Forgive me for I will be blunt. As a millenial who shared this boomer nostalgia of MSFS so-called “golden days”, I have to be fair to the current generation as well as the developers as to why things are the way they are right now.
I too, shared the frustration over the lack of “freeware vibrancy” in Flightsim.to. It must be noted, that I don’t necessarily say things are bad or bleak for this community, because in quality front, the improvements are extra massive over freeware past. Just look at the Japanese airport sceneries - none of FSX payware are as good and as complete. It is a proof that MSFS does attract new talents, while also reinforcing the notion that MSFS is just a fancified simulator on top of Bing maps.
I have known so many people who become real airline pilots starting with this hobby, and yes Microsoft Flight Simulator, all the way back from FS2002, FS9 (2004), or even FSX. It is easily done by accessing the more complex and higher fidelity modules like PMDG, Level-D, MadDog, or FSLabs. It helps a lot of them transition between propeller to jet, as well as the procedures.
The YouTuber 737NG driver | A330 driver is one of the famous examples.
In the past days, POSKY, IADG, EFG, AFG, Project Airbus, Project Tinmouse, Project Fokker, etc etc etc, that elitist attitude of Avsim community, the ever outdated website of Flightsim.com, the alternatives like Simviation and many others - things can go the way they were because nobody cares. But the world moves on. Do we still want to see sub-HD screenshots that you need to click to view in Avsim file library? Yes in the past, aircraft textures are approximation, but we have HDT and PBR textures. No “painter” needs to copy paste and manipulate tons of photos they extract from JetPhotos or Airliners.net
If the hobby stays that way, here is a better video game for those folks:
It has everything a desktop airliner pilots of that “hey day” wanted. You can even hear the flap motor from the cockpit! Folks who played MSFS back then wanted to hear them from the cockpit alright, since they always experience commercial flights from rear cabin economy class seats. Hint: you can’t hear them as well from the front cabin, and also, Boeing 737’s CFM does produce buzzsaw noise if you listen from the front rows.
Seriously, even gamers gets more and more immersion flying planes in ARMA, GTA, or Roblox. So what is in the word “simulator” anyway?
Today, the platform is getting ever more complex. I keep telling people how awesome it is to be able to get immersive soundsets from Blue Sky Star (BSS) Simulations for ToLiss A320 series. I didn’t get the same level of sound realism from real Level-D airliner simulator from the likes of RedBird or even Airbus themselves. It uses fmod compiled sound sets, it is nothing like mix and match soundsets of MSFS past, where you can edit sound.cfg, mix & match sound files that don’t even sound like the real thing (usually recorded outside the fence), let alone the quality. The .wav sample files are now only known for their huge size.
There is one thing I come back & forth, agreeing and disagreeing though. That is the “Virtual Cokpit” or “VC” or 3D cockpit. In the past you have weird off-putting bitmap picture, pasted into the screen and serve as a cockpit. Sometimes you get a cringey “photoreal” texture that doesn’t really improve anything beyond making myself looking like a harder wannabe pilots.
3D cockpit is a hassle I get it, flying is not panning around views with mouse and try to interact with cockpit objects through mouse controls. Even back in 2D eras, my real world pilot friends who are in this hobby since back in early 2000s complained about how much more cumbersome and difficult it is flying in MSFS than in real life. Turning a landing light is CTRL+L, a combination of button press or SHIFT+5 (usual toggle overhead panel shortcut key) and click on the sprite-like gauge animation pasted over the overhead panel bitmap texture. In his 737-200ADV, he just flick a flap that move several switches with his finger to get every landing lights on.
I am a private pilot and do know that sim gaming helps but will never be enough to take airplane controls, so this ideatic tendency of the “study-level” has slowed, in my opinion, the community interaction on what it is… a game, and the price we have paid after 4 years is a bunch of the same aircraft redone one and another time all over again, instead of having a bunch of new ones from where eventually emerge art pieces.
Freeware planes are dead, simply because it demands 3D cockpit these days. And they can’t be just eye-candy like the ones POSKY did for FS2002 and FS2004. It will all need to function properly. Plus, the flight dynamics need to be realistic these days, you can’t just slap “FDE file” from the default 777-300 or 737-400 and that’s it.
Unlike Jet-de-Go arcade games, the freeware planes of the MSFS past just fly like a rocketship into the sky, giving you every false impression of commercial jet flight.
I highly doubt that 9/11 hijackers even trained using FS2000. Those 2D panels don’t teach you anything on where to locate stuff you want to control.
Let me remind how things were back then:
Imagine this, but with prettier model made by the likes of HJG or POSKY, an A330 that “floats” over the runway, thanks to overedited FDE, and doesn’t even burn fuel correctly. It can even take-off while being laden beyond its MTOW.
The pretty model however, does make a good screenshot to be shared with unknowing friends and families.
Said that, and since in the model.cfg file can be found the option of “choose” an interior, it will be a nice feature to have, the chance to change passenger cabins, without having to change the cockpit. By doing this, developers can introduce different types of passenger cabins from traditional ones to private jets, and for sure it will be a new business line that I bet will make the whole community happy.
But then again, in Fenix A320, you have the EFB tablet, allowing you to control whether you want to show the cabin or not, surely it can be used to switch between cabin configurations. Why do we need to edit model.cfg? We are way past that era.
This however, just adds more complexity, which is a thing you complained in the first place?
My closing statement:
I would appeal more to the community, than Asobo or other developers that: a low-fidelity “models only” aircraft addon (or those FSX converts) has its own “target users” - there is absolutely no need for us to let them know how we feel about their lack of simulation depth on the comments section. If we have nothing good to say, let’s not tarry their turf. It is discouraging for some parts of the community, if the goal is to attract more into the freeware developer community in MSFS.
100% prime Gmax created.
But I thoroughly enjoy it and can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. Bring it on!