DTG: What would you like to see in a new Flight Simulator?

[HiFlyer 9,358]

Because when there's too much breadth then there's practically no depth. 

 

I'm not sure thats true now, if it ever was. Sometimes we can be locked on the capabilities and technology of FSX, with little appreciation of how far the rest of the world has advanced, and what's possible now. Especially if rather than being welded on later, such capabilities are kept in mind when creating the base program in the first place. If MSFLIGHT is what they are working with, (to whatever extent) I think there's lots of room for growth.

[codechris 9]

When I looked the other day, I didn't see the two Flight vacancies on their job page http://www.dovetailgames.com/vacancies/2014/sep/15/senior-producer

 

And they do stat explicitly, as someone stated earlier "...develop and publish all-new flight products based on Microsoft's genre defining flight technology and will distribute the multi-award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition through our ongoing relationship with Valve"

 

So it is built on FSX, I think we can call that confirmed. Considering the 2 vacancies are producer and artist, it doesn't look like they are looking to convert to 64 bit, and if they are, they're already working there (it must be hard to try and get developers to work in their Chatham office as a side thought). I would hedge a bet the core won't be adjusted much, if at all. I mean, Lockheed Martin have a lot more money, and no real word on 64bit from them, yet, so, I guess we're going to have to wait and see. Maybe a lot shiner, DLC missions, DLC scenery partnerships like Orbx etc... I wonder if Dovetail knew the state of FSX before they went down this path

 

But to the previous discussion on combined sims; TS is Unreal engine, Fishing is Unreal as well, you couldn't combine FS in there unless they built a new FS on the Unreal engine...that's probably a 3-5 year dev cycle. I think a combined sim is far too complex, it would be HUGE in size. And as to the GTA 5 comments...yes GTA 5 is stunning on PC, but they have a huge development team, of very very skilled developers, earning, one would expect, a good pay packet. Rockstar made a billion from console release alone, PC is going to add a nice extra pot to that as well. They can afford it. Dovetail is not Rockstar

[mgh 89]

 

 

And they do stat explicitly, as someone stated earlier "...develop and publish all-new flight products based on Microsoft's genre defining flight technology and will distribute the multi-award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition through our ongoing relationship with Valve"

 

DTG carefully avoids saying which platform its new simulation will be based. There's a carefully placed "and" in that sentence.

 

 

 

Rockstar made a billion from console release alone, PC is going to add a nice extra pot to that as well.

 

GTA V sold 11.21 million units in its first 24 hours, and generated revenue of $815.7 million, reaching  $1 billion in just just three days.

[codechris 9]

DTG carefully avoids saying which platform its new simulation will be based. There's a carefully placed "and" in that sentence.

 

 

GTA V sold 11.21 million units in its first 24 hours, and generated revenue of $815.7 million, reaching  $1 billion in just just three days.

 

That's true actually, careful wording. And 1 Billion in 3 days is insane. The development costs must have been huge I expect, it's a pretty big team, but with sales after that, plus PC, they really pulled in a tonne of cash. I do wonder if physics development for flight is a lot more complicated then GTA physics programming. Since they are not going for realism per-se. I don't think anyone drives a car in GTA and compares that to real life. Flight sim is a lot different in that respect, but then we don't demand the graphics they have in GTA. Different priorities

[HiFlyer 9,358]

DTG carefully avoids saying which platform its new simulation will be based. There's a carefully placed "and" in that sentence.

 

They have been about as coy as you can possibly be.

 

I do wonder if physics development for flight is a lot more complicated then GTA physics programming. Since they are not going for realism per-se. I don't think anyone drives a car in GTA and compares that to real life. Flight sim is a lot different in that respect, but then we don't demand the graphics they have in GTA. Different priorities

 

I can't see why DTG would see the need to reinvent that particular wheel, and if that's what they intended to do, why buy rights to fsx/flight? More likely they will use the established libraries from the older sim (and flight) which is probably the only thing allowing them to estimate such a short time to release. I know FLIGHT was pushed out the door by using a lot of off-the shelf stuff: Trees from speedtree, collision detection and maybe physics from Havok......

 

The credits for FLIGHT went on for page after page and mentioned a lot of companies and a ginormous amount of people involved. It was apparently an enormous effort.

 

Look at this!  :blink:  :blink:  :blink:  https://www.microsoft.com/games/mgsgamecatalog/flightpccredits.aspx

 

Why recreate all that? I would suspect a re-packaging with additional capabilities and art assets..... essentially an expansion and improvement of FLIGHT

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

When I looked the other day, I didn't see the two Flight vacancies on their job page http://www.dovetailgames.com/vacancies/2014/sep/15/senior-producer

 

And they do stat explicitly, as someone stated earlier "...develop and publish all-new flight products based on Microsoft's genre defining flight technology and will distribute the multi-award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition through our ongoing relationship with Valve"

 

So it is built on FSX, I think we can call that confirmed. Considering the 2 vacancies are producer and artist, it doesn't look like they are looking to convert to 64 bit, and if they are, they're already working there (it must be hard to try and get developers to work in their Chatham office as a side thought). I would hedge a bet the core won't be adjusted much, if at all. I mean, Lockheed Martin have a lot more money, and no real word on 64bit from them, yet, so, I guess we're going to have to wait and see. Maybe a lot shiner, DLC missions, DLC scenery partnerships like Orbx etc... I wonder if Dovetail knew the state of FSX before they went down this path

 

But to the previous discussion on combined sims; TS is Unreal engine, Fishing is Unreal as well, you couldn't combine FS in there unless they built a new FS on the Unreal engine...that's probably a 3-5 year dev cycle. I think a combined sim is far too complex, it would be HUGE in size. And as to the GTA 5 comments...yes GTA 5 is stunning on PC, but they have a huge development team, of very very skilled developers, earning, one would expect, a good pay packet. Rockstar made a billion from console release alone, PC is going to add a nice extra pot to that as well. They can afford it. Dovetail is not Rockstar

 

 

It's based on Microsoft Flight, not the FSX engine. (even tho the two are of course linked, but the Flight engine should be at least better optimized).

I don't think we can judge their project based on some random people they are looking for. I also doubt we are gonna see everyone they have working for them based on what they ask for on their site.

 

The fact that LM has a lot of money doesn't mean they invest the majority of it in this project. I think P3D is quite marginal to them as a project.

 

And comparing GTA 5 to flight sims is nonsense i think. Sure, beautiful graphics, still a small map, without a lot of calculations sims have. Just, no point comparing. Same for when people were asking flight simulator to use the Cryengine just because the graphics looked pretty in it

 

DTG carefully avoids saying which platform its new simulation will be based. There's a carefully placed "and" in that sentence.

 

 

 

 

GTA V sold 11.21 million units in its first 24 hours, and generated revenue of $815.7 million, reaching  $1 billion in just just three days.

 

They said on facebook they will use the Microsoft Flight (as in, the game, not the series) engine.

[mgh 89]

 

 

They said on facebook they will use the Microsoft Flight (as in, the game, not the series) engine.

 

Have you a link to that page?

[HiFlyer 9,358]

And comparing GTA 5 to flight sims is nonsense i think. Sure, beautiful graphics, still a small map, without a lot of calculations sims have. Just, no point comparing. Same for when people were asking flight simulator to use the Cryengine just because the graphics looked pretty in it

 

I don't think anyone is expecting a new flight sim to look like GTA. Rather what people are doing is pointing out how far graphics have come, and the amazing things that can be done as opposed to what we are using now. I think what most of the people in those threads want is a sim that doesn't look like pong to new users accustomed to modern graphics engines, and incorporates some features that have somehow become anathema in the serious sim world, like damage models, collisions, and military planes that actually do military type things.

[codechris 9]

Yes GTA is very different, along with Battlefield and the like for that matter, the maps are small in comparison and so a lot of effort can be made. However, my comparison was more to do with money & profit and development teams & talent pool. Realism is not part of GTA at all, other then basic movement.

 

To be fair, I don't think FSX looks that bad, admittedly it takes a few add-ons to achieve that, but it's more optimisation and use of hardware that's the issue. And that is real game development, nitty gritty system development. And realistically, what we seam to be asking, ATC and prettier graphics out the box aside, is probably the hardest task. But, if Flight had better use of hardware over FSX, then they've got that to begin with. I'm sure there is a lot of improvements that can be made in code which would make our sim lives better, without updating to 64 bit. I mean, P3D has had good improvements and it's not been out that long, and as you mention, it's a small product for them with probably a pretty small team.

 

Also, speaking on 64 bit, since that seams to be the one issue most bring up. Am I right in thinking FSX (possible Flight and P3D) are not multithreaded? So they only use 1 core? Or are they multi-threaded applications?

[mgh 89]

Rather what people are doing is pointing out how far graphics have come, and the amazing things that can be done as opposed to what we are using now....

 

How much did it cost to develop GTA V in relation to its sales? DTG are not going to get anything like 11M sales in the first day, so how much can DTG  spend on its development - a lot less? I can help feel that people postiing the enhancements they expect  are are going to be disappointed.

[fullmetal02 23]

And the flight sim community will have to be combined into another wider community for survival. The sim community is too small for the presumably large upfront devopment costs.

[HiFlyer 9,358]

How much did it cost to develop GTA V in relation to its sales? DTG are not going to get anything like 11M sales in the first day, so how much can DTG  spend on its development - a lot less? I can help feel that people postiing the enhancements they expect  are are going to be disappointed.

 

Thats a possibility, but they did ask, so whats the point of holding back in our answers?

 

As far as DTGs budget, lets just say I think its larger than X-planes and probably much larger than P3Ds as well. How many people are working on P3D? about 14?.

 

DTG is a vibrant, ambitious and rapidly growing company that laid out a respectable chunk of change for the rights from microsoft, and this isnt a little side project for them, this is core business. They are hiring aggressively, and I can't see them getting all cheap at this point and not going all in on what they probably expect to be their next big moneymaker.

[mgh 89]

 

 

Thats a possibility, but they did ask. Whats the point of holding back in our answers?

 

None - but I predict disappointment

[HiFlyer 9,358]

But, if Flight had better use of hardware over FSX, then they've got that to begin with. I'm sure there is a lot of improvements that can be made in code which would make our sim lives better, without updating to 64 bit.

 

Flight used the GPU much more than FSX. They used that at least partially to expand the number of visible objects tremendously. In fact a lot of stuff now in P3D was already in flight, and what is not, probably can be added.

 

Higher resolution textures, better clouds and fog, apparently better memory management..... For those of us that kept track, the loss of all that tech with the cancellation of FLIGHT was a tragedy. I can't help but be happy that the flight simulation community might get another crack at those advancements.

[glenecho3 9]

I'm happy with FSX:SE, though in a new flight sim the most important thing would be that the entire engine be overhauled so that it is better optimized.  I just purchased GTA5 for PC, it has cutting edge graphics and my 3- 4 year old computer runs it like a champ on high graphics.  A 9 year old flight simulator should run better, but it doesn't, so please above all else, give us something that will run smooth.

 

I couldn't agree more on this. I'd be happy to just see FSX run smooth. 9 years old and I still challenge anybody with any system to be able to fly into KLGA or KJFK in rainy conditions with a fair or better amount of AI traffic to do 30fps or better. That's ridiculous given the fact that the scenery is as basic as it is...the scenery just isn't that complex. FSX was without a doubt not coded nearly as efficiently as it should have been. That alone could be fixed and I'd be happy. 

 

Also, never ever take the X-Plane route and provide a wonderful detailed world of mesh but NOT provide basic airport structures. I couldn't believe my eyes after plopping down nearly 70 bucks on X-plane and firing up KSTL to not see a single building standing. That is so beyond acceptable for a commercial sim that it's not even funny. I will never buy another X-plane version or related product. I feel more ripped off by X-plane than ANY software purchase in recent memory.

 

I do have to chuckle lightly at the posts that infer that DTG should put out something like FSX, but ASNext quality weather...PMDG quality aircraft...addon managers...etc. While that'd be great, what you are really asking for is thousands of dollars worth of software all wrapped up in a tiny bow that you would NOT be willing to pay thousands of dollars for. Let's try to be realistic here.

 

TL;DR: if you can't put out something that is at least as good as FSX with better graphic efficiency, or something that doesn't have at least default airport buildings, than don't even bother. Newer Flight Sims seemed to be under the impression you could put out something that had fewer features than FSX but still succeed. You won't be able to....sorry.