I've been telling others and even loading it on their machines when ever possible about Flight. :)

 

While it is usually met with interest when I mention it's free, I'm not seeing many new converts. Certainly not paying customers.

 

Gamers that I know, involved with the typical shooters with intense graphics / sound,

Flight was just didn't seem to hold interest for long.

Non-gamers, gave it a go but seem just disinterested in spending time on the PC other than for work, internet, email, etc.

 

A couple serious FSX'ers I fly online with tried it for a couple days but were very unimpressed. I wont repeat their comments

 

Casual FSX'ers like myself are happy to switch between the two games, but as time passes Flight is seeing less use.

I am looking forward to Alaska but really miss AI and ATC and flying closer to home.

 

It's seems to be Fight's audience may be becoming just a subset of the original Flight Simulator user base which I think is not what MS hoped for.

 

Anyone else try getting others on to Flight, reaction?

I have had a few friends who were interested in aircraft really like Flight, but they quickly got bored with the content.

I have several employees I got into FSX and when Flight came out told them about it, which they tried. However, all of them that are using FSX have it running well and they stick with it and only one of them still has Flight installed. It's rather funny, to be able to come to work and talk FS, or rant about the last 3 Flight warbirds, LOL.

 

two of my younger employees that I turned on to FSX are getting into scenery design, pretty cool seeing their enhtusiasm which for me is also a big part of FS, not just flying.

I am noticing a sort of "wave action" with FLIGHT. I friend people and see them around for a while, then less and less. Then a new plane is released, and I see a bunch of new people clustered around the free island, and a bunch of original players back to see whats up.

 

Rinse and repeat. Alaska will likely bring a giant influx of newbies, and also a surge of returning players curious to see if anything interesting is happening.

 

A change is that the Corsair does not seem to be drawing large numbers of purchasers, at least not that I can see in multi-player. It could be that yet another cockpitless plane is just too old hat at this point for an immediate reaction from people that may already have one or two, and limited interest in yet another.

 

I know its that way for me.

A change is that the Corsair does not seem to be drawing large numbers of purchasers, at least not that I can see in multi-player. It could be that yet another cockpitless plane is just too old hat at this point for an immediate reaction from people that may already have one or two, and limited interest in yet another.

 

Well, if you sell bright red baseball-style hats, some people will buy one because they like it, some because they need it, and some won't buy it at all.

 

If you add a blue version to your product line, some people will buy it because they didn't buy the red one but still need a hat, some will buy it even though they already have the red hat, and some won't buy either.

 

If you add a green version to your product line, some people will buy it because they didn't buy the red one or the blue one but still need a hat, some will buy it even though they already have the red hat, or the blue hat, or both, and some won't buy either.

 

If you add a yellow version to your product line, pretty much everyone who actually wanted brightly colored baseball-style hats probably already has plenty.

I hope the Flight team learns from their mistakes before it's too late...

I have a friend who is a beta tester for A2A, I think he might have installed it and deleted it a short while later. I can see where he was coming from too.

 

I keep an eye on this forum to see if anything interesting is on the horizon, but I've not fired up Flight for weeks, it just doesn't interest me that much what with them banging out all those aeroplanes without cockpits and few of the real systems simulated, not to mention only having the ability to fly across one island with no ATC and no truly realistic depiction of weather. So if they're not going to make it a decent sim, then they should at least make it a decent game.

 

Moreover, the attempt to pull people in with the addition of aerocaches and race courses got boring after about a day of trying them out. There are so many truly wonderful real challenges that aeroplanes can offer, but instead they go for putting hoops in the sky. Frankly, it is embarrassing to point out to friends how great aeroplanes are and why you love them so much when that's the kind of thing MS are presenting as a challenge. Give us a mountain rescue in a helicopter with a blistering crosswind, an attempt to quell a forest fire from reaching a town with a water bomber, a medevac from a warzone, an engine fire over the ocean at night, a field of crops which must be dusted before nightfall, some refugees on an overloaded DC-3 which you have to fly to safety through some mountain passes, the need to drop medical supplies from the back of a C-130 in a tight valley - anything rather than a hoop in the sky.

 

These would be real challenges and things which the graphic capabilities of Flight could turn into a truly visceral experience that would indeed attract the gamers they so covet, and the only thing stopping MS from putting these into Flight as opposed to aerocaches is, quite frankly, goddam laziness and a lack of invention. MS Flight could be absolutely bloody brilliant, and it doesn't even need to try and be FS11, it could forge its own path if only they'd get more inventive with it. If they want gamers, they should at least try to make it a game worth playing.

 

Al

If they want gamers, they should at least try to make it a game worth playing.

100% agree with Al. It's sorry to see all the effort creating the platform and then not use it to its potential. I hope they can sell it when it goes belly-up and not just abandon it. Someone with a vision could take this and make it great. Either as a sim or a game or a combination of both.

Either as a sim or a game or a combination of both.

Well that's what they did, and look where it got them...

It can be done, Take on Helicopters has managed it, and frankly that's nowhere near as good looking as Flight where lighting and such is concerned. TOH has FPS elements in it culled from Bohemia Interactive's previous forays into stuff such as Operation Flashpoint, Arma etc, and that puts together an attractive mix of flight simming and interaction with the world once having landed, for example, you can do a walkaround and if you spot problems early, they are cheaper to repair, you can actually walk up to your clients and have a converation with them.

 

That's the kind of immersion which gamers are likely to prefer, with flying the aeroplane being part, but not all of what is offered, i.e. fly to that medical emergency, but then get out and help treat the wounded instead of sitting there waiting for a 'success' screen to pop up. Or fly that cargo to such and such an airfield, but then have to get out and argue about how soon they can offload your cargo so you can get moving onto the next job or whatever, with how you handle the conversation affecting how that transpires and how your reputation precedes you, sling some cargo guy ten bucks from your virtual cash pile to grease the wheels, or threaten him or whatever, or maybe even have to pop the cowling and tighten up a few nuts and bolts or something on your battered old Twotter to ensure it can keep going until you make it back to your main service base, then decide whether you want to chance it and fly with your repair until funds improve, or put a dent in your virtual wallet and stump up the cash for a proper fix up job.

 

There are all kinds of things they could add like that which would actually make it more of a game instead of a just a half-baked sim with some hoops to fly through, which let's face it, is not going to enthrall most gamers - even flight simmers are getting bored with that. MS went to the trouble of dropping the word sim from its name, but now they need to replace that with something else, because simply dropping the word sim from the title does not mean it automatically becomes a game, it needs gaming elements to make that happen. Hell, I'd play Flight all the time if it was a good game with aeroplanes in it, I've got FSX if I want a pure sim - gimme a cool game with aeroplanes in it!

 

Al

100% agree with Al. It's sorry to see all the effort creating the platform and then not use it to its potential.

 

IIRC, The Aces team was in the middle of making "Flight" FS11 when they threw them out of the building.

"Flight" is what happened when they (or some VIP) changed their minds in the middle of the project.

Well, I don't especially mind MS choosing to make the kind of thing they intend to make with Flight - sure I'd like to have seen FS11, but tough luck - what I object to is the half-assed way they are going about it. It is great that MS Flight is attracting new people to flight sims, I've said many times that I applaud this, and we can see on this very forum that it has done that, but it isn't attracting nearly so many as it would do if it was wrapped around some genuinely interesting gaming elements.

 

Just because that's never really been done before doesn't mean it cannot be done, but it's not going to happen by banging out half built WW2 aeroplanes which can't even do what they were designed to do (i.e. shoot down other WW2 aeroplanes), no, it needs some proper inventive creative input. As it stands, and without that element, it is not enough of a full blown simulator, not a WW2 shooter, and not a full blown game either. And if MS don't know what they want it to be, or more correctly don't appear to be making it into what they wanted it to be, then you can hardly expect gamers to know what it is meant to be either. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that we can't sell it to our friends and colleagues, and if you can't sell something that is completely free to try out, then what chance have you got?

 

Al

IIRC, The Aces team was in the middle of making "Flight" FS11 when they threw them out of the building.

"Flight" is what happened when they (or some VIP) changed their minds in the middle of the project.

 

Sorry. Your story is not based on fact and has no foundation on reality.

Hello

The thing here with Alaska is that if it does not sell better than Hawaii then I doubt if Flight! will be allowed another fiscal year in MS portfolio.

Will it sell more than Hawaii ?, there has to be doubts about the level of interest that remains.

If you go around all of the well known Flightsim forums you would be lucky to find more than 100 folk worldwide in the Flight! sections.

On Steam it has totally sank without trace now, here at Avsim which is the most pro Flight! forum on the net there are a handful that keep the post count up.

Where are the 20 million users that JH was confident he could attract.

Potentially a great product, killed by poor management decisions and the wrong guy being put in charge.

Alan, I can't agree more with what you wrote, I used Flight for about 3 to 4 weeks (I had Hawaii DLC) and got bored with it very fast, woopi dooooo I got so many aerocache / points....so what!!! Like you said, no real challenge for me.

 

It is what it is, and if others really enjoyed Flight ....more power to them , it is fine with me, I just can't get into it as it is right now cause I don't see the immersion factor.