I don't think they will acept anyone who has posted in this forum

But, but, but... JSKorna said that MS never announces BETA's publicly...

It's still a PRIVATE beta, not open to any Richard out there. Also, please notice that no beginning date was announced either. Lastly, please read that this was announcement for beta applicants.

Hahaha... come on Jim, I think it's time to eat your hat.

When MS announces that Flight has begun beta testing, I'll eat my hat, shirt and pants, all in one sitting, and wash it all down with a nice BIG mug of steaming hot TEA!

When MS announces that Flight has begun beta testing, I'll eat my hat, shirt and pants, all in one sitting, and wash it all down with a nice BIG mug of steaming hot TEA!

Did you miss this part? "We’re thrilled to announce that the Microsoft Flight Beta is scheduled to kick-off in January 2012"Or do you need an exact date and time?

I believe he's making the distinction between a closed beta and a public beta. Technically speaking, a public beta is one that anybody can participate in while a closed beta is by invite only.

This is a closed beta. By definition, a "public" beta means there are no restrictions on who gets in. MMO's go "public" just before release to stress test the servers. A "closed" beta is were the publisher is selective on who gets in. Also, "public" has no NDA and no restrictions on what you can and cant talk about, a "closed" beta does.Microsoft is being selective on who gets in, and also makes people sign an NDA. So by definition, its a "closed" beta. I hope JSkorna is hungry.

Don't worry, Microsoft has operated betas before and they know how to choose people and run a beta program.And betas are not used to gather people's wants.

Really? You where so quick to tell us all in a previous thread that Microsoft does not do public beta testing. And when I pointed out to you that was not the case you conviently disappeared from the thread? I guess you were wrong eh?Mark

WAIT, doesn't that count as speculation?Someone should compile a list of hypothetical questions to ask the testers, just in case a new member or two do make their way here.

Really? You where so quick to tell us all in a previous thread that Microsoft does not do public beta testing. And when I pointed out to you that was not the case you conviently disappeared from the thread? I guess you were wrong eh?Mark

No, this is still not a public beta, just like FSX wasn't a public beta and FS04 wasn't a public beta. You see, as it was already explained to you, a public beta is open to everyone like the XP 10 beta is open to everyone. You can be 15 years old and never used a PC a day in your life and you can beta test XP10. That is not the case here. I get tired of arguing with other people's kids. I can do that all day at work if I want, so that is why I didn't answer you before.And it is scheduled to begin in Jan. 2012. Now let's see if MS says: "The beta has begun" anywhere around that time. That is an announcement that a beta has started.

Ashrons call was open beta. A long time ago, but it was. Age of Empires Online was in open beta. Windows 7 had an open beta anyone could download and install. It just had a time bomb. Windows 8 developer preview is already out there free to download. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/previewMS has a long history of both open and closed beta. I dont know what your rambling on about.

Let us know what the rest of Hawaii looks like

HAHA too funny

The one thing that usually goes with a beta is that people aren't given software and just use it to see what happens and where it can break. They're usually looking for specific items to be tested. Is there any way for the UI to go bad? click here, click there, click here. does it work as expected? It's an attempt to crash test certain features. Not all, but a fair amount of things will be looked at for specifics. Other people will just use it and try to break anything they can. That's the stress test. I do the same thing with my programs I make. I give them to the dumbest/simplest friend I have and let them try it out. I see where they have issues with it and redesign to remove the issue or lessen it's impact. Then they just play with it doing things at random, not following any sort of convention. Usually when making a piece of software, the designer has an intended flow. Any way of circumventing that process may break an app or make it unusable. That's where the dumb friend comes in. Watching them try different things will usually show me my flaws in design.This community is full of simple folks who just want the experience of flying and either can't afford to do it for real or have other issues. I'm sure MS will have a good sampling of the simple users that aren't 100% familiar with the history of the flight simulator franchise as well as those that have used all versions ever made. To see how the old user tries to mimic what they've done with previous iterations of the software versus what someone new to the layout/design scheme may lead to some interesting revelations.That is where the beta becomes useful tweaking the end product to find the happy medium. Not all will love and hopefully just as few will hate. This is the hardest part of software design as MS has proven with their operating systems over time.

I do not think it make sense.What does MS expect to hear from kids ? Kids -> " Please equip planes with missiles and let the game be a kinetic arcade ! "From simmers : " I don't even fly if I won't be able to check the ILS id before landing ".Does MS really need a survey or beta-feedbacks to know what people wants ?

Probably the purpose of the BETA is to give MS the opportunity to view how the software performs on different hardware/software configurations.Feature sets are generally locked at BETA stage with any software release, so I doubt MS will be asking anybody want they want/don't want in FLIGHT.Bryan.

This would make an awesome xmas present. Hope I get accepted for the beta!