Here's my gripe, with a small sprinkle of "told you so." This writing was so loudly on the wall in January that many of us were dismayed and really wanted to get that discussion going (not just to complain, but to reconcile as a community). The net effect of that era was "shut and go away," which really put me off from a community that I've been a part of since nearly the beginning.

 

We didn't raise our voices loud enough (not that it would have mattered), and didn't put Howard's feet to the fire nearly enough. Now, the game is up and it'll probably take YEARS (if ever) to get back to the height of FS2004/FSX. This is a dark day and I fear that we had a chance to really make profound statements in December and January, but we couldn't even get our own house in order.

 

We "poison dwarfs" were shushed earlier in the year and now we're all shushed.

 

I never in a million years would have guessed that we'd be so rudderless in a time that technology is so powerful. Schism indeed.

 

I mean this in the spirit of honest reflection and not trolling, I would hope that on that merit this last missive on the topic won't be drowned.

 

This is not a happy day, in any way, shape, or form.

 

We lose.

Glad to hear it's your Last Gripe !

The other couple of hundred were painful.

 

Fred.

We didn't raise our voices loud enough (not that it would have mattered), and didn't put Howard's feet to the fire nearly enough.

 

The bolded part is the only part that matters.

 

The Flight supporters here, to a man, knew that all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the world wasn't going to make Microsoft suddenly change direction and develop FS11. Not a single person here got exactly what he wanted in Flight, but we were trying to make the best of what we had. The constant detractors had no purpose ("not that it would have mattered") beyond creating an atmosphere that left Avsim meaningless. Closing down the old Flight forums and using some draconian measures to keep the new one clean are a result of that.

 

I strongly suspect that Flight was not cancelled because it wasn't making money, but because it was a public relations nightmare. Windows 8 may not get a strong reception anyway, and there's no need to have a lot of very vocal people on the Internet already criticizing Microsoft for Flight.

 

Hook

Glad to hear it's your Last Gripe !

The other couple of hundred were painful.

 

Fred.

 

You can't resist kicking a guy in his hind quarters on the way out can you? Same to you in spades.

I strongly suspect that Flight was not cancelled because it wasn't making money, but because it was a public relations nightmare.

 

I suspect exactly the opposite. Simply target audience outside FS community for civilian flying game is extremely small, most people probably plaid Flight for few hours and then got bored of it. War flying is what usually interest masses, not civilian.

 

Why would Microsoft care about all criticizing towards Flight if it was making enough money? Money talks and only that matters, even if everyone had praised Flight it would have been shut down as it most likely did not sell enough.

 

I think that marketing people at MS overestimated their target audience harshly. Most people interested in civilian flying games seem to be already using FSX/X Plane which both offer so much more content by default.

 

At least just by knowledge and impression I have gotten during many years of both simming and general gaming I just cant see Flight getting millions of people playing it from outside FS community which itself obviously is too small for them as MS chose not to make FS11.

 

Flight is not the first time in history where marketing of a game fails badly, to me it just seems like people making those decisions didn't understand much about these things. Actual developer team did great job with resources and orders they were given, I wish all good to them.

The bolded part is the only part that matters.

 

The Flight supporters here, to a man, knew that all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the world wasn't going to make Microsoft suddenly change direction and develop FS11. Not a single person here got exactly what he wanted in Flight, but we were trying to make the best of what we had. The constant detractors had no purpose ("not that it would have mattered") beyond creating an atmosphere that left Avsim meaningless. Closing down the old Flight forums and using some draconian measures to keep the new one clean are a result of that.

 

I strongly suspect that Flight was not cancelled because it wasn't making money, but because it was a public relations nightmare. Windows 8 may not get a strong reception anyway, and there's no need to have a lot of very vocal people on the Internet already criticizing Microsoft for Flight.

 

Hook

 

You are right and, despite my vociferous opinions, I regret this move as Flight was a great fit for many.

Glad to hear it's your Last Gripe !

The other couple of hundred were painful.

 

Fred.

 

I always love it when those who preach tolerance are so intolerant. Good show, old chap!

My take on MS Flight is that Microsoft was experimenting with a new strategy to introduce flight simming/gaming to a younger audience, while providing a better flight engine/scenery platform that could be expanded and enhanced for veteran flight sim hobbyists. Flight received such negative feedback from older FSX/FS9 users, was not put out for XBox AFAIK (for the younger crowd), along with the 3rd-Party developers not willing to partner with Microsoft giving them a commission on the add-ons they produced. Let's face it, Microsoft is a corporation driven by profit for their investors. To put money into R&D for a new simulator in this present economy isn't very smart, considering the market and customer base.

Flight to me had great potential, but it's marketing and with a instant gratification society ranting for their own desires/disappoinments, Microsoft had to stop developement and move on, erasing any hopes for a better simulator being produced by them. PC Gaming is on the wane, many people cannot spend money on a high performance spec PC to even run FSX, adequately. Let alone, Xbox, Wii and Playstation taking a big piece of the gaming market. And, with Tablets and Smartphones taking over what the PC had been doing for many years. I consider flight simming a niche market for PC enthusiasts who love their hobby and enjoy tinkering with their machines and software. X-plane doesn't appeal to me, but I still fly FSX almost everyday. For us, we need to support OrbX, A2A, REX, RealAir, Carenado along with too many to mention 3rd party developers to help our hobby continue...

MVGibbage had some interesting things to say about Flight's potential and it's managerial challenges in this thread: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/380841-flight-post-mortem/

Hopefully Microsoft will learn a lesson from this but I guess not. It just annoys me so much how the game developers of nowadays even while the technology is there, they develop games that are starting to have less and less content. Back in the mid 2000's when the technology wasn't even THAT advanced we had those great games with endless content, and since then, no such games have been made anymore. Just like MS have done with FLIGHT, they develop a game with good graphics and very little content, release it, and they. "OK, deal with it, bye!". Even though the recourses are there, they have all become so lazy to develop a game with wide content that we are seeing 7 years ago. I just can't stand this mentality of only focussing on making money and don't caring about what you are giving to the community. And even IF they develop extra content, they are making the customers buy it all, and that's the point where most people give up on the game. This mentality of releasing a game with low content and then charging a lot of money of add-ons after it is getting worse and worse. Look at Dirt 3, Max Payne 3, BF3, MW3, they have all headed this way. I had Max Payne 3, but sold it again because I didn't want to pay for extra multiplayer maps (as it only had 5 by default).

 

I am also a racing sim enthusiast and I must say there are still companies out there like the ones that develop RFactor 2 and iRacing, that actually care about their customers, give you a game/sim that you can enjoy for years and years, listen to the customer's feedback and develop what they want.

 

We all know that FSX is an old game and we all know it isn't gonna last MUCH longer than maybe a year or two. This will be a pretty difficult years for the simmers, because we don't know where we are heading next. Out only hope might just be Laminar Research from XPlane. XPlane 10 is definately not there yet and their game needs a lot of work, but at least the positive thing is that they are heading the right way. Maybe XPlane 11 or XPlane 12 will be our new flightsim platform.

Personally I think that Flight was setup for failure from the very beginning! For what reason I can't say, but I noticed this from the day it was released. For example G4 which is one of the more prominent gamer sites in the US and in fact has their own cable TV network. Except for a press release in Sept 2011, with 2 promo videos, there have been no news articles, including no announcement of it's release, No previews which they usually do for upcoming releases, or reviews. I've seen similar lack of coverage on other gamer sites. It seems to me if Gamers were MS's targeted audience, MS would have made sure there would be coverage on this type of site, yet nothing.

Personally I think that Flight was setup for failure from the very beginning! For what reason I can't say, but I noticed this from the day it was released. For example G4 which is one of the more prominent gamer sites in the US and in fact has their own cable TV network. Except for a press release in Sept 2011, with 2 promo videos, there have been no news articles, including no announcement of it's release, No previews which they usually do for upcoming releases, or reviews. I've seen similar lack of coverage on other gamer sites. It seems to me if Gamers were MS's targeted audience, MS would have made sure there would be coverage on this type of site, yet nothing.

 

I can't imagine any company investing time and money on any product with a view to it failing but I know what you are getting at.

 

It really does go to show the total lack of vision, leadership and commitment that was so needed for this project to succeed.

 

Microsoft need to get a grip if this is the best they can do with Apple, Google and the like looking set to dominate the market.

 

Maybe the release and demise of Flight says more about MS as a company than it does about flight simulation in general.

 

Bryan.

Maybe the release and demise of Flight says more about MS as a company than it does about flight simulation in general

 

I gotta say gang, when we got Flight it was really icing on the cake so to speak.

The demise of a flight simulator by MSFS was in early 2009, when they cancelled the program and disbanded the Aces team. As far as most folks knew, that was the end of a civilian flight simulator by MS.

 

For whatever reason, they decided to test the waters again by putting together a team to develop Flight, and then again for whatever reason changed direction with it and tried to capture a larger audience with Flight.

 

And now, for whatever reason, the powers to be have decided it was not worth the expense for what they were getting in return. They already knew what they got with FSX, and apparently they had come to the conclusion that it was just not enough. And now with Flight , it is not enough.

 

Nothing we here can say now, is going to have one ounce of an effect on what has happened, and what will happen, going forward. Perhaps now someone else will step up to the plate and deliver the kind of simulator the majority here wants, and can do it with less overhead and justify the expense. There certainly are other options out there available now, although from what I have heard none that really have the calibre of what MS has producted the last several years. But now with them out of the picture, maybe that will change - I certainly hope so for this segment of the flight sim community.

 

Personally my focus now, will be moving away eventually from civilian flight simming, I have several really good combat sims I have yet to really get into. I will still run Flight for a time, but probably no where near what I was with what has happened and having nothing to look forward to for it any longer.

 

Imho, the future of flight simming by MS rested on the success of Flight, and now it is no more.

You are right and, despite my vociferous opinions, I regret this move as Flight was a great fit for many.

 

Thanks, Jeff. I may have ignored Flight myself if I hadn't been selected for the beta test, something I completely wasn't expecting.

 

Flight was really everything I wasn't interested in. Hawaii, for gosh sakes... I hated flying Hawaii in FSX. Well, island flying was fun anyway, I'd been flying the Caribbean in the Dodosim 206. For a month all I had were the Icon and Stearman and the big island, and it got to be a pain.

 

But the lighting and flight model were first rate. Performance was excellent on my system. I tried the hoops and coins, not because I liked those, but because I wanted to see what they did with them... and I was beta testing after all. Turns out they were fun, and the hoops were great practice in precision flying which helped with the landing challenges.

 

At first I though the graphics were just an incremental increase over FSX. After a few hours flying, I began to see how much better they were. I even flew the J3 Cub in FSX around Hawaii to compare. I still say I like the autogen in FSX much more than in Flight. After a hundred hours in Flight, I couldn't imagine flying over default FSX terrain. And the way I fly, there IS no custom terrain for where I live, and I couldn't afford to buy the whole world, as I ended up flying there a lot. Antarctica was a temptation, actually.

 

One of the first things I noticed was the difference in flight models. Is this what used to be advertised as a "6 degree of freedom" flight model?

 

For the most part, I flew as seriously as I could. I'd take the Icon or the Stearman up to the other no-res islands to get the aerocache of the day, then fly back. Various procedures were as close to what I'd do in real life as I could make them in Flight. I DO NOT miss ATC, or autopilot, or pretty much any other thing people demand that's missing from Flight.

 

I still fly seriously, but in Alaska I'm almost always about 1000 feet AGL to enjoy the scenery.

 

A lot of people on the forum started off rather cool toward Flight, but after flying a while they started to appreciate what it offered. I think if more people had done that, fly enough to begin to enjoy Flight, there would have been a lot fewer detractors.

 

Hook