Sim Update 12… 
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As long as Microsoft continues to update/improve MSFS I will be a loyal supporter. I used to purchase those other 2 sims whenever a newer version was released and like many of you I would go back & forth trying to find the best experience. Suffice it to say that in my 40-plus years of simming starting with version 1.0a of all of these sims this is the first time that I have NOT purchased the most recent versions. (12.0 and 5.0. You know what I mean. ) MSFS is just too good. It finally is “as real as it gets”.
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Imagine if someone makes a flight sim more realistic then msfs2020 and in that sim you can go inside any building outside a airport and it is fully animated! That would be sick.
My opinion exactly. I have to admit that this sim is a Hot Smokin’ Weapon!
I don’t want to cross-post but I expressed a similar opinion on the “What did you do in MSFS today?” thread.
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/what-did-you-do-in-msfs-today-part-2/553275/1163?u=jimrh1993
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I agree, no military aircraft in this flight sim was the best, correct, decision.
Military aircraft do not belong in this flight simulation game.
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I don’t get the whole VR dissatisfaction thing.
I’ve been in VR since 2013 Oculus DK1 and when Flyinside was formally known as DCOC, this is by far the most optimized beautiful VR I’ve ever experienced in a full world flight sim. Maybe not as well for other headsets but my Oculus Touch controller implementation works just as great in MSFS as any other VR title. MS/Asobo has made drastic performance improvements in VR since SU6 allowing more headroom for higher visual quality settings.
Best of all MSFS have even unknowingly created a boat simulator byproduct experience due to so much attention to detail with both land terrain/topography, detail and scale and water physics. The scenery is just as beautiful on land or sea at eye level as it is at higher altitude. VR simply needs hand motion emulation and a bit of fresh polish on top at this point.
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Exactly how I see it. I felt this way since the very first time I flew in MSFS.
To me this is a World/Weather Simulator that just happens to have a flight game plugged into it.
In the future as computing power and internet speeds go hyper I see this platform starting to become a Multi Sim in addition to being used in professional circles by meteorologists, geologists etc. They could use it to visualize complex storms for example.
By Multi Sim I mean that it will one day accurately feature trains, road vehicles and ships. All of which will have realistic physics.
You will one day be flying in MSFS with ulra hi rez VR and buzz a freight train being driven by a friend whose ferrying cargo to a dock where another buddy is waiting on a mega freight ship.
After you land another buddy pick you up an accurately modeled pickup truck.
You will be able to design and build your own virtual home even.
All of this will utterly seamless and in real time. A Second Life where flight is just one part of the activities in this Virtual Earth.
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The only other company that MIGHT be able to do what MSFS would be Google plus a game studio. Even then I think it would be a tough as MS saves so much money being vertically integrated with mapping data and cloud compute.
A DCS competitor would be more likely. But I’m betting the best way to compete with DCS would be to license MSFS tech and then build a combat flight simulator around that.
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Or…Microsoft could just resurrect their own Combat Flight Simulator series I used to play as a kid, using what we have with MSFS2020.
That would be a dream come true.
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I wonder, with Microsoft expressing interest in investing large sums of money in ChatGPT, could we see a future where an AI model of ATC is trained with millions of real-world ATC discussions and a ChatGPT-like system based in the cloud runs ATC in the sim?
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You Said: To me this is a World/Weather Simulator that just happens to have a flight game plugged into it.
Nope, this will stay as a “Flight Simulator Game”…with all the added features like the earth, weather, buildings, fauna…etc… All the intricacies of Aviation, Navigation and Communications will just keep expanding until we have the best Flight Simulator there has ever been for the PC and Console market.
I love this flight simulator and for those of us that do fly IRL, this Flight Simulator is really good. We love it !
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Next best should include this rendering engine.
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Sure, but how does that look from +2000ft above? Do we want a walking simulator, or a flight simulator?
Allow me to respectfully disagree.
Note the following important caveats:
- I do not work for Asobo/MS, nor do I pretend to be an employee of them.
- I didn’t get the invite for the last product planning meeting, so this is my own personal opinion based on my knowledge of the software industry, and they way things are moving in the sim.
- I do have considerable experience in the software industry - especially in software QA - so I have a fairly good idea of how things work in well managed projects.
Based on what I see:
- Microsoft didn’t have to put even half the work into this sim to have an absolutely awesome product.
- Microsoft is doing a LOT of work in AI and modelling.
- Fully understanding that the flight sim community, (including all the different sims out there), is - at best - a niche market that, by itself, doesn’t and cannot support such a huge outlay of resources and money.
Likewise, a product of this complexity is very likely a “proof-of-concept” for a much broader simulation/AI product market.
Why do I call it a “proof-of-concept”? In order to do any kind of reasonably decent research on something as complex as this - you need a target project to give it context - that is a complicated problem to solve that will exercise the technologies you wish to develop, and isn’t a “toy” project.
Microsoft knows that it has a virtually guaranteed market for any kind of flight sim they would develop, so they can leverage that to solve a “real world problem” that has enough of a market that it will, at least, result in SOME near term return on investment to help move the project along. Investing this level of resources and development for a “game” with a niche market makes no sense to me.
There is enough going on in this project, (IMHO), that to limit it to a mere flight simulator would be foolish to the extreme, and I am assuming that Microsoft knows where to sign a reality check.
I really believe that, if Microsoft has half the brains God gave a squirrel, they’re looking beyond the flight sim to perhaps bigger things in the future.
What say ye?
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We already have everything (driving,walking,boat) but a train simulator feature in MSFS, and no worries thats being worked on also. Things already look great at both ground level and 30k+ feet. We are already there and on the way to making it a life simulator with mods alone.
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You asked: What say “Ye” ?
Well, It appears you believe the MSFS will or should become a “World Simulator”.
Happy that we all have our beliefs and yours are just as important. I will re-submit mine. It is easy to show and can be presented in a “very short” manner: Nope, the MSFS owned portion will remain a Flight Simulation Game, for its’ intended purpose for now and evermore. Stay tuned and “Ye” shall see !
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There are practical limits to consider. Yeah, you can make a world simulator, sure. But then you need a a whole world’s worth of developers and designers. Things look stretched pretty thin around here as it is.
You also have to consider that Flight Simulator is built on top of FSX and Asobo’s in house open world engine. It might be well suited for this application, but you’re going to run into mounting problems as the title expands that may eventually require a whole rewrite.
Those are really cool demos, but, and I mean no offense, the graphics are not great compared to many other titles. Some of it’s actually kind of terrible in comparison:
The world graphics don’t hold up at the near range of a few feet. They work great at 3,000 - 30,000 feet, but they don’t work at 300,000 feet. These are the kinds of practical limits that need to be worked around, and this software might already be pushing its own limits.
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Well, you aren’t wrong because that’s exactly what I mean by “platform”.
I’m looking at it as a “proof-of-concept” for an overall encompassment of Simulation.
But, realistically, I think we’re just getting started.
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That would be awesome. I talked with ChatGPT, told it to act as an air traffic controller, and gave him some basic scenarios and it answered pretty well. If trained properly on phraseology it would work much better than anything else we have.
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