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MS FLIGHT discussion


Keld

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Hopefully Flight will help to reestablish flight simming in the mainstream game market, or at least bring some fresh blood into the hobby in coming years. We will still have Prepar3D, X-Plane and of course good old FSX for us more serious simmers.

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  • Aerosoft

Keep in mind Flight covers two very basic aircraft and one island and that's all for starters. For me that does not make a flight simulator. They won't even say if you will be able to fly between two of the 'scenery sections', let alone from big airport to big airport. If you read the text at: http://www.microsoft...-takes_to_skies it all seems to indicate at a more game like environment. Text like "Aviation can be incredibly technical, but we’ve taken great care to build an experience that makes taking to the skies thrilling and accessible for everyone.” and 'can jump into hours of exciting gameplay on the Big Island of Hawaii." are not exactly what our customer of the 737 NGX is waiting for, right?

In fact and this is very interesting, it seems to have exactly the same structure as aeroflyFS. That one has more scenery and a lot more aircraft but the same closed environment and a more game like aspect. And that one looks incredible and got framerates that are truly astounding.

Still very interesting of course!

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I don't know if what I've read on other forums is correct, but apparently there isn't going to be freeware or commercial addons from 3rd party vendors (little profit for them).

Microsoft are going this whole GAME route. Seeing the latest video preview I don't think it's that impressive.

I do find X-Plane 10 a little under-developed still, but I do wish them luck for the future as I think in time they can develop something worthwhile.

Chris

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  • Aerosoft

I don't know if what I've read on other forums is correct, but apparently there isn't going to be freeware or commercial addons from 3rd party vendors (little profit for them).

Microsoft are going this whole GAME route. Seeing the latest video preview I don't think it's that impressive.

I do find X-Plane 10 a little under-developed still, but I do wish them luck for the future as I think in time they can develop something worthwhile.

Chris

I kept saying all along we had little interest in FLIGHT. Of course we'll check it out and will talk to MS when the time is ripe. But we believe in a open structure, where community is the base for both commercial and freeware development. Microsoft clearly has other ideas and I can't fault them. There is a good market for a sim based game that does not go into great detail. FS has developed into a very complex niche product that is outgrowing its customers.

Keep in mind we are asking a guy with a 51 page manual manual on one hand and a beer in the other to fly an aircraft designed for a two men, highly trained, sober crew. Now that's the kind of customer I love and there are enough of them to keep us happy, but MS sees this different. To tell you the truth, I was expecting FSX to be what FLIGHT promises to be. I thought they would make this step back then.

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You know, I simply doubt that Microsoft will ever be able to release a "game"... - which requires to stick to things like fun, entertainment, easily approachable, balanced and so on...

All MS products suffered and still suffer from more or less serious bugs and people got used to deal with it, mostly because they had to. Sure, it was entertaining to laugh about MS but hardly entertaining to use their products - which always lacked a serious QA and product management.

They will definitely release this ominous "Flight" but I doubt that they will find a customership for it outside the US, where people are much less quality focused than in Europe.

I do not doubt however that they will discontinue Flight very soon again, simply because they do neither have a vision nor a product strategy nor any focus for it. That's my 2 cents...

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  • Aerosoft

I do not doubt however that they will discontinue Flight very soon again, simply because they do neither have a vision nor a product strategy nor any focus for it. That's my 2 cents...

The vision aspect is what surprises me as well. Giving the thing away for free is a nice plan, but you got to depend on finding enough people to buy add-ons. And there could be a problem there. If you managed to do your tricks and missions in one place in one aircraft you got to come up with very good stuff to make people buy more. Missions did not do very well in FSX even though it was a pretty solid system.

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The vision aspect is what surprises me as well. Giving the thing away for free is a nice plan, but you got to depend on finding enough people to buy add-ons. And there could be a problem there. If you managed to do your tricks and missions in one place in one aircraft you got to come up with very good stuff to make people buy more. Missions did not do very well in FSX even though it was a pretty solid system.

Isn't this the same business model as RoF? You can download the stripped-down version for free, but to play a campaign you have to purchase planes. Seems to work out there...

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However unlike RoF MS Flight isn't targeted at enthusiasts but the mainstream market. People that often buy new games and play them for a few months before moving on to something newer.

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However unlike RoF MS Flight isn't targeted at enthusiasts but the mainstream market. People that often buy new games and play them for a few months before moving on to something newer.

Flight is not targeted at enthusiasts, it's supposed to be a mainstream product (guess why they dropped the "Simulator" from the name).

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I don't see Flight working for the good-well known types of simmers, what I've seen so far from Flight is a a very primitive starting leg for aviation supporters, they will see this "game" play it, they will understand that they want something more serious and in the end they will arrive to FS9, FSX, XPlane10 and XPlane11 if this lasts long enough. For me this just adds a new ground level 1 for newbie simmers. I'm sort of hoping that it will turn in to a simulator but I'm not counting on it.

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So the golden question is....will Aerosoft resume the project announced to replace FSX?

Yes I would love to hear something about this as well.

Because I love X Plane 10 but there is room for more than one great simulator out there.

In time FSX will get old, but I think it can last some more, but a good solid flight simulation product from Aerosoft would be huge :excellenttext_s:

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Flight seems pretty close to what I expected, and even the business model is something I had previously mentioned as a possibility. I have seen business models like this in action before, and I suspect FLIGHT will take off much faster than some are expecting. The word free is very powerful, and if FLIGHT offers a pleasant enough experience many could be captivated, especially if quality additions come quickly.

Having toyed with the XP10 demo I find it to be full of promise, but its also apparent that laminar have chosen to stick with the same kludgy and generally uninviting interface that presented many people a nearly insurmountable barrier of unfriendliness in previous iterations of the Sim. This self-limiting action (not to mention a vaguely disturbing "grey" monotone feeling to the Sim) might very well cede the millions of more casual buyers to Microsoft with nothing even approaching a fight.

I keep thinking again and again (and again!) that XP10 needs some MAJOR art direction in bringing some life to its strangely dead-seeming world. So many other aspects of the visual impact of the Sim are "nearly there" that the missing aliveness causes something very close to the "Uncanny Valley" effect.

Its as if the Borg took over the earth and leeched all the color and variety away.

Somehow that needs to be addressed, and in the meantime, I am sensing movement and currents that make me suspect much broader goals from MS.

I will not be surprised if they lunge and abruptly re-swallow the leadership canary that nobody else is keeping an eye on.

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Flight is not targeted at enthusiasts, it's supposed to be a mainstream product (guess why they dropped the "Simulator" from the name).

That's exactly what I said, please read my post again. And that's why the RoF business model won't necessarily work here. Maybe it will work for them, but there is no guarantee that MS will sell enough of their DLC to support a development team once the first hype has cooled down. Especially since they apparently cut any third party support.

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That's exactly what I said, please read my post again. And that's why the RoF business model won't necessarily work here. Maybe it will work for them, but there is no guarantee that MS will sell enough of their DLC to support a development team once the first hype has cooled down. Especially since they apparently cut any third party support.

Whoops, misread your last post. Sorry!

Anyway, what I meant to say was that in my opinion, both products have the same target market (at least I can't see the hardcore simmers talking about RoF...)

The question is, whether MS will manage to make Flight addicitive to those people. I like the competitive edge of the product. We'll see if that opens a new online-gaming niche for people not interested in Farmville and WoW.

I'm one of the few people who actually liked the missions in FSX. So I'm inclined to give Flight a try. But I'm certainly not dumping FSX for it.

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Hi Tempelhof,

Apologies but I can't swallow your argument that RoF and Flight have the same target audience... - not at all!

While FS9 and FSX service the "family car" category more or less (i.e. 90% of the market) RoF is a high fidelity combat simulator (that is at least what I understood of the concept). Translated into the car-world this would be something like the Jeep or Toyota 4x4 for the enthusiasts.

Flight however is something like a convertible or roadster... - advertising pure fun but not really useful if you want a workhorse...

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Hi Tempelhof,

Apologies but I can't swallow your argument that RoF and Flight have the same target audience... - not at all!

While FS9 and FSX service the "family car" category more or less (i.e. 90% of the market) RoF is a high fidelity combat simulator (that is at least what I understood of the concept). Translated into the car-world this would be something like the Jeep or Toyota 4x4 for the enthusiasts.

Flight however is something like a convertible or roadster... - advertising pure fun but not really useful if you want a workhorse...

I suspect the most obvious competition to FLIGHT would be something like Wings Of Prey.

I always think that what draws people into these "games" is not the painstakingly intricate flight model, but just the pure simple sense of speed, smoothness and exhilaration felt by any child who has ever spread their arms and run around pretending to be an airplane. (or car, or helicopter!)

MS has consistently catered to the masses with FS while also carefully leaving room for further growth at the users own pace. Simulators (and addons!!) that throw 200 page manuals at people and walk away have always seemed to me to be the most glaringly obvious reason why "Pure" Flight Sims have become such a niche market.

Barring some unknown, fatal flaw in the rendering engine, I am expecting FLIGHT to be a runaway hit.

EDIT: First reviews of the beta demo are coming in, and it seems the engine truly looks like FSX with fixed shadows and that's about it. In other words: nothing new here, move along. I hope that this is not true, but who knows what evil lurks in the minds of corporate giants.....

I guess we will all stay tuned.

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Okay, I see it's pointless to argue about which product is intended for which audience as we all have different opinions on that.

To recapitulate the discussion: None of the simmers here like the approach MS has taken with Flight. We'll see how the rest of the market is taking it. Seems like the mainstream media is already catching on...

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Devon,

I fully agree with you here. But the interested man or kid on the street will enjoy exactly this part - sensation of speed, fun, visuals of the basic version for free and then that's it. Some more interested folks may spend a buck or two to keep their curiosity satisfied and then that's it...

The fun of aviation doesn't come from a colourful fast video game... - it comes from dealing with the obstacles, challenges, difficulties and Flight won't touch this area...

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