I was doing multiplayer last night with about ten other people, some obviously more experienced than others, and we were all in this huge cloud around the airfield, doing loops, landings, searching for aerocaches.....(Except for one guy with a personal dark cloud over his head: apparently a "real pilot" and an FSX fan, all he kept repeating over and over was how it all sucked compared to FSX and etc until some of the kids finally asked him why the heck he was there.)Above all though, we were just talking. Communicating freely with other real live people.Thinking about the whole atmosphere of it, it suddenly occurred to me that many of the things we look for in fsx to convince ourselves we are not alone in there, the moving cars, the boats to nowhere, the AI.......All seemed a bit superfluous now, because here I was with real people, and suddenly the rest was like window dressing; something to make one feel a bit less alone in the habitually private Sim universe of FSX.Afterwards, we all parked our planes and just wandered around and chatted. You know, community stuff. When people finally started to leave, it reminded me of meeting strangers when out playing as a kid, running around, having a good time, and then the goodbye to some cool new kid you know you will never see again.It was...... fun! I think just for that, Flight! will retain a lot more "shelf life" than some people would think. And yes, you can do a mission while in multiplayer.Note to MS: consider having our avatars visible to others as we walk around!

I started out doing free flights in MSFS many years ago, then started looking for 'more'.The mission-esque tutorials and suchlike in the later FSX were fun, for the most part. I also started to fly combat in IL-2 which was all mission based, then graduated to multiplayer co-op missions in that same game (Thanks Joint-Ops Flight School!).I grabbed add-ons for FSX like cargo-Pilot and Rescue-Pilot just to give some meaning to the flights, but I did still sometimes just fly for pleasure as long as the ATC was working (I miss that in Flight) and eventually bought Air Hauler to run my own cargo company.I have also been flying choppers in TakeOn, again mission based.Owing to the above progression, the missions, challenges, Jobs and Aerocaches in MS Flight suit me down to the ground - loving it :Party:

You sods. When I saw "Free flight" in the heading I thought there was a hang gliding or paragliding element to the game. I nearly creamed myself. Bugger :Phbbbt:

Above all though, we were just talking. Communicating freely with other real live people.Thinking about the whole atmosphere of it, it suddenly occurred to me that many of the things we look for in fsx to convince ourselves we are not alone in there, the moving cars, the boats to nowhere, the AI.......All seemed a bit superfluous now, because here I was with real people, and suddenly the rest was like window dressing; something to make one feel a bit less alone in the habitually private Sim universe of FSX.

That sounds like the mob I was mucking around with a few nights back. Chatting, playing follow-my-six, seeing who could do the most outrageous landing... there was a real community thing happening - even basic ATC after we realised our planes are solid. I was the first to find out that if another plane is on the runway when you land... CRASH! What was really cool was you could still fly missions & aerocaches while still in multiplayer, FSX didn't have that capability. Setting up multiplayer in FSX meant setting it up through forums, you couldn't just open or join a free session.AI - who needs it when there are real people. ATC - we just started doing it ourselves, the same as real pilots at GA uncontrolled fields; you would just call out if you were on final to what runway and someone would say 'not clear' if they were still there (this was at night, during day you can see clearly)I leave a hosted session running the whole time now, just seeing who turns up is fun!

You know what's more interesting? Playing multiplayer in with a `chatty' large group.I've been in multiplayer a lot and more people are talking, and even voice chatting. What is interesting is the same thing is happening in game that is happening on this forum. There is your old school flightsim junkies like myself and what's most surprising is the amount of comments l've seen is from new people. People who have never flown before. They're asking questions, airing their problems and the veterans are helping them. It's a really cool social setting to watch unfold. The teachers teaching the students. I think the `backlash' was just the loudest minority. I think the quieter majority are speaking volumes though. The more I play, the more I see, the more I read I think this is the exact opposite of what all the critics said it would be.. It's a complete success..Not trying to start a debate either.. Just stating my observations and opinion on how well the launch of this is going for MS.

I've been hosting multiplayer sessions every time I fly, and ended up leaving my computer running about 16 hours yesterday because I didn't want to dump a dozen people that were all interacting just the way styckx described. Every time I'd come back to the computer to check on the session, there'd still be a dozen people, all talking, flying formation, training one another on basics of flight, aerobatics, how to use various instruments and controls, even "follow the leader" on how to fly a proper traffic pattern. So, I'd ask them what weather conditions they wanted, set things up for them, and go back to what I was doing in the real world for another couple of hours. I hated dumping them at 10:00pm but, sorry guys, that's bed time for me and I'm not leaving my PC running all night for you. :Hug:

I call free flight "exploration mode".