The Dream Sim - How Ethical Is It?

[Joe Flyer2 3]

Hi Everyone!

 

Whether it be to late or not, there always is time to answer, or at the least ponder, the following question:

 

"What would my dream sim be like?"

 

For the simple...

What would you want in it? How you want it to work with your system? How complex do you really want it to get? And in comparison to modern technological advancements... how ethical is it?

 

For the computer professionals...

How would you want the integrated code to manipulate the system? What are some key points of optimization?

 

 

But most importantly, whether DoveTail makes something half decent, or whether a company comes out of the shadows with an unimaginably beautiful sim, how much should we rely on them? Would it be a good idea to hire an experimental community of coders (with previous flight simulation experience) to help these companies add to the sims?

 

 

I know it sounds like pure speculation, but that is not what I am asking of you. I genuinely want to hear your opinions. And not so much opinions actually, but, rather, more like visions. I am tired of so many companies coming out with amazing concepts... with overpowering cons. With that said, I ask you... what is a dream sim in your perspective?

 

What do you think is the future of Flight Simulation? 

[EngineRoom 205]

The key to the success of the MSFS series was it's accessibility and scalability. You could pick it up in any number of retailers from the same shelf that had all the other popular PC games. Once you got it home you had a fairly well polished and featured simulator that was an excellent starting point you could pursue further if you wished. With the MSFS series the user could turn it into pretty much anything they wanted, flying almost any type of aircraft they wanted, anywhere they wanted and with as much complexity as they wanted.

 

A modernised MSFS would be the ideal sim for me - both accessible for newcomers and scalable and flexible enough for the user to tailor it to their own particular tastes or interests.

 

The future of flight simulation? I'm not terribly optimistic. X-Plane is extremely promising and has huge potential. However, it's pace of development is glacial and popular user requested features are still missing with no hope of seeing then any time soon (if at all). It also suffers hugely from a chicken and egg situation with addons - there's not enough users to support the kind of addon industry that MSFS supports, and there's not enough users because there aren't enough addons to attract them. As much as I want X-Plane to really take off in a big way I think I'm ultimately going to be left disappointed.

 

P3D is also troubling for me. It's not a consumer level platform. We aren't the intended customer or user, which leads me to believe ultimately development of P3D will not go down the path that we the flight sim hobbyists would like. I'm also left increasingly concerned at the licensing situation and the implications it's having on the pricing of addons. The licensing and availability of P3D, along with the pricing structure followed by some of the more popular addon developers is I think raising the bar for entry into the hobby, and that I think is a fundamentally bad thing for the future of the hobby.

 

FSX soldiers on but we are increasingly butting up against the limitations of the platform now. FSX will be around for many years to come, but I think we've taken the platform as far as it's likely to go and there will be no more "wow" advances in the complexity or features of addons going forward.

 

I can only guess at where Terminal Reality would be with Fly! now had Richard Harvey not passed away. Now there was a platform that really was ahead of its time. Other than that I can only say I'd really like to see what could be made in terms of a simulator in the same vein as the Flight Unlimited series with today's hardware. That would most definitely be worth checking out.

[gmoneyprs 2]

Sorry if I missed it but what does ethics have to do with this?

[WotanUK 289]

 

 

However, it's pace of development is glacial and popular user requested features are still missing with no hope of seeing then any time soon (if at all). It also suffers hugely from a chicken and egg situation with addons - there's not enough users to support the kind of addon industry that MSFS supports, and there's not enough users because there aren't enough addons to attract them.

 

A excellent series of comments and for the most part i echo them; however it has to be said that the add-on situation is getting much better and may improve even further when PMDG start releasing in anger on the platform.  The slow place of development bothers me as well, it can't be said that the developer doesn't update the platform, it's just they appear to concentrate on things that nobody is asking for (at least in my opinion).  It seems like they have a similar philosophy to LM and P3D, they are a serious commercial platform and the rest of us can complain but if we don't like it we can head for the door.

 

 

 

I'm also left increasingly concerned at the licensing situation and the implications it's having on the pricing of addons.

 

+100  Entirely agree.  What bothered me of late is the position PMDG have taken and perhaps more worrying the position of VRS, i don't even own the Superbug, but i can't help but think it signifies things to come. 

 

I won't directly comment on your other statements, i agree with them.

 

To add my two pence, i often think that people on here over look DCS World, i know that it's constrained by its small area and military focus, but i think that once DCS W2 is released we might start seeing more interest.  I am still waiting for a PMDG C5... 

[jeroen79 0]

 

 

And in comparison to modern technological advancements... how ethical is it?

What do you mean by this? What do ethics have to do with flight simulation?

 

 

Would it be a good idea to hire an experimental community of coders (with previous flight simulation experience) to help these companies add to the sims?

Hmm, how would you organize that?

 

I'm sure that there have been wishlist-topics before.

In my opinion the most important thing would be that the simulation is designed as a platform that is open to other developers who can expand the sim.

[EngineRoom 205]

the add-on situation is getting much better and may improve even further when PMDG start releasing in anger on the platform

 

You may very well be right. A PMDG release for XP would increase the platform's exposure tremendously. If there's going to be a problem it's in PMDG's choice of first aircraft. Whilst a DC-6 would be of interest to me, it's not a Boeing or Airbus which apparently have such a big following in flight simulation. PMDG are testing the XP waters with what is perhaps a poor choice of aircraft.

 

Which kind of brings me on to my next thought about XP. Right now it's on the verge of becoming the best GA platform - but it needs a big improvement in its weather engine. It will take quite a lot more to make it a truly viable platform for simulating IFR or airliner flying - namely high altitude visibility (coming in 10.40 I know), and major improvements in ATC and AI.

 

I think everyone who has seen XP in action with some of the more recent addons is suitably impressed by just how good the platform could be... but it's a hugely frustrating sim to follow. It's just missing those last few key features that are holding it back from being truly great.

 

 

 

What bothered me of late is the position PMDG have taken and perhaps more worrying the position of VRS

 

It's not a good sign for the future. PMDG were always pushing the boundaries of pricing, so I didn't really expect anything else from them. What surprised me is VRS' charging a whopping $110 for the P3D TacPack and F/A-18E, with no discount for owners of the FSX versions and making it available for P3D Academic licenses only. It's a worrying trend for sure.

 

 

 

i often think that people on here over look DCS World

 

Absolutely agree with you here. I won't just say DCS World, but the entire combat flight sim genre which I think is also facing a similarly uncertain future. What's been achieved with DCS I think is quite remarkable - the idea of a platform that modules install into has been the Holy Grail of combat flight sims for at least 25 years now and it's becoming a reality.

 

The concerns here I have are two-fold:

 

i) The slow, slow pace of development. EDGE has been in the works now for how many years? And it still seems like it's a long way off yet until we see DCS World 2.0

 

ii) Content. We've had the same map for something like seven years now, and even that grew out of the map that Eagle Dynamics' old Flanker series had going all the way back to 1995. How on Earth is there no Korea or Middle East theatre to fly in after so long? Why on Earth don't we have a high fidelity fast mover in the sim yet? It's crying out for one! Finally the actual modules themselves are pretty eclectic and represent quite a hodge-podge of stuff that doesn't really fit together. We've got some WW2 stuff but no WW2 theatre to fly them in. We've got some Korean War stuff but no Korean War theatre to fly them in. We've got a Russian attack helicopter that was only produced in small numbers and saw limited service, we've got the very latest version of the A-10 but the plane set in the only available theatre is about 15 years out of date for the A-10C.

 

Yes the content has been of excellent quality, but there seems to be no overall plan or direction to bring it all together in a complementary way. My concern is we end up with what essentially is a superbly detailed interactive technology demonstrator for an eclectic mix of aircraft from many nations and eras, yet never brings them together in a cohesive, historical context.

 

In the wider combat flight sim genre I think the release of IL-2 Cliffs of Dover was disastrous and did huge amounts of damage to the genre. Likewise last year's IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad turned into a mess as well. I think we're going to see a backlash from the community with Battle of Moscow, the pre-order for which has become available in the last few days and is already fuelling lots of very negative and angry posts across various fora. How these Russian developers just keep getting it so horribly wrong is something I really can't get my head around. The latest iterations of Over Flanders Fields are superb, but I'm again somewhat concerned by the price now attached to them.

 

On the positive side guys like Team Fusion are turning Cliffs of Dover into the sim it was supposed to have been. Likewise the recent release of the Community Unified Patch for IL-2 1946 shows once again the talent and dedication that exists within the community.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

What surprised me is VRS' charging a whopping $110 for the P3D TacPack and F/A-18E, with no discount for owners of the FSX versions and making it available for P3D Academic licenses only. It's a worrying trend for sure.

 

There's much speculation on that, and of course no-one really knows, but it's very possible that VRS has slightly different concerns than many developers, both in competing with their own training products, as well as competing with P3D's training products.  It's disappointing to see the higher prices, but not totally unexpected.

[LHookins 3,102]

I realized a year ago that I was already flying my dream sim.  It had the kinds of aircraft I wanted to fly and I could fly them anywhere, navigating only by real world charts with attractive and sometimes very realistic scenery most places I fly.  And I could enhance the scenery with additional purchases if I wished. 

 

Fly a Stearman biplane with full shadows both inside the cockpit and out, real world weather with attractive and reasonably realistic clouds that cast shadows, weather updated online.  No need for a GPS or radio navaids; the terrain matches real world charts.  Fly a plane that has nav radios and I may need to go through Plan G to make flight plans to be sure of getting the correct frequencies, but that's not a big deal.

 

Could it be better?  Sure.  It would be nice if all aircraft were up to the detail standards of A2A, but I can fly the A2A planes too when I want to fly that kind of plane.  Some terrain detail is lower than it could be, but that's usually solvable by buying terrain, and I haven't found that necessary.  We've come so far since Bruce Artwick's flight sim on the Apple 2 that I'm already in heaven.

 

Is it bad that P3D is a professional level sim?  Not a bit.  The best simulator I've used, hands down, is the Steel Beasts tank sim which was designed and developed specifically for training purposes by the world's military, and several countries use it.  They let us hobbyists go along for the ride, for a price.  I've been a tank crewman in real life, and that sim is the closest I ever want to get to being inside a real tank ever again.

 

As for "how ethical is it?", I'm gonna guess that it was a "headline" to get more people to read the thread. 

 

Let's go fly.

 

Hook

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

I realized a year ago that I was already flying my dream sim. It had the kinds of aircraft I wanted to fly and I could fly them anywhere, navigating only by real world charts with attractive and sometimes very realistic scenery most places I fly. And I could enhance the scenery with additional purchases if I wished.

~snip~

 

Very, very well put. Thumbs up to you, sir!

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi,

 

My dream sim is actually becoming a reality (B737NG - should be online in a few months) thanks to Flight Deck Solutions.

[Joe Flyer2 3]

I agree with many things that everyone has said. By "how ethical is it..." that was not a marketing plot . I was asking it in literal terms, but let me reword it:

 

By "how ethical is it," I am asking you this:
 

Is you idea feasible to companies? Would companies be willing to produce it, or at least follow the path of what the community wants (like X-Plane)? Would the time and money amounts that are necessary also be feasible?

 

Apparently, the "is it ethical" part was not as important as I originally anticipated ^_^.

 

 

Thanks,

Joe N  

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Joe,

 

Since my sim components are slotted to begin production the end of April by Flight Deck Solutions, I can say for sure companies are and have produced cockpit parts made for the sole purpose of flight simulation. So the answer to question one: Is you idea feasible to companies? the answer is yes...  Since FDS and other manufacturers make sim components, the answer to your second question is also yes "Would companies be willing to produce it". Your next question, in regards to the path of simmers... Software such as Sim-Avionics, ProSim737, iFly- cockpit ver, FSUIPC and other software addons already make this possible.

 

As far as time and funding for such a project as being feasible, that is dependant on ones financial situation. For me it's feasible, for others it's not.

 

 

I agree with many things that everyone has said. By "how ethical is it..." that was not a marketing plot . I was asking it in literal terms, but let me reword it:

 

By "how ethical is it," I am asking you this:
 

Is you idea feasible to companies? Would companies be willing to produce it, or at least follow the path of what the community wants (like X-Plane)? Would the time and money amounts that are necessary also be feasible?

 

Apparently, the "is it ethical" part was not as important as I originally anticipated ^_^.

 

 

Thanks,

Joe N  

[EngineRoom 205]

I think we've maybe seen the end of the flight simulator as a purely consumer level product.

 

Think back to the 80s and 90s when flight sims were among the most sophisticated pieces of software available for home computers. They were often used as technological showcases for the games publishers. Through the 90's we the flight simmers demanded ever better graphics, more features, higher fidelity. The effect of this was the products took longer to develop, cost more money and appealed to an increasingly smaller customer base as they became less accessible.

 

Unsurprisingly the bottom fell out of the industry when the publishers realised they could make a lot more money a lot more quickly by pursuing other genres. This happened quite dramatically in the combat flight sim genre and the civil flight simulator followed some years later.

 

Nowadays the genre for the most part is piggy backing off the commercial or professional training market - P3D being the most obvious example. However, DCS, X-Plane and even good old FSX all have closely related platforms which are made for the professional training market. The only flight sims currently in development which are not linked to the commercial training market are 1C/777 Studios' IL-2 Battle of Moscow and whatever Dove Tail have in the works.

 

The rather shambolic way in which IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad was foisted upon the market left me immensely disappointed. The developers gave us what was fundamentally a good platform but somehow missed the point, totally screwed up the content and became locked in an increasingly acrimonious dispute with their customer base. I think Battle of Stalingrad was the last chance for the genre to continue with products made for the hobbyist/enthusiast and has failed because of the short sight and intransigence of its developers.

 

It's quite clear now that the flight simulation hobby market is too fragmented, too tribal, and too demanding to make it commercially viable for somebody to make a totally new platform. This means we will continue to piggy back off the professional market, and the priorities and direction of development may not always be commensurate with what we as hobbyists might want.

 

The shenanigans that are going on with licensing for both P3D and its addons are I believe the worst thing to happen to flight simming in a long time. I think we are raising the bar for entry into the hobby, we are making it less accessible and more expensive. The rise of the flight simming elitists, who now seem to be the most vocal segment of the community and seem to expect everybody else must dance to their tune is also damaging to the grass roots. Without a steady influx of new flight simmers the hobby is unustainable and will eventually wither.

 

Unless something very fundamental changes soon I fear this rather gloomy outlook is where we are headed.

 

The change I think needs to happen is we need to break down the barriers between the combat flight sim community and the civil flight sim community. Neither is big enough to be commercially viable to produce a totally new platform, but together we just might present enough of a customer base to offer a viable ROI for someone to make a new platform. In other words the two genres need to meet.

[tttocs 301]

 

 

If there's going to be a problem it's in PMDG's choice of first aircraft. Whilst a DC-6 would be of interest to me, it's not a Boeing or Airbus which apparently have such a big following in flight simulation. PMDG are testing the XP waters with what is perhaps a poor choice of aircraft.

 

They (PMDG) have addressed this a number of times.  The XP DC-6 project isn't intended to be a marketing/sales test, it's simply a convenient development sandbox using a partially completed project which made for a good starting point. They're not testing to see how big the market for their planes is in XP (I think they already have a fair idea of that).

 

They already know the plane appeals to a limited audience and the success of the project - and porting of future planes - does not depend on how well the DC-6 sells.

 

Scott

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

It's quite clear now that the flight simulation hobby market is too fragmented, too tribal, and too demanding to make it commercially viable for somebody to make a totally new platform.

 

And yet, if you search 'flight sim' on the App Store, you come up with hundreds of small (mostly crap) flying games.  Also worth noting is that both Elite:Dangerous and Star Citizen are 'flying' sims. What this says to me is that there is a market for flying games, it's just not the one that the average 'serious' simmer is interested in. 

 

Driving sims are still around and quite popular, but they have an advantage in that the jump from 'arcade' to 'serious simulation' is very small.  Meaning, that a player can easily get interested in the arcade-y games, and then transition very easily to games that take themselves far more serious.  There isn't a large knowledge hurdle to overcome, it's still steering, braking, and shifting, and trying not to hit stuff.

 

At one time, flight sims were the same.  I recall being quite taken with various combat flight sims whose graphics could be considered crude by todays standards, but that could be easily flown and controlled with the keyboard.  Realism was minimal, but the barrier to entry was very low. Nowadays, it takes me an hour or so at best just to set up my hardware for a newly purchased aircraft.  Add that to time spent perusing manuals and information on how to actually start the thing, or approach speeds, or what-have-you. I would not consider that a low barrier to entry, and that's not even considering the cost.

 

In a way, in our never-ending quest for realism, we've narrowed our own little area of the sim world to a point where it's hard for newcomers to gain entry, and it's expensive for developers to bring products to market.

 

Sadly, MS Flight, for all of it's short comings, would of been a great stepping stone into a wider sim world.  It provided an easy path to entry, an easy to control without a yoke or stick flight model, and a game-like structure for newcomers that are conditioned to a world where games have never-ending goals and achievements.

 

Everyone shouted 'but it's not what I wanted', while missing the fact that ultimately it would of been great for the wider flight sim community as a whole.