From FS2004 to FSX missions were greatly improved. Some of them were close to fun, but still lacking compared to state of the art games. Missions have by far the greatest potential to make MS Flight a success. Free flight is first and foremost a feature suited for hard core simulator fans. To reach a broader audience some kind of immersive and addictive gameplay is needed. So how could missions be improved? First and foremost the quality of artificial intelligence (AI), animation and voice overs needs to be improved. Then the focus needs to be on creating a believable and entertaining story to frame the mission. Missions should be sorted into several categories, as stand alone missions or campaigns, in various categories.The Grand Theft Auto series comes to mind as a game that successfully has combined free roaming with campaigns and missions. The Sims has impressive AI which compliments the total freedom you have inside game perfectly. To separate the simulator from the game you could have two choices when starting up Flight, a simulator and a game mode. For instance, in game mode you can still do free flights, but as you park the aircraft at some remote airport a person comes running towards you offering you to do a mission which could be a "bonus mission" or the start of an exciting campaign/series of missions. A pilot profile would be fun. This pilot would be linked to the logbook and if you crashed he would die and take all his awards/points to the grave. The difficulty/realism level should have an impact on how may points you can earn from a mission/flight. Before earning any points the pilot would need to go through a basic flying school progressing into various carrer schools (passenger, cargo, military, helicopter etc.). Before flying an aircraft a check ride (tutorial flight) would be needed and on successful completion that pilot would be qualified to fly that particular aircraft which would otherwise be locked. So what kind of missions could be fun (just throwing out some stuff here to get a discussion going):Scenic Flights: More scenic flights for geography and travel enthusiasts. How about more info on the places you fly to in the briefing, and maybe some in flight info when you fly past landmarks and spectacular sites. More detailed cities and scenery around the world please! Historic flights: Learn aviation history through simulated historic flights in historic aircraft. How about Sir Alan Cobham's flight round Africa, the first crossing of the Rocky Mountains or Bearing Strait?Learning Center: Improved learning center with real flying school type lessons. Earn your certificates in a more authentic and immersive way. Improve documentation (Just hire the Jeff Van West and Kevin Lane-Cummings who wrote Microsoft Flight Simulator X For Pilots: Real World Training).Pilot Career: After getting your certificates a career as various types of pilots (cargo, bush, passenger, air racing, military etc.) could be fun. Earn money, collect hours and experience, then move up the ranks from light to heavy aircraft, from FO to Captain, from domestic to international. Adventure campaigns: Why not develop some action packed and thrilling campaigns where a pilot follows a series of increasingly exiting and hard missions: - Be a bush pilot and follow an expedition into the Amazon where strange things start to happen…- Be a US Customs pilot and hunt for drug smugglers in the Caribbean. - Be an ambulance helicopter pilot and fly into various scenarios of accidents, fires and natural disasters.- Be a Police Helicopter Pilot and track down runaway criminals in getaway cars, stop bank robbers or find the elephant who escaped from the circus.- Be a pilot and land on some of the most challenging and dangerous airports and airstrips of the world.Yeah, some of it has been done, but not well enough. I would suggest separating the game mode into to categories: Realistic missions base on real world aviation and a pure fun category with more fantasy like adventures.

Missions are no doubt going to be improved... it's an essential part of just about every game out there now. It's part psychology that players like to win and they like to win often. Probably more important to flight simulatior since really there is no "end game" in sight. I'd go as far as say Microsoft will require 3rd parties to do the same if the product is going to be sold through them. These missions go along way and help promote further exploration as well. There's nothing wrong with a mission setting you up for approach on Kai Tak, since most users would never know where to begin. And once they do score, not only do they get a "free" prize but they also can show off that achievement online.

And real-life emergency emulations, e.g. the Gimli Glider, the Flying Ashtray, United in Sioux City, etc. with a point-rating system for various aspects of the flight (technical competence, piloting skills, etc.). The simmer with the highest number of points in a given year gets 5 hours in a B-747 6-DOF simulator plus 1 hour in the right seat of a real B-747, courtesy of the MS Flight Team! :-)Cheers,- jahman.