HiAfter you've stopped laughing at the title of my post :-), perhaps you can all have a think about this.For several years now we have had a release of MSFS every second year. Sometimes it's been good (FS98), and sometimes it's been bad (FS2000). This time (FS2004), I think it's been outstanding. There are some really nice aircraft for one thing, excellent scenery & weather, and a remarkable amount of detailed data (control zones on the maps etc). But lots of people are still using Fs2002 out there, because they have stuff that is not yet compatible with FS2004, and indeed may never be. I myself have both installed. So while this bi-annual progress is great, it's also a problem for 3rd party aircraft developers, who certainly have their work cut out for them. Many aircraft don't even survive the change. This is a shame because some models are so good today, that they are like a historical record of the aircraft.A thought occured to me while I was using Fs2004 today. I kind of felt that Fs2004 is good enough for me now. I'm satisfied with it, and I wondered where it could go from here. Will 2006 be just another routine overhaul of the software, causing the usual compatibility problems, or is it time for MS to try a different approach?What I'd like to see next time is for MS to make a standard simulator platform based on 2004. That doesn't mean to say I'd like to see MSFS stand still, but that future developments could focus on improving whats already here now, in such a way that it would not affect backwards compatibilty. This would ensure that 3rd party developers could also develop their existing models, and not have to bin them every four years or so, and start again from scratch, if they still have the energy. Most of default the planes are great in FS2004, but there's considerable room for improvement of them in the way I suggested. Textures, panels, gauges & flight models can all be drastically improved without touching the structure of FS9.0. Scenery quality is another area. Plenty of scope for increasing the resolution of the the terrain mesh. And then we have other things like weather and, ATC. Steady improvements can continue here, I would guess. I'm sure Microsoft are clever enough to do this, and if they did, it would give a chance for independent developers to take their time over the development of their aircraft products, and produce some really fine, lasting works, that could be built upon over the years.I can think of some great panel makers whos' names and products have gradually sunk into oblivion because they have been unable to provide the time to continually reinvent their work. There's nothing creative or inspiring in having to remake a panel just so that it's compatible with a new set of rules and laws. On the other hand, if you only have to do it once, and then can have the freedom to further develop it however you want, without having to worry about it becoming incomptable one day, then I think we'd see a lot of fantastic work appearing. No time limit, no stress. Some of you may argue that to a standard platform for MSFS would stand in the way of progress; but not if it's designed correctly. Think of programming language standards, like C++, etc. Think of the compiled processor's language in your computer - another standard (The reason you can still run FS95 is because of that standard.) If you think about it, it's the standards that allow the progress. You need a stable base to develop from.I'd be interested to hear any sim fans thoughts on this subject, and what direction they think MSFS should develop in the future.J

I've often stated that with each new release it'll be harder to incorpoate "revolutionary" changes. Rather, we're likely to end up seeing a normal evolotion of the product over time. For example, the incorporation of 3D interactive VC's in all default aircraft now makes the improvement in this area for the next version more difficult. Whereas VC's were "revolutionary" when first introduced, they are now in an evolving state. This is not to say they can't be improved upon (better graphics, readability, gauge refresh rate, etc...). Now we have true 3D clouds (assuming your hardware can cope with them). This is revolutionary for MSFS (though other products have had some type of 3D clouds in the past - volumetric if you will). As such, what improvement's can be made in this area for the next version? Certainly they can be improved, but the changes will not neccessarily be radical.Where does that leave MS and the consumer in the future? I personally wouldn't mind a slowdown in the marketing process. Instead of the normal two year development time, stretch it out to three years. That way we're more likely to see changes that one might consider radical vs. the perceived (by some) patch or upgrade. We'd also (hopefully) see a product that is more refined at release time. Please don't get me wrong here, I absolutely love FS9 and it runs remarkably well on my rather dated system, but it could have used another month or two of "wringing out" before it was released. Dave

Very interesting post Dave, especially where you bring in the idea of evolution! I agree with you about the refinements, but I guess we

I guess there can never be any really radical changes, because this would completely destroy the web comminuity. If say FS10 was based on a completely new grounding of file types etc., that was incredibly realistic - then any existing add-ons would be worthless, and MS would be slated.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/36121.jpgAthlon 3000512Mb PC3200 DDR RAM (400MHz)256MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5600seFS9, running fine :-)