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The Big MS Flight Topic


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@ Karsten, do you really think that MS deleted everything from FSX just to keep Hawaii.....seriously....why did I say all there but locked...think about it for a sec., they are implementing Flight as XP-10 is been implemented or any other platform, adding stuff and making sure what ever they will add will work as good as possible...again, exactly like XP-10 is doing.

just think about this for a sec., MS was working with 3PD developers before shutting them down so from there what were the 3PD developers working on...Hawaii only....naaaaaa....MS can do that by themself right, so they had to work on something else...other regions maybe?

You know the most expensive thing in Software development? Testing! A feature that is locked hasn't been tested and a feature that hasn't been tested has to be considered unusable. In fact if the code is locked I would even dare to guess that it isn't even part of the compiled code.Such code is deleted by the optimizers. Everything that goes beyond the current Flight were only parts of XML resources and so on that are not compiled or optimized.

I think the main reason for the 3PD chaos has a simple reason there isn't one group but in fact the crew of Flight has members with a game perspective and a simmers group. In the beginning they probably hoped that they could sell 3PD content. But when they recognized how many Add ons the 3PD developers really sold they had to realize that they wouldn't be able to reach the numbers that they promised to Microsoft, when they got their budget.

So the gamers group took charge.

You have to see what flight really is! It is a TINY project, that reused an old code base, to test a new business model.

Look at the marketing that is behind Flight: Nothing! This shows that Flight isn't a strategic product. Instead it is one of many small scale products that were able to get a budget for a purpose.

But these projects have to prove that they reached at least parts of their goals. If they can demonstrate their usefulness they could reach more or less anything. But they have to prove that their concept works.It won't be necessary that they really earn the money that Microsoft put into Flight,but they will have to prove that the mission packs earn money, that they reach the normal consumer market, and that they establish a community. They really have the problem that they don't have an X-Box 360 version. In this market with gold members they would be in a much better position.

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Karsten, what I am trying to say is that MS started with FSX, they are implementing Flight and will release other area, small part at the time, where do you think they got their idea from...about walking around the plane....where did you see that before...

Some 3PD developers may have not like the idea of been told where part (area) and what to make for Flight....this is a part of the problem beside big publishing houses like Aerosoft, the way MS is doing business now is not attractive to them.

I agree with what you posted here...

You have to see what flight really is! It is a TINY project, that reused an old code base, to test a new business model.

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It wont work for a number of reasons. adamant flight sim enthuiest are not going to wait around 2 years to fly in ther part of the world, without external addon from other developers our choices will be very limited and far between, the current economy is causing people to think before they spend, if this doesnt make money quick it will die. We have al being waiting for something between XP10 and FSX but is just never came, I love FSX as it is, if they had just spent time redoing the engine I am sure we would of all leaped in and brought the full product. I only buy simulators, Trains 2012, Silent hunter, but really only spend time in FSX. And to top it all off, I am tired of having to create accounts to use something, I have no faith in the internet, I have being around long enough to know there is no such thihing as internet security, it is a Myth, its the reason why I havnt bought railworks 3, i dont want an account with steam.

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Adamant flight Sim enthusiasts are such a tiny niche that if they really are determined to self segregate themselves from the discussion, they will probably not even be missed.

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I was just reading an article in a magazine abt a game company that relesed a game that everyone was waiting on, but it was a failure, uncomplete, jsu a bad game, the game compaly finally relented and said they had released it as it was becasue they needed the cash and where hoping that the gamers would pay for it so they could finish it later, I do hope that MS havnt taken that path. Kids today want to shoot things and blow things up, they have little patients on learning how to play the game never mind flying a plane. I guess we wil just have to wait and see.

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Kids today want to shoot things and blow things up, they have little patients on learning how to play the game never mind flying a plane.

I would not necessarily think that Flight is intended for kids only. There may be many adult people out there who might be interested in aviation but have never taken the plunge with a full-fledged flight sim.

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Karsten, what I am trying to say is that MS started with FSX, they are implementing Flight and will release other area, small part at the time, where do you think they got their idea from...about walking around the plane....where did you see that before...

Oh, in several games. I think the first time i saw it, was a game on the old Amiga...Although it wasn't a game that I would describe as a Flight Simulator But exactly this is the point. Why do people always believe that they will have to go this way, since it was a part of FSX. I think I know exactly why theya always say that Flight is not Flight Simulator 11. It is a new program with its own purposes. And one of the main purposes is: don't loose the normal customers. But if they go directly to the big jets they are in serious trouble, They would need a better weather engine ATC big airports, ground maps for interconnecting country side and so on, missions to introduce and use these features. It is a major headache. It doesn't make sense. It gets pretty expensive but no normal customer would pay you for it.

There are a lot of things that have to be improved, The game play itself as an example. At the moment you gain points and awards without any purpose. Something like a a career mode would be a possibili6ty, where you have to pay for damages to the plane, for fule, and so on, while you can earn money and reputation with Jobs, prices and so on.

If the next location is really Alaska I would expect things like a wildfire and you have to drop water in the correct locations and so on. Mail services to remote locations.

If we would want to talk about Jets I would say something like a CRJ-200 makes more sense in flight than a 747, although they would have to simplify the FMC.

But If you look at the P51 they probably see that they are in trouble: Hardcore flight simmers are ready to pay these prices, but many gamers won't! But if they loose the gamers their whole project foundation is doomed. They need a concept where people might win planes while most people simply buy the new plane and its missions.

This is the real challenge they have to beat. If I look how they dropped 3rd developers like a hot potato I think that they numbers they used in their project definition were above the money that all 3rd party developers together earn.

Flight has to demonstrate that they can earn money. So they have to sell a lot of Add-ons, otherwise the life expectancy of Flight will be pretty limited.There are always a lot of other projects that want the budget, that is bound by Flight. I wouldn't be surprised if their Flight is free price might become a major roadblock.

It would have been much easier inside the X-Box envi5ronment, where even they time people use Flight might be considered an advantage, as long as they are gold members

IMHO Flight in itself is a good game, but the main problem is the same as it was with FSX: Does Microsoft see this project as a good game? It was no real problem as long as it was an eye pece of the CEO. The Flight Simulator was never a big financial success but the real trouble for a civilian Flight Simulator is the budget distribution that more or less is a gigantic pool full of sharks. IMHO it isn't a question of when do they add big jets and major airports, but : does Microsoft Flight has a crew of more than five people in 2 years?

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OK now i would set a few words together about what i mean..

Well i must say microsoft Flight is a no go for me aswell.. I dislike spending money on a closed world like what they give us now, and as european i like to have the option to fly around here and not only in the US and futher more have to pay for a single plane or region just to upgrade.. I know i got the AeroflyFS by Ikarus.. but it was because it is a new flightsimulator, and in my opinion it is a better sim then flight if you like chalenges in flyeing the plane whit a more realistic flight dynamic like X-plane.. and seems to be a mix of stability from FSX controls and X-plane about aerodynamic.. so in that way i would say if you like a sim whitout navigations aids and so AeroflyFS is better choise as a closed world simulator.. but stil not much to do compaired to the missions in flight i would think cant say as i havent payed for things to flight..

I can see in a perspective as company creating a more wide game that might give more and diferent costumers, and of cause they hope it could give a bigger part of money, but loosing 1 part of costumers and get a new part could result in the same level of costumers or more, but a balance would be better as they said it was supposed to be for old simmers and new i just want to know where that have been gone about old simmers, as they said things would changse and it would be the same as before...

Like another i also get´s iritated by microsoft Live i haven´t had anything els then problems in several games, so im also not fan of all that registration as at the moment i mean we have reached a to high level of passwords as then you use 1 but then there is limits.

So all in all im off... i stay whit FSX and X-plane.. but thats just my opinion as a interested simulator CPT.. and use it as an alternative when not able to become a real pilot

Best regards LN

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I would not necessarily think that Flight is intended for kids only. There may be many adult people out there who might be interested in aviation but have never taken the plunge with a full-fledged flight sim.

Another forum is receiving a flood of new people drawn in by FLIGHT! and they are certainly not all children!

Somewhere in the furor, its also been determined that an Easter egg hidden in one of the webisodes may indeed be a preview to another scenery. Kodiak island in Alaska! http://forum.avsim.n...et/page__st__25

If this turns out to be true, it may be yet one more nail in the coffin of the argument that the Sim is not meant to grow.

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After dealing a couple of hours with MS Flight, I must say, that I'm not impressed anymore, as I was from some of the screenies they showed during the development. Comparing the graphics with my brushed up FSX at this time, there is nothing what might not be achieved by proper tuning and a couple of available and moderately expensive 3DP add-ons. Indeed, it seems to me that in a number of aspects visual quality is even inferior to a well-setup FSX: Fuzzy landscape appearance, poor cloud images, and FPS noticeably go down at higher quality levels (but stay very uniform!).

The only thing where I think they did a really good job, is that the software runs with steady performance right out-of-the box, no tuning, no tweaking necessary (or even possible). This is the open-door for "just-wanna-play"-folks. How many hours have I spent, to get to smooth running setup in FSX? I don't dare to think over it. In that sense I think that there are larger changes under the hood, than suggested by the FSX-like appearance at many places. Eventually I think that are the well-known (and legacy) databases which produce this impression.

There is a lot of guessing on what MS may have in mind and what MSF might become in some time from now. The only thing what I would reasonably expect, is MS primary goal is making money from a so far underperforming product range. Until know, the biggest part of the cake used to be at the PC sellers and then at the add-on makers, which presumably had a much better return on investment as MS themselve. I remember vaguely a statement of one of MS officers in that direction about two years ago. So the real innovation in that product seems to be the change in the business model, which puts MS at the first place in the revenue stream, and under full control.

In that view, the game-ish appearance and the bound to MS Live makes a lot of sense to me: Bigger target group, full control. In addition, the restriction to the small area of Hawaii is clever trick to populate the virtual world much more densely as if the participants are scattered all around the world, which can help to make it more attractive ("pilot's 2nd life").

However, as many others, I believe that MS didn't hit the sweet spot, at which the product could carry over the "serious" virtual pilot, as well as those looking for some distraction only. For the traditional simmer, it has not enough coverage (in almost all aspects), and for the easy-going, its probably not worth to invest relevant amounts of money. MS may still capitalize on their legacy assets, selling region by region, plane by plane, but I believe that many of us would stick to the older releases, rather than paying large amounts for something that we once already had, whith a not so clear added value from the new product.

my 2c, Peter

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I was a beta tester for MS Flight. I have to confess not a very good one as I quickly became bored with it and stopped using it. By quickly, I mean within a day or two.

It is very pretty to look at and very smooth running but the whole thing appears to have no depth to it. As many have said here before it is most definitely a game, with a very short learning curve. Great if you want to get some instant gratification and look at the nice scenery, but if it is some serious flying that you want, then it is not for you.

Frame rates are great, even on a mediocre PC, but there seems to be very little to do except circuits in the limited space available. We may see new scenery areas for sale as add-ons in the future, but what if you want to fly long haul? will you have to spend a small fortune buying your departure point, you landing point and everything in between? will you even be able to fly between two points that are in scenery sets that are unconnected? Too many questions and no answers, but on the face of it Flight seems restrictive, (perhaps in its ability to support third party additions as well as its airspace), and frankly dull.

Personally I think MS would have been better rebuilding FSX to take full advantage of modern chips and graphics cards spread the load and improve on what they have already got. It worries me that Flight will not be as popular as the FS series for the reasons already posted here and will be canned as a result, with nothing to replace it.

FSX looks like it will have to satisfy those who take this hobby seriously for some years to come. In my opinion MS have made several error of judgement with Flight, and we may all pay the price of their attempt to make more money out of their product.

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Doing my homework, I have been all over the web and peeking into many websites. What strikes me more and more is how the current attitude towards flight in the hardcore community parallels and echos that same community reaction to FSX.

The same "I love my fs9 stuff no reason to switch" "its so much more limited than Fs9" "MS dropped the ball here, the greedy buggers!" "Aircraft are laughable compared to my beloved (place name of third party here) etc.

I think all the people who say that are perfectly entitled to their heartfelt opinions. I disagree for various reasons, but who the heck am I? :focus_s:

I just wonder if years from now we will all be just as unhappy with FSNEXT, and just as reluctant to give up our lovely FLIGHT! which will of course at that time be all things good in a Sim. :)

http://xplane10.word...d-3d-discovery/

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I can't see any parallels between the movement from FS9 to FSX and FSX to Flight. They aren't the same thing in any way, shape or form. Apples and oranges as they say. Flight is not a full featured flight simulator and does not model the world in it's entirety. In fact, barely in partial, so I can't see one as a replacement to the other. In the best of light, Flight is in addition to FSX because it is not the same type of product, and as such can't be a replacement for it.

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I have a different theory:

To me, it seems that those people complaining about Flight's limitations are generally those who fly the heavies/IFR/SIDs'n'STARs Vatsim folks. On the other hand, the VFR/GA/Bush pilots seem to be quite pleased with Flight.

Am I correct with this assessment?

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I have a different theory:

To me, it seems that those people complaining about Flight's limitations are generally those who fly the heavies/IFR/SIDs'n'STARs Vatsim folks. On the other hand, the VFR/GA/Bush pilots seem to be quite pleased with Flight.

Am I correct with this assessment?

I don't know, but I'm a GA flyer and not into heavy jets or VATSIM, and Flight wasn't for me. I even liked some of the FSX missions.

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Somebody else had mentioned a similar theory, and it seems logical as well.

I had to dig into archives at sites for reviews specifically done in 2006 (bit of digging) but the comments and the outrage was there. A lot of it about frame-rates, but just as many that are almost word for word the same things we are hearing now.

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I have a different theory:

To me, it seems that those people complaining about Flight's limitations are generally those who fly the heavies/IFR/SIDs'n'STARs Vatsim folks. On the other hand, the VFR/GA/Bush pilots seem to be quite pleased with Flight.

Am I correct with this assessment?

Not correct: GA, gliders, and vintage.

Indeed, I was an early adopter of FSX (by unexpeceted X-mas gift), and initially disappointed as well. However, the obvious difference is that it showed out-of-the-box the potential (yes, the orignal textures were bad) for a much better visual experience than FS9, and it came with a comprehensive SDK, promising rich support by add-on-devs. Yet, it took another year to arrive at the final performance possibilities (by SP2) and me a new PC and two more years to find out how to set it up best. The latter looks better with MSF for sure, but the rest does not.

Don't take me wrong: The easy-to-use engine of MSF combined with the content and API of FSX would have been the ultimate package for us, but likely not for the profit of MS.

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Am I correct with this assessment?

Yes and no. That users of the heavies don't get satisfied by flight is logical, but I must admit that my opinion drops from day to day.

While I normally prefer smaller planes, I am not really interested in Hawai and the weather is a huge weakness.

While there are multiple missions they get boring after a short while.

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I fly a lot of small planes as well. In fact I probably own more small planes than big jets (although I own both), but people tend to draw parallels when it suits them regardless. Enjoy it if that's what you like, I have no issue with that, but treating the two platforms as peers is a big misnomer if you ask me. They serve two completely different purposes and cater to two completely different demographics.

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  • Aerosoft

Flightleak2.png

Yes, but if you check those files you see they often have the ACES trademark at the top and clearly are from a previous version of FS. We even found some that were in the original FSX and were removed in SP1. FS has a long history of having not used files in the build. So I would not get your hopes up.

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Hi! Mathijs, I'm just pointing out what I see, my point is that peoples think that Flight is something brand new out of the box, will this be used in the future?

As I said in other post on other forums Flight contain more, MS did not delete the whole FSX world, they just locked it up for us right now, you know as good as I do that there is no way 3PD (some of them) were involved with MS for well over 1 1/2 year just for Hawaii, and you also know that MS did not wake up one morning and locked 3PD out of Flight for no good reason, the problem is deeper than that, some 3PD may not have liked to be told what part to make or how this will work, what do you think?

I see Flight as a baby right now, MS will make it grow if WE are welling to be a part of it, DLC sales will be the baby's food.

See, MS is not doing anything that was or is not done by 3PD right now, they are selling us the world in parts, some hard core simmers are writing post like "I fly over Orbx's scenery only" or "I buy Aerosoft's airport only"...as far as I know Orbx does not cover the whole world or Aerosoft does not make all the airports we have in FSX, so hardcore simmers don't really care if they have the whole world in FSX, so if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander right?

Hawaii may not be for everybody, I mean not everybody like to fly over Hawaii and I can agree with that but MS had to start somewhere....

Again, if the sale of DLC are good or great I think MS will connect the dots faster (scenery, AI, airliners +++), if the next part released by MS is Alaska ( as I think it will) we may see airliners taking off from Hawaii ---> Alaska or from Alaska ----> Hawaii....or maybe not.

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  • Aerosoft

Again, if the sale of DLC are good or great I think MS will connect the dots faster (scenery, AI, airliners +++), if the next part released by MS is Alaska ( as I think it will) we may see airliners taking off from Hawaii ---> Alaska or from Alaska ----> Hawaii....or maybe not.

But that means an add-ons for Alaska ($20), the Hawaii ($20) and an airliner (make that $40) as well. And then the only thing you can do is fly between those two locations. For $80. Without ATC or AI Traffic.

I don't say it will be impossible but I see a lot of bears on the route. If the $15 Maule is how they see add-on content things look very bleak indeed. Not even the AP works there. My prediction is that we'll get a part of Alaska just as Hawaii with some floater aircraft that is as simplified as the Maule.

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But that means an add-ons for Alaska ($20), the Hawaii ($20) and an airliner (make that $40) as well. And then the only thing you can do is fly between those two locations. For $80. Without ATC or AI Traffic.

I don't say it will be impossible but I see a lot of bears on the route. If the $15 Maule is how they see add-on content things look very bleak indeed. Not even the AP works there. My prediction is that we'll get a part of Alaska just as Hawaii with some floater aircraft that is as simplified as the Maule.

Beside newbies or students with no $$ who's flying FSX default? I have spent in the $1,000.00 just to enhanced FSX because FSX default does not look like 3PD sceneries.

MS is doing what 3PD are doing right now, selling an enhanced FSX called Flight, they improved a lot of stuff in it, they offload the CPU to the GPU just to take this one.

You are right about Flight been simplify compare to FSX comparing planes from both platforms, on the other hand a lot of hardcore simmers are reporting better "as real as it get" handeling planes in Flight, like I said, if there is enough demand for a complex airplane MS would be stupid not to do it, same for your company, your will not make an airport if you know that airport will not sale due to a lack of interest from your customers, that is why we see polls about what we would like to see next from Aerosoft or other companies.

I see Flight as XP-10 right not (I'm not comparing the whole world between both), XP-10 as a lot to improve as Flight does, patch, enhancement been downloaded from time to time to make the platform better, so who know we may see patch for airplanes from MS if they add AI...

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