Hello, my old friend

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Been happening across your posts over the past day or so (and spamming you with likes - sorry about that) - kind of disheartening to read that this is the culmination of your experience with the new sim. Iā€™ve installed 2024, launched it, goofed around with it for a little bit, and returned to 2020 as well. Not because I donā€™t have faith in what 2024 is poised to someday become, but moreso out of impatience for it until it gets to that state.

Far too much work on my end went into making 2020 feel tailor-made to my type of flying, and I know the burden is on me to invest the time into 2024 to get it there too, and Iā€™m cool with that, but I want to begin that work when I have more faith in the stability of the platform and weā€™re not quite there yet.

Much of my work in 2020 was built on the back of users like you, and the helpfulness of your posts, your contributions to the community, and your commentary on this situation in particular, I hope, is recognized by all.

Thanks for your voice on this, and your willingness to submit bug reports, etc - youā€™re rightly critical of 2024 in its current state but you do so in a way that eschews rudeness and nastiness and itā€™s easy to see youā€™re an advocate for the sim and the team behind it and you want to see it succeed as badly as anyone.

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Thanks for the kind words.

I do not want the message to be that Iā€™ve lost faith ā€“ I havenā€™t ā€“ but I do see the forest for the trees.

When I woke up and realized I had zero impetus to sit down and fight the issues with 2024, I knew my decision was a sound one. Anyone who knows me in real life (and maybe by reading what I write here, possibly) knows that I donā€™t give up. I have a dogged determination to see things through to the end.

At the same time, Iā€™m not foolish about it. The sim has too many core elements that are bugged/broken to be in a place worthy of my time investment.

After the four+ months and counting of a major home renovation and the disruption that brings, I simply do not need more chaos introduced into my life.

I want to sit down, fly an airplane and come away smiling.

2024 is going to be awesome ā€“ if the effort is put into getting it there.

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Youā€™d be surprised at the size of the contingent of folk still playing FS2004 and still developing for it. Heck, I think thereā€™s still a contingent of users playing Red Baronā€¦

Very old story, donā€™t know what eventually came of it, butā€¦

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After four CTDs on Friday night, I went and played Tie Fighter. Apparently there is a devoted community that continues to update X-Wing alliance and another that re-skins it to Tie Fighter, complete with the entirety of the original game. And Track IR works, to my surprise.

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Iā€™d love to see a revival of Red Baron.

And there are two great sims with roots in Combat Flight Simulator 3 - Wings Over Flanders Fields 2 and Wings Over the Reich.

I havenā€™t yet downloaded MSFS 2024 thanks to Aerosoftā€™s inability to deliver my premium-priced commemorative package - the one with the digital token inside the box.

I figure Iā€™ll have a look at itā€¦ and then revert to MSFS 2020 for, say, six months or so, or later if it takes that long to get things stabilized.

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I like to see a revival of SWOTL ā€” Secret Weapons of The Luftwaffe.

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Iā€™ve pretty much done the same. I try to load a flight in 2024 but never can. So I just spend my time in 2020. Also been getting back into Crusader Kings III so thatā€™s been nice.

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Right now I am flying the same KPRB to KTVL flight I tried in 2024.

Iā€™m up here in the Blackbird 310, my flight plan is actually loaded into the avionics, I was able to file an IFR flight plan from an uncontrolled airport, I can see the avionics displays, the autopilot is doing what I expect it to, if I press ā€œBā€ the altimeter actually gets set correctly, I can see all the available choices in the ATC window without scrolling, Iā€™m loving the stormy weather we have over California right now, the clouds look great, my Buttkicker is rumbling in the turbulence, and Iā€™m totally relaxed and having a good time of it.

I am so thankful for this fallback.

:pray:

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Over at the Outhouse, thereā€™s still an active sub-forum for FS2002/2004!

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Truth be told, I couldnā€™t get 2020 to work on Friday night, either. I think I needed to reboot my rig, but I was in the middle of a stream, so I just punted.

Had a long 2024 session yesterday with no performance issues.

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It really says everything to me that someone who is such a big part of the community here has made the decision that you have. Just three days ago I bought a whole PC so I could finally get off XBOX and really get to grips with '24 and news like this is not heartening.

I hope the sim gets back into a place soon where you can come back and enjoy it. Your Boeing Yoke bindings post has been my bible for the last two years and now that 24 has gone ahead and changed all the bindings again I need you to come back and tell me what they are again! (my joystick is drifting so I canā€™t bind anything without knowing exactly what button it is).

I think Asobo should comb through your bug reports and really prioritize them. If someone as dedicated and sincere as you can be discouraged what hope is there for the rest of us?

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I think the most important thing to do here is put faith in the team doing what is needed to fix the new sim.

I do not see 2024 as a failure, I just see it for what it is ā€” launched too soon. Thereā€™s no need for the histrionics running amok here on the forum and, I imagine, elsewhere. It is just that simple, it was too soon to put this in our hands.

They can fix this, it will just take time.

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They need help, though, from folks who can troubleshoot and speak the language of simming, aviation, and debugging. Granted, thatā€™s literally a job, but Iā€™m not confident itā€™ll get the right attention in the right places without outside expertise.

Not putting that on your back, specifically, at all. I guess I just donā€™t share the optimism that they have a solid path forward without the community thatā€™s really starting to bail (righteously). Hopefully Iā€™m wrong.

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If this were me, as lead producer, I would get the fundamental aspects of the sim solidified. We are seeing issues here that are regressions and base functions outright not working correctly.

Yeah, there are ā€œfocus groupā€-like improvements to the Career Mode, and flying lessons, but that needs to be set aside and evaluated once the base sim is functioning as it is in 2020.

That really needed to be the minimum. Like someone else said elsewhere on this forum, when you buy version X that is the evolution of version Y, the features and functions that carried over from X just work in Y, sure there are some bugs, but Y works in ways that X did.

We donā€™t have that here.

That has got to be the starting point.

All the new features and whatnot can wait and in addressing the fundamentals, many of the issues seen in Career Mode will be resolved as a knock-on effect.

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Where do you think itā€™s bogged down at the core?

One big guess for me is AI pathing. Navigation, ATC, and career interactions are all dependent on it and itā€™s soā€¦ broken.

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Something is really off about how the new nav data, EFB, flight planning and avionics are interacting.

There is also some major disconnect between airport data and aircraft types, taxiways, and pathing.

Thereā€™s some lesser, but still a big issue, core sim functionality that somehow got broken (barometer ā€œBā€ key setting the baro incorrectly, for example).

Iā€™m also kind of shocked to see pretty annoying bugs that exist in 2020 not addressed in 2024. That is either lack of time, and/or not really reading and/or paying attention to some of the majorly annoying bugs we all have posted here.

Those are the key takeaways I see.

Sure, there is a ton of issues with various aircraft and it is difficult to know what is responsible for that. Some seem like SDK issues given the universal nature of them.

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Agree. That seems to be a core issue. And because career flights hinge upon meeting sequential geographic objectives, many of which are bugged, itā€™s affecting that directly.

I brought this up several times in regard to the world hub - Iā€™d have a submission disapproved because of the way the AI will interpret it, and Iā€™m like ā€œthen fix the AI interpretation, because if I do it the way itā€™s expecting, itā€™s going to look wrong to a pilot.ā€ And here we are.

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At this point, they can peruse this forum and find a yearā€™s worth of work for the whole team. Those who want to continue beta testing their fixes can do so. Some people like that.

Iā€™ll be using 2024 to learn how to develop for it, and figure out wishlist stuff Iā€™d like to see in it. But my flying will likely be in 2020 for the time being, unless I find otherwise I can do what I like in 2024.

For the time being, Iā€™m still waiting for my LCE code I purchased 2 months ago, and Aerosoft refused to acknowledge my package would be lateā€¦

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I see the C310 had an update yesterday for FS 2020. Are you using that update?

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