JonRD463

"What'll ya have, what'll ya have?"

Bushflying. Maybe take off from Sitka and fly east.

Nice shot of the Richat Structure!

It was part the love of aviation and part wonder at what a computer could do. My first exposure to Flight Sim was, I believe, version 3 on a demo Atari ST computer at a department store called Lechemere back in 1980-something. I saw one of the employees playing around with it and was mesmerized. He let me take control after showing me the basics on the keyboard (any of y'all remember the old days of tap-tap-tapping the arrow keys? :D), and I was hooked. Back then, my family was on the lower end of the economic scale, so buying a computer was out of the question. Years later, my brother in law worked at a computer store and was able to acquire a home PC from his job, and he let me install a copy of FS4 on it, which I played as often as he and my sister would let me over. Soon after, I was able to save my own earned money and purchased my first PC for the express purpose of Flight Sim 4.0. I ran the gamut on all the addons available-- Aircraft & Scenery Designer, Aircraft & Adventure Factory, and even some third party scenery design tools like SEE4 for added special effects (colored lights!). Since then, I followed all versions up to FSX. Flight didn't interest me, as it appeared to be a drastic departure from what I loved about the platform, and so my simming eventually died out. Several years later, X-Plane 10 caught my eye, and I dove in, falling in love over again. Then came X-Plane 11 and I still carried on. Eventually, I'd once again develop a sort of ennui, so even XP11 took a backseat as I carried on with other interests and hobbies. Enter the announcement for FS2020, and I'm all perked up again. One of the niches I got into over my time with the various sim platforms was bush flying, and FS2020 looks to be absolutely perfect for that type of flying. I can't wait to get my mitts on it!

I won't deny PMDG the quality of their products, but what always turned me off was the (as mentioned earlier) arrogance and pretentiousness of their online personalities. I never got that from Flight Factor, or any of the other higher end X-Plane aircraft developers. There was still a feeling for the love of the hobby, even if it the products are for-profit. I've mentioned before that I'll be switching over to MSFS when it comes out, but it's not out of malice for the X-Plane platform. In fact, I'll be keeping an eye out for the eventual XP12. But the X-Plane community is still the better of the two major arms of the flight sim hobby. It represents, to me, something that got lost along the way to over-commercialization in the ESP-based side of things. There's still a vibrant and healthy freeware community and a sort of maverick vibe that just feels more organic and natural. I dunno... hard to articulate it, I guess.

Not as high fidelity as PMDG on P3D, but it's the most detailed 747 on X-Plane.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not married to a specific platform. I'm married to the experience it gives me. I was a longtime MSFS user since 4.0, and once X became more or less abandonware, I knew there was no hope for the constant memory issues and other things I had to deal with just to get a point A to B flight done. So I switched to XP10, reconciled myself that the limitations that were there were not dealbreakers (mainly seasons), and got to work setting things up to my liking with scenery, addons, etc. The same applies to XP11. Right now, my XP11 install, while a bit underused at the moment, is set up to my liking. I can fire it up and enjoy nice flights, whether GA or long haul, and enjoy a good simulated flying experience over ortho terrain. You could say I'm pretty content. Along comes the MSFS2020 announcement, and they have presented me with possibilities that fill in some of the limitations that XP currently has. While information on seasonal effects are lacking at the moment, there are certain aspects I've missed since my previous MSFS experiences. I used to belong to a Caribbean-based VA (Tradewind Caribbean, for you oldtimers) and grew very fond of flying in and around the area. Unfortunately, X-Plane lacks the sort of tropical feel that previous versions of FS with addons gave me, and ortho data is sparse and covered with clouds so the area has been largely abandoned by me for my flights. What XP DOES deliver on is great bushflying experiences, and I find that's the primary sort of flying I do, and mainly up in the Pacific Northwest and Yukon areas. MSFS2020 looks to bring the best of both worlds to me with the extreme detail it presents, and I'm looking forward to it. Yes, this seems like I'm focusing on the eye candy aspects of it, and that's absolutely correct. My reasons for simulated flying are to relax and take in the simulated landscape below me and the better it looks, the better my experience. The fact that they're moving to a surface-based flight model similar to X-Plane's is just an added bonus on the potential fidelity of the feel of flight, and I look forward to more details on that. This isn't about loyalty or tribalism to a particular platform. I've enjoyed and still currently enjoy X-Plane. I look forward to the next generation in this hobby, and right now, it looks like MS is poised to deliver it.

They Hyatt at Lake Washington is not in the sim? Total dealbreaker, sim is garbage, etc. etc... /sarc

1. No legacy code. 2. No legacy code And most importantly, 3. No legacy code.

And for me, the bolded part is entirely based on fact. The only thing that will make me even consider a new MSFS is all new code.

Well okay then.

I dropped MSFS and went to X-Plane because I got tired of the layers and layers of legacy code that the entitled FS masses felt was required in order to keep their king's ransom worth of addons viable. Now that it appears MS finally did the right thing and moved on from the dusty cobwebs, I think when Laminar does announce X-Plane 12, they're going to have to seriously up their game. Everything I've seen in the new FS trailer shows the things I love about XP11 and then some. Don't get me wrong, I still love and enjoy XP11 when I get the chance to putter around in it, but the pendulum has swung. MS sold their ESP based code to Lockheed, which is the easy tell that the new sim is built from the ground up, so hopefully OOM errors will be a thing of the past. Again, that was the dealbreaker for me, so it'll be interesting what Austin & co's answer will be. And for the record, I love flight simulation and am not married to a particular platform. Right now, X-Plane satisfies that itch, but I'm pretty excited by the news and what this means for the simulation hobby as a whole.

Dear God, I hope not. That would mean it'll be written on legacy code, which needs to be chucked out the highest window of the Burj Khalifa.

Thought it looked photographic.

My goodness... This might be the thing to pull me back into simming. I've always loved bush flying, and while the landscape of X-Plane makes for great airborne vistas, there's really been a dearth of really nice, high detail destination airports. That always struck me as odd. Propstrike's stuff looks really, really good and I hope they make more like this.