MSFS 2024 Marketplace [sigh]

[Adamski]

The MSFS 2024 Marketplace is a total disaster. 99% junk and 99% false reviews ... BUT ... I've managed to pick up a few bargains, nevertheless. Here's one of them: the CAC Buffalo:

In the 2024 version, the pilot gets an "Alice in Wonderland" size adjustment, plus horrible reflective texturing and other anomalies:


Thankfully, the purchase also includes the 2020 version:


Much better all round:


How on earth they can stuff up a perfectly decent aircraft then have the audacity to call it an upgrade is beyond me. So ... if you like the Buffalo, it's still worth a try: simply run the 2020 version.

Just to throw in that the T-6 Harvard works relatively well - and we have some stunning NZ liveries:

[Charl]

OK I was not going to share this, but really...
Here's a shot of yours, Adam of Robin's fs24 Taieri, and mine below in FS20, similar atmospherics.



I look at them and wonder.
I got a refund on the new sim, 1 week after purchase.
Everything I hear is just negativity.
I am disappointed, because I didn't much like being an FS9 Luddite, and here it's all happening again.

[Splitpin]

Also got a refund on my ...wont mention the name...A380.
purchased based on market ratings....for me at least turned out to be substandard.

[toprob]

I'm not at all confident that we'll get a worthy successor to FSX. I've already given my opinion on the state of the Marketplace, so I won't go over that again. Maybe it was my own expectations which let me down, but I did see the promise of it, and hoped for something to match.

One interesting thing since getting the Xbox, I tried one of the Asobo games which apparently sold MS on using them for the simulator -- 'A Plague Tale'. Here's a screenshot, and you can see the influence this had on the sim. But having a world populated with procedural plants, rocks and water does mean that it's going to be the best choice to model the entire world, with the emphasis on realistic aviation. Maybe another graphics engine would have been a better choice. So although I like the sim enough to retire all the others, it is never going to head in the direction that I envisioned when MSFS 2020 first came out.

[Adamski]

OK I was not going to share this, but really...
Here's a shot of yours, Adam of Robin's fs24 Taieri, and mine below in FS20, similar atmospherics.
I look at them and wonder.
I got a refund on the new sim, 1 week after purchase.
Everything I hear is just negativity.
I am disappointed, because I didn't much like being an FS9 Luddite, and here it's all happening again.

I'll redo that shot of mine - in case it was a 2020 shot. The vegetation in yours is much better (as is almost everything else!). Are you using any additional trees addons?

[Charl]

Tough call... I just pour 'em in.
In my next life I will construct the sim properly and administer it so when it falls over it can be fixed

[toprob]

A couple of observations about the Taieri screenshots - normally I'd curate atmospherics, same as NZA, who always use low sun, and go to the trouble of turning rain off rain and taking screenshots before the tarmac dries, to get the perfect reflections.
Normal daytime and weather shots can look a bit bland.
I also normally use a wide angle, as zoomed shots have never been a strength off MSFS, any version.
But yeah, the trees in 2024 are a weak area. Previous versions of Taieri prior to 2020 used awful cross plane trees for the willows etc, they looked rough up close bit great from a distance. Now the trees are better modelled, but not enough variety, no willows at all. One day they might get better.
And my beta doesn't help here, getting the trees to behave has been a trial, and although it has improved now it ain't good.
By the way, this is an update of the 2020 version, and most of the buildings in that shoot haven't changed. That's more on me than the sim.