2009, the unfortunate decision by MS to close the ACES Studio
2012, the bad flop of MS Flight, a poor attempt to provide an incomplete arcade game
2018, the demise of DGT Flight Sim World, at first presented as the heir of FSX
And then, as a complete surprise, the really epic announcement trailer of MSFS in June 2019 at E3. It required still an entire year, I preordered the disc edition of the Premium Deluxe Edition just for sentimental reasons.
Now it is here, still incomplete, with some defects, but with a strong foundation. Being able for the first time to actually recognize many Earth features and landmarks, the light effects mixed with the weather that create stunning atmospheres, and the promise of better aircraft and infrastructure, yes, at present I really enjoy the continuation of the old glorious franchise.
One thing I agree on with the majority here is the lack of polish for some of the deluxe airplanes. For premium money, they could definitely be better.
Far below my expectations based on all the marketing and PR that was conducted in the long run-up to release. However, that didn’t keep me from flying, just not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.
Ups and downs but enjoying never the less.Have had access to this sim since Dec 2019 and so much has changed. ATM the only sim installed on my machine.
As someone who has used flight sims for decades and felt frustrations with the limitations of the software and the hardware, MSFS 2020 has far exceeded my expectations.
And though those expectations have been matched by my frustration with all the bugs and glitches, overall the experience has been a positive one.
I am not naïve or unrealistic regarding these teething problems. I am in this for the long haul.
Live traffic is 2 or 3 frankenstein-planes with generic liveries. AI traffic system is worse than in all previous ESP platform sims (FS9, Fsx,p3d).
Multiplayer, yeah, we dont talk about that
VATSIM overcomes this issue to a part, but you need to use old low quality models/repaints for the model matching.
AI-Traffic is an absolute mess and undocumented in the SDK. We still dont know if we will ever get something that we were used to since a decade, right noe its the worst system of ANY sim. And we stil, dont know how it really works.
Don’t mean to pick on you directly. You just happen to be the latest. So I’ll use you as an example.
The sim has changed VERY little in the last couple months except for the recent WU4. Many of the issues that were present at the end of 2020 have been dealt with. Not all, but many.
New users loading up the sim in Feb or Mar should have a pretty good idea what the are stepping into. A quick search on Google presents numerous forums with 100s of thousands of posts describing all manner of experiences.
I am surprised by the number of new users that are joining us eight months since release and complain that they “got took”. “Not at all what I expected”. “Disappointed”. et al.
If you did not know what state the sim was in when you purchased it, how did you even know it had been released? If you found MSFS on the internet, you would have seen the half million reviews and dozens of forums, not to mention the thousands of You-Tube videos. You had to know EXACTLY what you were getting by this point.
I am actually surprised they even included AI traffic. The concept of “Live” traffic is that the sky is populated with real life air traffic. For the most part, it works. Unfortunately, just like the NavBlu and MetBlu partnerships the data provided by Flight Aware is inconsistent and is not being entirely translated into real world flights as intended.
If I remember correctly, just over 50% of the real world traffic is being translated to MSFS Live Traffic. With 75%-80% of the worlds planes mothballed right now, It is easy to see why we are not encountering a lot of traffic.
More and more liveries are being added as agreements are hammered out. I expect “Live Traffic” will eventually surpass anything we have had before. I know that, I for one, will not miss the random aircraft or the hours spent setting up AI traffic in previous sims.
In many respects it exceeded my expectations. When it comes to performance I had hoped for a little more. We all know that even with top notch rig you can still struggle in a glass cockpit plane above photogrammetry scenery. Also concerning IFR and ATC as well as aircraft systems, I was (and still am) a little bit disappointed with the quality. Since I always preferred VFR flying in small planes, this is not a major issue for me though.
Especially concerning VFR - and that automatically translates to graphics - I expected the world to look like in the trailers in some specific parts of the world only, and be rather bland or even ugly in the rest (like it used to be in earlier FS versions). And while MSFS doesn’t look fantastic absolutely everywhere, most of the MSFS world is still pretty impressive - and getting better.
The second part that is far superior to everything that I could have imagined is the community and the quality of community add ons. First I didn’t expect to be more than 12.000 freeware mods available only 8 months after the sim was launched, and I certainly didn’t expect that the majority are very good quality with some stuff being truely exceptional.
I guess both… I don’t find myself going back to FSX anymore (played almost every other day), but then I’ll have some issue with MSFS2020 and I get discouraged. If anything it has cut my virtual flying time down drastically, and I’ve got back into other hobbies.
Not sure what any of our 2 cents will do to improve anything… but no, it’s not what I expected. I expected a more stable sim. I didn’t expect we’d have lots of aircraft, etc. at the beginning, but I definitely didn’t think we’d be 8 months in and still dealing with CTDs, poor performance for high-end rigs, and inconsistent graphics performance.
I still love the sim though and patiently waiting for new airliners… I could care less about all of these new GAs that seem to be released weekly. I want the big boys to get added and better!
I‘m pretty happy. Actually, it is the first Sim that really captures me. It is the first time you can really do planned VFR flying, because you know: if it‘s on the map, it‘s in the scenery. Combine that with VR and I‘m happy as long as I‘ve not visited every country in the world yet. I am disappointed about the NAV-log, though. It falls way to short of a proper one.
Both way more and less than I expected. The detail in the USA is far above expectations. The detail outside USA and Europe is below expectations. That’s more criticism to Bing maps than FS2020.
I didn’t expect as much extra content as there is already, but I did expect better ways to manage that content. For now that second part has completely discouraged me from using any mods / add-ons. Too much hassle managing the community folder and everything that can go wrong with it.
The weather simulation exceeds all my expectations.
The way rivers and shorelines are treated is well below my expectations.
Overall it’s what I expect from a modern game, a mixed bag with many highs and lows.
