Omg, what has Flight done to me?I am I guess in that group folks would refer to as a " serious flight simmer". Hard core? Yeah maybe, not as hard core as some, but more hard core than others. I guess if I had to define my level as a flight simmer, I would call it a " medium level hard core flight simmer".While I played aroud a little with early versions of MSFS, and even before MS aquired the title, on a friends computer who had an early version. I guess I really got into them around the time Red Baron came out - loved that title. I remember well the days of creating a boot floppy disk for dos, to free up some of what little memory we had in order to be able to run the programs decently. Then along came US Navy Fighters, Longbow - first original dos version, then Longbow 2 for windows... and others. All I had for a controller was a cheap Kraft joystick at that time.Fast forward to the release of FSX, got it the day of release, and that I guess is when I became this hard core flight simmer that I am today. I really got into the program then, spending many hours learning the appropriate procedures, finding great satisfaction in planning a flight, and getting from point a to point b in good shape. Now I have many addons for it, and still enjoy it very much and plan to continue to do so.I was one of those, after reading the press releases and also the forums, decided in my mind I will not even bother to download Flight. How dare MS to revert to an arcade game, offering only Hawaii and only a couple of planes? I had decided they changed their product focus, for the arcade gamers and were leaving us serious flight simmers in the dust. Ok then, if they want to do that fine for them, I will continue with FSX as long as it will run, and hope that someday some other developer will grab the opportunity and develop a great civilian flight sim that exceeds FSX. The days of a true MS Flight sim were over.Feb 28th arrives. MS releases a day early. I snub my nose at it, and don't even bother to check out early reports. Now by happenstance, unfortunately for me, prior to this release, I run into a health issue, that has left me homebound for several days. Since there is not much I can do at this time except hang around in here , I started to read some of these early reports. Again I snub my nose, thinking know way, not for me. Then on the 2nd of March, I was extremely bored - and thought wth, it is free, I can download it and give it a whirl, knowing it probably would not remain on my hard drive for even a day.Fast forward to today:I have now logged 18 hours in Flight, and am at Level 16. I have purchased all the DLC content, with the exception of the P51. That hardcore part of me, will just not fly in exterior view only. The entertainment I have received so far from Flight, is amazing. My perspective on what Flight is, and the strategy of MS with the path they chose, is now completely different. I have little doubt now, that this product alone, is going to truly bring a whole new influx of folks into our small community, and we all are going to benefit from that- other developers are going to take note, the flight sim community will grow once again similar to how it was growing in the early days, more titles will come along, as well as future DLC for Flight . The ecosystem they have chosen for Flight, will be so easy for them to fix bugs and push them out, add content and push it out, offer DLC and those that want that area can choose to purchase or not - I mean seriously, I have the whole world in FSX, but compared to it the area I always fly in is like a needle in a haystack.Everything about Flight right now, is stunning. The graphics detail , the performance, the fantastic challenges and missions, the flight model- I am very surpised at what the Flight team has accomplished with this early release. And for the most part, while a few have some issues, the stability of the program.So there you have it - sorry for the length, but as I was one of those hard core simmers that berated Flight prior to it's release, and was going to have nothing to do with it, I felt compelled to share my experience of these past 9 days. Maybe more simmers similar to my level of simming, that are doing the same as I initially planned on doing, will see this and give it a second thought, and maybe even a try. If I had not gotten so bored that day on March 2nd, I probably would have missed out on a great thing - and the entertainment during my trying time homebound these last few days, has been a great help for my mental state.And you know what? While I state I will continue to fly FSX and get much enjoyment out of it, the last time I launched FSX was on March 1st. No, I will not abandon it, I will continue to fly it as well - undoubtedly when REX releases Essentials I will spend much more time with it, but rest assured I will continue to spend a lot of time with Flight as well. When I am over my issue though my time will be much more limited.If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope everyone here on this Flight forum gets as much enjoyment out of Flight as I do.Now, back to flying,

flight needs some serious help in the clouds dept. lighting is great flight model eng seems good I echo your feelings ... for me it is a good diversion ...for fun"".... I need the clouds and water fixed, ATC and an autopilot in the maule I paied 20 bucks for ......other than that its not as bad as I thought it would be :)

^^ What he said.Well said, Don. It has flaws, but doesn't everything? It isn't FSX, but it's not trying to be. Let's stop comparing it to FSX and give it a chance..You never know...And as for Red Baron. Woohaa :D Remember F-16 Combat Pilot on Atari? I lost months to that game :)

Needs to add ATC, Flight planner, autopilot, GPS, AI and fixes like floating autogen and improvements like cumulus clouds otherwise it has an awesome graphic engine. I'm seeing great potentials with this game assuming the eventual participation of third party addons. MS, please bring on the SDK.

I remember Longbow, always got shot down but my Auto-Rotation became better! I can't fly 'choppers in FSX now Maybe with pedals!

A lot of things are currently missing from Flight, but the things it includes are mostly spot-on. MS has laid the foundation to what can become a comprehensive and compelling experience. If they are putting themselves in position to grab a bigger piece of the pie this time around, I can't really blame them. At least, as long as they continue to deliver.

Great post.SInce the release I've played MS Flight a lot. A bit too much, really. I played it more and more as an arcade game. Just flying around, not minding the mp and rpm and mixture, not minding flap speeds, I let the plane plummet to earth when ever I approached an airport too high, etc. It all made me feel MS Flight seriously lacked depth in the sim department. I also posted about that a few days ago.After posting what I did I decided to fire up FSX for some real simming. I flew around for a minute or so... and then quit FSX already. Started MS Flight again and really appreciated the light, the shadows, the looks, the textures, the mood, the feel... and I also started to fly for real now. I edited the control.xml and the default zoom, and started watching the mp, rpm, made sure I approached well instead of diving towards the ground at the last moment.MS Flight is a great sim, if you treat it as such... It's all about how you 'play the game'. Looking forward to the future!

A lot of things are currently missing from Flight, but the things it includes are mostly spot-on. MS has laid the foundation to what can become a comprehensive and compelling experience. If they are putting themselves in position to grab a bigger piece of the pie this time around, I can't really blame them. At least, as long as they continue to deliver.

+1 or more!there are things missing, but none of them (for me) are "needs" - I fly it "as is", and thoroughly enjoy it!

Needs to add ATC, Flight planner, autopilot, GPS, AI and fixes like floating autogen and improvements like cumulus clouds otherwise it has an awesome graphic engine. I'm seeing great potentials with this game assuming the eventual participation of third party addons. MS, please bring on the SDK.

I quote you and I add the needing of real world weather along with jets with a professional FMC, Sid and Stars.

I guess we have another Hard Core simmer in our midst. I have to give the boys in Redmond credit for pulling us all in from various levels. I'm a hard core simmer in the fact I actually went to the Northwest Airlines (before they were Delta) Level-D simulators thanks to some friends in high places on many occasions just to compare what we have in FS to what pilots actually train on. I wanted to see in an emergency could I land a 744, A320, DC9 if my life depended on it. I'll only say this we have allot at our fingertips thanks to developers like iFly and PMDG. I'm also a real world GA pilot as well and in the not so distant past I was in VFA-94 an F/A-18 squadron operating out of Lemoore CA that was also assigned to the USS Lincoln CVN-72 (which I got a chance to fly out to and land on). During my tenure in VAQ-34 I flew back seat many times in our two seater F/A-18 block C aircraft. When I worked for Fedex I jumpseated many times in the flight deck our our DC-10, MD11, and 727 aircraft. I'm saying all this to say I'm enjoying Flight and I feel it's a sim not a game in the context of the flight models, the performance, and the overall feel of the sim engine. I'm really enjoying it and as an FS9er who's mostly an Airline flyer sim wise I've really taken to Flight as it's the most realistic in comparison to my real world GA flights. I stayed away from FSX as fluid flight is what flying is all about and Flight delivered in this area on day one... Here's a pic of one of my trips to the Level-D simulator with my son. It doesn't get anymore hardcore than this and again I'm enjoying Flight...

Haricy! How dare a "hard core" simmer like a the game Flight! Grap the rope boys! Good read, and in all honesty, im sure more "hard core" simmers would like Flight if given half a chance. Its a good complament to FSX. It will be a LONG LONG time before FSX is replaced by Flight, if ever, but then again FSX never fully replaces FS9 for some! All the fighting was no good. Just let people fly what they want. The more simmers we get into simming, the more we all gain!

Hiya Dillion, great to hear, and I'd kill to be your kids age again and be in a position like he is.. I remember being his age at Grandma's house on McGuire AFB watching all the military craft come and go wishing I could sit in the cockpit of any one of them. I will NEVER forget my rides there and the tell tale landmark that we were close.. The tail section of the C-141 Starlifters dominating the place.Great to hear you are enjoying it with the rest of us and more importantly thank you for your time served for our country.

Haricy! How dare a "hard core" simmer like a the game Flight! Grap the rope boys!Good read, and in all honesty, im sure more "hard core" simmers would like Flight if given half a chance. Its a good complament to FSX. It will be a LONG LONG time before FSX is replaced by Flight, if ever, but then again FSX never fully replaces FS9 for some! All the fighting was no good. Just let people fly what they want. The more simmers we get into simming, the more we all gain!

But thats the problem MS made.They divided the community into two with introduction of FSX. Now they divide it by three with Flight.I know that some people never will let down "theirs" sim because they invested money and time into it.But as soon as MS will release a real successor, with all the content the simmers wish, they can unite all again.But thats a long way since i don`t think they can build a new FS on the old engine.

But thats the problem MS made.They divided the community into two with introduction of FSX. Now they divide it by three with Flight.I know that some people never will let down "theirs" sim because they invested money and time into it.But as soon as MS will release a real successor, with all the content the simmers wish, they can unite all again.But thats a long way since i don`t think they can build a new FS on the old engine.

This is far from the truth. I actually believe Flight is bringing us together expecially after Alaska is released. I use FS9, others use FSX, but we all are using Flight (those of us that have enough common since to give it a try). The hold outs are going to be fewer and fewer and between the new simmers that come on board and all of us FS9/FSXers we'll far outnumber the holdouts. To add to this if Microsoft opens up Flight to cover the whole world (which it does already it's just not textured) and brings in 3PD, FSX/FS9 will be a thing of the past for must of us and we'll all be using one sim. Flight at it's core is just as much of a sim as FSX or FS9. It just has many dormant features that I hope MS will turn on in the not so distant future. It's all up to MS at this point because the engine under Flight is the best I've ever seen and I've been around for awhile.

But thats the problem MS made.They divided the community into two with introduction of FSX. Now they divide it by three with Flight.I know that some people never will let down "theirs" sim because they invested money and time into it.But as soon as MS will release a real successor, with all the content the simmers wish, they can unite all again.But thats a long way since i don`t think they can build a new FS on the old engine.

What your asking for is not possible. You want a sim with everything? Find a magic lamp or win the lottery. Thats about the only way youll get your wish.