This post is from Ben Supnik, a very good guy who pulled X-Plane's collected fat out of the fire numerous times, along with Sandy Barbour. X-Plane simply would not exist without both of them, and it's really a terrible shame that Austin does not give them the credit they deserve.Did you see any commitment from Austin in this message with regard to acceptance of suggested changes? Any commitment when it would be released? Have you seen the videos on youtube where Austin continues to resist changes to the UI?What evidence is there for being reasoned with? I just do not see what you see.

Joseph, your style of dissing Austin Meyer here in public, where he can't even read your criticism is not only questionable, it's highly sinister and cowardish.

But this is about MS Flight, and as you will see from the long discussion, I am a supporter of what Microsoft Flight's stated goals are.They just simply are being hindered by faults in strategy and execution.So, as you can plainly see, I am in no way attempting to hijack this thread.

I looked at this forum and it has nothing to do with MS Flight from what I can see, rather FSX. In fact, I have trouble understanding what you're trying to achieve at all. If this is the way you also tried to reason with Austin, then I can understand him for not listening to you.If you want to engage in open source flight sim development, I suggest you get involved with FlightGear. Hacking a dead platform like FSX to make it live a few more years is futile. It's like performing CPR on a decaying corpse.

I'm not gonna respond to these kinds of posts any more as they are clearly off-topic.

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AS ARE THE MAJORITY OF OTHERS which now fill 15 pages worth, which the majority reference off-topic subjects with reference to MS Flight.

Don't think so. The thread was about Avsim's interview with Joshua Howards, what to make of MS' intentions with Flight, whether Flight will ever be carried to a real sim level or simmers need to look at alternatives. The discussion about each alternative itself should take place at those platforms' forums, and not here.

I will agree that the rate at which Microsoft wants to release content is WAY below what most of us would consider "satisfactory". much more so because there is so little content to begin with, however, with the proper content and AI (Planes, Cars, Boats, misc WILL be added its in the flight.cfg) and hopefully ATC will make it better. I am not saying that Flight will over take FSX for us simmers as its not designed to do so (even Microsoft publicly announces this regularly). What I am getting at is Flight if successful will be a nice flying game for when some of us simmers just wanna fly around for fun and not fly VFR/IFR routes or fly for our VA's. I like Flight, even though as some one stated before "its like the langoliers" (very good movie and reference BTW +1); it does get old fast right now due to the abhorrent lack of content, however that does not mean that a proper mature growth of Flight would not be appealing to more people. A prime example would be Star Trek Online, its grown way farther than anyone has expected (even though it did take a corporate product buyout because ATARI can't seem to manage games properly after release), it is possible, and like many others have said..... if we keep constant RESPECTFUL pressure on Microsoft we can get a good game out of it, it will never be a sim.

Answering those previous posts that have wished for an alternative, now that the Howard interview has definitively closed a number of doors, is not out of line with the thread, and especially with regard to previous posters negative comments with regard to Flight.I'm trying to solve a problem which Microsoft Flight's strategy simply does not address.

Joseph, you made your point, you even advertised your forums here on Avsim. The discussion about your initiative should take place on these forums, not on this one here.I'm more inclined to go with X-Plane, but I'll explore X-Plane on the X-Plane forums, not here.

I am not saying that Flight will over take FSX for us simmers as its not designed to do so (even Microsoft publicly announces this regularly).

In response to MS's statement that Flight is not intended to replace FSX, I have to ask the obvious question: Why not?Many of us here agree that Flight certainly has the potential to be the next MS Flightsim. And it could still include all of Flight's expanded gaming elements, which will help draw in more users. As far as I can tell, the only thing currently preventing Flight from being the next step in the Microsoft Flightsim series is Microsoft.

Lol, I'm actually one of the few people who enjoyed the FSX missions. And that does actually explain why I like Flight.I even downloaded countless freeware missions for FSX and bought African Airstrip Adventures. But I got kinda bored in Rod Machado's flying school when it came to holding patterns...

And that's a pity, because in the FSX flying school you would have just find someone telling you "that was a good landing" or "sorry, you are not in time", as you requested. And actually much more, there is quite a lot of content, and interactive control about your performances.

When you're done with the FSX missions, you have a bunch of awards to look at, but you can't really do anything with them.

Ehm, I would be quite curious about the use you found for the coconut bra and the pineapple award you gained in Flight :-)A.

Ehm, I would be quite curious about the use you found for the coconut bra and the pineapple award you gained in Flight :-)

Excactly! There's still something missing in Flight to get people interested long-term.I don't have much time at the moment, but I'll try to think about some ideas and post them here.Would love to hear your input, as to what you think could make Flight more attractive and in which market niche it could survive.Like I said earlier, I don't think it should be the serious sim market...

I don't think it should be the serious sim market

Hi Tom,is there a non-serious sim market? Surely, a sim, by definition is "serious" (unless, of course you are talking OMSI (a bus simulator) or the Sims (not a joke!)..I think Flight IS a sim, just not a) finished; and B) whether it wants to or not, is being compared to its' older brother. It suffers greatly from the first, and perceivably from the second (depending on where you stand in the whole Flight vs FSX "debate".If it isn't a sim, and it isn't a game (by that I mean that "hardcore" gamers would find it somewhat lacking in the "game" department), then what is it? Not a challenge to anyone for another ten pages of discussion, but simply a question (to MS even)bestjake

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In response to MS's statement that Flight is not intended to replace FSX, I have to ask the obvious question: Why not?Many of us here agree that Flight certainly has the potential to be the next MS Flightsim. And it could still include all of Flight's expanded gaming elements, which will help draw in more users. As far as I can tell, the only thing currently preventing Flight from being the next step in the Microsoft Flightsim series is Microsoft.

I honestly don't believe MS is prepared to commit building any kind of successor to FSX, mainly for purely budgetary concerns.They took what they needed from FSX and then gutted it and spent probably as little time as possible adding certain things and cleaning up code here and there, the only reason Flight runs well is because basically there is nothing to itAlso witness their casual, I would say almost arrogant opinion of "simmers" as JH contemptuously describes them, and MS's willingness to cut themselves of from potential revenue from that particular group.I certainly don't get any sense of a business plan behind Flight when all you can get from them is some vague idea about how they might add content based on user habits as they fly around the Island of Hawaii.Microsoft's advertising both pre and post launch also speaks volumes about their level of commitment to Flight. I personally see Flight as something MS cobbled together and kind of "threw out there" so to speak with the intention of making a quick buck by rehashing what they already had.Bryan.

Joseph,I suggest you confine yourself to discussing Flight in a helpful way here in this forum. It's not a good place for marketing anything else. I removed some of the off topic posts. Thanks.

Would love to hear your input, as to what you think could make Flight more attractive and in which market niche it could survive.Like I said earlier, I don't think it should be the serious sim market...

Actually I have an idea, that maybe could make happy the different categories of users.I must confess that is almost stealed from X-Plane, but with some (important) differences.I read somewhere, but I don't have precise data, that revenues from the simplified mobile versions of X-Plane are helping Laminar to continue and refine the development of the main sim platform.At present for MS there is an obvious problem: the phone/tablet market is dominated by Apple and Android, so there is a clear conflict of interests. But it seems that one of the strong points of the next Windows 8 will be just a sort of "unification" between the different type of platforms (PC, tablet, phone and so on). If this is true, MS could expressely devote Flight as a simplified "game" for mobile and casual users, without the need to add too much complexity (ATC, AI, AP and so on). At the same time, they could think, as EA decided with Simcity, to develop a real successor of FSX. Another source of additional revenues could came from DLC, but I see them in "parallel" with other independent developers, that should be free as they were with FSX.The possible benefits I see for the operation would be:- Sinergy between Flight and Windows 8 for gaining acceptance on the mobile gaming platforms, where MS at present is weak- Loyal customers and external developers would be happy to have a new serious sim platform, with moder features for graphics, physics and so on- MS would have several sources of revenues: Windows 8 and Flight (base and/or) DLC on many platforms. FSXI (BASE and DLC) on PCWhat do you think about the idea?Please remember this message in the future: if MS copies the scheme, I will surely ask for royalties :-)A.

Thanks for that great interview Tom.What bothered me the most... yes even hurt me to read (tho not at all unexpected) was JH's following statement:"We looked forward to engaging in a productive dialogue with our users, but were disappointed in the degree of non-productive behavior some flight simulator enthusiasts exhibited. If anything, the unwillingness of the simmer audience to accept that Flight was intended to appeal to whole new audiences prompted the team to focus on areas where our engagement with our players is more productive."A sad thing so many members here could not help but to whine and complain about the sim they did not get, rather than provide constructive criticism to help improve what we do have.

Well I'm not sure what people hope to accomplish by constantly whining about flight. That would be like me constantly telling Microsoft that Word is a failure because there are no virtual cockpits. Word is not intended to be a serious flight simulator and neither is Flight. So people should just ignore the title as it's not in the category of what they are looking for, and move on as I have. Actually I haven't exactly "moved on" as I've never tried Flight in the first place as I could read from the description that is is of no interest to me.

IMO I think the real drive for FLIGHT is to gain all of the money from this very very successful franchise, instead of "sharing the wealth" with 3rd party developers. Joshua is makig the claim that the franchise has not been successful, and they decided to take flight simulation in another direction. Yeah, that direction is to funnel ALL of the funds from the sale of addons into their own pocket. 40,000 is a joke. A few years ago, Microsoft tauted that Flight Simulator is the biggest selling title Microsoft has ever produced, with millions, not thousands, of copies sold; nothing in their product line has even come close to this level of success. So Joshua is lying about the market to the very people who have made the franchise successful over the past 25+ years.

I honestly don't believe MS is prepared to commit building any kind of successor to FSX, mainly for purely budgetary concerns.

That may be so in the short term. But when Flight fails, that position may change if they are smart enough to recognize their blunder. What I'm curious about is why the situation has to be binary. Microsoft used to have an open simulator that allowed free thrid party development AND they relased their own add-ons. If they were really worried about not having the add-on market with the last several releases, why not just go back to the model that they've already used in the past?