happy to let 3rd party devs take on the duties for making high/study level aircraft, especially the airliners because they are incredibly complicated with all their systems. They take a serious amount of time and effort to get to a high level by people experienced in making them, so I can see it from that point of view.
But I would also be disappointed if they didnāt at least work on a small selection of the smaller GA planes to get them to that very high level. Itās not like every aircraft that came with the sim has to give way to payware.
Even if the Textron aircraft were done (Cessna and Beech craft) following the Partnership announcement, that would be a good thing.
Not talking about study level, just somewhat realistic! And working! The default planes are already through years of development and still far from that!
Also, I was saying āin the futureā, so Iām grateful for what we have right now, BUT seeing that thereās no serious improvement even planned, that is what making me feel sad about it.
What exactly ist not realistic with the GA Planes and which airplane. Give an example. TBM, 172, 152ā¦
Oh come on. You too read the forums right? Iām really not in the mood to list dozens examples. Youāre no real life pilot I suppose?
I need only one and what exactly is not working for you.
I hope theyāre not planning to leave the product half finished in order to have customers having to pay up lots of more money in order for it to look finished. As far as I know that strategy wasnāt communicated in any of the videos from Asobo. I had the impression that they were selling a finished world to fly in, or at the very least theyād fix stuff afterwards. If this is going to turn into something where you have to spent hundreds of dollars for a polished finished version, by third parties, thatās not going to happen for me. And I think itās an ugly, customer milking way of selling something if youāre not telling it beforehand, so I hope Iām wrong.
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Canāt check oil or tire pressure on ANY aircraft! Also, how do you get in and out? Ever thought about this? - sarcasm off and out.