It’s been a while since my last Project Metal post here and I hope that our staff is having an amazing time in France!
At the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025 there was this AMA with Laura, where I asked “Put it in numbers: from 1-100%, where is Project metal?” I got the answer “95%”. Well, I did some math and we should slowly get it to 100%. So, how’s the actual situation here?
I know, I know, no release dates, no WIPs… sadly…
But please keep us informed. We don’t nail you on anything you’re saying or even showing.
If you say: okay guys, look where we are. That’s the situation… we struggle with that part… or we prioritize something different at the moment (which would be a tremendous wrong decision in my opinion)… we are able to create nice clouds, but now we struggle with… let’s say… lighting. Would this hurt anybody? Is there a reason with the competition against other sims? Let us know, please!!! Why is this such a big secret against some WIPs of new planes?
I tell from my very own perspective: I love the sim, everyday more, and my trust goes so deep into our developers, that IF will become the most close to MSFS you can get on a mobile. I don’t say it will look the same, it will get very close for a mobile sim. I would love to fly Neos or a new 787 or park some planes at some airports or get notifications on my watch… but, every time I see somebody streaming MSFS I think: “I just want some better graphics at the very most important point” .
I know, I might sound a bit whiny, but give us just something we can chew on, be thrilled of. Build a bridge over our increasing frustration so we get again hyped for what to come.
Patients is the key, but I feel the frustration growing… and I’m VERY patient and I know, that the amount of work and time you put in this is gigantic. Please don’t miss understand me here. I totally respect your effort!
Probably best to continue in this currently active topic:
I had a conversation with Jason a while back on Discord regarding the staff communication over the A320neo/A321neo project. However I think his response also applies to communication from the staff over Project Metal:
“Keep in mind that with software dev the goalposts keep moving. And it’s not always in our best interest to communicate every change exactly when it happens.”
Sure, having regular updates would be nice. However, then the community would likely start assuming deadlines, etc. which would then lead to potential disappointment. I think it’s in the overall best interest of both the staff and the community for it to stay mostly under wraps and the staff communicate updates when they feel like it’s the right time to share something.
Laura said in her AMA back in March that the base work was around 90% complete - however I wouldn’t draw anything from that in terms of when we might see the big stuff finally come.
As read I read through your post and read this phrase I’m getting the idea that this is the point where people get a little lost about what Project Metal is all about. They’re not talking about these parts because that’s not Project Metal, only reason these were being spoken of in the first place is because of the fact that is a large optimisation task that will make some of those features possible in the far future.
From this post and the discussion I had here, a lot was concluded so I’ll summarise:
When it is said that Project Metal is 95% done, that means most of the implementation is already in the app, already usable by people like you. Remember that it is a staged process with very abstract features that aim to optimise the simulator as much as possible which would make way for the features you mentioned.
Project Metal is provably really difficult to market to everyone. On the post we discussed in quite a bit of detail as to what might constitute enough communication. Conslusively it tends to be what their idea for good enough to share is; it may be different to what you think is worthwhile, but a balanced decision must be made to keep things brief and fun, but also not becoming a sea of jargon. Can’t always give what everyone wants, eh?
Policy has changed as explained before, there’s been some regret expressed by some of the staff relating to marketing the start of its development so strongly; because hey, it got your hopes up! It got many others’ hopes up as well over something that turned out to be relatively mundane compared to, say, a preview of the A320neo. What your idea of mundane is may be different to theirs, but a bar has to be set somewhere, which I understand. Though I do think based on the litany of posts like this, where despite the process being not that exciting, people are still interested in where it’s at, some discussion should be had internally on how to move forward, which I can certainly stand with you on.
Hopefully we can get some more official clarification at some point beyond what I have already said, I can only do so much, but I hope you at least understand what’s going on a little bit more.
Not true their technically is an end as the software is not infinite. I mean they are reprogramming the code being used for IF and it is not something we will notice it is something that will allow for other features though
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