Every once in awhile I feel compelled to emerge from the woodwork and air something which nags me. This is one of those times.Remember the good ol' days when the FU III and FLY! II developers would pop in and answer questions regarding their products (before and after release)? Richard Harvey, Peter James, and several others come to mind. Heck, nowdays it's pretty standard for a game company to host forums which are at the very least moderated by a liason who has close connections with the dev team.For some reason, MS doesn't seem to practice this (or am I mistaken?). I can only assume that this is because 1) being a corporation, they intend to keep developers under strict control to maximize efficiency 2) their customer base is already established, and nothing would be gained from shmoozing with the hardcore fans. Maybe it doesn't bother you guys, but I personally feel snubbed by a company which ignores a loyal fanbase such as ours!What do you guys think?Regards,CarlKATL

They're just playing hard to get. Give them some stiff competition and they'll soon come out to play ;)Gary

They do read the forums (probably more than we know), but I believe they are under strict company policy not to comment. I think it's a good thing. The last thing they need to do is get caught up in half the little squawbles that take place here.

It is posted on the MSFS website why the developers don't post in any forums. It does say that they do read the forums at least.

How do you know they don't post here ;)Dan.

What you are asking for, in a way, is one-on-one support from MS. It isn't ever going to happen, because of the sheer size of the customer base. However, from my experience with the MS MVP program, (pre-flightsim!) you get the next best thing -- access to a number of dedicated users, some of which are in direct contact with MS through the MVP program, and I assume similar programs, such as beta programs.As a MS Publisher MVP for a few years, I was amazed at the support I received from MS to help me help other users. They do understand the gulf separating their users, and try real hard to fill it. I guess there are some flightsim MVPs -- maybe they could raise their hands here -- but from experience MVPs have their own support sites and forums.From a development point of view, I dunno how many hardcore fans are involved in the betas, but I would guess a lot. Of course, that differs from the MVP program -- MVPs tend to promote themselves, whereas beta testers are subject to strict NDAs.Check out the MVP program: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

>It is posted on the MSFS website why the developers don't>post in any forums. It does say that they do read the forums>at least.I must have missed that. Specifically, which website are you referring to? I didn't find any mention of avsim or posting to forums on the microsoft.com FS2004 page.Edit: Scratch that, found the page (FS2002)http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...02_readback.asp

I'm not really looking for one-on-one support. Just a post every once in awhile on a prominent forum, such as this one. I don't think that is too much to ask for, as it's pretty much standard operating procedure at the smaller game companies. I've noticed that EA also keeps its developers isolated from the online community, although not to the extent that MS does.

Unfortunately though, that is almost certainly what would happen...There's always going to be a number of folks that would be calling out to the Microsoft guys for help everytime something doesn't appear to be working, and probably for the majority of the time, it would be a 'problem' caused by third-party addon ons anyway! There may also be one or two individuals that would relish the chance to give 'em a tough time and abuse; look how excitable some people got when there was no sign of the patch that they seemed to feel was a necessity to use the sim (Ok, it fixed a few minor issues and added a few enhancements, but there's a lot of people happily using FS9.0, and not 9.1). Once the patch was announced, well, I think the racket being made would have driven any Microsoft spokesperson away for ever!! Imagine the pestering they'd get over that old chestnut "Will there be an FS10?"......Having said that though, I must admit, it could be interesting to have an 'official' voice here periodically, just as it is when developers pop into other hardware/gaming forums, or host forums on their own websites.

It was posted that Fly! and other sim manufacturers posted in forums.The difference is that these were companies where such a descision could be made from the top.MSFS is a tiny part of a huge company and are under a broader net where political descisions are made on their behalf.There would be no benefit to Microsoft from having such dialogues.They "probably" have a lot of the more prominent and expert forum members in their beta anyway and again probably do read some of the comments to pick up on ideas and wish patterns.There would be no benefit into getting into purile chats as was displayed in the 767 PIC forum a few weeks ago.Peter

Another major factor is that it would almost immediately degenerate into a huge flamewar with a small group of idiots bombarding the Microsoft people with abuse and absurd demands.This is why the PSS forum went to moderated standard a few years ago when their staff experienced the same thing, any Microsoft employee making himself known here would encounter far worse than PSS ever did.Microsoft does have dialogue with users and addon developers but don't expect anyone who has such talks to report on them as they'll be under contract not to.

Well I don

Hello Carl,The members of the Flight Simulator Development Team do participate in the fora here at AvSim, and perhaps at other enthusiast sites as well, although I do not visit any other so cannot confirm.They do not identify themselves as such when posting, but use pseudonyms, probably for some of the reasons mentioned above.Tom Allensworth has mentioned and confirmed this numerous times as well.Best regards.Luis

>Tom Allensworth has mentioned and confirmed this numerous times as well

Luis, that's a true statement. The MS Team even mentioned in the recent video that we reported on that they visit AVSIM and monitor the input from users here. The best indication of their participation here is when you meet them at the AVSIM Conference. They will readily state that they visit the forums here daily to keep on top of what's happening in the flight simming community. One of their graphics developers has confessed that he loves the screen shot forum and visit there frequently to get ideas. :)