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Gibbage

Flight post mortem.

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Difference is, open market and constant influx of new content for FSX, locked up market and no new content for Flight. Who in their right mind would buy any part of Flight a year from now knowing there will never be anything new for it. When sales start drying up theres really no incentive for them to continue selling it or maintain the servers.

 

Plenty of old dusty games selling just fine on Steam and GOG


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
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Plenty of old dusty games selling just fine on Steam and GOG

 

Not that simple. Those games arent running thier own authentication servers to keep the game alive.

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Thanks Kevin for the inside knowledge.

 

...oh, and I like your coconut bra!

I won one myself in a flying game I once played, don't remember what it was called.

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I disagree only with one part of Kevin's assesment. Flight will continue to run forever on one's current local machine as long as the hardware holds up...

 

For proof that this is true, simply unplug your computer from the modem or router, then fire up Flight. It will start and allow you to "fly offline" as long as you like...


Fr. Bill    

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Well, maybe, maybe not. Microsoft does do periodic "reactivation" of previously activated software with Windows, for example. It's entirely possible that there's a hidden timer that disables Flight after 60 days (or whatever) of no contact with the GFWL servers. MS has done that before, at least, with the volume-licensing keys for Windows 7. Maybe others, but I'm not certain.

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Do project managers at MS actually get to make marketing decisions? If not, I think the derision pointed at Mr. Howard is somewhat misplaced. It has always sounded like he was being forced to drink the Kool-aid.

 

Also, I am reminded of this quote by Mr. Howard during an interview with MCV at the release of Flight!.

 

"You previously said that Flight can make more money than Gears of War. Do you mean the entire Flight Simulator franchise or just Flight?

 

 

As a franchise. Flight is one incarnation of what will continue to be an evergreen franchise for this company.

 

Grandparents and grandchildren will sit together and play these, and grow up with them over time. It’s part of what appeals to me about it. I believe in this particular incarnation of Flight as a very strong product. But to me it’s not just about this version of Flight, it’s about how this version of Flight allows us to engage with users in whole new ways. And how that will inevitably lead to the next version or the next outgrowth of the franchise. " (emphasis mine)

 

We can only hope


Dennis Trawick

 

Screen Shot Forum Rules

 

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I think the #1 thing that hurt Flight the most, was having an almost empty store on launch. When you have a product like Flight, people are investing in an eco-system. If you buy an iPhone, you want to know that they have a good catalog of apps, since the iPhone will be the only place to get apps. Same thing with Android and WP7/8. You need a strong eco-system to attract customers. That eco-system could of been GIVEN TO FLIGHT via 3rd party's. Many were ready and willing to do just that, but as we all know, that didnt happen for whatever reason. So Flight launched with an empty eco-system, and they were very secretive about there plans for that eco-system. So it was very hard for people interested in Flight to INVEST there hard earned money in that eco-system. I think THAT is what killed Flight.

 

Agree 100%. I didn't spend any money on Flight because it didn't have enough. "Enough" is subjective, but to me it was lacking too many things I was interested in. No jets. Where is the traffic (ground and air)? Where is my home airport, and other POIs I enjoy flying around? Where is the cockpit for some of these great war birds? Had we seen 3rd party development allowed in very early on, it could have been a very different story.

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ironically enough, I started downloading FSX last night because I was tired of waiting for a helicopter in Flight! (kind of) got the hang of whirlybirds in FS9, just wanted to try something a little updated.

 

Looking forward to exploring a new (for me) flight simulation experience!

 

FSX is what initially got me interested in simming a few years ago but I finished all the missions and some lessons and got bored with it. I couldn't run it too well either, but it was playable. Flight piqued my interest again but I was growing tired of the slow release of their content and the poor communication from MS but I thought it had potential. A couple of weeks ago I decided to reinstall FSX because I have a much better computer and can finally run it pretty smooth but it does need some addons so it doesn't look so blah. REX, GEX, UTX and an ORBX or two go a long way to breathe life into FSX. Doing the missions again is a blast because I can handle simulated planes better and actually know what I'm doing...mostly. The helicopters in FSX are pretty fun, make sure to get Acceleration with the new chopper and missions, they're challenging and sometimes frustrating but pretty fun.

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I dont know how security works in Flight and if I did, I would not be able to tell you guys anyways. Most online content must "dial home" every now and then to re-validate that its a legal copy. Steam does this and Live does this. Even when you download content from iTunes there is an expiration date on a lot of those files. Its called DRM, or Digital Rights Management. Yes, you can play Flight offline for a night or two, or maybe even 29 days, but on that 30th day, it may want to dial home to make sure its still legal. If Flight's servers go down, and it tries to dial home, it may lock you out of your DLC. Im NOT saying that this is how it is, or how its going to be, but just a warning that its possible sometime down the road.

 

We will see.


Kevin Miller

 

3D Artist and developer

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With the release of Alaska, Flight I allowed me to fly to my RW home base. Until another sim can provide better mesh , flight model,and the feeling of almost being there, I will continue to use Flight as my main. FSX will be my second . Nothing much has changed for me except that I will no longer be dreaming of new DLC for Flight.

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Not that simple. Those games arent running thier own authentication servers to keep the game alive.

 

If that's the case then another option sometimes taken is to release a patch that removes the need for a server check.


We are all connected..... To each other, biologically...... To the Earth, chemically...... To the rest of the Universe atomically.
 
Devons rig
Intel Core i5 13600K @ 5.1GHz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series Ram 32GB / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti GAMING OC 12G Graphics Card / Sound Blaster Z / Meta Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 1x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB /  1x Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe /  1x Samsung 980 NVMe 1TB / 2 other regular hd's with up to 10 terabyte capacity / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR5

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The license validates through Xbox Live, so content verification and multiplayer should continue to function as long as they keep the content hosted on the LIVE servers. They don't tend to purge those too often, the only time I've seen them completely remove something from LIVE was when they shut down support for the Original Xbox in April 2010. Pessimistically, I'd expect multiplayer and DLC to continue to be available for a few years at least.

 

There are Xbox 360 games with content and multiplayer still available, but the studios that made them shut down years ago. There isn't anybody playing multiplayer in most of those games, but they still work.

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we have XP-10 for the people who want a serious sim that they can spend more time tweaking then flying

 

Was a back-handed compliment like this really necessary? I know as a former Flight developer you probably still regard X-Plane as the "enemy", but come on, Flight is dead, the Flight Simulator franchise is dead, isn't it time to start mending bridges instead of tearing them down? You could have just as easily said, "We have XP-10 for people who want a serious sim," and left it at that.

 

:rolleyes:

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