future of flight simming

[Guest madmax]

I started in the flightsim hobby way back with the Sublogic simulator on the TRS-80 model 1, flying around that little grid with 128x48 monochrome character mapped graphics, and moved though the years up to modern sims such as FU3, FlyII and FS2002 (haven't upgraded to later ones in the MS series yet).It seems like for a while, there was some healthy competition in civilian sims. You had the Flight Unlimited series, Fly and Fly2, Microsoft, and to a smaller extent X-plane and some others. Before that you had various sims on the Amiga, the Atari ST, and Mac.These days it seems more and more like it's a one-dog show outside of military sims. The FU1/2/3 series is no longer developed - a big loss IMHO. Fly is no longer developed, although it has "hung in there" admirably due to community addons such as the ROTW planes and Terrascene and great airport sceneries and many others. Still, not many people use Fly2 any more. I don't track X-plane but I have the impression it doesn't have many users these days either.Not to take anything away from the Microsoft sim, which does a certain class of things better than Fly2 does, but I think the market has reached an unhealthy point. Even though Fly2 has extremely high quality community addons, the core engine is growing more and more dated, and there are intrinsic bugs and limitations that will never be fixed if there is never a Fly3 and Fly4.I'm disappointed at heart because there are things that Fly2 still does better, IMHO, than any other civilian sim, but there's no real future path for it. Although MSFS has some strengths, it seems like a bland future from here on out if that's all that's left. Approximately 100% of the 3rd party commercial efforts in the FS market now are targeted to that one single sim.Is there any hope for someday again seeing a robust civilian sim market, with multiple competing simulators? With lots of 3rd party commercial support for a number of simulators? Or, 5 years down the road when Fly's engine is hopelessly outdated, will there be nothing left but MSFS?madmax

[Guest tonyc]

The only consolation is that at some point the code may become available to us. As you said, things become dated, but that same "dated" source code may be good enough for us to continue deveopment. We need someone to constantly stay in touch with the "people" at TRI who still believe in Richards dream of making FLY2 the best little engine that could.tony

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

Tony,TRI will never release the FLY! II code (gratis) as it uses the same basic engine as many other titles produced by TRI. I remember it being said that TRI has a US$3 million investment in the code. Forgive me for I have sinned. When the patch for fs9 was released a couple of weeks ago I thought it was about time I purchased the MS offering to see what people were raving about (Fs95 was my previous version of MSFS) . Default Vs Default, Fly! II has nothing to apologise for. Both sims have their good and bad points. I have no add-ons loaded for Fs9 and don't intend to go down that road as I feel that I can only give my attention to one sim and have made my choice. If not a single line of code is added to Fly! II then I'm very happy as it is in its current form a great simulation. In 50 or so years time when simmers are flying 3d holograms in their lounge rooms I'm sure they will look back at the crude sims we have today in exactly the same way that we look back at the early crude sims of yesteryear :-)Edit: had a senior moment :-) - forgot to sign the postCheers,Roger

[Guest tonyc]

You're right, Roger, about the problem of releasing the code. Neverthless, it's possible that TRI may someday realize what a gold mine they are sitting on, given that FLY2 has matured nicely without their input. History is funny, and perhaps the last word has not been spoken about FLY3.As for fs9, I have it and can't simply get to fly its airplanes. I don't know what it is, and I hope that our good friend "Larry" does not start with FS vs FLY. tony

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Tony,"and I hope that our good friend "Larry" does not start with FS vs FLY."He won't be able to, at least for a while, because he was banned from Avsim...Take care,http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/banneraa.jpg

[Guest jjlobo]

I think there will never be place for one X another. There will always be Fly!II lovers (I'm one for my own reason) and there will always be other sim's lovers, for their own.We still have the best sim at all, not the beautifulness in some aspects and for while. My only concern is if it stops running in near future operating systems. If it happens there will a big loss unless a lot of us keeps an old machine only for Fly!II. I will.Creasy people tend to have creasy ideas. I didn't have enough time to go deeply in the Fly!II SDK. However there are a lot entry points we can interact with Fly, change its behavior, etc. and that is already been used by good developers. You know them all.Bugs!! Well we all learned to leave with them. They don't make it impossible to fly or to develop over. Other Sims also has bugs. Even though correct in new versions or patches, there will always be new bugs. We now know all Fly bugs and probably there be no new ones. Very good scenarios were developed with the same complexity and as beautiful as some other Sims scenarios. Stunning aircrafts (757, 777, Seneca V, Pipers, P51, Eurofither, 737, 47, 27 ... electra), ATC, what ever we think someone showed it could be done. Pedals, center consoles are also available and working with Fly!II.We should motivate people to continue to create new add-ons, new tools to create new add-ons. The learning process can be a continuous process. Learning can be shared and more of us can develop new Fly running over the last core available.Probably we can always remember these stunning Fly characteristics and lets not allow it die.Sorry for this long post. But I think we have a lot in Fly!II for very long time ahead.Regards to allJJLobo

[Joseph 0]

>>Is there any hope for someday again seeing a robust civilian>sim market, with multiple competing simulators? With lots of>3rd party commercial support for a number of simulators? Or,>5 years down the road when Fly's engine is hopelessly>outdated, will there be nothing left but MSFS?>>madmax>Just the other day I too was thinking about the glory days when there was a competitive market amongst flight sims. I truly miss the anticipation of new competing releases and the flurry of posts before and after. I may be 46 years old but those days made me feel like a kid at Christmas.I am amazed by the support and the extension of the sims by a community dedicated to their "chosen sim", regardless if it is FLY!, ProPilot or FU3. They still live even though they were left to fade into the past by their creators.I don't have any flight sims on my machine at this moment (ok... I am currently addicted to "The Sims 2"... go figure), though I have bought nearly every one produced with the exception of X-Plane. Just for now though. I really hate having to download tons of things and figure out how to get them all into the various sims. I am an "out of the box" kind of a guy.Still one day I am sure to get back into it all even if for the sake of nostalgia. I do miss having Richard from TRI and Peter James from the FU series showing off their "children" here.Still, I lurk around all the flight sim forums to see what is happening.Well I've rambled on long enough... just wishing for the good old days.

[Guest Dean]

>He won't be able to, at least for a while, because he was>banned from Avsim...Well that explains why I haven't seen any posts from him lately! I haven't been checking the forums very often the past few months so I missed that. What did he do?

[Guest Josve]

As an avid simoholic since 1987 with FS3 and along the years with the FU series,the Fly series and the FS series, I have to be honest and say....I really doubt there will be a civilian sim market with multiple competing simulators.It could have been IF TRI had continued developing the Fly series,but it seems like they have abandoned it totally....And when I rarely fire up Fly2 to test a new aircraft...I don't longer like what I see, and therefore no longer use it as my regular sim.The reasons are many...Scenery is one thing...the lack of mesh is another...the number of high end addons...the weather engine with Active Sky...a working multiplayer system...my list is too long...With FS2004 I get all theese things..Back in the golden days with Fly2 nothing could make me change sim.At that point Fly2 was the best.But now as years has gone by...thats not longer true.The panels of Fly2 is probarbly still the best,but the high end addons as the planes from PMDG,FSD,Flight1,Dreamfleet etc etc.. are now wery wery good,and brings to me the things I want.Don't get me wrong here!! I still uses Fly2,but not as often as before when it was my nr1 sim.Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/zone.jpg ][/div

[michal 44]

>few months so I missed that. What did he do?Yeah, I wonder too. I certainly don't recall any such event with Larry being banned. Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Folks,Read for yourself:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/cgi/dcforu...D8&viewmode=allIt came up in this previous thread:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=25417&page=5Regards,http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/banneraa.jpg

[Guest Jak Fearon]

Well I can say that I for one definitely miss the old days. :)Jak Fearonhow in the world?http://www.howintheworld.com

[Guest Colins2]

Heya Jak :-)Nice to see you still lurk now and again!Yeah, I miss the old days too.Colin

[Sonar5 3]

Hi Jak as well,Jak, Just downloaded the Christ The Light Demo Screensaver you did for those folks, and wanted to say Great Job. :-)**********RE: Fly!III have some of the same feelings others here have expresed.And yes, I do remember the posts of us defending Fly!II against those defending MSFS2002 pro, etc.... :-)I still have some of my beter screenshots saved on the HD. But I too have mostly moved on to MSFS2004. I've got a very good setup for at least me, including Voice Recognition, etc...I would love to see a revived Fly!III product come out, and I would love to be able to buy it and support it.If not TRI, hopefully some other developer will do it. Our hobby like other businesses needs competition to push the envelope, otherwise the bread gets stale, IMHO.I think we have the quality in MSFS2004 today because of the Flight Unlimited I,II,III, Fly!, Fly!II, and ProPilot Series competition.When any company has a virtual monopoly on a segemnt of a market, the pressure to beat the competition with quality diminishes, IMHO.I hope we are not there yet, and I hope we see continued improvements.But I would also love to see a Fly!III. :-)Anyway, good to see you all are still active in the Fly Forum, I do drop by here once in a while.Take Care,JoeSonar5

[Guest Jak Fearon]

>Hi Jak as well,>>Jak, Just downloaded the Christ The Light Demo Screensaver you>did for those folks, and wanted to say Great Job. :-)>>**********Hey, thanks very much, Joe, I'm glad you like it. :)>RE: Fly!II>I would also love to see a Fly!III. :-)>Definitely the same feelings here. If the development door was open I would jump in on that in a heartbeat.Jak Fearonhow in the world?http://www.howintheworld.com