Not Good Enough Asobo → Microsoft MSFS2020
Dear Asobo,
Us flight simmers are a patient lot. We will wait actual years for our study-level addons to be added to our flight simulation software. Some of these mostly 3rd party addons take as long and longer than a AAA game from a major publisher. We are okay with that, and we love it. To know that legends of the community are developing a plane we love or have loved our entire lives is worth a wait.
But this software is proving to test the patience of even the most salty and silver whiskered among us. The news today that PMDG has to set back its launch of its 737 again, due to further limitations introduced as part of service update 7 and that its delay is solely caused by the update speaks to this. On a more simplified scale the SWS Daher Kodiak has been pushed back for most of this year due to continued issues and problems introduces as part of you service updates. And I’m sure the list goes on. PMDG, SWS, and the like, these incredible devoted developers do not want to risk putting their work out their for risking the fiasco that will come of it every time an update wrecks their addon – which we’ve paid for. They do not want to risk losing the license they’ve signed deals for to be able to officially replicate and bring these dream models into your beautiful but never finished simulator.
And then there’s us, the flight simmer. It took me a year to adjust to this sim. I’ve had every iteration of MSFS since 1996. I was happily spending valuable hobby time in X-Plane (and DCS) while MSFS was absent for a decade. A few beautiful and amazing addons for MSFS2020 finally took me away from the very robust XPlane (and yes, I am aware of its problems too but they are nothing like this). Just Flight, PMDG, Aerosoft and others have delivered some fantastic addons, but we have nothing more complex than what freeware devs are doing in the Fly By Wire A32NX and the Heavy Division 787-10. And yes of course the G1000NX and 3000 devs deserve just as much credit. Why? Because they are constantly being thrown curve balls from you.
But it’s not just addons and 3rd party payware that’s frustrating. It’s stuff like the mouse cursor randomly disappearing, the VR menu going AWOL, the insane inflight disturbance that randomly knock the plane out of transit, the infuriating stutter – a MSFS trait that has existed since MSFS2000 with the Concorde on the cover! How is it even possible that this is not addressed when stutters do not happen in the same way in X-Plane or DCS? And what is it with the menus constantly resetting? I can’t even guess how that happens, let alone why.
3rd party developers are afraid to release their work. Your dedicated users and fanbase – of which I am one – is afraid of every update you release and are working around problems that you introduce. It’s not good enough. it’s not good enough. There, I said it again.
Please do better. Please work towards a stable platform so we can start seeing some of these high-fidelity study level (or not) quality additions become available to the community. Let us see something other than 3rd party sceneries and airports being offered for a change. I have so much scenery begging to have study level planes flown to them that I’m worried it’s becoming an airport scenery simulator!
Thank you and have a good Christmas and New Year, and please focus on stability for all of our sakes.
Len