Currently nearly everything that has been added to the sim (addons, UI mods and Asobo-fixes) can break with a sim update aka SU5. Every fix that sits in the community folder overwrites or adds to a certain part in the code. They just need to change lines or do whatever they do all the time and these patches and pseudo-fixes cease to work. It looks like they complicate it with every „fix“ instead of resolving the problem and everytime they add something new the problem shifts below the layer of patches and come back to daylight. It seems more and more that all Asobo did in the last year was hiding problems instead of resolving them. With the community made addons and fixes added on top of that the chaos only increases. Instead they should finally take the time and incorporate their patches into definite program code and tidy it up, then things can be added, like seasons, whereever they come from.
It’s not about can’t it’s about won’t. It’s a commercial product aimed at generating profit for a parent big corp. Effort is focused on what drives the profit and what drives the profit right now is Photogrammetry. When that starts leveling off the effort will be refocused on the sim part of the equation. Planes systems flight mechanics at this point are an afterthought for the developer but they are nice enough to allow community to tinker with it. Guess it’s one way to go. If you look at XP for example it’s similar after a fashion except developer is focused on flight engine and not eye candy and all the default planes fly well and decently rounded but default 737 is not even scratching the surface of zibo for example. But yeah getting at least couple of GA planes and G1000 right from the get go would’ve been nice for a software title that says simulator on the box. They are making progress slowly but surely in that regard bringing WT title on payroll was a good decision assuming the partnership lasts and they don’t stifle the living lights out of those guys with corporate mentality. Once PMDG feels it’s way thru SDK and programming complex airliner things will start moving at a faster pace after release of 738.
It sounds like you’re suggesting it is a management issue. Prioritising the wrong things. Rather than constantly muddying the waters by releasing new content perhaps we’re now at the stage where a hold should be called on it and concentrate on rectifying what is already out there?
All of these problems have solutions. There are plenty of projects that have a closed, commercially developed core, and additional components that it uses that are open source. Vetting user contributions will of course require a hierarchical, moderated approval process. That itself could also be largely done by the community. Microsoft (not Asobo) could ultimately be the ones that vet what gets merged into an official build, after it’s already gone through a community and Asobo based approval process.
The biggest issue I foresee is that the platform needed to have be developed with this in mind to begin with. This is not a bolt on fix. And much of Flight Simulator’s development appears to be done with “bolt on fixes” rather than sound design and careful planning.
Realistically it’s a pipe dream, but the platform has taken steps in that direction. The Scenery Gateway is supposedly still coming, where users will edit the base Flight Simulator scenery. Official third party developers have been recruited for aircraft development. They don’t have to expose the entire code base, but if they write an interface, or open certain libraries…
If this product crashes and burns, I hope they don’t just throw it by the wayside, but hand it over to community development.
Yeah, probably. Unfortunately Microsoft has demonstrated over and over that this won’t happen. Deadlines for new content are set in stone and builds are released in whatever state the developers achieve. Perhaps they’re trying to hit target numbers in sales or users, and to sustain that, the relentless parade of new content must continue for years from World Updates, Reno, Top Gun, Gliders, Helicopters…
Relentless parade? Jeez, the hyberbole is out of this world 
It’s been 12 months and the only new content we have received has been the 6 World Updates and two (paid) aircraft. Gaya Simulations does all of the POI’s for the World Updates, and usually at least half of the airports.
How quickly we forget about the 5 Sim Updates we have received that do nothing but fix bugs or add features that frankly should have been in the sim since day 1 (eg. visual effects were not a thing until SU5, a full year after initial release).
Numerous updates have been delayed as well as two pieces of DLC, that is some mighty malleable stone.
Please point me to where I can find this relentless parade of new content because from where I’m sitting, the entirety of the last 12 months have been devoted to fixing things and improving what is already there.
Well, let’s keep the hyperbole going then. It’s definitely not the entirety. I’d argue it was the minority. Much development time went into the VR and XBox updates, and yes the World Updates and aircraft also required developer time even if artistic content came from elsewhere. How many times have we seen on this forum, “Well, now that devs have finally kicked ‘x’ out the door, they’ll now have time to devote to fixing this bug…”
I personally wholeheartedly agree with the premise of this topic. I think Asobo should focus exclusively on the core simulator until 90% of the major issues are removed, and then work to make the sim as open and as moddable as possible. Only when this is accomplished should they work on world updates and whatnot, in my opinion. (Yes, I do realize a texture designer cannot work effectively as a C++ core engine programmer, but you can hire a C++ core engine programmer instead of a texture designer.)
FSX is a prime example of this. The developers left FSX in a state which allowed quite a lot of freedom for third party developers, and they were able to extend FSX’s life way beyond anything that could have reasonably been expected. This is part of the reason why I initially started this topic, in the hopes that Asobo would benefit greatly from having input from a third party developer that has been elbow deep in simulator innards for over 20 years now. Had the simulator been more open to the modding community, we would have had better weather, better aircraft, better avionics, better everything. I am 100% certain of that.
Not gonna happen. This product is a showcase of cloud computing and bing maps at the moment. If we want simulator we will have to wait for names like PMDG, FS labs, Rotate,Majestic etc to be comfortable in their ability to program simulation outside of platform and bring it into the showcase sandbox. I’m guessing that the issue they are having is that the sandbox is so unstable when updates are released that they’ll be risking their reputation when a sandbox update completely breaks their tripiple digit priced addon. Right now we are at the better late then never stage where sandbox is ok enough to let simple planes fly and community is talented enough to fix those planes and avionics so it’s quite enjoyable low and slow VFR environment. DA62 mod check, DA42 mod check G1000 nxi check. Heck CJ4 mod beats the living lights out of payware aircraft dubbed the most complex released to date 
Not what I would expect from a multi billion dollar software company and a tripple digit price tag but there are signs of progress. But yes P3D and Xplane I have on my machine are not getting uninstalled any time soon. I like simulator part visuals I can always get to an acceptable level in those so called legacy sims.
It really depends on the license that a community mod is created under. GPL is pretty much a no-go for MS.
MIT-0 and MIT license would be better for MS to integrate.
That is exactly why we have the Built-In Marketplace this time, They (MS) saw that cash cow herd coming and cuddled it right in.
Because of that , maybe Asobo waiting someone to fix those bugs for them. Problem solved!
It already has happened.
Working Title…
Also that shiny new EDDS airport is Aerosoft. Notice the working jetways (when they load in that is, not their fault on that second point).
Whomst has summoned me…
Devs have budgets and time limits
modders have no lives 
You are making two assumptions that are not correct.
- six-figure developers
- R&D budget of hundreds of millions
- A quick visit to a site like Glassdoor will demonstrate that the rank and file devs at Asobo are not six figures, far from it.
Bordeaux, France where Asobo is based is not Silicon Valley or Seattle. Compensation is not even on par with Paris based dev shops and multinationals, let alone the United States, UK, Switzerland or Germany.
One of the reasons why MS is outsourcing development to Asobo is precisely the lower cost of labor.
- Asobo Studios total revenues for 2020 was below 18M €.
Development budget is not in the hundreds of millions and I am not sure they even have research going on.
Microsoft on the other hand, invests billions in R&D but they are not the ones doing the actual coding on matters pertaining to these great mods:
Six figures, what currency is that, pesetas?
A lot of work can get done if you can get developers to work without pay, i.e., modders. How many modders are there per Asobo developer?
Another thing that would be impolite and ungrateful to say in the context of a particular mod, given away for free, but if we are talking about “all modders” and nobody in particular: The quality of mod efforts is highly variable, some are great but many have bad side effects and some do not even work at all. Some of the default features from Asobo are quite broken but many work well and are truly awesome. Comparing the best output from modders to the worst output from Asobo is in my view not a fair or helpful comparison. Even some of the most highly regarded third (or even first) party developers have produced the occasional CTD bug or some really clunky workarounds.
I think you’re forgetting the fact that without the actual professional developers who made MSFS… There’s nothing for us modders to mod or fix. In other words, we wouldn’t be virtual flying at all. We’d all be stuck with other simulators and I would continue my 15-year absence from flight simming since FSX.
My taxi ribbon mod is merely changing the scale values and changing the colours. Even so, it wasn’t even me who discovered them. I just made the changes based on what someone else discovered and make it into a working mod, which I highly credited in the mod of course.
Without the taxi ribbon arrows that the developers at Asobo actually made in the first place, there’s nothing for them to discover and there’s nothing for me to change. So while I appreciate the appreciation, I don’t think we deserve the six figures because frankly, what us modders did are only a fraction of what the developers at Asobo has done to make this beautiful flight sim world.
In this game there is still a lot that can and should be fixed. Unfortunately, the developers started blocking CORE modifications. There is no documentation or the ability to edit the interface. A huge number of restrictions that you have to face. And naturally, there is a total unwillingness to keep in touch with the community.