Legacy can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. It only really matters how MS defines legacy in thier PR-speak. So far they have been ambiguous about their statements....

No, legacy means that we traditional simmers will want to stick around for Flight. That's the context of "legacy" in the PR release.Cheers,- jahman.

They will be big on Flight too when it's released.

"Big on X-Plane" means that they have officially partnered with Laminar Research and will be producing custom content that will be offered for free to all X-Plane 10 customers through web updates. So it's not what you're thinking.

PR statements are generally meaningless. A good test of a statement's valuew is to ask if the opposite would have been said. If not the original statement does not mean much.In this case would Microsoft have said stated it wouldn't respect the FS legacy? Of course not, so original statement means little - to coin a phrase "Well, it would, wouldn't it?"

PR statements are generally meaningless. A good test of a statement's valuew is to ask if the opposite would have been said. If not the original statement does not mean much.In this case would Microsoft have said stated it wouldn't respect the FS legacy? Of course not, so original statement means little - to coin a phrase "Well, it would, wouldn't it?"

So why do corporations issue PR statements then? According to your line of reasoning PR statements are completely unreliable, so surely by now no one would pay any attention to them and corporations could save themselves the expense of hiring PR staff/firm.But the fact remains that while what Press Releases is not etched in stone, it is reasonable to assume what they say is true to a reasonable degree (double use of "reasonable" is intentional.)Thus if MS make a statement to the fact that the FS legacy will be respected, well then it's reasonable to assume that tradional Flight Sim enthusiasts will be satisfied with what Flight (plus add-ons) will have to offer.There is a large community of us sim-folk and developpers out here. Why would MS state that the FS legacy would be respected if it wasn't true (at least at the time the staement was made)? Why intentionally deceive all of us? And if "keeping the legacy" was not possible or was not an objective, why not remain silent, instead of intentionally misleading the community?And it's not like Flight has any real competition out there to warrant sowing FUD.Occam's razor applies: Just take MS at it's word, with a pinch of salt. Q.E.D.Cheers,- jahman.

So why do corporations issue PR statements then? According to your line of reasoning PR statements are completely unreliable, so surely by now no one would pay any attention to them and corporations could save themselves the expense of hiring PR staff/firm.

You'd be right except for one little thing: marketing works.

But the fact remains that while what Press Releases is not etched in stone, it is reasonable to assume what they say is true to a reasonable degree (double use of "reasonable" is intentional.)

The thing with marketing language is that it can often be reasonably interpreted in a number of different ways. So when Microsoft says, "Flight will respect the legacy of Microsoft Flight Simulator," it can mean pretty much whatever Microsoft wants it mean. Ask yourself, what exactly is MSFS's legacy? It's not easy to pin down, is it? You ask ten different people and you'll probably get ten different answers, and Microsoft is counting on that ambiguity with their carefully worded press releases.

So why do corporations issue PR statements then?

Because some people are foolish enough to believe them. They are also used to attempt to cover up unpalatable facts.The UK health service has been trying to develop an IT sysyem for patient records. It reported people dead when they were still alive. The PR response last week was that it wa a "purely cosmetic screen presentation issue". On the day a UK company was fined a record amount of £10M for negligence following a railway accident that killed 4 people and injured 102, its PR statement concluded by stating that the company was committed to ensuring safety!

All valid points, except MS has no need at all to deceive! Nobody died. No nefarious deeds need be covered-up. So why go out of their way to make sure the fears of the sim-folk are laid to rest by lying?After all, we will not be easily fooled after a few of us buy Flight and post our impressions right here.And again, "preserving the legacy" means we sim-folk will be satisfied with the product. Context means a everything and you can't just start assigning any meaning you want to every word. Not even in a PR statement.Cheers,- jahman.

And again, "preserving the legacy" means we sim-folk will be satisfied with the product.

It means no more than that it will have some of the features of FS9/FSX. How many remains to be seen.

It means no more than that it will have some of the features of FS9/FSX. How many remains to be seen.

"Preserving the legacy" means the critical aspects of FSX will be preserved.Examples of the legacy not being preserved:

1. Restricting Flight to Hawaii only
2. Requiring an Xbox controller for Flight
3. Unrealistic flight model
4. Turning Flight into an arcade game.

Cheers,- jahman.Cheers,- jahman.

I was hoping that someone out there had heard some news "officially" regarding the status of AFS 2012 and perhaps provide a link to that info. I didn't expect this to become another "hawaii or not hawaii" thread.

+1

"Preserving the legacy" means the critical aspects of FSX will be preserved.

Which critical aspects will be preserved?

This is a quote from Mathijs (Aerosoft) back in May this year in regards to "FS2012".

What MS is doing does not interest us a lot. What we now know make it unlikely that this is a proper sucessor to FSX seen from the kind of customer we aim for. Might change of course but right now we do not have any resources on projects for MS Flight. AFS is most certainly not cancelled, it is discussed a lot and a lot of our internal developments are adapted for it. The biggest problem remains the engine. We are simply not able to find any that does all we want and is handled by a big enough partner. So it´s not on hold, but it is not moving at warp speed.

The thread can be found here: http://forum.aerosof...45525-afs-2012/

"Preserving the legacy" means the critical aspects of FSX will be preserved.Examples of the legacy not being preserved:1. Restricting Flight to Hawaii only

Jah, why do you think they have only shown Hawaii and small GA up to this point? So close to beta there isn't even a hint that they have modeled the world, this is the only thing that makes me doubt it will be a global simulator. Even you, one of the most enthusiastic pro-fsx-successor posters here, are basically stuck with this word legacy to convince you otherwise. As soon as they show some heavies, or even a single screenshot of another continent I will jump on the bandwagon with you but as it stands I can't see how you can be so convinced that it will include the globe.

...Jah, why do you think they have only shown Hawaii and small GA up to this point?...

There is still confusion between:

1. Geographic area with nice scenery to show-off what Flight can do ("Hawaii"), vs.
2. The ability to fly to other parts of the World (where scenery is very basic and similar to FSX basic scenery in the leel of detail.

Think of it: The FSX sim engine is already world-wide. Why would they purposefully dumb-down the FSX engine for Flight? They won't. You will be able to fly everywhere and anywhere with low quality scenery (as in FSX), except you will get quality scenery covering only Hawaii thrown in for free (to tempt you to buy more quality scenery down the road.)And remember, in the Press Release MS stated categorically that the FS legacy would be preserved, and there's no way that the legacy can be preserved if Flight only allowes you to fly circles around Oahu. So the reason they only show Hawaii scenery up to now is that's the only quality scenery they have. They could also show non-Hawaii scenery pictures, but they wouldn't look very good. Remember the point of the excercise is to show-off Flight's scenery rendering capabilities in general, and MS chose to demo Flight's scenery capabilites with Hawaii.Cheers,- jahman.

Guess a similar thing would apply to aircraft. Small GA planes are perfect for exploring scenery. Who explores scenery in a Boeing 747?

Think of it: The FSX sim engine is already world-wide. Why would they purposefully dumb-down the FSX engine for Flight? They won't. You will be able to fly everywhere and anywhere with low quality scenery (as in FSX), except you will get quality scenery covering only Hawaii thrown in for free (to tempt you to buy more quality scenery down the road.)

FSX was the same using St. Maarten as its showcase. I understand your train of thought and tend to agree it would make sense to include the whole world but I find it curious that we have no evidence of it being true. I wasn't around during the development of FSX, maybe someone could enlighten me if they showed ONLY screenshots of St. Maarten pre-release as they are with Hawaii now?