Microsoft Flight: Hawaii Only

[FloB 34]

That, and the fact that it has been announced in several shops with an anticipated delivery date of november 30th to february 1st 2012.BTW, Love your Tiger Moth Ant!

I think you can conclude that from "releasing" hardware requirements at all. How would that make any sense if the product isn´t almost ready to launch? And they say :"...Microsoft Flight WAS developed with performance in mind", "we constantly monitorED game performance", "reactED each time we SAW a new feature or code change that causED a dip below the established thresholds...", "The end result is...".That´s past. Developement is over. Either they trick people or are fine tuning, testing and doing the paperwork right now.For the people that recently assumed 1 more year of developement: Time to eat your hats .Just kidding.

[Christopher Low 5,388]

Well, those of us who assumed that development would take another year were thinking about global coverage. If MS Flight is only Hawaii, then that's a completely different ball game.

[speedbird2001 0]

Well, those of us who assumed that development would take another year were thinking about global coverage. If MS Flight is only Hawaii, then that's a completely different ball game.

Completely agree, as per my previous post earlier in the thread.

[bonchie 2,305]

Well this is terrible news if true because there are no viable alternatives for many of us that have certain features that are must haves. Flight was our last stand for the forseeable future. The only hope now is that they release different regions in an Orbx style model or that the 10gb is Hawaii + the USA or some large enough area that airliner ops can be done. Back to FSX I guess.

[MarkSC 122]

I predict Hawaii + the rest of the northern Pacific, perhaps including Japan and California, so there can be some long-haul flights. 10 GB would be plausible for that with all of the water.

[Christopher Low 5,388]

Back to FSX I guess....

...which isn't a bad option, considering that it looks good and runs great on my i5 2500k PC.

[turner112 52]

...Another thing to bear in mind is that XP10 which will have much less object texture diversity than FSX, no buildings at any airports outside Seattle...

Mike,Could you point me in the direction of the place that states this? I've read through their developer blog but must have missed it.thanks-Andrew

[speedbird2001 0]

Well this is terrible news if true because there are no viable alternatives for many of us that have certain features that are must haves. Flight was our last stand for the forseeable future. The only hope now is that they release different regions in an Orbx style model or that the 10gb is Hawaii + the USA or some large enough area that airliner ops can be done. Back to FSX I guess.

Folks, we dont know this for certain !! '' Don't panic '' as Corporal Jones from Dads Army said.

[bonchie 2,305]

Mike,Could you point me in the direction of the place that states this? I've read through their developer blog but must have missed it.thanks-Andrew

I can't point you to the specific place on their blog but it's true. We've discussed it with the developers on the XP forum the past few weeks.XP9 was the same way. They are going to start by releasing KSEA with XP10. From there it'll be up to 3rd parties using the given tools to populate airports. The contention is that the tools are so easy to use that it'll happen fast.As for object texture diversity, that's also technically true, although they say you can make region specific models in the library. I think Aerosoft is doing this for European style buildings. Generic XP10 though comes with only certain models that will populate the entire earth. We've yet to see or hear how building larger cities will happen (skyscrapers, etc.). One developer said it's possible to have varying heights on buildings, but he can't confirm the initial release will have that.Unless something has changed the past few days, it has also been stated there will be no landmarks initially (i.e. certain buildings in big cities, the LV strip, Downtowns being where they should be, etc.)So NYC might look nothing like NYC since the building placement is random and library driven instead of landclass and landmark driven. Or it might work fine somehow. We don't know yet.

[BartEnder 2]

I have stopped reading the whole thread - too much already :)My guess is, the Hawaii is finished, nice looking, thus screenies are from there. I also seen some large urban areas - not sure if one can find it at Hawaii.Regarding the size - maybe there will be possibility to install 'light' version with mesh and elevation greatly reduced? Plus, graphic storing five years ago and now differs a lot.Or maybe there will be a complex framework for developers to work on and inside of it? I do not remember, when I used recently any stock FSX's planes, missions, scenery... Everything is done be the 3rd party dev's.

[Mike T 211]

Please explain. I don't see how MS owes me more info on the upcoming sim...

The sales process does not begin only when you buy something. Companies establish customer relationships and repore BEFORE the customer actually spends a cent. This means, understanding the customer. Building your product according to what you think your customer wants as well as what they say they want. Being open with your customer and bringing them into the development process. If YOU as a business expect to be eventually paid for that product then YOU as a business have to EARN that BEFORE you expect them to PAY you for something. Companies find that they spend millions of dollars to engage non-customers to make them customers.Look at all of the MMORPG games. Star Wars The Old Republic is one of the most anticipated games of the year. The MMORPG space is extremely competitive and everyone is fighting for customers against the default king of the MMORPG, WOW. Lucas Arts / Bioware is currently conducting OPEN beta testing prior to release in December. How many Beta Testers you ask? EVERYONE. EVERYONE who asked to be a Beta Tester prior to Nov 11th was accepted. Bioware is listening to live feedback and tweaking the game to opimize it for the very dedicated Star Wars community. They are also faciliting Guilds, forums, bandwidth, and generating great excitement all at their expense. You know why? Bioware is investing in the hardcore MMORPG players and building loyalty. Whether everything we ask for will be in the game is irrelevant and whether the game is perfect at launch is irrelevant. Bioware and Lucas Arts is listening, acting. Sometimes that feedback is great, sometimes it's pretty frank and ugly. Are they whining about getting their feelings hurt? No. They understand the passion of the community and are acting like it. Myself and hundreds of thousands of others will reward that loyalty to US with our wallets as a sign of our loyalty to THEM.So when I hear someone say that companies don't owe you anything until you pay for it...that cannot be furthest from the truth for companies that strive for excellence and customer loyalty.

[turner112 52]

Companies absolutely do not owe anything to potential customers. Rather, they owe it to themselves.Whether as a courtesy some type of engagement with non-customers is professionally warranted is another question.

[Mike T 211]

Mike,Could you point me in the direction of the place that states this? I've read through their developer blog but must have missed it.thanks-Andrew

Its not in the developers blog...its in the link to the Aerosoft XP10 post in this thread.Here is the Post from Mathijs Kok in resonse to another post that only Seattle will be rendered ------------------------------------I just heard from Laminar that only Seattle will be detailed and everything else flat, but they will add more airports over time.------------------------Not flat, the mesh of between 30 and 90 meters for the whole world. And the Autogen will cover the whole world using OpenStreet databases. So very high detail. Keep in mind the base sim will be around 80 Gb.... and the version we will sell (not the same as the version Laminar will sell) will have some more airports in high detail and a good number of airports dressed up to be better then FSX default airports.But yes, in parts it will a be a fresh start. Using the lego blocks systems it is very easy however to make most default airports look better then FSX default airports. Keep in mind that's also just a vague estimate how the real airport looks.

[Puffmac 2]

Why do I read this forum? Wow we lost 4 gigs. Isn't that a good thing? that could have been 4 gigs of absolute crap that shouldn't have even been there! Remember they said they were taking what worked from the old games and leaving what didn't? Yeah, well that means there might be less files, in the form of textures, guages, files etc. Can you see how that mike make the overall size of the game less? (Subtraction results in less than you began with, for those having difficulty seeing my point).Microsoft isn't stupid. They know what the simmers here and on other flight sim forums want, that's evident from their news updates. What be sensible at taking a game that's most famous for being a whole world flight simulator, and making its successor a "Hawaii only" game? Use some common sense, this argument's so retarded!!!The reason we're seeing Hawaii just now is because it's one of their "High detail" areas, just like in the old games, go and look at New York and Chicago, or St Maarten for example, they're high detailed areas with custom scenery. They showcase their best areas to show what the game is capable of.

[turner112 52]

Thanks Mike - no link shows up though.I think that if Laminar makes it easier to build quality scenery (I use 3rd party software for FSX) then we may see a proliferation of scenery in relatively little time, especially with some of the smart people who know how to write code to improve the process further...