The funny thing is: the expectations of us simmer were not meant to be matched by DTG. But, what DTG obviously completely missed is the fact, that most of the things DTG was advertising as "new", "improved" and "spectacular" only deserve those adjectives if you compare it directly to FSX or FSX:SE (not even P3D). And the problem of missing this fact is, that this comparison can be only done by users who already used FSX or FSX:SE once, exactly this group of potential customers, DTG however not meant to address. Classic misinterpretation, no?

 

I mean, come on, hardly one day after release, there are only 47% positive reviews on STEAM, while FSX:SE still has more than 80%. And I tell you, I told you for months and obviously I was right: the so-called "novel customer" DTG desperately wanted to get into the boat is exactly the user who will judge a release such as DTG Flight School mainly based on the visual appearance. And there DTG Flight School offers nothing. Even not for 15$, simple fact. And obviously, people now already start to complain that DTG Flight School does not look close to the screenshots on their machine, also not a big surprise if we think about how quickly visual quality is lost in the FSX engine as soon as you turn down settings. Basically, the "new" customers now ended in the boat of us FSX tweaking guys, with the difference that they expected something different.

 

Honestly, I am not surprised about how the release went and how the reviews "progress" on STEAM regarding DTG Flight School. It is exactly what I expected. But, sorry to say, my comments were blocked and deleted and judged as "negative" and "missing the point", all I heard, yet I was right. Point.

the so-called "novel customer" DTG desperately wanted to get into the boat is exactly the user who will judge a release such as DTG Flight School mainly based on the visual appearance

 

I do not believe that to be true. The whole indie revival in the gaming industry points at the fact that many users do not want 'pretty-only' AAA games for which they have to upgrade their rig every time, but they want games with clever and immersive gameplay. If done right, you can sell loads of copies of games which have 1990s graphics (FTL for instance or even Minecraft for that matter). Of course, the presentation shouldn't stand in the way of gameplay. As of now, it does occasionally. During lessons, it looks fine. But once you experiment with free flight, different day/night settings and weather, it certainly can look quite ugly and DTG should have definitely tweaked their lighting engine a bit more. When flying through fogged-in alps, it really doesn't look beautiful or realistic, but you can still see the potential of their improvements, because it looks noticeably different from anything I've ever seen in FSX. With some adjustments, this potential could very well be turned into something nice, I believe. But we'll wait and see. I've seen plenty of releases on Steam that had mixed reviews at release but gradually improved once the devs adressed the issues people reported.

 

As for the reviews: Those are probably reviews of people who pre-ordered. Who pre-orders a flight sim? People, who are into flight simming. No wonder, you do find lots of comparisons to FSX there. That's to be expected. 

The problem here is: the customers are not stupid. Yes, there are successful Indie games on STEAM that do not offer AAA spectacular graphics, but they attract people otherwise, as you said. Now, for a flightsim, it is difficult to attract people otherwise, as the "novel customer" not yet experienced with flightsimming does not really know what he should expect from a sim, besides the visual appearance. Don't you see that you again argue in a way only someone can argue who already knows about flightsimming? It is exactly this discrepancy that in my eyes won't work out for DTG Flight School. As I said, most arguments PRO DTG Flight School are arguments that only an experienced simmer can judge. There ARE positive aspects within DTG Flight School, nobody denies that, but sadly those arguments are exactly NOT what a "novel customer" is looking for, because he can simply not put them in a proper relation (proof me wrong, otherwise).

 

I agree with you on the reviews though, I quickly scanned through the bad ones and those are really mostly people comparing it to FSX or P3D.

Yes, the graphics are quite bad, especially considering this is 2016, MS Flight might have been stillborn but it had awesome graphics and that was a few years ago. DTG you have to do better than this.

My expectations were probably out of line. Hoping for more. My first flight, out of the box, was a graphical mess. When they delayed it from an April to a May release, I knew they had problems.  Not pleased.

I'm going back to the beautiful game, MS Flight. 

 

Thank you for your feedback. In order to resolve any issues you have with Flight School more effectively, please contact us via our support network. This enables our specialised support staff to give you a more in-depth response to your query more quickly and accurately than via our social networks and forums. You can contact our support team at dovetailgames.kayako.com

 

- Martin 

 

 

The problem here is: the customers are not stupid. Yes, there are successful Indie games on STEAM that do not offer AAA spectacular graphics, but they attract people otherwise, as you said. Now, for a flightsim, it is difficult to attract people otherwise, as the "novel customer" not yet experienced with flightsimming does not really know what he should expect from a sim, besides the visual appearance. Don't you see that you again argue in a way only someone can argue who already knows about flightsimming? It is exactly this discrepancy that in my eyes won't work out for DTG Flight School. As I said, most arguments PRO DTG Flight School are arguments that only an experienced simmer can judge. There ARE positive aspects within DTG Flight School, nobody denies that, but sadly those arguments are exactly NOT what a "novel customer" is looking for, because he can simply not put them in a proper relation (proof me wrong, otherwise).

 

I see your point regarding the visual appearance and the comparisons we make to FSX - to see advances you obiously have to be familiar with the status quo ante. My point is, that the improvements of the FSX engine, that we as 'experts' can already see, might become visible to novices as well, once DTG makes enough adjustments to eliminate the ugly elements their changes have happened to introduce under certain circumstances.

 

Apart from that, I feel the most exciting thing about a flight sim should be the experience of flying an aircraft, i.e. of being in control, experiencing the relation between steering inputs and the reactions of the plane, etc. Aerofly 2 does seem to do deliver that experience quite well, I believe from I what I read and watched. Does Flight School? I can imagine that it does, because its got a light and easy feel to it, while explaining flying basics. Is it overwhelmingly exciting? Certainly not. Is it enough for new customers to get a bit excited? Maybe. Maybe not. I honestly can't tell. I'd really like to see Let's Plays of newbies and see how they react. 

I've read the many comments, both negative and positive, regarding Flight School. As an old timer, when flight sims were nothing but pixels in black and white, I find it painful to see how much time and energy is spent on comments that do not necessarily help a developer feel good about having gotten into this hobby.  I say "feel good", which does not necessarily mean liking or blindly approving everything that the developer has done.

There are rules of engagement in a hobby that keep both developers and customers engaged and happy-- despite the issues and problems.

 

I remember a customer of mine purchasing my product( through ebay) and, soon after receiving it, putting a stop payment and calling my product a piece of junk.   My reaction was to ask him to return it and get a full refund.  The customer then asked whether I could give him a discount if he kept the product. I said no. I wanted a 100% satisfied customer or nothing. He then said that he would keep it because my product wasn't so bad after all. I knew that this customer was a bad customer( and called his bluff), and I didn't care if I lost a sale . The reason is that calling my product a "piece of junk" offended me, and from here on, I didn't want anything to do with "that type" of customer. I am glad to say that most of my customers are happy and, when they have something to say, they say it  with the intent of being helpful. I respect that customer and go out of my way to make sure that he gets all the assistance that I can provide.

 

That experience taught me to be very careful with some customers. They think they are going to Walmart(or any other box store) after breaking the product completely and asking for a refund, knowing that the clerk wont care about the reason for the return.

 

As someone who sold millions of dollars to Walmart, my calculations were that on $10 million dollars in sales, I expected a 1or 2% return from them regardless of the reason.  In fact, many times, I'd get products that were not mine, but who cared. I looked at the bigger financial picture.

 

Alas, that's not the case with flight simming and the business of making ( a bit) of money while keeping customers happy.

 

PMDG and Flight sim Labs may be the most experienced ( aircraft) developers in our hobby. It's amazing to think that it still takes them years to come out with one product. And they've had literally decades to learn the business of developing products for a flight sim.

 

I have not purchased Flight School, so I will not comment on its content. But in terms of concept, I would suggest to DTG to consider Flight School as a Flight School that prepares both, novices and experienced pilots, to fly the new generation aircrafts that will be featured in their new sim.

Many  of us don't really understand how to fly complex aircrafts, so imagine DGT coming out with a plane that allows you to first run it in Flight School and "get trained" properly. Then simply transfer the aircraft to the full flight sim for a permanent place. Lot's of times I wished that someone could walk me through a new aircraft without my having to read the manual.  I'd gladly purchase Flight School in order to plug in my new airplane and get some flight training in it.  DTG would have two products side by side for us simmers. So my suggestion to DTG is to never, never create a "closed" product in flight simming.

 

I like the idea of competition, and Xplane and P3d provide insight on the difficulty of having a complete product come out right out development. Xplane founder is both a coder and an aeronautical engineer and has been at it for more than a decade. P3d is a billion dollar defense contractor!

 

It seems to me, at least, that our role here at Avsim, is to offer constructive suggestion seen through the eyes of  hobbyists who need serious and committed developers. In a very short time, DTG has done a lot. First, FSX.SE( slightly improved); second, Flight School; Third, a new 2017 full flight sim. Not bad. 

 

 

 

 

Tony

Great post, Tony !  :smile:

 

Hi Martin. Where are you? Listen to Tony !

 

I expected a rejigged fsx engine with graphic improvements and this is what i got,  A slick skinning job on an old product.  I bought it in the same way I would have bought a mission, to look, practice skills which may be rusty and to enjoy,  I expected a minimum of training to be at least of the standard of the lessons in FSX.  They aren't.  They do look pretty though.  I would have to say in this excercise I considerer Dovetail as they like to say " have failed the lesson."

By the way when I did training to deliver and develop Competency Based Training I was allways taught that a student never failed.  They may however have not met the predefined objectives.  Failing students make them feel bad.  Failing customers makes the seller feel bad with the lost future sales.

as Tony said:

 

DTG would have two products side by side for us simmers. So my suggestion to DTG is to never, never create a "closed" product in flight simming.

 

they were warned many times !!

Steam users are too much volatile - those that support Dtg on steam are the few hardcore simmers over there fsx steam version affectionados.

 

by the way - i bought flight school to play with - god bless DTG.

 

 

I think the focus of DTG Flight sim will be more on the gaming aspect rather than simulation.

 

Thankfully , in a very recent interview with Stephen Hood, he claims that is not the case. They want to focus it on being a more realisitc simulator thats updated and more  modern rather than it being presented as a game. If it indeed holds true, it will be the best decision. Gamers lose interest in a few months. Hard core simmers will be around for the long haul. Build a solid foundation of a sim AND have plenty of 3PD support for addons, and the sim will be a success.

 

From what im getting on here from hints, the major 3PD players have something in the works for DTGFS. You can have an awesome looking full sim, but without 3rd party addons to expand it, its nothing. Thats where MSFlight failed.

 

I agree with Tonys post above. We are so quick to be criticial. This is essentially an alpha demo of the full flightsim. How can everyone be so critical so fast. Instead its better for our hobby to inspire our developers with commendation where we see fit, and give constructive criticism where appropriate.

We have been whining for years for a new simming platform to come along not to mention 64 bit, and here some devs have stepped up to the plate and all they get is negativitiy? Lets move forward and support the hobby as a whole.

From what im getting on here from hints, the major 3PD players have something in the works for DTGFS.

 

Do you want the support from everybody ?

Than you got to make sure that the sim is for everybody - All ages - freeware dev - small payware dev - big payware dev -  : turning the back to important flightsimulation sites that have been the supporting pilons of this hobby is another big mistake.

Do you want the support from everybody ?

Than you got to make sure that the sim is for everybody - All ages - freeware dev - small payware dev - big payware dev -  : turning the back to important flightsimulation sites that have been the supporting pilons of this hobby is another big mistake.

It wasnt a statement to exclude other devs, but for it to gain momentum, the major players will have to divulge first. If the sim is received well by the community, only then will other smaller devs put in their time and resources to do so.  All IMHO

It wasnt a statement to exclude other devs, but for it to gain momentum, the major players will have to divulge first. If the sim is received well by the community, only then will other smaller devs put in their time and resources to do so.  All IMHO

 

not to put anything down; but after 6 hours of flightschool use i have to say - it really need addons injections to get back to sanity.

 

If the  upcoming sim is locked - or DLC based only i will steer well away from it.