Just wondering … what is going on here … official responses are NIL I
just checked my calendar and its not the first day of April As a developer of
20 years for flightsim im wondering how i can only find out about this at the
same time as Joe Public and have the same if not more unanswered questions
regarding this totally out of the blue bombshell Microsoft Flight Simulator
2024: The Next Generation of the Legendary Franchise - Microsoft Flight
Simulator
Have i been living under a rock or has this come as a surprise for all other
devs on here ??
Everyone is just as clueless and waiting on more information. At least any
fellow dev that I communicate with, and any dev that they have reached out to.
There are definitely a lot of knee-jerk reactions going around the community
and it is affecting everyone, including those of us who have been doing this
as a full-time. Hopefully they will release a statement this week clearing all
this up and settling some of the 3rd party addon worries that users are
having. Dropping a bombshell like this, providing barely any info has
definitely stirred up the hornets nest, but either way, we’re just along for
the ride.
Wow. Amazing.
So that’s what the Asobo team has been working on lately… Lots of great ideas
in there. I hope it also includes a Camera API for us to play with! I also
hope we’ll see come clarifications about compatibility and possibly early
access close to release for devs to port their content over. Not being able to
tell our customers about upgrade paths will collapse sales and might lead to
some companies going out of business. We’ve seen it with the P3D to MSFS
transition already.
We need some clarification about features , upgrade path , sdk support . We
are making business and we need planning our investment . We need info …. 2024
release is behind the corner Asobo (and Microsoft ) and we are planning next
year at least (of development and investment)
I am sure it has definitely taken everyone (at least most of us) by surprise.
I had to find out about it on my phone in the coffee shop and the barista had
to call my name 3 times cause I literally was too focused reading on this.
From the look of it, based on all those new advertised gameplay, my 2 cents is
this is something quite different from MSFS2020, probably will be categorized
as a “brand new game” or something along those lines. By nature that doesn’t
jibe well with mod compatibility. I do not mean to cause panic, but we (mod
developers) probably got our work cut out for us. On the other hand, the
graphics look pretty impressive so I’d love to see what we can make with this.
I do hope someone from Microsoft/Asobo can provide more information regarding
mod development and publish SDK documentation soon as I am sure all of us are
eagerly awaiting to get our hands on it.
I also hope we’ll see come clarifications about compatibility and possibly
early access close to release for devs to port their content over. And this
is exactly where I see a BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST problem. Some Addons are not
under development anymore, but still working. And now something new comes, and
the AddOns are not functional any more! (Not from //42, I guess 
) But that
was then a waste of money. This compared with the poor communication (not
alone in this case!) make me leave the flight-sim community and spend more
time in the racing community (which, to be honest, is a bit younger in terms
of how long racing sims are serious, but much more advanced).
It looks great, fills a lot of the real world activity gaps in the current
sim. That explains those 20+ job postings on Asobo’s site then! I posited a UI
framework rewrite a little while back based on some of those:
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/favorite-aircrafts-to-choose/591731/6
Not clarifying content usage and migration out the gate to a user base that
has invested significant add on dollars into both content development and
consumption sides is more than a bit remiss. Of course that’s the first thing
people will ask. Even a couple of weeks to the “special announcement” in the
July dev roadmap is a big gap in speculation about the product strategy. I
guess we’ll find out soon though.
How does it feel to have your project killed without warning?
Ok, the video seems to have dropped for the weekend, so not many MS folk will
be at work at the moment. “Official responses are NIL” seems to me to be very
premature, at least give them a chance to get back into the office on Monday:)
I don’t mean to single out the OP but there are so many comments on the net in
similar vein. This is a major game release announcement, welcome to the
industry! At some point all games need an announcement, I wonder at which
point the OP would have expected to be informed? Six months ago? What would
you have done differently back then, considering that MS were obviously not
wanting to give out any information until now? “Developer of 20 years…”
Sounds like me, and thousands of others. Although I’ve signed NDAs before,
including, I seem to recall, for FSX’s SDK, I would never expect that anything
I have to offer would be of interest to MS until they have more of an idea of
how this new game will work. I guess we’ll all know how this will affect us
(as users and developers) in the near future. Meanwhile we have a trailer to
examine in minute detail, or simply enjoy.
https://www.flightsimulator.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-2024-faq/ With very few exceptions, virtually all add-ons that work in Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) today will function in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Still
yet to see what are those “exceptions” are, but I am definitely feeling less
anxious than 3 hours ago. Happy to know that we can carry our project forward
and perhaps support both MSFS2020 and 2024 at the same time. Looks like
someone from Microsoft/Asobo still remembers that a successful flight
simulator is rooted in its rich mod community, in my humble opinion. (some of
you must remember “FlightSimWorld”)
This is a transition similar to FSX → P3D. There will be differences, but the
bases are the same.
Well, early P3D versions were not the best while later versions had
significantly different workflow, including the PBR (so FSX->P3Dv1 yes, but
FSX->P3Dv5 would be a different thing).
I personally think this is a good step forward, as users’ enthusiasm already
cooled down a bit. Backward compatibility is neither good nor bad, there
are pros and cons.
- Pros are that former products should work right away without the need of updating them and customers (in theory) might continue purchasing FS2020 products knowing they will be functional in FS2024.
- Cons are that it proves FS2024 not being a completely new platform (if old products would work there) and you would not benefit financially from current customers after the new sim launch (only from new ones).
Let’s hope the backward compatibility will actually work, not like it was done
in X-Plane 12 with the new coordinate system, where all objects would move and
deform, effectively breaking the entire compatibility thing. All in all, I
find this good news as any market “disruption” potentially brings new
customers.
Why should it be dead? Turn it into something different. Your flight model is
not based on the physical design as far as I’ve looked (game magic) so you can
literally reinvent it with a new or similar model with a twist. GF is more
than capable of that. Have you reached out to the real world companies too?
Also, tbf, it’s not like MAsobo didn’t know about the Jetson or experimentals
like it, they did the VeloCity ages ago so that area was already in their
radar. The Jetson is pretty visible, has been around for years, and doesn’t
have much competition in that sector so if you want to do one there’s not a
lot of choice. Who’s to say they didn’t have it on the board even before
yours? Do something new to synergise with it, and piggy back on the marketing
push they will do?
What I saw on the trailer makes me think it is more like the Acceleration Pack
that was for FSX. What didn’t they think about a paying add-on pack like
Acceleration was?
I’d directionally agree but the MSFS 2024 branding seems more more FS2004 →
FSX than the Acceleration option even though the missions content feels
familiar. It seems the main things to wait for will be whatever new systems
support is provided in the new package, clearly we’d suspect a new missions
engine but there are plenty of other system/SDK/API opportunities we could
think of. Also we’ll find out how to build for 2020 + 2024 compatibility while
maybe still taking advantage of 2024 features. In the meantime we’ll get
mostly “wishlist” noise from people hoping their favorite item is bundled into
the update.
May be a while as the product evolves, but would appreciated clarity on what
“will function” means as well as what the few exceptions are. Also, the FAQ is
directed specifically at Marketplace add-ons. How about those add-ons not
available through the marketplace, like the FBW A32NX and the Fenix A320ceo?
Another negative of backwards compatibility is being stuck with dated
conventions from a bygone era. e.g. I find it hard to fathom that these
complex missions would all driven by RPN and XML config files.
+10 to that. No, make that 100 100 +! Worst coding paradigm ever. At least
Assembler had an excuse!