I do a lot of various things during the day, and my computer especially has a hard workout. At any given time there might be 15 or more web pages open, several programs.... and of course, at one point or another, Flight.

 

Now its not uncommon for me to wander away to do this or that. Answer a phone and then decide to run somewhere...... The computer and hence flight could be left running for hours. Then I come back and get ready to belatedly shut things down.......

 

Only to find that in my absence, a thriving little community has grown up, and several people are buzzing around and having a grand old time, including doing missions and etc....

 

I never have the heart to close the session on them, and hence the poor computer might be up for the day.... or several. :lazy:

 

Do you guys just boot people and close the session, or do you tend to leave them open, too?

I normally host, so I can set my preferred weather (dawn or dusk Low & Threatening) and eject anyone who gets annoying. I've got a few regulars who tend to join my session.

 

I leave the session running when I'm done, when possible, so maybe people will be around when I come back. I try to always leave it running if anyone else is in it.

 

If I do have to shut down an occupied session, I give a 5-minute warning so they can Friend anyone they want to rejoin.

 

I'm thinking about putting Flight on my old laptop to run the free version as a "semi-dedicated server."

 

I leave mine running. The 'regulars' know that I'm not always there. I'll be parked up somewhere (off the runway) with the engine shut down and the cockpit open. The only downside is coming back to find there was some unpleasant carry on while I was away. Causing intentional (as opposed to mere clumsy) collisions tends to lead to instant ejection.

I believe you can safely leave it running while you are at the menu screen, no?

That's pretty much what I am doing right now.....

 

While having a cookout. :-)

I don`t often host but if I do and I find that I need to do something else I make sure everyone knows I will be leaving in a few minutes, usually once I have landed and parked up, then I do close Flight. Mainly because I have a laptop and if I left it alone for any length of time it would go into sleep mode itself anyway.

I'm an energy-saving/ecologic freak :-) I turn everything off when I do not need it...

I do it the easy way - private only lol

One of the things I don't get is why Flight wasn't evolved further to facilitate its social aspects. Having gamertags and leaderboards makes me think that interacting online during multiplayer would be a bigger thing. Many MMOGs have cultivated this by creating persistent worlds (I'm thinking EVE). Sticking to 16-player rooms just doesn't seem like it'll encourage that social aspect. I realize that one short-coming is that not all will have the same DLC, but it looks as though place-holder art is used there now anyhow. In fact, a persistent world might entice folks to pony up for the DLC anyhow.

 

I suppose this among the list of befuddling choices I see in Flight in contrast to the aim of the game.