Yes, that’s exactly right.
But you can also use the nostalgic look back to argue the opposite. Precisely because flight simulation has developed so much in almost 50 years, it’s incomprehensible in what condition the latest version of MSFS was sold to us.
In almost 50 years of MSFS evolution, every new FS version has brought real, visible progress until the high light in 2020. Everyone, including me, could fully trust that the next version, MSFS 2024, would be a truly new high point in MS flight simulation, announced by MS itself as “Next Generation Flight Simulation”. What we got is, for the first time in the great history of MSFS, a blatant regression. FS 24 is at best a lukewarm rehash of FS 20 with hardly any noticeable progress but clear setbacks.I don’t mean the countless bugs that can be ironed out at some point, but the structural elements, such as streaming or the career mode. The latter should have been offered as DLC for gamers who love to fly for money in a management simulation.
A post of your personal opinion. Nothing more nothing less.
Many of us have been around since the very first iteration as well.
And certainly each new iteration of the franchise has been a step closer to replicating real life flying.
And FS2024 has certainly done that as well. I don’t think anyone truly refutes that.
But in my 40+ years I have never seen a FS version which was such a bug fest and half-finished parts thrown together.
Well maybe the initial release of FSX was something like that. But and again that is a big but, most of its shortcomings were relatively quickly corrected by a service pack.
The list of things that don’t work or only work partially has been discussed at length and the lack of communication regarding fixes as well.
Turning off fauna, road traffic, airport ground aircraft and vehicles etc was the only way to make 2020 run smoothly on Xbox. But of course we no longer have access to these options and so performance is suffering as a result
Staaaaaappp it guys! You’re having a simple misunderstanding of words and not of any substance!
What Takamura meant to say - at least the way I read him - is: Since this is an (expensive) paid product, it should be at a certain level of maturity, and the current state of the product is (way) too far below that level (to justify the price).
I did NOT read: this is junk, and therefore, I’m allowed to break the law / commit theft.
My personal opinion about MSFS2024 is much closer to belatu42’s positive view, but that’s beside the point - I’m trying to keep you guys from going to war over a tiny little misunderstanding.
Yes, it makes you wonder why they removed the ‘traffic’ menu tab at all and hid it all under graphics options.(PC). I mean that’s quite an oversight for XBox users who now have to accept defaults (always on) now.
Broken:
It is DOA or is so substantially incomplete that it’s unusable, or usable in a very limited way. (When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter lies with Mars.)
Incomplete:
Significant portions are missing but enough is present to make it playable, even though parts are missing.
Buggy:
It is substantially complete but there are annoying defects that interfere with the enjoyment of the feature. (Fuzzy views, instruments not working, etc.)
Complete:
Works as designed even though there might be “edge-case” bugs.
My opinion:
The simulator, as it exists at this point in time is an amazing piece of work.
IMHO, the product is sufficiently incomplete in enough areas that it seriously affects the users enjoyment, depending on what you are doing.
Many of the parts that would be classified as “complete” are sufficiently buggy that their absolute completeness is in question.
Much of the terrain is quite old, being between five and ten years out of date, assuming it isn’t pure fantasy.
Conclusion:
The simulator has progressed from its original “alpha” state to a “beta” release, but it is by no means reasonably complete.
I strongly suspect that MSobo management rushed this to market creating a disaster of Biblical proportions.
I have the aviator edition and I fly it when I can, but I believe that the 2024 release has not yet approached the level of quality that 2020 is presently at.
FS24 is not ‘unusable.’ Those who believe it is, and have reverted to FS20 are welcome to their opinion, but I believe that’s wild hyperbole. Certain aspects of the sim are not what I’d hoped they’d be, and there are some bugs. Most of my issues have to do with design however, and not execution.
I believe that in its current state, the streaming / cache model is full of problems. I don’t have those problems (much,) because I’m running on a fairly high-end computer with a 1Gb fiber connection. But I feel for those who are beginning to realize that their systems are severely limiting their experience. Memory (particularly VRAM) usage is problematic. Reduced LOD has been the crutch - for now. But that’s not an answer.
Photogrammetry is not what ‘low-and-slow’ helicopter pilots hoped it would be. I’ve heard it argued that making PG buildings look good up close would massively increase streaming data requirements. Perhaps, but that means that PG objects (as well as other things) should be downloadable, not that they should look like post-apocalyptic toothpaste.
The new streaming model is both a blessing and a curse. It’s encouraging to hear that Asobo is planning a move to a more hybrid model (i.e. more downloadable objects.) I just hope they get it right.
Reports from the first Beta release are encouraging, overall. And I firmly believe the Microsobo team are passionate about making the new sim live up to the early promises. Work continues.
Jorg and MS want this to be a great FS. My thoughts are that Asobo is in over their heads. Either with or without pressure from MS, they’re promising something they simply can’t deliver in a timely manner. MS probably has no other option for an FS product and I’m sure Asobo is doing the best they can, but their best is where we’re at right now. I think there was a disconnect between MS and Asobo from the start. The fact that so few changes/fixes have been implemented since last Nov along with the fact that Jorg really wanted SU1 two weeks ago yet we have no word, tells me they’re really struggling.
Edit: And I don’t believe for a moment they’re being lazy or slacking about this. Even if they were of a mind to, there’s undoubtedly a lot of presure from MS. No store means no money.
I just hope the hybrid model does not mean us forking out more cash to fix the poor scenery/objects - it’s bad enough already with them making poor functionality in aircraft so that we are driven to the marketplace - eventually - to aircraft that hopefully work.
I’m talking more about overall streaming bandwidth. Give us the option to download aircraft models, and come up with some way to download and/or cache streamed objects and scenery around us as we fly such that everything appears in detail out to the distance specified in our LOD settings.
Aircraft functionality is kind of a separate topic.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and nuanced assessment. I think you have been scrupulously fair and I hope you have reset the tone of the debate.
It’s always easier to contribute once someone has had that initial stab at writing something. My glass is slightly more full and I am enjoying career mode with a few gripes. On that basis regarding point 2 I’d suggest that from my perspective it’s a case of… can seriously affect the user’s enjoyment… For me, it does not normally affect it.
Maybe people’s views are based on the version purchased. I bought the basic version fully intending to flesh it out with after market products. I find it hard to be really harsh when the entire framework “only” costs what someone might spend on a couple of premium additions. That does not mean I don’t recognise 2024’s difficulties and that I am not anxiously awaiting improvements. Hopefully in say 3 month’s time the community will be a lot happier.
After playing MSFS 2024 since release, I finally have taken the plunge and decided to return to MSFS 2020 at this time. There are so many bugs, streaming issues, data wrongly sync issue that I can’t understand why there has been no fixes these bugs/issues during the past several months. The laundry list of bugs I’ve encountered during this period seems endless at this point. Hopefully the beta release coming to production will fix many of these issues, but I’m not holding my breath.
You’re having a simple misunderstanding of words and not of any substance!