New MS Flight Simulator (2020)

[xCLAVEx]

Originally Posted by Exposed

Yes, that's the one.

It was actually my favorite airport to take off from. Should have just left it in the sim.

[xCLAVEx]

Originally Posted by SirBaron

I could spend months flying around with visuals like those. Man I haven't been this hyped for a PC game/sim in awhile.

[nutcrackr]

looks beautiful

[Napoleonic]

[Thr0tt]

Please don't disappoint, please don't disappoint.

[SirBaron]

Only thing I haven't seen is any night stuff, like building lights etc.

[Brainstew]

There has been some night footage in a few videos and it looked as awesome as you would expect. The lights in the city looked very real.

[Napoleonic]

[Brainstew]

This game really deserves more attention than it's getting. I probably won't even play it, because I'm not a big flight sim guy, but the **** they've been showing off is an incredible achievement in game development. I guess only time will tell if it ends up being a buggy broken mess though.

[John C Flett]

With MS broken and buggy aren't my main concerns though it is possible. My bigger concern would be lack of features (Missions, VR etc.) and then they either walk away from it or expect us to buy them all as DLC.

[Munkus]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!

[Omega53]

Originally Posted by Munkus

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!

Im so hyped for this. Imagine VR with this

[Napoleonic]

Originally Posted by Munkus

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!

your video? why the weird portrait video style? also how did you get to play that?

[Munkus]

Originally Posted by Napoleonic

your video? why the weird portrait video style? also how did you get to play that?

No, I stole it from Imgur. It was an .mp4 there, which won't play on these forums AFAIK, so I uploaded it to YouTube.

[JZL]

Originally Posted by Napoleonic

your video? why the weird portrait video style? also how did you get to play that?

Within flightsim one can cycle between several views, including from outside the airplane, the nearest control tower (useful for watch playbacks of landings), etc.

Not being familiar with the Xbox world, how would billing through the Xbox game pass for PC program work? Subscription? You have to buy the game and then pay them to be allowed to play it?

[John C Flett]

XBox live works more like Netflix. You don't buy the software. You pay a subscription and while it's active you can play everything. When the subscription lapses you can't play anything. Great for shorter games with a clear ending, not so much for titles like this but at least you can test them very cheaply and decide if you like it sufficiently.


XBox does have a store front too like Steam and if you buy a game through in then it's yours regardless of the subscription.

[Napoleonic]

wait so this flight sim is gonna be subscription model?

[OverclockN']

Originally Posted by John C Flett

XBox live works more like Netflix. You don't buy the software. You pay a subscription and while it's active you can play everything. When the subscription lapses you can't play anything. Great for shorter games with a clear ending, not so much for titles like this but at least you can test them very cheaply and decide if you like it sufficiently.


XBox does have a store front too like Steam and if you buy a game through in then it's yours regardless of the subscription.

This isn't accurate, unless it's changed recently.

XBox LIVE is simply the ability to play online with the games, it has nothing to do with single player or access to games (unless it's a demo).

XBox Game Pass is the Netflix-like subscription that gives you access to specific games each month.

You can purchase either service, or both together with a slight discount.

[John C Flett]

Your right, I got my services mixed up.

The point though is that we should be able to play the game through either a monthly pass or buy it outright. I've not seen anything solid to suggest monthly charges for using Flight Sim if you buy it outright.

The concern is that the terrain is generated at Microsoft's end so the idea of a charge can't be ruled out or the danger of them just turning the game off when they're ready to move us onto a new version.

[Chubz]

Originally Posted by Munkus

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!

Are these officially the best (as in, most photorealistic) graphics to date, regardless of genre? I can't think of anything that even compares at the moment.

[OverclockN']

Tough to compare, but I'd argue it isn't. Games like Gears of War 5, Death Stranding, Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, and A Plague Tale are very very good.

[Evileh]

Yeah, I'm absolutely floored

[_mulder]

Originally Posted by Napoleonic

wait so this flight sim is gonna be subscription model?

Me think people are just speculating at this point. I don't recall hearing or reading about any subscription model coming from the developer or Microsoft so far.

[Napoleonic]

Originally Posted by OverclockN'

Tough to compare, but I'd argue it isn't. Games like Gears of War 5, Death Stranding, Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, and A Plague Tale are very very good.

Can't be compared, but this game will be unmatched at delivering photorealistic landscape pictures and weather time-lapse over large areas.

https://youtu.be/aXNop6lfIcM

Is there any release date yet? Is Microsoft going to make this game one of the launch titles for Xbox?

[_mulder]

Another amazing video https://youtu.be/PQFmpakz9Yo

I don't think they've mentioned anything about season yet.

[JZL]

They need to include a Corona Mission this time around.

[John C Flett]

Originally Posted by _mulder

Me think people are just speculating at this point. I don't recall hearing or reading about any subscription model coming from the developer or Microsoft so far.

Indeed. Lots of people guessing that, because of the way the game uses Microsoft Azure to generate streaming graphics, that there will be a charge but at this point no actual evidence that I've seen. Of course, no counter statement from Microsoft that I know of either.

Hopefully we'll get more details soon as this could be a make or break deal for many players. I know that I can spend a lot of my gaming time on sims but not necessarily that much on any specific sim.

[Lurk]

I want to play the devil's advocate here.

I have no intention to argue, rather try to go beyond the oooh's and aaaah's (including mine) generated by the beautiful when not slightly pandering videos we've seen.

I started simming on the Sinclair ZX81 with its 64K RAM expansion, and I'm obviously beyond thrilled for this upcoming iteration.

This might just be the sim that puts an end to it all.

But.

This has so much potential to go wrong, provided that after seeing the videos I have troubles imagining how it can even run on today's pc's half decently.

My point is elsewhere though, and lies in all the thousands of litlle (big) annoyances that can make simming a true nightmare, and all simmers out there know what I'm talking about.
Among them are the dreaded stuttering, the slow loading of terrain textures (and what we are seeing here are entire cities apparently reproduced at street level), the obnoxious pop-in and slow filling of detail, the many graphical glitches that break the suspension of disbelief required in a sim, which are probably going to grow exponentially in the mind-boggling complex environment the developers are trying to create.

We are talking about a faithful reproduction of all main atmospheric events down to extremely localized phenomena, where everything not only has to behave correctly but also react accordingly to global and local lighting. And I won't even start with water, oceans, lakes, rivers, all with waves and proper currents and reflections.
Then comes everything on the ground, which will require smooth transitioning from high to lower altitude to make flying believable, and here it is single buildings with windows and roads with moving traffic and signs and traffic lights and urban vegetation correctly displaced.
Add airport environments, AI traffic, flight model, aircraft reproduction on the outside as well as on the inside with incredibly detailed and functioning virtual cockpits, all capable of 4k rendering. Fluidly. Flying.

I know that a couple of the videos have the devs personally explaining all of what is going on and how they are going about to achieve it, but anyone who has simmed for the past 30 years can remember something very similar when Microsoft was advertising their 3d volumetric cloud rendering technique for FSX. We all know how that went.

Last but not least, I fear sliders:

- notch 0=how you can run it now

vs

- notch 10=how you MIGHT be able to run it 10 years from now (that would make it one year per notch, maybe slightly pessimistic )

I REALLY want this to be as good as it seems, but I've been burned already, and the days of endless config files tweaking and entire weeks spent downloading 3rd party software are unfortunately over.

Six months ago I could only dream of the sim I'm drooling over in the videos posted, but I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground.
I wanted to be a pilot since the age of fourteen, life has led me elsewhere, in a place were wages can't buy thousand dollars computing machines, so here I am with my fingers crossed and a bit of disenchantment by my side to keep me company, you know, just in case

Discuss, or not.

regardless,
happy new year to all

[John C Flett]

Perfect is the enemy of good.


Everybody has to draw their own line and we all have different needs and desires out of games like this.


Certainly I get tired of people in DCS blasting modules because the third submode of a backup system isn't correct or a flight model pushed to extremes isn't right even if the only reason for flying like that is to test the model to destruction.


I want reasonably accurate environments, sufficient AI traffic and ATC so the world doesn't feel empty, some structure to keep me engaged and enough variety so I don't feel I've seen it all in a short time.


Sadly the sim that came closest to that is probably FSX for all it's shortcomings. Plenty since have delivered on enough of my desires to be worth getting but none are perfect and I don't imagine this will be either. I just hope it delivers on enough. I believe MS have resources. My greatest doubts are about the long term commitment.


I do really share your feeling about mods and tweaks though Lurk. These days I'm far happier to play a sim and accept it's shortcomings than spending time and money trying to paper over the cracks.

[Lurk]

John C Flett's entire post

I totally stand with everything you said