Where Did the Fun Go?

[flyking 0]

I'm sad to say I spend just about zero time flying now. I used to love simming and I would hardly go a day without at least an hour or two of flight time. I

[Guest]

It happens to all or most of us.Take a step back, do something completely different for a few months, don't even think about aircraft (or computers if possible), and after a while you'll likely feel that itch again.If you don't, don't despair as you'll have found some other worthwhile pursuit of your time.

[Clutch Cargo 384]

You started out with FS98 and just now you are losing interest? I think you had a very good run! I've only been with it for two years so I am still caught up in it. Yes, I seem to fly a lot less these days but mainly because there are so many darn avenues to take with this hobby. I am torn in so many directions... afraid I might miss something.I think the man above made a good suggestion. Take a well deserved break. Then I would suggest when you get back try something completely new and different. If you were into heavies, try some bush flying. If you only purchased and flew payware... try only freeware. Fly in some country you have never flown before, try some photography, or flightsim videos, or try some modeling and build a simple home airport. You get the idea.

[Guest jennifer]

Interesting post flyking. Your post is just about spot on for what's happened to me too, and I find it difficult to pinpoint the reasons for my dwindling enthusiasm. I started with FS2000. Recently I just started noticing that setting up flights instead of being a time of eager anticipation became a chore and then when I finally got 'em going any performance problems like stutters, blurries etc just had me switching the whole thing off. Those problems were the last straw. I think jwenting's solution is the right one. I still check out the forums though as I am now. Maybe I'll never get back into it, but then maybe I will. My LDS/PMDGs/Flight 1/Eaglesoft aircraft do tempt me from time to time I must confess.

[Guest shanwick]

Hi FlykingThanks for your honest post.I have been involved with MSFS since Version 1 came out over 20 years ago. Initially, it was a love-hate relationship and something which didn't really excite me - until FS98 came along. That changed everything.Then, about a year ago, my flight sim PC crashed and I became very disillusioned about rebuilding it again and getting it back to what it was. I left everything alone for three or four months but realised that nothing else excited me as much as flying a virtual aircraft in my spare time. So I did an appraisal of what I really wanted out of this hobby.Flight simulation for me is about doing something which I could do in real life if I had the money. That means flying the club aircraft out of the local club airfield. Most real world pilots in that situation may own one or two aircraft in their life if they are really lucky or, most probably, just rent the club aircraft. They mainly fly local sorties to nearby airfields with the occasional flight further afield for a weekend away with some friends.So that is what I now do. I have a couple of GA aircraft that I fly and addon scenery for the UK, which is where I live. Add to that Flight Environment and ActiveSky V and that's all. None of this involved wrapper systems, or the like, so I didn't have the problems you have had in this respect.I can understand your reluctance to only buy products on CD as you are not reliant on getting activation keys in the future. I once disagreed with something a developer said and after that I was refused a reactivation key. Suddenly, they had my money and I had no product. Sad really - not for me but the developer concerned and the industry as a whole as I became another one who joined the ranks of not buying wrapper products. I think my experience was the exception rather than the rule but it's just not worth the risk or the hassle.But there is more to this hobby than just flying. Have you thought about sprucing up some airfields using one or two of the fairly simple design products out there? I am thinking of Lago's FSE and the newly released Abacus EZ-Scenery. I have, in the past, and it was an interesting alternative to flying.There is a lot to this hobby without having to spend too much money or getting involved in too much complexity. Just do as I have done - keep it simple, just do what YOU want to do and have fun.David

[clayton4115 56]

hiwe all go through this, sometimes i go without FS or any interest in FS for months on end, then it comes back with fury and a height of great enthusiasm,its most likely your body / brain saying give me a break from this FS!:-lol

[rcbarend 37]

Well, if I may give you a tip: just take another angle at FS, and start developping your own addons ....Just start anywhere; with a small gauge, an aircraft repaint, a panel change, a scenery addon for the place you live, etc .Although it's quite a learning curve, I can assure you that you discover a whole new area in this hobby ....Best regards, Rob

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Dont worry about it! Like the other poster said you have had a nice long FS run. We all have FS9 down-times. I will let you know that mine lasted almost 15 months! But the hit you get when you finally get back to flying is huge! :) And it is further amplified by the fact that there will be so MANY goodies (freeware & payware) to get because you have been out of the loop for so long. So its like going to the candy store!Do something else...try some other PC games perhaps - flying the Cessna in GTA San Andreas is hilarious! (And Im not even gonna get into the jet-pack cheat) :(Also if you are a serious simmer (meticulous flight-planning, using ultra-real panels, FMS, SIDs, STARs etc) you might want to switch that off for a bit and just have fun in the sim. Choose a nice little bushplane (theres a great freeware Maule out there) and trundle through some valleys in Alaska. Try landing on the sides of rivers, on sandbanks etc. Or get the freeware DC6 and do cargo runs (something Alaska could not exist without). Dont do any flight planning, hop in the plane, bring up the GPS, look for an airport, point the nose towards it and go fly. And lastly:-----------------------------------------------Many of these add-ons I'm unable to use today because of activation problems due to the fact that my e-mail address changed several times along the way due to switching ISP's or spam pollution etc.-----------------------------------------------You should get a web-based email address :) I have had my Yahoo address for 8 years without a hitch and such addresses will not suffer the problems you mentioned. You could get one just for flight-sim purchases. I feel its the best free service out there.You can get the DC6 (and lots of others) here:http://www.calclassic.com/The Maule is here (go to File Library on the left and drill down to the General Aviation section)http://files.fsnordic.net/Flight_Simulator...neral_Aviation/

[Guest cwright]

I feel the same way, though I suspect my reasons are quite different. These days probably the only reason I fire up FS is to test my AutoAsm scenery design program. I think there are two reasons for this.First, the lack of significant developments. I think FS has been stagnating for a few years while other games have been making huge strides toward quite startling realism. In this century I can only think of two major advances: ATC and autogen scenery. In many ways FS scenery is impressive but nevertheless it often looks like a cartoon. This probably doesn't matter too much if you're flying at 20,000 feet but I like to fly low and slow. The clouds look reasonably good from a distance but they're completely unrealistic when flying close to them or, even worse, flying through them. To summarise, I'm hoping that the next version will be revolutionary rather than evolutionary. For me backwards compatibility is not too important. I would prefer to see a completely new and advanced flight simulator rather than just an improvement of FS2004. The other reason could be summed up as the human factor. If you go flying you meet people, you see people going about their business, you see engineers and flight crew going to their office etc etc And of course you see passengers. Lots of them. Unfortunately this is completely missing from the FS experience. I'm talking about realistic people with built-in artificial intelligence. Difficult to do? Of course not. Lots of games have it. They're all combat games but AI people could just as easily go about peaceful tasks. I'm familiar with Far Cry and its amazing editor so I know it's possible. Particularly if Microsoft made it easy to create new people and to program their AI then that would spark my interest in FS without a doubt. The next version will probably come out after a gap of three years so Microsoft will have had sufficient time to bring out something revolutionary. I hope that's what happens. Best regards, Chris

[robert young 2,897]

Whenever I find my enthusiasm waning, I try going back to basics. In a way we have so much technology and flying aids at our disposal it is sometimes good to do something very simple, but hard, like doing a circuit and seeing if you can not lose more than 20 feet in the turns, do a near perfect pattern and land in a cross-wind dead on the numbers.Another thing which re-invigorates my enthusiasm is setting up a 1 mile (or less) visibility and shooting a non-IFR approach just using VOR's and NDB's or sometimes just VFR.Rob Young

[Guest william273]

i use freeware only. don't have the activation problem. i might not be understanding it correctly but as far as developers being concerned with people passing on free copies of their addons, i don't think those people would have bought the addon to begin with. the only reason they get it is because someone gave it to them. secondly, microsoft doesn't seem to mind as far as FS9 goes so why do the developers of addons? sorry but this is something i've wondered about for awhile. william

[aerdt 0]

My experience is just the opposite from the original poster, although I do agree with some of his comments re: over-protective developers and sometimes almost impossible re-activation for add-ons.I was pretty bored with most of the commercial flight sims until FS 2004. No traffic and the "basic" default planes just didn't cut it for me anymore and I thought I was wasting time flying around all by myself.With the release of the many add-ons - traffic, weather, scenery, highly-realistic aircraft and online ATC - I am more enthousatic about the hobby than ever. It is now fun to fly around and you can pick any flavor, depending on your mood - offline, online, GA, airliners, etc.Yesterday, I flew from KBOS to KTPA and a friend looked over my shoulder and commented: Wow, this is as real as it gets! Sure, I have invested a ton of money on add-ons, but it really paid off.I also found the Virtual Pilots Association and my other VAs "Midcontinent" and "Onyx" made flying my flying experience a lot of fun, because they almost add an element of role-playing to my flightsim experience.For example, Midcontinent is the most realistic VA with ultra-realistic dispatch system, ACARS, real typeratings and checkflights. (http://www.midconair.com)Onyx is a just plain fun VA, where you as a pilot have to make strategic decisions where to fly, how to come back to your hub, spend your eared "miles" on typeratings, etc. (http://www.flyonyx.net)So, yea, there is plenty to do here!Pat

[Guest drix]

If hardware related issues are preventing you from virtually flying let me recommend Prime95. It is a free program designed to detect hardware related problems with emphasis on the cpu, MB and memory. if you can run this program free of errors for 24 hours then your PC is completely stable. The next step is to run a program like norton systemworks to detect and repair windows related errors. Finally routine maintenance (i.e. checkdisk and disk defragmenter run every several days) you could not possibly have PC crashes. If the video card is the source of problems download and run a program like drivercleaner pro after uninstalling the VC. Download the latest drivers for all of your hardware and install them. i have never had a flight simulator crash related to hardware. Software add-ons is a different story. Generally before a flight I check out the add on. This way i wont be dissapointed mid flight. Find one aircraft that you really enjoy and stick to it. I prefer short flights (less than 400 miles) in turboprop or multi engine GA aircraft. Check out some of the payware add ons like ASV and ultimate terrain to spruce up your flying.

[Guest UKPilot]

Hi, I recently had the same kind of problem, my flight sim was constantly crashing after around 10mins of flying, I got so fed up that in the end i never used it. I think the problem I was having was that i had downloaded so much stuff, texture changes here and there, additions to ATC, improved cloud textures, new scenery etc... that my system couldn't cope and it was slowing down my frame rates. Not to mention my flight sim folder looked like a bomb site with sceneries and aircraft that hadn't installed right, i'd just left them there so there were folders everywhere. Recently I came back to it, I copied all the aircraft I enjoyed flying onto a separate file and completely deleted flight sim from my hard drive. I fresh install later, I added the aircraft I'd saved and have now gone back to the original flightsim from when I very first bought it, I have to say I enjoy better this way, the textures look better and I'm getting improved frame rates, now I'm on it every day for at least an hour or two.Try it, see what you think.RgdsUK Pilot.

[Dark Moment 0]

<<<<<<>>>>>>>Are you SERIOUS, William!!? MS don't seem to mind people passing on FS9 to others? What rock do you live under? They most certainly do, as would any add-on developer I can think of. But I suppose we can guess where you got yours!Flyking, I would only second what others have said; try development, and give something back to the community. It really changes the way you look at the whole hobby. I probably fly 20% of the time, work on projects the rest; and it used to be a lot less flying, but I'm making a point of doing some these days!Otherwise, at least try some new aircraft. Forget all the payware 'same same' heavies, where you see nothing anyway and simply set autopilot, GPS and autoland - get flying VFR in something interesting, or maybe join up with a really active VA.No? Try knitting :)MarkMark "Dark Moment" BeaumontVP Fleet, DC-3 AirwaysTeam Member, MAAM-SIM[a href=http://www.swiremariners.com/cathayhk.html" target="_blank]http://www.paxship.com/maamlogo2.jpg[/a]