This is just my general observation. It seems like the gamer threads are becoming less prominent in this forum, while simmer threads are becoming more prominent.
By gamers, I means people that are used to quick action who usually have little knowledge about aviation and the flight sim hobby. People who are mostly interested in eye candy and frames rates, and not so much interested in performing a realistic IFR flight from A to B.
By simmers, I mean the those who are enthusiasts and love aviation and the flight sim hobby and wish for a simulator to be as realistic as possible - in every aspect.
I like that this forum is becoming more of a “simulator” forum and less of a “game” forum, with people interested in getting realism issues fixed. To me, most of those “gamer” related threads are noise and confusing; I will not miss them.
With less of that noise, developers will also get clearer feedback of what really matters.
Imo we really need both. Flight simming is a really niche hobby and it would be nice if simmers and gamers could coexist, keeping the numbers of active players in the green and well…buying sometimes from the marketplace. This is a 10 years long project and I don’t wanna see it being run by a skeleton crew because the player count dropped that much.
Remember what happened to MS Flight 2012? MS tried to make it a game and showed no interest in the simmer. It failed horrendously! If MS FS 2020 fails to get the simmer community on board, it is doomed. This means that MS has to get the platform right, and expectations are high (which is fair, because we are in 2020).
sometimes, it’s nice to have gamers too. MSFS is a place to mess around with your friends too or even just sinply explore around the world with a box and a screen due to COVID-19. I don’t want the community to be really toxic and strict but there’s categories for organisation reasons. Simmers on the other hand are those who have the passion for aviation and are probably the majority in this sim. This sim is complex and still quite new to my standards. With such a complex system and features it takes time to fix everything to make it up to different standards. It’s fine for me tho.
I still have hope in MS/Asobo to fix this beast and turning it into a usable sim. But true, I am not convinced anymore that they will succeed. Especially with whenever they change a detail at one end, it causes errors at another end - this shows that the code is not cleanly structured. The project may prove too big & complex for Asobo.
It’s a big dysfunctional mess. They have to fix the game whether it’s the sim parts or game parts. Otherwise, everyone is going to leave. The gamers are still hanging on, but they are not happy when they see graphical downgrades and their posts about that removed.
So, to the OP… I’m happy you’re seeing a return to what’s important to YOU…
I would like to point out, there are by now well over probably 1.5M copies of the software sold. I’ll bet the number of users who come here often is in the thousands, I’ll bet not even 10,000 regular users. Don’t take the cross-section here as a meaningful cross-section of all users. Us folk just happen to be the ones who happened to find this place in which to waste time…
I for one am having an absolute BLAST with the software. I’m not experiencing it as a dysfunctional mess at all. I can find plenty to do here. I’m sorry you’re not having the same experience. Really.
True. This forum certainly isn’t representative for the group who purchased the game. But it certainly is representative for those of us caring about the product.
I have to admit that I find myself less and less excited about MS FS. I find myself starting the game but then shutting it down without even starting a flight. This is mostly due to constant downgrading and performance-disimprovements.
I’m still enjoying Flight Sim as much as ever, within the current limitations of the software. There’s no going back.
What has happened - in my case - is far less participation in the forum. The topics seem to be a rehash of the same old topics, complaining about the same old things, that have been “discussed” ad nauseam.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
As the old bumper sticker says: I’d rather be “flying.”
As somebody who was a forum moderator for another game for several years, this is absolutely right. The forums generally don’t represent the views of the majority player base. The small subset of players can potentially have vastly different expectations than the majority, as this small subset usually makes up your hardcore players. Developers have to exercise caution to avoid making decisions to please the vocal minority that may alienate the non-forum majority.
That being said, I don’t view MSFS as a Simmer vs Gamer battle. There is room for both, and content for both will continue to develop as 3rd party aircraft come out.
Just because some people want more eye candy and better frame rates doesn’t make them gamers.
It’s 2020 people are entitle to expect advances in the visuals in a flight sim with todays tech.
Doesn’t have to mean it’s for gamers it will only add to the immersion and doesn’t have to be at the expense of being a sim.
I do agree though that fixing the stuff to make it as realistic as possible should come first though I think the more realistic flight experience will come when 3rd party planes come in.
A lot of the frame rate posts are because MSFS has become a stuttery mess since update 5, myself included was running smoothly previous to update 5.
A lot of the “gamer” crowd will move on sooner or later when they get sick of hearing “overspeed overspeed overspeed” while using Xbox controllers. When MSFS first came out it seemed like every gaming YouTube channel and streamer was playing it, but that lasted only a few days. Those people will get sick of stalling out of the sky and crashing into buildings quickly.
My hope is that some of those who started out as gamers will eventually become very interested in the sim hobby and flying in general and in the end it’ll be a net positive. And hopefully with time development will be more focused on the sim aspect to hopefully create the best flight sim software to date.
