I just have to wonder...

[dburne 2]

I am still enjoying Flight very much, but I swear I just can't help but wonder why in the world MS pulled the plug on it, after only 4 short months. After the intitial release, just a small handful of cockpitless planes until the Cub, and one scenery DLC release. You would have to think, there was already one more scenery dlc in the pipeline being developed, or already developed being fine tuned. We already know there was a least one more dlc plane in the pipeline, near finished or maybe even finished.

I mean to me, how could they even tell in that short a time whether the program was going to be successful or not, or maybe that just did not matter. Maybe someone ordered some major cuts to be done, and it just got caught up in them, perhaps because it was still new and not a lot of time spent on it yet.

 

I look at Rise of Flight - somewhat similar concept, had a rough beginning, but seems to have really matured and is drawing more and more combat enthusiast in.

Or take ED, with their DCS series. They started with Black Shark, a true study sim with a very steep learning curve. Then they followed it with DCS A-10C, another complex sim with a steep learning curve. Heck, TM even developed the Warthog stick and throttle, for the A-10C, and coincided it's release with that of DCS-A10C.

Now, ED has moved on to DCS World, a free download that contains all the scenery, vehicles , etc. Then you just install what is now the Black Shark 2 module, and the A-10C module, and off you go - can even fly them and fight together with others, using both of these aircraft.

Now, they are developing Combined Arms, a ground sim, along with the P-51D. And, they are now allowing third parties to sign up and develop for them for DCS World. Something many of us were hoping we might see happen down the road with Flight.

 

I would have to think, the above appeals to just as much a smaller niche market, as say the MSFS series does to those of us that love it. But these companies appear to be doing well, appear to be successful in what they are doing, and it appears they are here for the long term. I don't know, maybe they just have such a smaller overhead, they can be fruitful with what they are doing , whereas MS could not. Or maybe MS, just does not want to, too small a pie for them perhaps. Or like some things in our government, just had to be cut.

 

It is just frustrating, I have put several hours back into Flight over the last few days, and still love it very much, and I am just saddened to think, well this is all there will be. I do believe it had such truly great potential for down the road, just never imagined the end of that road would come so soon. Perhaps they will pick up the gauntlet again someday, probably not at least in my lifetime I don't think.

 

Ok had to get that off my chest, back to enjoying Flight once again, along with some time going through A-10C training as well.

[BaronKen 144]

I agree wholeheartedly Don with your thoughts on Flight. Still hard to get over its demise. As for combat flight sims they just aren't for me. Perhaps one of those companies successfully implementing the combat sims might see the possibilities of regular aviation flight and pick up the gauntlet. One can hope.....someday.

[dburne 2]

Perhaps one of those companies successfully implementing the combat sims might see the possibilities of regular aviation flight and pick up the gauntlet.

 

While that would be nice, I don't see them straying away from what is working for them. It just baffles me, cause the examples I gave are such a niche market, and they apparently are successful.

Flight had such a great foundation to build upon, I just wish they ( MS) had been a little more patient and not so trigger happy. I think they were on the right track, with the whole DLC thing and possibly even further development by 3pd's down the road to be sold as DLC.

 

My hat is off to the whole Flight Team, for what they did do with what they had to work with and such a limited amount of time. MS's decision should not take away from what that team did, they done good and should be very proud of what they did do.

 

Ah if wishes were horses...

 

Oh and btw, all this coming from a guy that was a pretty darn hard core FSX user that was appalled at what Flight was going to be at release, was not even going to download it. Lol.

[cfsops 0]

Ah if wishes were horses...

 

Then I would need a buy a really big shovel. lol.

 

There was a lot of potential. Very disappointing for those who were willing to give it a chance. I'm sure that support is appreciated, though.

[InboundFour953 0]

MSF wanted to appeal to gamers, planes with no guns.

To simmers, planes with no cockpits.

It's that easy.

[Glynn 405]

Hello

Something was wrong as soon as they started to release the warbirds, that to me was just stalling for time.

Gamers want to shoot things, the warbirds had no guns , Fail

Simmers want cockpits and instrumentation , Fail

 

Whatever the target market was for flight, they managed to lose two markets just there

Which is amazing even by MS standards.

[LHookins 3,102]

I don't know about you, but I have 5 planes with cockpits. Not much fail there. Did you at least get the Maule?

 

Delafina said there was a market for the basic planes. Honestly, I was skeptical at the time, but look at any screen shots of multiplayer and you'll see she was right. The only fail there was the long string of nothing but basic planes.

 

Maybe the gamers who were introduced to flying by Flight will move on to other games with guns. Something simple. If that was a fail for Flight, at least someone else will benefit. The "kids" in multiplayer didn't need guns, they could ram you. If they were good enough. :D

 

I think the "must have guns to be fun for gamers" is an urban myth. The only time it's brought up is when someone who didn't like Flight mentions it. If they had to have guns to have fun, they have other choices, but they were still in Flight multiplayer, landing on rooftops and such.

 

Hook

[RoboRay 126]

For all it's other faults, I think Flight could have survived and even prospered... if not for the unbroken stream of cockpitless warbirds. That resulted in a situation where, for many users, and the most interested users at that, a DLC-driven title effectively had no DLC for four months following launch.

 

And actually, it was worse than having no DLC... I honestly think Flight would have done better releasing nothing at all between Hawaii and Alaska. People would have been irritated, even angry, but they would not have been passionately outraged. "Furious anger" comes to mind...

 

 

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

 

There's plenty of blame to share around in the demise of Flight, but I think whoever came up with the idea of offering nothing new except the same (more or less) useless cockpitless plane again and again and again and again did more damage to the product than everyone else combined. One or even two would have been survivable. But four cockpitless planes in row... five if you count the Red Tail P-51... That was a death-sentence.

 

[Glynn 405]

The only fail there was the long string of nothing but basic planes.

 

 

Which is what I said, Deluxe planes were not released quickly enough to keep the attention of those looking for a GA sim, tell me you were not disappointed every time the new DLC was cockpitless.

The most I ever saw in multiplayer via steam was around 500 users, while here at Avsim which is the busiest Flight! forum out of the major flightsim sites there where never more in this forum than were in the PMDG sub forum or the FSX forum at any time.

The DLC sales for Flight! were never going to pay the wages of those 50 team members plus the invoices of the huge list of outside companies listed in the credits.

I would even guess that during the whole period that Flight! was released and under active developement, that FSX Gold actually continued to shift more boxes than Flight! sold in DLC sales.

 

There's plenty of blame to share around in the demise of Flight, but I think whoever came up with idea of offering nothing new except the same (more or less) useless cockpitless plane again and again and again and again did more damage to the product than everyone else combined.

 

Hello

Exactly my feelings, there was a huge amount of momentum lost right there.

Just look at the FSX payware market, every time a simmers interest starts to wane there is another great addon released.

MS wanted this third party market for themselves but then failed to deliver on it.

I still expect this codebase to reappear at some stage as Combat Flight Simulator 4

[trevorbee 0]

Not much to disagree with here.

 

It is really hard to understand why they launched this game when they did with so little quality product to follow up with. I actually wonder if they had already decided to 'can' it before the launch but wanted to try and recover some of their losses.

 

If we ever get to hear what went on behind the scenes I am sure it would be an interesting story.

[jeff1155 0]

I was amazed, since releases and product direction must have been planned, that they never thought of adding more missions? Who thought one SAR mission and the wedding party for the Icon was a good idea? Surely if they wanted to entice games players, that more to do would have been high on the priority list?

 

It seems so weird that a big company like MS would go about the management of the thing in such an amateurish fashion, with DLC launches not thought through, and then the whole thing canned after 4 months. How much did MS lose in developing then canning Flight, and that after closing ACES?

 

Hopefully someone will persuade MS there's still a market for DLC, get consent to create some more content, and the core will get updated; hopefully!

[jcomm 5,882]

It may be stupid from me, but I tend to think that continuing to login and play MS FLIGHT instead of quitting it, might press whoever can influence the decisions at a higher level inside of MS towards restarting the project where it was abandoned.

 

On the other hand, I still think the same regarding the unique sensation of "being there" that FLIGHT gives me best than any other sim, so, why would I quit using it, even if we are done with the Aerocaches?

 

And, since I bring this Aerocache theme, and strongly hope they continue to be made available - i think it makes part of the continued support we're supposed to receive for the product we payed for just a few months ago!

[xplanery 250]

MSF wanted to appeal to gamers, planes with no guns.

To simmers, planes with no cockpits.

It's that easy.

Exactly this. They just badly overestimated interest of gaming community towards civilian flying games and that is why Flight failed. Probably many gamers downloaded Flight and had some fun with it for maybe 30 minutes or so, but very few of them likely were interested enough to actually buy DLC.

[newthog 0]

My hat is off to the whole Flight Team, for what they did do with what they had to work with and such a limited amount of time. MS's decision should not take away from what that team did, they done good and should be very proud of what they did do.

 

I"m with you on this - we may never know the "rest of the story". To me, it seems as though poor management decisions in several areas (marketing, use of feedback, sharing of information, etc) led to the demise of Flight. So much wasted potential...

 

However, something positive came out of it. When I first heard of Flight, and saw some screenshots and videos, I dusted off my FS9 discs and tried them again. Wasn't happy with my old gaming computer, so built a new one to the "recommended system specs" for Flight. Enjoyed Flight Hawaii immensely, bought Alaska during the Steam sale. I finally tired of waiting for a helicopter to be released, so bought FSX Gold from Microsoft's site the day before it was announced that Flight was done. So, while I'm not a "new simmer", Flight got me back in the game. And it appears it has brought other people into this gaming niche - so kudos to the Flight Team for what they were able to do!

[olealm 12]

Just can't seem to understand the short life-time of this sim (yes, even if some of the planes were lacking a cockpit, it's still a sim).

 

I agree with most written here. I was one of those complaining about the lack of cockpits. And as we all know, I was'nt alone.. The MASSIVE complaints would imo put off ANY developers. Not to mention the people planning the strategies and those sitting firmly on the money bag.

 

Still, MS is a huge company and I, like others, think there is a bad smell about the whole thing.

 

They invest a lot in development. Then they can all further development after just 4 months!?

 

The sales may very well have been way below budget, but just 4 months? Maybe they budgeted for MASSIVE sales, but instead getting MASSIVE critisism from the community made them lose hope that the balance would be on the positive side in due time?

 

I keep thinking that a lot of people now complaining, probably are the same people complaing earlier. A lot of it quite frankly turned very hateful, but I keep thinking that maybe most of it were not because of HATRED, but because of LOVE for the game/sim? That it was just a deperate hope that it would over time develop into a proper sim?

 

Although not very likely, I really hope MS will notice how the complaints for the most part have turned into complants about the canning of the project, and reconsider.

 

Or, the next best thing of course would be that other developers buy the core and develop it further. MS canning the project so soon MUST indicate something's up.

 

I, for one, will be waiting patiently for an announcement..