Yesterday’s Dev Stream had some great insights of upcoming content we can be excited about, which is great to see.
But there were also quite a few long-discussed topics/wishlist items etc. which I now consider as completely canceled for FS2024, as the statements were pretty clear.
So here’s the summary of my takeaway - some of them I was also hoping for:
no new tech for autogen buildings
no substantial changes to career mode
no shared/multiplayer cockpit
no weather API or related improvements
no satellite imagery updates (apart from WU/CU areas)
no changes to the ingame ATC towards AI possibilities
no force-feedback integration
no world hub community toolbox
no substantial leap in performance
Hope this can be used as a checklist for the next big iteration
Fully agree, just think on the option to flag aircraft as favorites. Thats more then a year ago.
In the new dev-format, is never a backlock shown. Maybe they hope, we will forget, what they promised.
My assumption is that many (at least on PC) who care about ATC turn to third-party solutions (VATSIM, IVAO, PilotEdge, BeyondATC, SayIntentions.AI) and the effort isn’t worth it. Again just my assumption.
I was pleasantly surprised at the candor regarding that. Apparently they approached BATC and couldn’t work out a partnership deal. And yeah, it sounds like they’re kind of giving up.
Glad for the honestly, but sad that we’re not going to see native improvement. Everybody, not just PC, deserves a shot at decent ATC. As this thread states, there were similar offhand comments made (especially regarding improvements made through the World Hub) that sound like a lot of features and broken elements are turning into abandonware, which again is going to disproportionately affect console users.
A lot can be read between the lines of all this, and it’s not painting a good picture.
Third-party ATC has in my opinion always been better than stock ATC in any sim. I’ve been using flight sims since the late 1990s and swapped over to VATSIM in 2009 (at the time I was using FSX and FS9) and having been using it ever since in all sims that support it. I also use PilotEdge. Yeah, I understand that consoles don’t have any other choice but it’s best to put those resources into improving the sim that everyone can benefit from.
What I’m seeing is a lack of motivation to innovate. Innovation is what keeps people coming back. Post-launch, the amount of daily or even weekly users has dropped drastically. Want them to come back? The list in the first post tells you everything you need to do.
I think the existing ATC can still benefit greatly from a comprehensive set of bug fixes. I think Working Title is still tasked with that from what I gather on various discussion boards like here and their Discord.
So what I expect is a better functioning ATC that fundamentally is still very much “on rails” and is fully scripted, but we won’t get a rewrite of the default ATC to bring in any AI or LLM enhancements like we see with third parties.
I had convinced myself that as soon as the $10B Microsoft investment into OpenAI was announced several years ago, MSFS2024 was going to have ChatGPT-style ATC. I lost that bet!
To me, it comes back to the jumbled mess that caused users (new and legacy) to become frustrated in the first place. They had some lofty, complex goals, but they didn’t all work harmoniously enough, quickly enough, and as a result, the growth has stagnated long enough to tip things toward a cycle of diminishing returns and cutbacks. I hope I’m wrong.
The subpar autogen buildings were my biggest disappointment when I saw the FS2024 reveal, because a better job with those could really benefit low-level flight immersions.
I’m sad and surprised that making this better isn’t a priority.
) at 35min23s 