Hold on, lemme check my rolodex. :lol:

 

But seriously, I'm with Robert on this. Flight simulation, for people not really interested in aviation, is dreadfully boring. And even those who do have an interest may not really have a lifestyle that's conducive to spending multiple consecutive hours in front of a PC. The general gaming public with wallets ready to be drained on entertainment software are usually the action oriented, relatively low attention span types who get on Call of Duty multiplayer with their friends and spend an hour or so blowing eachother up at a frenetic pace every night. Watching comparatively bland scenery slowly scroll by would be the last thing they'd find interesting. I don't know what the decision makers at MS were drinking when they thought they could sex up flight simulation enough to tap that audience, but as we all know now, the effort failed miserably.

Jon, there were a lot of newcomers to flight simming in Microsoft Flight's multiplayer. Most had never heard of FSX, for example, so they probably never heard of Xplane either.

 

These guys had a lot of fun doing the same things we used to do when we were first starting: finding crazy places to land, flying through hangars, stuff like that. We all did this at first. Remember in the earliest flight sim where there was a wireframe hangar that just invited you to fly through it? That's the kind of thing people were doing.

 

Some were even interested in the serious side of aviation. They'd see people flying normal traffic patterns and ask about it, then want to try it out themselves. This included some of the youngest players as well.

 

Of course there were the few that were only interested in trying to ram your airplane. Most weren't good enough flyers to accomplish that, and they were the minority.

 

Some of the best videos of multiplayer fight were people trying to land in odd places... then trying to see how many planes could land there. The top of some hangar. The swimming pool on the cruise ship. The top of the Hilo control tower... I think they got 4 planes there once without anyone crashing. Even the serious simmers were having fun with these stunts. The newcomers' enthusiasm was contagious.

 

There's a lot more to flight simming than spending hours in front of your computer on autopilot. After years of doing long and short hauls, we forget that. I forgot it myself. But I still remember the first time I flew a 747 inverted under the Golden Gate bridge, just to see if it could be done, or landing and taking off again from Meigs Field in that same 747. Realistic? Who cares? The same version of MSFS that allowed me to do that taught me to use the ILS landing system (eventually did it with a 200 foot ceiling) and taught me the proper techniques to climb high enough in the Cessna after taking off from Meigs to fly between the antennas on the John Hancock building, then turn and fly between the towers on top of the Sears building. You probably remember the excitement of those days.

 

Microsoft was trying to attract new gamers to flight simming, and from what we could see it appeared to be working. Not all serious simmers were happy with this, but every new convert was a potential customer for a lot of third party add-ons down the road. I think even some of those third party developers overlooked that. New people would eventually want more, and they'd migrate to XPlane, because it was similar to Flight, or to FSX because it offered a lot of features.

 

It's unfortunate that they pulled the plug on Flight, but it's a sure bet that it wasn't for the reasons that are so obvious to the serious simmers. For example, it seems like an obvious thing to do to include the free portion of Microsoft Flight on every Windows 8 desktop install CD set, even if development on Flight stopped. When I brought this up in the beta forum, I was told that "it would take at least a year to convert Flight to run on RT(? the mobile version of Win 8)." The implications of that are a bit frightening.

 

Hook

When I brought this up in the beta forum, I was told that "it would take at least a year to convert Flight to run on RT(? the mobile version of Win 8)." The implications of that are a bit frightening.

 

I will still try to install / run it on my Win8 Pro setup as soon as I find the opportunity

I will still try to install / run it on my Win8 Pro setup as soon as I find the opportunity

 

No one said it wouldn't run on Win 8, far as I know, and others have reported running it. That's not the problem.

 

Are the install disks identical for a desktop or a mobile install?

 

Hook

I never did try Flight, for several reasons. Mainly because for some reason, I just couldn't get Windows Live to work, so it wouldn't install. Even if I could get it to work, it would have probably just been a novelty. I recognize the advancements that were made to the flight simulator engine, and can appreciate why some of you really enjoyed it. I just couldn't get past the DLC model. If they had the entire world in a bland, stock format and offered more highly detailed airports and areas as options to buy, then I might have been willing to give them a pass.

 

But all this is water under the bridge now. It's cool that there were a lot of people getting into it that wouldn't otherwise "play" a flight simulator. I just have to go by my own experience in trying to bring it to the masses. I've got really nice screenshots from X-Plane and FSX as wallpaper on some of the computers I use at work. I've been asked about them, and when I tried to explain where they came from, more often than not, the reaction was "Sounds pretty boring unless you're into that sort of thing." A few of them are avid CoD players, based on their enthusiastic AAR's they share with one another at the start of each day.

 

Yeah, I fondly remember my own barnstorming days. And... heh... I guess enough time has passed where I can admit this now. Back when VATSIM was SATCO, I was notorious for constantly buzzing the tower at O'Hare. I'm sure it ###### a lot of people who were trying to be serious about their procedures, but I never failed to get a chuckle when Squawkbox would blow up with "WHO DID THAT!?!?" But how long can that be fun? People nowadays tend to get bored way too quickly. I see this a lot in my other guilty pleasure, MMORPGS. Most come with a free month, and a majority of the players will play that month and get bored with the game. Like clockwork, whenever the billing cycle rolls around for the next month, the server populations hemorrhage.

 

In flight simming, even handflying GA could be seen as boring eventually. Maybe some will find that inner pilot waiting to come out, and who knows, they might even get involved in a VA or FSE to try to give context to their flying. Unfortunately, I just don't see the percentages being all that great. At the risk of sounding elitist, simmers are a different breed. We tend to have more patience, an above average intelligence, and a better tolerance for what mainstream gaming would call "dated graphics". I'm not saying other gamers are stupid or anything, but you have to agree that it takes a little horsepower in the brain pan to be able to digest the manuals for some of the more complex payware out there. Not to mention the maths involved in long distance flight planning, fuel and descent calculations, etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, I really DO wish more people would get on board with simming. More people equals more paying customers equals more development capital. I'm just a bit more pessimistic about it.

We need to befriend a rich oil tycoon from Dubai who likes flight simming...

or sleep with him :lol: ......who said that? wasn't me!

or sleep with him :lol: ......who said that? wasn't me!

 

Do we have ourselves a volunteer? Hahahahahahaha

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Do we have ourselves a volunteer? Hahahahahahaha

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Rich Oil Dude + Dubai= Hell yah! :lol: I'll take one for the team "The FS11 New Dev Team"

I really DO wish more people would get on board with simming.

 

Analyze what the original Microsoft Flight Simulator did, and why people liked it. Then imagine what you would have to do to duplicate that experience and that feeling for modern gamers. Then compare that to what Microsoft did with Flight.

 

If you want to get your coworkers attention, replace your current wallpaper and screen savers with screen shots of an airliner flying inverted under a bridge or a GA aircraft parked on top of a water tower. Use your imagination.

 

Hook

Analyze what the original Microsoft Flight Simulator did, and why people liked it. Then imagine what you would have to do to duplicate that experience and that feeling for modern gamers. Then compare that to what Microsoft did with Flight.

 

If you want to get your coworkers attention, replace your current wallpaper and screen savers with screen shots of an airliner flying inverted under a bridge or a GA aircraft parked on top of a water tower. Use your imagination.

 

Hook

 

I could try, but considering where I work, if the environs aren't enough to pique curiosity, a screenshot won't be. We build airplanes. Ones with lots of 7's in their names. B)

Analyze what the original Microsoft Flight Simulator did, and why people liked it. Then imagine what you would have to do to duplicate that experience and that feeling for modern gamers. Then compare that to what Microsoft did with Flight.

 

If you want to get your coworkers attention, replace your current wallpaper and screen savers with screen shots of an airliner flying inverted under a bridge or a GA aircraft parked on top of a water tower. Use your imagination.

 

Hook

I started up MS Flight yesterday after not touching it for over 6months and it was great! the graphics and flight models were awesome! But I kept getting that annoying "Key is invalid" error trying to log into LIVE :( :angry:

 

Do we have ourselves a volunteer? Hahahahahahaha

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

actually forget the Oil Tycoon, better Austin so I can get those damn snow textures and moving clouds from him :lol: :LMAO:

actually forget the Oil Tycoon, better Austin so I can get those damn snow textures and moving clouds from him :lol: :LMAO:

 

I'm just gonna leave this right here...

 

I'm just gonna leave this right here...

 

:LMAO: No Comment :lol:

it's great that the Avsim membership is comprised of RW pilots and manufacturing people, along with those of us who perhaps once flew RW or still do, and still others who dream of doing so before we depart this world. The intellectual analysis of our hobby, and what it 'takes' to build the better mousetrap has proven rife with good ideas on how to grow the business and attract new pilots.

 

I discovered AVSIM when I was first starting out with FSX because I had no clue how to program the FMC, and I was having a devil of a time landing the large airplanes. I also tried finding answers on YouTube. Somehow I discovered AVSIM and a couple other online resources, and the rest is all too familiar to so many of us.

 

I guess what enamors me about XPlane is that it offers 'the golden carrot' (hope). There is HOPE that we will see something that ultimately brings our enjoyment up to previously unimaginable altitudes. Our hope is tempered, however, by fear. Our fear that Austin and Company may succumb to the legal morass that now threatens them, thus depriving us of something amazing and wonderful - the continual metamorphosis of XPlane into something several levels superior in every way to FSX. That won't happen in a short time frame, it is a very challenging task, and needs a lot of brainpower to happen.

 

Someone postulated a huge company might swallow up XPlane, which cuts several ways. The danger of stunted development - the danger of dropping the project completely - and the inertia that is a natural part of decision by committee. Extremely deep pockets can make rapid development POSSIBLE, but loss of direction is not only a threat, but a realistic probability when big companies come to the invention arena.

 

One need look no further than Lockheed Martin to see that BIG RESOURCES don't equal BIG IMPROVEMENT in a platform. I can't see a huge difference in P3D vs. FSX. If nothing else, you would think that LM would have at minimum made P3D available in 64 bits. The fact that this did not occur only reinforces the reality that building a better mousetrap is no small challenge.

Investing in X-Plane10 makes all sense!

 

I look forward for good news in the next months, both from LR, but also from 3pds finally turning their attention to XP10 :-)