15 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

Maybe, for further FU discussions, take it to another form? such as The Outer Marker? (as this forum is about MFS)

Why not just move or delete the entire forum since most of the posts here are just speculation or opinions?

11 minutes ago, DJJose said:

Why not just move or delete the entire forum since most of the posts here are just speculation or opinions?

It seems to me this that this thread is all about the new sim and how it could get some inspiration from its predecessors, isn't 😂  ? And there is no obligation to read it in anycase. 

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by domkle

18 minutes ago, domkle said:

It seems to me this that this thread is all about the new sim and how it could get some inspiration from its predecessors, isn't 😂  ? And there is no obligation to read it in anycase. 

Yeah, God forbid we bring up Flight, that joke of a sim that is splattered all over this forum. At least FU is worth comparing.

I'm a beta tester for a few devs and I can "azure" you that MS is listening to the community this time around.

The Flight Unlimited 3 community has a very special place in my heart, and it was both an honour and a pleasure to be a part of it between 2001 (when I joined AVSIM) and 2008 (when I moved on to FSX). I probably spent more time upgrading the airports/airfields and adding scenery packages to the two high resolution scenery regions than I did actually flying, but it was ultimately a very rewarding experience. I also met a lot of good friends along the way, although I rarely get to "see" them these days

For the record, I still have two copies of Flight Unlimited 3 (including an original boxed copy), and two copies of Flight Unlimited 2

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

3 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Lol, Really think that Xbox Gaming Studio developers are going to have a look at these forums? Seriously?

MS is a $1 trillion company & I, sure their developers & project managers have sorted out their game plan years ago.

Sigh! As I'm sure you are aware, Xbox Game  has in excess of 64 million users, a few thousand of self styled hard core simmers's comments, wishes, demands etc are not going to affect anything, or change MS's target market from gamers. 

I actually do, yeah. 

They've setup an insider program to give direct feedback from the community for a reason. They are also hiring a community liaison for a reason and it's not to browse random Xbox forums. 

MS, up until things blew up before FSX, was always active in the community. 

I had Flight Unlimited 3,  and at the time it was released, the graphics were quite amazing, esp. the cockpits.  It almost put MSFS to shame.  Don't know why it was totally abandoned:  Overwhelmed by MS's market share, or perhaps the stigma of 9/11?  But I actually still have the disc, and have fond memories of it... 

5 minutes ago, overspeed3 said:

I had Flight Unlimited 3,  and at the time it was released, the graphics were quite amazing, esp. the cockpits.  It almost put MSFS to shame.  Don't know why it was totally abandoned:  Overwhelmed by MS's market share, or perhaps the stigma of 9/11?  But I actually still have the disc, and have fond memories of it... 

FU3 didn’t do as well as expected by EA, saleswise, and there were some serious bickering inside the developer’s team, Looking Glass as I remember

Back on topic please. 

This is not the FU3 forum. 

Thanks

I shudder when I read that MS is going to take advice from the "community". It's one thing to maintain an Insider program for Windows 10 where most of the user's are either enterprise, early adopters or hard core programmers. But a video game Insider effort is a whole other beast. You'll have everyone from us craggy old flightsim gurus to 10 year olds trying to get their hands on beta versions. The hope is that many will give up when they realize that MS's main goal is to create online surveys to see both the quality and extent of the user base. Only a few "insiders" will be selected to test beta releases. 

Setting aside serious flightsim sites like AVSIM and .org for a moment, has anybody spent time on the FSX and XP11 Steam forums? If that's an example of the overall flightsim "community", then MS is in for a rough ride with its FS Insider program.

It's no wonder that LM ran away and hid from the entertainment market.

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by jabloomf1230

I'd actually like to add something else to this discussion. Austin Meyer is a nut about airplanes and it shows all the way through XP11. Bruce Artwick and his band of ACES also were airplane afficianados. And then there's LM, a giant aerospace company. They have to know something about aircraft, pilotage and all that technical stuff.

And then there's MS Game Studios. Are they hoping that the Insider program will attract enough RL pilots that they won't need any inhouse expertise? I hope not.

None of us know if there are RL pilots in the MS Game Studios or not.  Another example of an uninformed guess or speculation. Why don't we give it a chance instead of trying to disassemble it before it's even built?

Great Goodness. This has only been in the light less than a week and we are already building camps on both sides of the issue.

Have an open mind until you see what's going to happen.

 

32 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Setting aside serious flightsim sites like AVSIM and .org for a moment, has anybody spent time on the FSX and XP11 Steam forums? If that's an example of the overall flightsim "community", then MS is in for a rough ride with its FS Insider program.

I did follow the former Dovetail Steam forums quite closely. There was a lot of advise from really experienced simmers and their suggestions pretty much matched and made sense. Dovetail didn't even comment, let alone regard them in any way, as we know.

Now, MS isn't DT, but I am convinced they have a solid roadmap at least until release and will not care about what we write in any fora or Insider stuff or whatever. I'm not in a position to predict this roadmap will be appealing to us or not, but I am sure it's set in stone. The best they MIGHT be inclined to do would be to adapt their ads to what folks want to hear, but that's certainly it.

Kind regards, Michael

9 hours ago, domkle said:

Please get yourself a copy of 20 year-old Flight Unlimited 3, play with it for twenty hours and get us everything it brought to our hobby into the new sim (weather, ATC, water physics etc.) 😉.

So, you want Microsoft to mimic a game that sold less than 20K copies?  A game that led to the developers demise; Ultimate III required a ridiculous amount of tweaking and user interaction.  I’m tired of tweaking and loading/maintaining 50 different applications to generate a realistic environment. To that end, I hope MSFS 2020 is nothing like Ultimate III.  I’m hoping for an all inclusive environment that’s dynamically updated from a single platform. An environment where I don’t have to open 50 updater tools (e.g. FScentral, PMDG Ops Center, Aerosoft Updater and FSDT Live update) to keep my applications updated.   That is what I believe the majority of simmers want!  

33 minutes ago, 188AHC said:

None of us know if there are RL pilots in the MS Game Studios or not.

I thought that was confirmed by comments in one of the interviews, no?

(that there are RL pilots on their team)

I personally am not building any camps myself, MS is going to do what it wants/plans. But since this is a "suggestion to MSFS developers" topic I suppose different camps will form.

My main suggestion is that MSFS developers see that the Avsim FSX and P3D forums far exceed the XP, AF2, MS Flight forums, popularity wise. And also I hope they see that the PMDG forum here is the most popular by a hugely gigantic margin. Facts are facts. Even all the posts combined on XP.org don't come close to PMDG.

This should tell them (and the whole world) plainly that we require progress toward realism and that realism (specifically realistic airliner flying) is highly favored over anything else. If MSFS does well in this department it will do well for all departments, because for the most part, airliner flyers enjoy all kinds of flying.