The End of Flight?

[Glynn 405]

I had dreams of returning to Hawaii and flying inter-island hops in a tired old 737-200 and looking back on the days when I droned across the watery miles at 120 kts (if I was lucky) with a coughing old lady in the back, while looking forward to when that shiny new Challenger would be released and I could upgrade to ferrying VIPs... That was the experience that Flight promised.

 

Hello

That was never promised, and that could have been what turned many away.

 

TA: Is there any connectivity between that roadmap and that of aircraft development; i.e., transpacific flights between PHNL and KLAX, or PANC, as examples?

 

JH: Long-haul flight is not one of the scenarios that we believe is interesting for the bulk of our audience. Clearly some people want this, but our research tells us that for anyone but the simmer, the idea of simulating a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu is not a highly-requested feature.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Well if you truly want to simulate flying a commercial airliner you must operate systems too as they are so big part of flying them nowadays. GA is different thing, but I don't really understand what prevents enjoying simple GA flying in FSX just as well as in Flight

.

 

 

Fsx has simply become too convoluted and technical to fly and maintain in anything except a fairly pristine installation, and even that is prone to difficulties on modern hardware, due to the assumptions made during its design. Those difficulties cause issues and shortcomings in the graphic presentation that long-time adherents have grown accustomed to, and in fact no longer even seem to see clearly, yet are very much up front and center to somebody visiting from outside.

 

FSX just does not feel like flying to me, after Flight. It feels like an early attempt at depicting flying, and you can only really see why if you've spent quality time with Flight. As many have said, Flight was the experience of flying; open free and fun. FSX was, and remains for many, a much dryer technical exercise in flying in comparison.

 

One I believe capable of only intermittently attracting new adherents. Accuracy? Maybe. Fun? Unless you equate instrumentation with fun, I am not so sure.

[xplanery 250]

There seems to be a developing folk-wisdom around here that Flight has failed because it tried to appeal to too broad an audience, when it should instead have been tickling the FMS's of realsimmers, with STARS in their eyes and for whom RNAV is the only kind of nav. And didn't we teach them a lesson, eh, by refusing to even look at Flight (the core of which is, lest we forget, completely free)?

FSX allows you to fly simple GA just like Flight does. Flight could have had all the simulation aspects of FSX and still offer also simple GA flying for those who want it, nobody forces you to use ATC or any little more complicated features of GA planes of FSX.

 

In my opinion audience who Flight applied to is just too small. Most simmers are used to wide variety of areas and planes offered by FSX/FS9, and only very small part of gaming community is really interested in doing much civilian flying.

 

 

Fsx has simply become too convoluted and technical to fly and maintain in anything except a fairly pristine installation, and even that is prone to difficulties on modern hardware, due to the assumptions made during its design. Those difficulties cause issues and shortcomings in the graphic presentation that long-time adherents have grown accustomed to, and in fact no longer even seem to see clearly, yet are very much up front and center to somebody visiting from outside.

 

FSX just does not feel like flying to me, after Flight. It feels like an early attempt at depicting flying, and you can only really see why if you've spent quality time with Flight. As many have said, Flight was the experience of flying; open free and fun. FSX was, and remains for many, a much dryer technical exercise in flying in comparison.

 

One I believe capable of only intermittently attracting new adherents. Accuracy? Maybe. Fun? Unless you equate instrumentation with fun, I am not so sure.

Well thats true, Flight does have better flight model and performance & stability. However of course all this could have been implemented to FSX too without throwing away its more advanced features.

 

MS could have made Flight new FSX kind of simulator but with good stability, performance and flight model. That would have offered everyone something.

[Bobsk8 12,729]

If your having poor fps/stutters with fsx give this a go, it worked a treat for me...

 

http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

 

Apart from x-plane/DCS...who else is developing flight sim now?

 

 

I have spent countless hours and throwing money down the drain trying to get FS to run as smooth as Flight, and so have some pilot friends of mine, and we all gave up. No more magic bullets for me. P3D can't even get it done and they have a team of programmers working on it.

[jimmydean239 0]

...and not helped by a flakey platform in LIVE...

 

I think you've hit on an interesting point. I have the Steam version and had to log on to my gamertag on live (couldn't even remember it, it's been about 3 years since I've played any Xbox), and "purchase" the product before I could even access all of the free content. I think, if I remember correctly, I found out how to do this here. It certainly wasn't on any microsoft websites/forums, and I too had endless issues when trying to purchase DLCs. The process was ridiculously convoluted and I think if I hadn't had experience with GFWL and it's "foibles" previously I might have simply given up and/or raged to flight customer support.

 

I wonder how the inclusion of GFWL has impacted on people's willingness to pay for new DLC, or even to experience the full free content and therefore make a decision to purchase more?

 

One thing I do hope, with all my heart, is that this will signal the deathknell of GFWL as a platform. If that happens even in part due to Flight's demise, I don't think I could ask for a bigger silver lining. :lol:

[Kosta 122]

In my opinion audience who Flight applied to is just too small. Most simmers are used to wide variety of areas and planes offered by FSX/FS9, and only very small part of gaming community is really interested in doing much civilian flying.

 

This remains a pure speculation. Noone really knows what the ratio is. You can do polls whatever you like, but how many are for this or that is just a pure guess.

[Bobsk8 12,729]

Fsx has simply become too convoluted and technical to fly and maintain in anything except a fairly pristine installation, and even that is prone to difficulties on modern hardware, due to the assumptions made during its design. Those difficulties cause issues and shortcomings in the graphic presentation that long-time adherents have grown accustomed to, and in fact no longer even seem to see clearly, yet are very much up front and center to somebody visiting from outside.

 

FSX just does not feel like flying to me, after Flight. It feels like an early attempt at depicting flying, and you can only really see why if you've spent quality time with Flight. As many have said, Flight was the experience of flying; open free and fun. FSX was, and remains for many, a much dryer technical exercise in flying in comparison.

 

One I believe capable of only intermittently attracting new adherents. Accuracy? Maybe. Fun? Unless you equate instrumentation with fun, I am not so sure.

 

I knew a guy that had almost a couple of thousand dollars tied up in FS, and countless hours at it, and he still could not fly a decent traffic pattern in a C-172, on that sim. Everything was Flight Directors, auto landings and watching TV while cross country flying. That to me isn't fun.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I have spent countless hours and throwing money down the drain trying to get FS to run as smooth as Flight, and so have some pilot friends of mine, and we all gave up. No more magic bullets for me. P3D can't even get it done and they have a team of programmers working on it.

 

Concur. I think the smoothness was one of flights major draws, if not the major draw. Its impact, along with the flight models, lighting and shadows created a level of immersion that is hard to back away from once experienced.

 

Its not as bad as if somebody wanted to put me in a patched-up Edsel, but the thought occurs nonetheless. :lol:

[xplanery 250]

Yes GFWL is pretty horrible to use, with one other games I somehow managed to create two accounts with same name and now I never know which one I need to log in.

 

I knew a guy that had almost a couple of thousand dollars tied up in FS, and countless hours at it, and he still could not fly a decent traffic pattern in a C-172, on that sim. Everything was Flight Directors, auto landings and watching TV while cross country flying. That to me isn't fun.

For some people it is fun. Most of General Aviation fliers can still be found from either FSX or X plane anyway.

[Guest]

Anyone already had a confirmation from MS?

[Kosta 122]

P3D can't even get it done

 

Bob, let's not go there. It is not your place to judge.

[Tumbsupplease 0]

ok Flight ended but im looking forwad to microsoft flight simulator xi if its going to be one.

[Geofa 108]

 

 

Concur. I think the smoothness was one of flights major draws, if not the major draw. Its impact, along with the flight models, lighting and shadows created a level of immersion that is hard to back away from once experienced.

 

Its not as bad as if somebody wanted to put me in a patched-up Edsel, but the thought occurs nonetheless. :lol:

 

IMHO I can get exactly the same smoothness in FSX by simply turning off the same features that were missing in Flight (e.g. Turn off ai traffic completely, use default weather themes,fly in areas like Hawaii and Alaska and avoid major cities, and use simplified default aircraft).

[alainneedle1 97]

Guys, can you slowdown a little on the posting, I read two pages so far and 4 more came up.....can't keep up whit it....

[EastCoastGuy 0]

... so blaming the demise of Flight on MS's financial condition is not valid. I blame it totally on all the negative feedback they got from the simming community along with the complaining about the pricing of the few things they charged for...

 

So do you think that if there had never been any complaints, then Flight would be in great shape and everything would be coming up roses? Seriously?