Pardon me for barging in and the long post, but I've been following AvSim for years as a lurker and just can't stand this anymore:Red Baron was a great game! But maybe it wasn't "simuation" enough for you because people didn't get shot down and killed while using it? :( Seriously, Emmeth, you and "Mr. Liner" seem very much like you just want to pound on Microsoft in general and not give Flight a chance at all based on a few videos obviously done by PR. Or maybe you're just sad about the state of simulations and taking it out on them?Like many people here, I've been buying and playing flying games/sims for nearly 30 years and I think we should remember the history lessons from the mid-to-late 1990's (maybe you're too young for that...? If so, then this old man says good for you!). There were a lot of "simulations" during that period and many companies making them. Microprose, Sierra/Dynamix, Looking Glass, Microsoft, Spectrum Holobyte, Electronic Arts, etc. It seemed like we got a new one every few months. Some were more entertainment (A-10 Tank Killer) and some were more "simulation" (Pro Pilot) and some were a mix (Chuck Yeager). Quite a variety!But then for a variety of reasons they started trying to be more and more realistic than each other. And they became more buggy, expensive, and took higher-end hardware to run. The epitome of this was the great potential/great disaster that was Falcon 4.0. More than 2 years late from their originally announced ship date because they started listening to the customer feedback on features that the "hard core" guys "demanded" (I know many guys that worked on that project--see below***). But I still remember buying it for $79 at Egghead the day it finally came out (adjust that for inflation in today's dollars...yikes!). It was a love/hate relationship from the start. But I also recognize it now as the zenith of the golden age of PC "simulation".Why? Because the economics of the business caught up with them all. It became more and more expensive to make more and more realistic simulations that would run on fewer and fewer machines as software prices were getting lower and lower. That just isn't a sustainable model for a large crowd of suppliers in ANY business.And how many of those companies are still making simulations now? I think the hard core simulation market pretty much killed itself. Or at least winnowed itself down to Microsoft and X-Plane, and the business model finally caught up with one of them (so long, Aces). It baffles me how some people rail against FSX because they expected Microsoft to sell them an FAA certified FFS Level A set up for $39 that would run on their 5 year old desktop. I can only conclude that they just like to complain about Microsoft or would prefer to use their PC to grouse on the forums than go on a virtual flight (of course if they have a 5 year old desktop FSX won't run very well on it anyway!). I understand the disappointment of seeing your hobby/passion disappear, but does it seem a bit like you're expressing your grief at the funeral pyre whilst busily pouring gasoline on it?Of course I'm not saying anyone should take any marketing or PR message with blind faith. They are paid for their puffery skills after all. But if you want the hobby to continue then offer up civil discourse and feedback and the developers might engage, I'm sure they're watching these boards (though probably too smart to get involved). And remember they are human also. Poor Phil Taylor tried his best and gave up after the abuse he took for things he couldn't control and decisions he didn't make. And I doubt that anyone in the Aces studio made the decision to close themselves down, put themselves out of jobs, and not be allowed to finish FS11. If some of them came back to do Flight (which their website FAQ seems to imply) then they're either very passionate about flight (just like we are) as well, or gluttons for punishment (or maybe both!).If the PR videos are even moderately close to the final product I'll buy the new game/sim and hope they get to keep going and improving it over time, just like Flight Simulator did for many years. I'll look at it as a starting point after Flight Simulator got wiped out in the Microsoft layoffs.And if Microsoft DOES try to make a product that pleases only the really hard core simmers then kiss it goodbye because the upper management that makes their bonuses off of sales figures (certainly not from stock options anymore) will take one look at the very small audience regardless of how happy they are with the product and then put the Flight team on Xbox and Kinect games (WSJ says 2.5 million Kinects sold in 25 days...what "real" simulation has ever come close to those numbers?).My intent wasn't to make personal attacks here (sorry if comes across that way) but to convey the realities of the software/games business and offer some hope and support for the future of a hobby I enjoy.Thanks for the soapbox, no doubt I have violated all sorts of grammar, forum etiquette rules, and personal sensibilities here. I'll go back into the shadows now.:( ***FWIW, like DMaher, I worked in the games business for awhile before getting a "real" job (games are fun to make but not a lot of money for the amount of work!). DMaher has a lot of great insights about how the sausage gets made.

This post deserves a answer.I am just bouncing here and I am on hurry, really soon I'll be back to answer you. Sorry for now, see you soon.P.S. I was almost crying reading MS statement of December 8th, anyway they stated it won't be an arcade. Ok.Now I therefore expect the next MS news will go deep into the details about how a missed approach on a 767 in a really heavy foggy December night is flown by a simulator game on a very busy evening at Shiphol and how an arcade game would bahave instead, in the same situation. ATC comms are of course mandatory. I am all ears.This is the only way we can trust them stating it won't be an arcade.Thanks MS to details us that and to dedicate us all the attention we deserve

But if you want the hobby to continue then offer up civil discourse and feedback and the developers might engage, I'm sure they're watching these boards (though probably too smart to get involved).

I am an old boy keen to riot when I see those pathetic kiddy console games where the human mind role is the one of a manhole in an abandoned building site. You call this behaviour " too smart " ....... I think they are " too dumb " instead.... you see life how many perspectives has ?? To answer what I quoted from you above, I highly encourage MS not to publish console Flight cartoonish and aracdish videos but to answer in the details to what I wrote few days ago , I have reiterated it here below, not simply releasing BLA BLA on the news section of their site stating Flight won't be an aracde and meanwhile they post videos that ferociously witness just the opposite. I feel deeply fooled this way and I want to let you / MS know that, loudly in addition.I am commenting those extremely arcadish and childish videos, not speculating on a funeral not yet commenced." Now I therefore expect the next MS news will go deep into the details about how a missed approach on a 767 in a really heavy foggy December night is flown by a simulator game ( Flight ?? ) in a very busy evening at Shiphol and how an arcade game would bahave instead ( Flight ?? ) , in the same situation. ATC comms are of course mandatory. I am all ears. " When MS will dare to answer me ( and all the sim fans in the world BTW ) I will be happy to change my mind but sadly those arcadish videos speak by themselves..........

I couldn't care less about big jets and ATC, so I guess I'm not one of those sim fans... I fly VFR so my main concern is pretty graphics and realistic looking scenery. The Boeing Sterman in the promo videos looks great and I can't wait to fly it in the new game/sim. All I want from Microsoft is a stable graphical platform open to external development so ORBX, Carenado et al. can keep on doing what they're doing. Also user friendly tools to edit and make scenery would be nice. That way anyone anywhere can help make a more accurate representation of planet earth in the sim.

Now I therefore expect the next MS news will go deep into the details about how a missed approach on a 767 in a really heavy foggy December night is flown by a simulator game ( Flight ?? ) in a very busy evening at Shiphol and how an arcade game would bahave instead ( Flight ?? ) , in the same situation. ATC comms are of course mandatory.

What if Flight wouldn't allow for a situation like you describe to occur, if you would have started a flight in Arcade mode? Simple huh? Besides that, I sincerely believe that Flight will not have an 'arcade' mode; I bet it will have sliders to set difficulties and realism, just like FSX. Do you call FSX arcade when you dumb down all these sliders?

I couldn't care less about big jets and ATC, so I guess I'm not one of those sim fans... I fly VFR so my main concern is pretty graphics and realistic looking scenery. The Boeing Sterman in the promo videos looks great and I can't wait to fly it in the new game/sim. All I want from Microsoft is a stable graphical platform open to external development so ORBX, Carenado et al. can keep on doing what they're doing. Also user friendly tools to edit and make scenery would be nice. That way anyone anywhere can help make a more accurate representation of planet earth in the sim.

I understand your point of view but IMHO not dealing at all with a tower seems to me quite unreal considering nowdays pretty much all airports have a kind of tower and in addition you may choose or be forced to land on a big airport, well, if Flight will let you touch down bumping like a pink funny tennis ball against other planes, well, I don't how if this can be considered funny. Seeing the panorama while flying is good but don't expect improvements over FSX + add ons. If you look at trees into Flight promo videos they are exactly the same of FSX so the mountains, runways are even worst than FSX + a couple of graphic add-ons..... .... graphically is pretty much the same of FSX, maybe it will be only slightly smoother due to utilization of ancient Direct X. Direct 11 seems to have been ignored at all, at least looking those videos.Now compare this upcoming pc graphic with Flight http://www.google.it...iw=1280&bih=899Graphically speaking, there is half a dozen of years difference in favour of Shift 2 if compared to Flight.... ... and Shift 2 will be released within months while Flight won't touch the shelves before spring-summer 2012......

What if Flight wouldn't allow for a situation like you describe to occur, if you would have started a flight in Arcade mode? Simple huh? Besides that, I sincerely believe that Flight will not have an 'arcade' mode; I bet it will have sliders to set difficulties and realism, just like FSX. Do you call FSX arcade when you dumb down all these sliders?

I agree mate but please just express your judgement on what M$ has published so far , those 3 arcade videos......... that BTW have been released with just THE WILL of starting to evaluate the product. This fact is ignored by most of you here so I remember that, those videos have been released to have a rough idea of the game.Please don't say they are pre alpha release, it is obvious, but if MS released them the will is just to comment on them.

Now compare this upcoming pc graphic with Flight http://www.google.it...iw=1280&bih=899Graphically speaking, there is half a dozen of years difference in favour of Shift 2 if compared to Flight.... ... and Shift 2 will be released within months while Flight won't touch the shelves before spring-summer 2012......

Apples and oranges... A graphical representation of planet earth is such a completely different thing than what Shift 2 is all about. Now, if in Shift 2 you could drive wherever you want on planet earth, road and off-road, I'd be impressed. A more fair comparison in terms of graphics would be Microsoft' Flight vs. Outerra. In reality there's just one competitor to Microsoft Flight, X-Plane 10. If the graphics in X-Plane 10 turn out to be as bad as in the previos versions MIcrosoft has no competition at all, so what they'll give us is what we'll get, for better or worse. As such I'll do my best to get the most of whatever Microsoft will give me. I'm certain Flight will look and "feel" better than FSX, just as every new version of MS Flight Simulator has been better than the one before.

Graphically speaking, there is half a dozen of years difference in favour of Shift 2 if compared to Flight.... ... and Shift 2 will be released within months while Flight won't touch the shelves before spring-summer 2012......

A racing game, or indeed a first person shooter is always going to have prettier graphics than a flight sim such as MSFS largely because there is a limit on the area that has to created and textured graphically. There's quite literally a world of difference between modeling a three mile long race track loop and modeling the entire Earth's surface with all the towns, correct terrain height and airports placed into it. Even if we could find a computer to run that kind of detail on a flight sim covering the entire world, it would take decades to create such a thing and require the kind of development manpower than even MS could not afford to make financially viable.Al

Those Shift screen shots look fantastic!And I think that’s good for 3D games because they all share the same principal technologies.FS got normal, specular, fresnel, and environment properties within three years after they started to appear in 3D games. IMO it is quite possible Flight will get HDR lighting, and motion blur (overdue) this release.Real-time ambient occlusion likely won’t be in Flight, but possibly in a sequel.Dynamic AO is new tech for 3D games…but makes images extremely realistic.These technologies put all together make this ‘Shift2-look’ possible.So we're not there yet, but it's a glimpse at what's to come.The other factor is how much time goes into developing art - how much art do you have to build?And how much art do you have to draw, or be ready to draw?Both these factors have the biggest affect on the quality of art. (way more than talent.)Obviously in this respect flight sims are a worst case.Imagine you get 1000 Lego bricks.If you’ve got a great 3D engine - you get 1100 bricks.If you’ve got a bad 3D engine – you get 900 bricks.Build a 3rd person action world of 100 feet -> 0.0004sqMiBuild a car game world of 3 miles -> 28sqMiBuild an fs world of 60 miles -> 11,300sqMiBTW, if anyone is calling the Flight videos arcadish - I just don’t see it.Danny(I'm sure EA wouldn't dare tweak shift2 images in photoshop ;)

Flight won't touch the shelves before spring-summer 2012......

Why do you keep saying this? A release date has not been given out yet. It...is...speculation.

Someone mentioned Outerra........ be gentle man ... Outerra is a referral point in terms of 3D graphic and MS is a poor little web farm with clearly no budget neither skills nor men to even imagine to compete with the giant called Outerra so please do not post such outrageous comparisons. Thanks

Someone mentioned Outerra........ be gentle man ... Outerra is a referral point in terms of 3D graphic and MS is a poor little web farm with clearly no budget neither skills nor men to even imagine to compete with the giant called Outerra so please do not post such outrageous comparisons. Thanks

HelloAnd Outerra has sold how many boxes yet?, Even better show me the huge third party industry that has sprung up to support Outerra.Thats right, No boxes shifted, no content developed, MS must be very worried that their 25 year lead in Flight simulation is in danger from Outerra.If MS did feel threatend by this Demo they would probably just buy the company anyway.35 posts since October and every one of them complete rubbish.Seriously why do folk keep responding to this Troll

HelloAnd Outerra has sold how many boxes yet?, Even better show me the huge third party industry that has sprung up to support Outerra.Thats right, No boxes shifted, no content developed, MS must be very worried that their 25 year lead in Flight simulation is in danger from Outerra.If MS did feel threatend by this Demo they would probably just buy the company anyway.35 posts since October and every one of them complete rubbish.Seriously why do folk keep responding to this Troll

+1. Your post is 100% true!

Following the previous videos here it is the 4th video of the upcoming Flight Microsoft title !Please note the reality level of the simulation !!IMO we are facing the best flight simulation game ever seen on a pc.FLIGHT, YOU KNOW THE FEELING.Enjoy ->

I think Emmeth, the OP, was spot on with this video.

I think I saw cloud-shadows in that video.