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Guest Josve

Could Fly! ever take a 'grassroots' approach?

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Guest DSandberg

>Given the available data to users (SDK) for FLY2 how far can>these information (not the code) be utilized to improve FLY2>i.e metar, ATC? I can only speak knowledgeably to the METAR portion of your query (although I think the existence of replacement ATC systems suggests an answer to the other part of your query).Any improvements in METAR weather via the SDK would probably have to be made in spite of (or by circumventing) the existing Fly II weather system, not through expanding upon it. I do have one concept of how this might be done via the SDK, but I dislike the side effects it would have too deeply to seriously consider it. (For example, my concept would make the built-in ATIS reports virtually useless unless you are pretty much on top of the airport in question, although a replacement ATC system might be able to help with this. And the existing cloud system would still produce the same unpleasant jumping effects that it sometimes does with METAR changes in Fly II now, that is unless someone out there was able to also create a replacement cloud generation system, and I'm not sure that the SDK can practically permit the replacement of such a fundamental feature.)[table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0][tr][td width=320]http://www.usinternet.com/users/mystic/infomsig.gif[/td][td width=170 align=center]This message is brought to you by the letter "I"![/td][/tr][/table]

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Guest

Dang nabbit, I failed to log in here enough to stop my login from expiring x(Here are my thoughts on the subject.First, I think there's no way for Fly to ever be in the same popularity-class as MSFS. Their goals are too much different. MS has done a very good job of making a sim that appeals to the masses. It runs quite well straight out of the box, and the planes look fantastic from the outside, which is what most casual users want (just check out the screenshot forum!) Like it or not, most people aren't "hard core" simmers who want to use the real-life checklists to start up their sim planes. Fly aims towards a more niche market of harder core simmers, IMHO.That said, it is a shame that the market cannot support this niche market as a viable business. Some of this is just economic reality. Some, on the other hand, might be fixable. There's the obvious problem of getting the rights to Fly in the hands of somebody who can do something about it, but that's just a prerequisite, and a small part of the total picture.I don't mean this as anything really bad about Fly, since Fly2 is by far my favorite sim - in fact, I find its panel system so good that it has spoiled me, and I can't really fly other sims any more. But that said, Fly is really a PITA! The graphics are all fuzzy out of the box (look at many Fly screenshots!) until you download an external utility to turn on anisotropic filtering in your graphics driver. You have to install a zillion patches and download a ton of stuff from the net to get it to a decent state. You have to mess around with texture slots and render.ini files. I have done all this because I believe it has the best "core" of any sim out there, but to make it economically viable, I think it really needs a lot of polishing and ease-of-use improvements. Its rendering system could stand an overhaul - fixed slot texture allocations are inefficient, it needs some asynchronous way to load terrain graphics - I could go on for a while, but my main point is, Fly is awkward in that it couples the best "sim core" (which appeals to us fanatics) with a poor enough OOTB experience to turn off Joe Casual User, and even a lot of hard core users.If I were running the show (which you'll carefully note that I am not :-hah ) I would give priority towards overhauling some of those areas and making Fly a first class OOTB experience, with a more modern rendering engine and more polished look and feel. It should absolutely preserve the core strength of the sim (catering to advanced sim users), but maybe it also needs a "dumbed down" arcadish-mode with lots of simple, nonrealistic and limited functionality panels ala most of the MSFS2K2 planes. True, advanced simmers don't want the dumbed down stuff, but without attacting the mass market, it doesn't seem like you can run a viable FS business.Unfortunately, that takes a lot of money and resources, none of which are likely to be available for the dubious business of competing with Microsoft. For that reason, I'm afraid there's little chance for Fly or Flight Unlimited (RIP).And, for no other reason than it looks cool, here's a bat: :-bat

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Guest WilliamD

Is anybody here familiar with WWII Online? Would it be possible to rework the Fly!2 engine to make a massive multiplayer version of Fly! along the same lines, but with Fly!2s trademark cockpits, flight dynamics and airport extras? There could be literally thousands of people on line at the same time, walking, driving and flying around.I think many of us would be willing to pay a monthly subscription to support such a system, which requires a dedicated server 24 hours a day. I am currently paying 12.95 per month for WWII Online, but it's cheaper if you buy 6 months.Coupled with Teamspeak for voice communications, it would make for a very immersive flight experience.

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>That said, it is a shame that the market cannot support this>niche market as a viable business. Some of this is just>economic reality. I don't think it is as bleak as you describe. There is already a vibrant niche market for high-end, hard-core simmers buying add-on aircraft for MSFS. In other word you take this "dumb-down" product that offers little excitment about the aircraft (but plenty of scenery excitment) and buy add-on aircraft. Some of them are extremely good and go even beyond the FLY standard. But for a niche product to survive you must have at least a huge base of "dumb" users (some of them may try to taste something better) and here MSFS fits the bill perfectly.Michael J.

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Guest pilotsim7828

Thats Right Michael, Tell MADMAX, How it really is, That Fly STILL Lives on, Even If it was pushed out the door before it was ready,Ummmmmmmm, Seems to me that MSFS FS9 Seems to have a lot of bad raps going on alsoJeff

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>> Tell MADMAX, How it really is, That Fly STILL Lives onYes, it does but MADMAX probably already knows about it !>Even If it was pushed out the door before it was ready,I already forgot this part.>FS9 .. bad rapsof course.Michael J.

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Guest tonyc

Michael, at times I have wondered about what makes this hobby exciting, and find that the idea of looking for new scenery, planes, and other add ons-free or not--makes this hobby just as fun as flying the planes from point a to point b. I have, for example, been learning about modifying panels in FLY2 and, of course, get a tremendous enjoyment from creating a panel that "looks" closer to my idea of what a real panel looks like. It's that vicarious experience and the chance to meet here in these forums that is not to be taken lightly. tony

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>Michael, at times I have wondered about what makes this hobby>exciting, and find that the idea of looking for new scenery,>planes, and other add ons-free or not--makes this hobby just>as fun asTony,I bet many look at it this way too. It is like a stamp collector collecting his new rare stamp - finding the stamp may be as exciting as actually viewing it later. Or like Collin Powell's hobby of fixing old Volvos - then driving them must be a different experience.Michael J.

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Guest Josve

I have to throw in some corrections here :)"But there are no 3D panels" Thats right,but the 2D panels have yet to be beaten..."no 'auto-gen' scenery" Wrong..We have an autogen program"and a significant lack of detailed airports (or airports with taxiways)" Wrong....we have the import utility that imports airports from fs2002 into Fly2.I have used it with great success with all Airports in Norway."but not without a ton of tweaking" I have not tweaked Fly2 any more than Fs2002/2004,and after reading the Microsoft Flightsim forums....there seems to be a huge amount of troubles and tweaking on that sim too."when I just want to hop in a Cessna and fly VFR around a random location." Thats what I do all the time....The potential in scenery are brilliant!!http://home.online.no/~johsvenn/artimages/newz2.jpgFly2 have great clouds and weather,a lot of great freeware aircraft and some high end Payware aircraft from RAS and PMDG.Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/zone.jpg ][/div

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>"But there are no 3D panels" Thats right,but the 2D panels>have yet to be beaten...I have a different take on the statement above."There are no 3D panels" - some (like myself) could care less - 3D panels are nothing to brag about except that they are 3D but otherwise of dubious quality and utility (except maybe pattern work). (I know Larry is going to show up in a few minutes and tell us how great 3D panels are ! ;) ). I think FLY's scroll panel technique is pretty good for what today's computers can handle."2D panels have yet to be beaten" - well, if I may say ... there is this one panel created by Flight1 for Piper Meridian and frankly I think it is the best 2D panel ever made. Gauges, textures, everything about it is simply top notch. They spent over a year on this panel alone. I have not seen other panel that even comes close. But I do admit - a panel like this is extreme rarity, even more so in the FS world.Michael J.

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From my readings in the forum over the past few years it's been my understanding that TRI hoped to have a completed product OOTB. Unfortunately, due to the time table handed to them by their publisher, Gathering of Developers, they were forced to release before completion (gotta love company politics). It is a shame it turned out like that and I've always felt that that in the long run was going to hurt TRI in the flight sim genre. However, the sim has always scored higher than MSFS with me in that developers were here to answer our questions, provide feedback, and patch the glitches we found. This was an aspect I had never found in MSFS and it was a welcome change. Richard Harvey became a familiar part of our community and his efforts to improve the sim showed how much he was dedicated to it. Even on long term disability from TRI and after the Fly! series was scrapped, he mannaged to find time to help produce the final patch with the help of equally dedicated volenteers (one of many things I'll always remember him for :)).While sadly Rich is no longer with us, and TRI seems to have scraped the project (though I hope Brendan's cryptic signature means otherwise :-jumpy), we still have a dedicated and strong community and it is this community that keeps this great sim alive. Now with all that said, I anxiously await all those great add-ons still in the works. Please forgive the following cheesy rip-off (I couldn't resist :-hah): "Keep Us Fly!ing!"John S. MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Student 50+ hours.Virtual: Fly!II, KPHX, MidCon, PMDG Boeing 757-200


John Morgan

 

"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

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>I was talking of the 2D panels out of the box Michael.>Payware panels comes in another catagory.Of course I agree, out of the box FLY's panel are second to none.Michael J.

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