Thanks! I'm dying to get this because I was sold on all the previews. So 90% of me is committed to going all out and buying the ultimate version. But the decision to do so is becoming hard, because the game has spanned such a wide range of emotional experiences. Some hate it because of the textures/graphics. But that may probably be because they have underpowered hardware and/or bought the lowest resolution/standard version. Some are butt hurt because they went the McScrooge route and missed out on all the graphical perks that come behind that nasty paywall M$ slipped in there.
Then others complain about aircraft performance and/or realism in operational flight mechanics (which is the most critical factor for me). I can tolerate low res graphics if the game performance and satisfactory game play experience makes up for this.
But all reviewers who complained on Steam could agree on one thing: the 90GB+ d/l was complete torture. Some (like Mole) literally d/l 99% to 100% of the game after several HOURS of real life. Only to have the launcher? Whatever cloud server they were d/l from reset/disrupt the process. what?? Causing them to re-download the blasted files all over again.....
So now I'll content myself watching OA's and other YT influencer video reviews online. As badly as I want to get this, I'm not going to fall down that obsession trap where I blindly fling money at a AAA dev out my window. Because unlike a battered spouse, I've got zero intention of repeating this expensive collector's nightmare scenario ever again:
Bethesda: We're the ultimate release day fan base dev trolls. Submit to crushing domination with this 3 hr download 50GB patch for F76----
M$: Shaddup and hang on to ur digital Heineken. Now wotch dis........
Apologies in advance for the upcoming wall of text
I'll say again that there is no difference between the ultimate edition and the base standard edition graphically...both have exactly the same resolutions and graphics options available. The
only difference is in the amount of aircraft and hand crafted airports between all 3 versions...20 planes and hand crafted airfields with the standard, 25 of each with the premium and 30 of each with the ultimate. In each edition, the standard of graphics and options is exactly the same.
As for the sim deleting itself...although I've no firm idea why it did so, it's an extremely unlikely case that many others had this issue...in the MSFS discussion thread, there was only perhaps 2 others who remarked on the same thing. In my case the sim was installed on a 2Tb NVME drive that was only 30% full...and besides basic PC maintenance in between sessions on the sim I hadn't installed anything else...
PC maintenance being AVG tune-up...clears registry errors, temp files, startup errors etc, etc. My one possible suspect being that in the cleanup I removed an old Windows restore point that was taking up 29Gb of space...perhaps removing that was somehow connected with the deletion of the sim...although exactly why or how I've no idea since I do this consistently and repeatedly with no effect to anything else on my PC.
As for the download size...it's by no means the biggest game file I've had to download in stages...CoD Modern warfare was a whopping 155Gb download and lasted for 2 whole days, several others were in the 50-65Gb range...Hitman 2 was 66Gb. My issue was with the Microsoft installer dominating my PC resources whilst simply downloading..that was unacceptable and tiresome since it left me no option but to download it over 2 nights whilst I was asleep since playing anything else as it downloaded in the background was almost impossible.
As for the sim itself...I hadn't flown any civilian or GA simulators previously. Up until MSFS 2020 was announced, I looked on them as a special niche amidst a niche genre group hobby...Flight simmers in general being the niche genre... as in the likes of me who primarily enjoy lavish historic or modern combat sims (IL2/DCS)...the other sub-niche type being the strict GA type simmers who have little or no interest in combat sims. I was attracted to MSFS 2020 by the technology, the lavish visuals...but most of all by the accessibility the sim opened up for casual players... or even console players eventually...it'll be a huge success for that on it's own and rightly deserves to be. It was a bold move by both Asobo and Microsoft opening up a niche genre to casual gamers with no more complicated peripherals than a mouse, keyboard or even an Xbox controller..."Leave no pilot behind." was their motto when designing MSFS...and their efforts are both admirable and laudable.
As it stands, yes...I was disappointed with the release version for the variety of reasons I've stated, that in no way should detract from what is a very ambitious and lavish simulator which will only improve and grow with time. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold much interest for me due to it's reliance to further it's community development via after market third party sales as is common with GA simulators as a whole...I won't be sinking Star Citizen amounts of cash into it...nor even IL2 Great Battles amounts... which is by far the most expensive franchise on my PC to date. GA simulations along with their restrictive and nannying 'realism' just aren't for me I guess. Landing a Heinkel 111 on one engine with most of the control surfaces shot away by AA and fighter attacks is more my bag...horses for courses
I'll probably re-download MFS 2020 at some point but only as far as my MS Gamepass membership facilitates it, I won't be sinking cash into it.
