Here's a list of Mr Howard previous games before joining FLIGHT...

Oh dear!

Hawaii is just the first area (stated ad nauseum). Personally, I'd rather have a dozen fantastic regions than a whole, vanilla world and I suspect that's true for *most* people. I get it that there are a few people out there that loathe the thought of not being able to fly from Kuwait to Amarah and I understand that losing that freedom, if only in thought, is a troublesome feature missing from Flight. For me, when I'm VFR and "casual" having a few hundred thousand square miles in high-detail is more compelling than 196M square miles of plainness (even though I can pretend to visit different areas of plainness). For the more technical, more serious IFR flights, even Hawaii (not that it's the only area ever to be offered) has enough spread to allow the complete excersise of all phases of a long-haul flight.

Hi Rush1169To me, your post is the most insightful (if that is a word) on this whole forum. It is exactly what MS is trying to say, but not very clearly, via their PR speak. In essence, it is saying that quality is better than quantity. You do not need to have every inch of the planet represented to have a good flying experience.

Hi Rush1169To me, your post is the most insightful (if that is a word) on this whole forum. It is exactly what MS is trying to say, but not very clearly, via their PR speak. In essence, it is saying that quality is better than quantity. You do not need to have every inch of the planet represented to have a good flying experience.

Exactly. I only fly FSX in enhanced regions, read Orbx territory. As far as I'm concerned the rest of the bland unattractive FSX world doesn't exist. Therefore I can understand why Flight is what it is now, only one small detailed region.

I agree that there can't be too much attention to detail, but that is why we need a flight sim that can be modified. ORBX can't do Earth in ORBX detail, but a million freeware devs could do a decent effort.A flight sim with good scenery building tools could have appealed to more than just flight simmers and attracted anyone interested in geography and citybuilding etc. The ESP platform was a great start to something that could have been a world of simulation.

The loss of freeware will be the biggest loss to the community as it stands. Not a problem for now (FSX still here) but if Josh is right and this franchise does last 30 years then i suspect we won't all still be playing FSX in 2042 (if you are - suspect you'll get good frame rates from you quantum computer, as long as you don't turn light bloom on).People keep saying 'no one will buy this'. Note where the interview is from - the business/tech section. I'm pretty sure microsoft have heard of market research. (Their market research probably told them 'avsimmers will be kind of cranky' - but I think they can deal with that.) 'but people want to shoot things'. Josh's paradigm is facebook gaming. Have never played a facebook game but i'm guessing farmville doesn't predominantly involve shooting the farm animals (will check that out though and get back to you).So what does the future hold for Flight? Well, I think it will be moderately successful. I think many new people will be introduced to flight simulation. I think 90% of you will download it (some with a scowl on their faces), many of you will decide that it looks quite nice and buy the Hawaian Island pack for $20 and find that it's actually quite a big area to fly a GA aircraft in. And then in a year I predict that many of you will do a fair proportion of your GA flights in some of the new, non-hawaian DLC you bought. You will have forgotten the oddness of the 'car plane' (safely hidden out of site in a hangar), and feel no need to play the 'wedding yacht' mission again - you'll just be flying like you do now.And you'll still be fueling up your NGX and booting up your half dozen addons to cruise across the open skies of wherever your favourite part of the world happens to be at that particular moment in time.

As far as I'm concerned the rest of the bland unattractive FSX world doesn't exist.

HelloSeeing as you are from the Netherlands, do you not use the superb NL2000 scenery with their very nice rendition of Groningen ?

Exactly. I only fly FSX in enhanced regions, read Orbx territory. As far as I'm concerned the rest of the bland unattractive FSX world doesn't exist. Therefore I can understand why Flight is what it is now, only one small detailed region.

As far as you're concerned maybe, but for me it exists and is usable. There are quite large areas of detailed scenery in FSX, some of it photographic detail, it isn't all bland emptiness. I don't have any Orbx scenery, my HDD and credit card couldn't stand the amount I'd need and anyway it's aimed mainly at low altitude VFR flyers. Vanila FSX is good enough for most purposes and just how challenging is flying in the perfect visibility you need to fully appreciate good scenery in anyway?The present line up of features seems to aim squarely at the American market. The scenery and all the aircraft so far announced are US origin. Does Microsoft think that will attract players worldwide?With such a restricted gaming area, if the predicted millions start flying online isn't it going to become rather congested very quickly?

HelloSeeing as you are from the Netherlands, do you not use the superb NL2000 scenery with their very nice rendition of Groningen ?

I had that installed. It's a wonderful piece of work! But I don't really care much for photorealistic scenery. I miss the seasonal changes... The airports however are very good.

As far as you're concerned maybe, but for me it exists and is usable. There are quite large areas of detailed scenery in FSX, some of it photographic detail, it isn't all bland emptiness. I don't have any Orbx scenery, my HDD and credit card couldn't stand the amount I'd need and anyway it's aimed mainly at low altitude VFR flyers. Vanila FSX is good enough for most purposes and just how challenging is flying in the perfect visibility you need to fully appreciate good scenery in anyway?

It certainly is usable. I used it too from the day FSX was released and was very satisfied with it, apart from the desert textures in the fall season ofcourse. The point I was trying to make is that it is very hard to turn back to FSX default when you have seen the detail in addon areas.

Seriously? Are you some type of Flight Gestapo? If I say something nice about Flight do you promise to take me off your list and tell Paul Allen to stop going through my trash?

:(

Or should we say Joshua Howard is that you?

:( Cheers,- jahman.

HelloHelp me out here, where did all you guys spring up from. supposedly all been simming since sublogic days but only since the advent of MS Flight! have you all discovered AvsiUm.Seems strange that we have not seen you around over the years, virtually zero contribution to Avsim at all until Flight! arrived on the scene.Then loads of new members pop up evangelising the new "Game"Is a simple flying game that is tailored to those with low attention spans really all that you were waiting for ?

Flight did bring people out of the wood work, didn't it. But, I would also keep in mind that the people who started with FS1.0 in 1982 and Sublogic (1990?) are by and large much older than the average contributor. I can only speak for myself, but I resisted forums, blogs, and all manner of social media for the longest time. It wasn't until PMDG's amazing NGX arrived that I was motivated to venture into the online space (although I had been usin Avsim and it's awesome file library for years). Heck, I still don't have a Facebook page. The more recent generations of simmers were born into the wired era where everything (down to what you're eating for breakfast) is a Tweetable event. Point is, I would be careful not to read too much into the timing of any particular contributor's arrival on the Avsim forums.

Edited February 10, 201214 yr by Lawyer+Pilot

There is very, very little photographic scenery in FSX (oshkosh? and two other bits maybe. If I ever flew over or used default terrain i would know).Default FSX is definitely ugly. Sorry ACES, good world model but filled with hideous terrain. If you haven't flown over decent addons (gex, orbx, simsavvy, vero Fs etc) then you don't know what you're missing.The release area is somewhat limited (you can get a whole state though). 50 people on the aces team - that's a big number in fs dev terms (how many work for orbx? And at what FTE?). If we're lucky we'll have a decent slice of (non-ugly) terrain in the near future.

Default FSX is definitely ugly.

Who cares? Nobody bought FSX for the scenery! That's what you have 3PD developpers for.FSX is really an operating system for flight simulation, and the aircraft and scenery that come with FSX are like the Notepad and Microsoft Paint that come with Windows. If you want decent wordprocessing, you get Office/Word and if you want decent image editing, you get Adobe Photoshop.Similarly in FSX, decent aircraft and scenery require add-ons, with the default aircraft and scenery is usually enought for the newbie.Cheers,- jahman.

Hello Help me out here, where did all you guys spring up from. supposedly all been simming since sublogic days but only since the advent of MS Flight! have you all discovered Avsim.

For the record, I have been simming since the SubLogic days. I started with Flight Simulator on the Commodore 64 back in the early '80s. I've also done Flight Simulator on the Commodore Amiga, and started using Flight Simulator in the IBM world with FS4. I've been a simmer in FS5, FS6, FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FS2004, FS2009, and FSX. I've also purchased and flown Flight Unlimited, Flight Unlimited 2, Fly!, Fly! II, X-Plane 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. I've flown every version of the IL-2 series with all add-ons, Locked On, DCS Blackshark, MS Combat Flight Simulator 1, 2, & 3, Rise of Flight, and numerous other combat flight sims, including most of the Janes series. I've done a small amount of flying with VATSIM starting back a decade ago. At one time I was even trying my hand at aircraft design and I had a Cessna A-37 70% modelled in GMAX (I think for FS2004). I never completed it due to time commitments and losing interest. I was also once a member of a small 3-person team to build a Dash-8 for FLY! II. We never completed the project, but that team included Rob Young. I was the 3D cockpit modeller. In summary, I'm what you would call an experienced flight simulation enthusiast. :( I am sure I don't have nearly as many flight simulation hours as many on these forums, but I do have a lot. I also learned to fly for real. Took my first flight lesson on March 17, 2001. Earned my private pilot's license August 3rd, 2002. No, I'm not an airline pilot and I'm not Instrument rated, although I had actually started ground training for the instrument rating. I had to postpone for economic reasons. I've had at least 1 other forum account on AVSIM over the past 10+ years but rarely ever posted anything and almost never logged in. The only reason I had to create a new account was because I forgot the old password and no longer had the old email address as I changed ISP's so I was unable to change my password. So the bottom line is, I've been around a lot longer than it might appear if you are just looking at when this account was created and the number of posts I've made. I am not a newbie. That said, I am disappointed with the direction Microsoft went with Flight. I happen to believe it was the wrong direction, but that is my belief. I really don't care about Flight anymore because I know it is not the product for me. I may have bashed Flight a little, but that is not directed at any person in this forum. That bashing is directed squarely at Microsoft, who deserves it in my humble opinion. I can't help but feel a little better for doing it. I'm sorry that upsets some of you, and I'll try not to do much more of it as I've already stated my opinions and pleaded my case. I've moved on as I'm really enjoying X-Plane 10 now even though it is not perfect -- and it is getting better almost every week. I still read many of the posts on this forum purely for entertainment value. But hey, that's my perogative! :(

Edited February 10, 201214 yr by Xpendable

Umm. Its all about Forgiveness.

Edited February 10, 201214 yr by Barnstormer1

 

HelloHelp me out here, where did all you guys spring up from. supposedly all been simming since sublogic days but only since the advent of MS Flight! have you all discovered Avsim.

I'd love to help you out... :Peace:The person you replied to joined over two YEARS ago, so just how long does a person need to be a member before they're to be taken seriously?NOTA BENE: I posted the above before I read the really detailed reply to your rather insulting remarks. Now I'll add back what I had previously deleted......where did I put that door! :(