8 hours ago, Terrycornwall said:

No I do not think it is a lot moans about nothing and I do have sympathy for the developers but the fact is DTG made the statement about their new Flight simulator, I know the saying ''No news is good news'' but surely some sort of statement of intent and information is useful. I am wondering whether to upgrade my PC? Buy anymore add ons for FSX Steam? How different, after Flight School will it be? Will all our hangers fit in with the new Flight sim. The moans about Flight school were people who didn't read the underlined statement it was only a very basic sim which was pretty good for the price. I am sure DTG are all working very hard and want to bring out a really good flight sim. I am a grey haired simmer but also in a past life had a lot to do with software development which had to be right and updates provided. I have tried the Xplane 11 demo and it is pretty good. Information is the key and surely by now DTG must have some idea of what it looks like. Just my points but I would say to DTG keep it going but please give us some idea. Thank you.

Welcome Terry. Good points. My feelings are pretty much the same.

Edited April 2, 20179 yr by dtrjones
Updated with quote thanks n4gix!

On 01/04/2017 at 1:09 PM, Chock said:

One would hope that DTG will not be put off by a few tantrums from people who seem to imagine it is their right to be kept informed of the every waking movement of anyone who dares to make anything for a flight simulator lol.

Well said Chock. I actually thought DTG hit pretty much all there targets with Flight School.

I can see though that people are looking at Flight School and other aspect like UE 4.0 not being carried over to Flight Simulator after what DTG did with TSW as percieved lack of ambition to meet the high expectations layed out by the other players right now in the flight simulation space. I think it could be too early until we see what's been done on DTG Flight Simulator however this will be a different product with a different progression rate to the other simulators in the same way you don't compare Aerofly FS2 with Xplane 11. While the goal will be to have a modern FSX it will take time and probably will not be done in the first release.

The UE 4.0 not being included was clearly a design decision made early on and probably has more to do garnishing the support of the existing developer community which was a key strategy with Flight School and will continue on to Flight Simulator. I don't see this as a problem, I'm sure Dovetail are talented to be able to update the engine as they see fit and it will be a good looking simulator.

So it comes down to what can DTG do to show there product has a future not "can I produce something which is better than the rest of the market". Some areas here could be...

1. Licensing new content with 3pd will be key and probably DTG strongest hand - I can see licensing playing a part like Flight School in the base package which means globally things will just look better without too much modification, of course the more DTG license the more the profits will be hit....
2. Dovetail will continue to look at the market and refine there product to complement. It's an advantage that the other players have "shown there hand" too. Certainly they can build on what FSX and Dovetail are strong at, I think they did a good job on the UI for example and with other elements of FSX being refactored / improved coming online like ATC we'll get a product at least most of us will be familiar with. Of course we don't know what DTG have instore for there product to differentiate from the rest - we'll find out soon enough.
3. Emphasising a road map where release 1.0 isn't the end goal, DTG have for example talked about integrating possibly time based game mechanics (ageing), game persistence etc which could offer a lot more than what it currently out there at the moment.

At the moment I already feel a lot of people have already made up there own mind about this simulator and if there approach is fresh enough it should be given not one but a few more chances.

Anyway Martin, Aimee and Cryss and all - reading between the lines you seem to be exicted for the changes coming down the pipe and for me that's more than enough and I look forward to more news when we get it.

they are fighting with denuvo sht to make it work and not run the Flightsim at 1-FPS

On 31/03/2017 at 8:50 PM, SBK91 said:

Roll your eyes at my "Virgin Post" all you'd like.  Yes.  That was my very first post on Avsim.  Yes.  This is my second.   No.  I do not like the fact that it appears as if DTG is giving out false hope and empty promises on a consistent basis regarding information release on this product.  If you have no intention of releasing even the slightest bit of information, then simply do not come on the thread and tell the readers that you are going to (on multiple occasions) only to later disappoint. 

I wish the world was that simple.

As a software industry which I'm from you have to set expectation - it's what the venture capitals, game producers, stakeholder etc require. Not only does this raise more capitol for inventment but it also rises hype around the game and potential release. So there are certain things which are set in motion what a statement or date is provided. The benefits of these statements continue regardless of the date being met sometimes these statements or dates will have a commercial caveat which would usually mean a financial penalty for that company were it not to comply.

Maybe dovetail doesn't have commercial comitments, but they still have to set expectations if only to balance there own books and sometime you just get it wrong. Dovetail have engaged with the community and have responsed when and where they can and offered news and information when and where they can. They have also operated on multiple comunication channels and have also shown us a lot of patience as well.

The thing is you can't sell a product without setting the expectation - it's what the interest stems from and the reason we have discussion forums on AVSIM etc. If Dovetail didn't give a date it would have a bigger negative affect than missing a date.

Look at Star Citizen - completely different opertating model, however they too have missed a date for SQ42 but if they would have said before that 2016 wasn't realistic then they wouldn't have had the same interest, the extra sales, the extra backers investing. Now the kicker is the fact that they chose to tell everybody SQ42 wouldn't be released in 2016 very late in the year when clearly they could have told us sooner, but the later they leave these anouncements the less impact it has...

Thats just how these things work, you see everybody does it, so don't blame Dovetail it's the nature of the software industry to have delays and to be late anoucing them to everybody, but sometimes it's not always what it seems but almost everytime the dates are just too optimistic.

Be nice to see new features in a new sim, but more critically, I don't think they need to overthink it either. MS made that mistake with Flight, which is totally free, yet hardly sits on anyone's hard drive despite that, whilst people are still buying versions of FS in spite of it being built on an eleven year-old base platform. That to me says all you need to know about what people want from a flight sim. That is to say...

Most people are fairly happy with what FSX and P3D can do in terms of features, they just wish it would do it at a faster frame rate and without running out of memory. That problem is as a result of ACES never having had the time/budget/inclination to start from scratch again with the base platform upon which FS was built, despite the fact that from about the time when FS2002 came out, it was increasingly apparent that the base MSFS platform was in need of a serious overhaul to address what it could do graphically and in terms of performance. It was patently obvious by 2002 that putting the work on the GPU was the way to go, a fact made readily apparent when we look at contemporary games from that same year, which include: Mafia, City of Lost Heaven, Medal of Honor, Allied Assault, Battlefield 1942 and Grand Theft Auto III, all of which were graphically using highly detailed 3D worlds running via the GPU at good frame rates on an average PC and leaving the CPU to do the thinking bit of the equation. And most of them could do that with online multiplayer too.

But instead of grabbing that bull by the horns, ACES elected to introduce the - admittedly not unwelcome - features of more airports, ATC, rainfall and revised world modeling, which whilst nice, served to make it even more apparent how much an old 3D engine struggles on very good PCs when the load is on the CPU, even before you start sellotaping fancy add ons to it. As a result, now we're at the point where the level of expectation for FS add on aeroplanes means they crash the base application unless we back off the sliders.

So one would hope DTG are aware that really, they only need to fix what is broken instead of gluing on gaming features, as MS tried with Flight, instead of addressing what people really want, which was a decent frame rate courtesy of the ability to utilise modern PC hardware to its well able capabilities. Make that and then rake it in off add-ons and you've cracked it, because everyone knows what a bunch of addicts we are when it comes to shiny add ons for our simulator.

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

Most people are fairly happy with what FSX and P3D can do in terms of features, they just wish it would do it at a faster frame rate and without running out of memory. That problem is as a result of ACES never having had the time/budget/inclination to start from scratch again with the base platform upon which FS was built, despite the fact that from about the time when FS2002 came out, it was increasingly apparent that the base MSFS platform was in need of a serious overhaul to address what it could do graphically and in terms of performance. It was patently obvious by 2002 that putting the work on the GPU was the way to go, a fact made readily apparent when we look at contemporary games from that same year, which include: Mafia, City of Lost Heaven, Medal of Honor, Allied Assault, Battlefield 1942 and Grand Theft Auto III, all of which were graphically using highly detailed 3D worlds running via the GPU at good frame rates on an average PC and leaving the CPU to do the thinking bit of the equation.

That's a really good point about stability. I missed that one!

Interesting, I think a fair few people who were disapointed with DTG Flight School probably also mentioned that they too would accept DTG Flight Simulator with more stability / performance etc.

However expectations change I guess and certainly the flight simulation space has moved on since from when DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator was anounced. But I think the point still stands, that Dovetail wouldn't need to do too much to create a viable alternative (if only for FSX/FSX:SE) if the base stability was improved upon.

Flight School is what it is, i.e. not a million miles away from what Aerosoft are aiming at with their forthcoming Ready for Takeoff sim, so anyone who was expecting more of it was kind of missing the point of it, as they would be if they complained that the A320 in Ready for Takeoff doesn't compare with the FSL one lol. But it seems to me that those sims, apart from being an inexpensive intro flight sim which is a bit more realistic in terms of procedures without being too scary, both look very much like a case of demoing/trying out a tweek to what they already have, with 64 Bit in mind. AeroFly 2 manages to have some decent flying lessons in that too, which is indicative that it can do more than be a very basic 'jump in and fly around' sim, so was kind of doing a similar sort of thing, but in the main sim program. Even PMDG are not averse to a bit of testing with a commercially available product, which is precisely what they were doing in making their DC-6 for X-Plane.

So I think people were a bit harsh with Flight School. It's not bad for the price, it does what it says on the tin and allowed DTG to do a bit of testing in the process of making it. If people look at it like that, i.e. for what it truly is/was, they might be forgiving enough to realise it is probably something of a means to an end.

1 hour ago, dtrjones said:

That's a really good point about stability. I missed that one!

Interesting, I think a fair few people who were disapointed with DTG Flight School probably also mentioned that they too would accept DTG Flight Simulator with more stability / performance etc.

However expectations change I guess and certainly the flight simulation space has moved on since from when DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator was anounced. But I think the point still stands, that Dovetail wouldn't need to do too much to create a viable alternative (if only for FSX/FSX:SE) if the base stability was improved upon.

I don't think it's that simple, at least not any more. Maybe it was, 2 or 3 years ago.

The fly in the ointment is that DTG reps have said repeatedly that there will be no backwards compatibility for add-ons. You'll be asked to buy all the planes and scenery that isn't provided in the base package all over again. Hundreds of dollars in add-ons, for most of us. Maybe not right away if there is a decent stable of default planes, and it may take a while for that ecosystem of add-ons to be fleshed out. But that's the basic idea -- DTG wants you to buy DLC for their sim, just like their Train sim products.

That raises the stakes tremendously, because if you're jumping to a new platform and facing the prospect of spending hundreds of dollars over the next couple of years for add-ons... well, DTG isn't the only option out there. There is XP11, Aerofly FS2, and the pending, possible, what-if move of LM releasing a 64 bit version of P3D. Which may or may not include at least some backwards compatibility for existing add-ons.

That's why I think it won't be enough for DTG FS to just be FSX without OOMs. Not if you have to spend additional money to build out the sim, like we've had to do with every other major flight sim. It will have to offer something exciting and fresh, not just a coat of paint on FSX. And I hope they can do this, because the more great sims we have to fly, the better!

12 hours ago, Paraffin said:

The fly in the ointment is that DTG reps have said repeatedly that there will be no backwards compatibility for add-ons.

This is a good thing. Without this, means theres not a whole lot of progress and big improvements. Hobbies, electronics, etc move on and eventually progress renders the older stuff useless. So if it proves to be a big step forward with decent benefits, then im all for buying again. Not because I have loads of money. Just the opposite and have a very small budget. But it means the hobby I love is making meaningful steps forward that has become more modern and built more for todays hardware and software that is of 2017 variety rather than the long withstanding hints of 2006 foundations with its enormous limitations and ever ending work arounds.  

I have boxes of add-ons that no longer work in in FSX going back to the late 90`s that's because they were not updated to work in the new sim`s, they now gather dust in the loft along with window`s 95 disc through to windows XP. In fact I still have some floppy disc somewhere with windows 3.1 . That's progress.

On 4/1/2017 at 8:09 AM, Chock said:

One would hope that DTG will not be put off by a few tantrums from people who seem to imagine it is their right to be kept informed of the every waking movement of anyone who dares to make anything for a flight simulator lol.

At least you're taking the high road with non-judgmental or hyperbolic opinions, bravo. 

35 minutes ago, Phalanx said:

At least you're taking the high road with non-judgmental or hyperbolic opinions, bravo. 

I know. It's difficult to walk that fine line of perfection. Not for me, obviously, since I am of course perfect. I really don't know how I manage it all the time, and even if I did, my natural tendency toward self-effacing modesty would forbid me from elaborating on my brilliance.

On 03/04/2017 at 4:50 PM, Phalanx said:

At least you're taking the high road with non-judgmental or hyperbolic opinions, bravo. 

Your first post on this discussion... So I take it you don't approve of Dovetail's delay. I thought it was a good thing, afterall as Dovetail have stated you only get one shot at first impressions

14 hours ago, dtrjones said:

Your first post on this discussion... So I take it you don't approve of Dovetail's delay. I thought it was a good thing, afterall as Dovetail have stated you only get one shot at first impressions

Not my first post, I asked Dovetail a question on page 5 of this thread. My comment pre-dated the delay of the Flight Simulator; I am in complete agreement about only having one chance at a first impression. I was/am confused why no information or screenshots have been shared by Dovetail about the game.

I'll have some screenshots of my new simulator soon too. I was looking for a volunteer to be in it. All you have to do is look angry.