Rush1169

I agree - on paper having all 25000 airports is kinda cool. Seems like most versions of FS didn't have all airports, but once it did, you bet I went straight to my stomping ground to check it out - the novelty was brilliant and just that one addition to the series made that version purchase a no-brainer. Then I realized all that was there were just the actual landing strips. There was no other semblance between what was in FS and what was in real-life. So, after that initial interest of seeing what was there (nothing) I moved back to the more detailed areas. Why would anyone "buy things [we] don't actually want to use"? I hope you can see the "sillyness" in your post :)From what I can gather, the agenda from the folks who don't like Flight is to try to get no one to buy anything ever for Flight so that MS will see they made a mistake by not making FSXI from the beginning with the hopes that they do scrap Flight in favor of a 4-DVD boxed FSXI. While I understand the mentality of the plan, the reality of it is that it won't work. I'm sure my perception is wrong and the anti-Flight group is merely looking out for the dumb people who are going to blindly fork over their money on the false hope that Flight may actually be kinda cool, regardless of how it matures (not that it will ever have anything but some basic GA planes and Hawaii).We know Flight is a toy. We know it's just a carplane game. We know it has no jets, no ATC, no weather, no nothing. We get it. Some are still going to buy stuff for it. I know anti-Flight folks would rather we didn't spend a dime on it with their personal hope that Flight gets scrapped, Microsoft apologizes for the toy, and FSXI comes onto the scene, but do you really think there is a chance that's going to happen?

Really? You think it's necessary to "counter-post" against a "What if Flight beomes. . ." proposition to protect people who 'foolishly' purchase a mission+scenery pack on the premise that in doing so they will eventually have a direct FSX replacement? We all know Flight is just a silly carplane game that will never become more significant than a dead pixel in the bottom corner of the mighty FSX theater screen. I know it defies all logic to buy the additional scenery for a product that will never be a simluator, but some of us want to anyway. We don't need 'false hope' protection - that's the point of the numerous recent threads asking the anti-Flight camp to chill out.

Yeah - I've figured out that's a great big ol' sore spot with a lot of passionate folks around here and a major cause to all the negativity. I'm one of the biggest, if not the biggest, dreamer of Flight's potential in this forum. I've come to realize that Flight is what it is and no more. For me, what it is today (29th), twenty bucks is a no-brainer purchase and to others the mere thought of buying Microsoft Bux causes involuntary tics. Regardless, I won't be one of those people who talk about what it *could* be (anymore) and I apologize to any who I upset by my banter.

Yeah, I agree. I was one of the biggest "talkers" of how it one day will be at least to FSX standards and excel in the core code - but that's obviously not going to happen. Flight is not and will never be a peer to FSX. Maybe once everyone accepts poor little Flight for what it is, those who do like it can talk about it in more "normal" forum-fashion. You're probably right, it'll be maybe a month or so after official release (at least I'd hope by then).

You're right - I can't do serious IFR in Flight. You're right, I can't fly anywhere but part of Hawaii. You're right, Microsoft lied to your face and is laughing about it now. You're right, Flight is nowhere near anything close to FSX. I get it, you're mad about these things. I didn't mean to add any grief to the situation. I was just trying to say that I'm OK with a smaller, better looking area than having the entire world in vanilla, that's all. Sorry man. You're right - probably 70 or 8_0 people will download it, 100 max.

OK - There are a small group of people here who are anxious and excited for the release of Flight. We can't wait to give it a spin, buy some extra stuff for it, do the missions, and otherwise play, explore, test, and all that good stuff. For us, it'll be a lot of fun. You're right - it's just a dumb carplane game that no serious desktop pilot would ever allow near their hard drive - luckily for us, we are not that group. We're happy to have what Flight is now and we're going along for the ride and we'll hopefully get to use this forum to talk about it.It's not FSX. It has no jets, no ATC, no VATSIM, no Qartar airport, no 'real' weather, no AI, no 3PD add-ons, no TrackIR, nor does it have most anything else that FSX offers. It's not FSX. Not now, not ever. It will never replace FSX / Prepar3d. Fortunately for anti-Flight people, it doesn't take away FSX / Prepar3d either - so don't sweat it.What do you think it will take for this forum to become "normal?" By that I mean, where it's just the people who like Flight who can come here and talk about what it is and how to use it - ya know, kinda like all the other sub-forums? I realize that right now there is only 4 of us, but I think there will be more coming aboard over the coming weeks and months (not you, of course) and it would be nice to just be able to use this forum like the FSXers, XPlaners, FS2004ers, FS2000ers, and other fan groups do with their forums. Although I loathe "The Sims", I've never gone to their forums where they talk about the game and passionately bash the game with all the reasons I don't like it. Ya know what I'm saying? I understand your frustration. It would have been nice to get a FSXI, even if it only was an optimization and bug-spray patch, but that ain't happening. It's over. The writing is on the wall. Flight is not FSXI and for you, that's a drag and it's OK to hate Flight. It's even OK to vent your frustrations over that fact and bash Microsoft for their disloyalty to you and express all the other emotions that Flight has caused you. But, when do you think you'll be done littering this forum with your displeasure so that it can be used freely and openly by Flight fans to talk about the game?Will there be a day when I could post something like: "Hey guys, I need help finding the Kayaker. . . " without getting responses that just complain and seem to try to convice me to not enjoy what I'm doing?Hope that makes sense - It may take some time and it will 'self correct', I dunno. Maybe it'll need to be moderated against bashing or something. Maybe Flight is too much of a "video game" to be included even as a forum at AvSim? Beats me and I realize my question is pretty rhetorical in nature. . .

Ummm sure - Seems like it was about FS98 or more likely FS2000 that *may* have had something where my city should be. I know earlier versions didn't have it. Hard to believe people who didn't live in that grid with the moutain at the back still bought and enjoyed earlier versions of FS, isn't it?Don't be silly. Of course people are going to buy the rest of Hawaii and I would wager 99.99% don't live in Hawaii. Obviously, none of the Flight haters are going to, but the other millions will.

Hawaii is just the first area (stated ad nauseum). Personally, I'd rather have a dozen fantastic regions than a whole, vanilla world and I suspect that's true for *most* people. I get it that there are a few people out there that loathe the thought of not being able to fly from Kuwait to Amarah and I understand that losing that freedom, if only in thought, is a troublesome feature missing from Flight. For me, when I'm VFR and "casual" having a few hundred thousand square miles in high-detail is more compelling than 196M square miles of plainness (even though I can pretend to visit different areas of plainness). For the more technical, more serious IFR flights, even Hawaii (not that it's the only area ever to be offered) has enough spread to allow the complete excersise of all phases of a long-haul flight.I realize the anti-Flight camp would much rather have a vanilla world than gorgeously rendered regions and that Flight is rubbish. Unfortunately, as they say, "too bad so sad."

+1 on a separate forum - this one is used up.-----------It's impossible for me to say if the price is on target. I will buy the content (except for the exterior only P-51) and see how I feel after using it for a bit. Kinda like going to a fancy restaurant - 22oz Bone-in Ribeye $49 - only after I eat it can I tell you if it was worth it :)

Wow. OK, I'll respond. Support for TrackIR is probably a 1-day task (not that that work hasn't already been done). Inclusion means more sales of Flight. Exclusion means fewer sales of Flight. Same reason it has joystick and rudder support without royalties from CH, Saitek and others. It's really not that hard to understand unless you are just bitter about Flight and want to be difficult? I dunno. . .

Are you being serious or just kidding?

My whole post was a lame attempt at being facetious. Of course a developer 'in bed' with MS and under an NDA who stands to make much money won't come here and dance around an NDA. That's my point, the 3PDs that ARE developing for Flight wouldn't so much as peep the existance of their work. Unlike public beta testers, there is way too much on the line to mess it up by something as dumb as teasing customers with even the mere fact that they are working on a Flight DLC.

Of course Flight will support TrackIR.Seems like FSX was one of the few games that doesn't natively support TrackIR (don't quote me on that, it's just it seems like there was/is some kinda of 'middleware' or something that makes it work with FSX).

I find it kinda strange the MS contacted and apparently spent some significant time with the likes of Orbx and PMDG concerning Flight. I'd think that since they're obviously making a coin-collecting carplane arcade game that there really wouldn't be any need to open discussions with 3PDs. I think I know what happened. Microsoft was planning on doing FSXI and wanted to bundle Orbx and PMDG stuff with it's release, but when those two developers told MS to "get bent", MS decided to scrap the whole thing and go with the coin-collecting carplane arcade game. I'm sure those were the only two 3PDs Microsoft talked to and since they didn't approve of Microsoft's vision of FSXI, Microsoft realized that without those two companies they would certainly fail with an FSXI, hence their decision to just do a low-budget WiiWare game and call it a day.Obviously there is no other 3rd party development going on since we haven't seen those companies come here and post, "I have a secret, but I'm under an NDA and can't tell you." Obviously they would do that since it wouldn't be breaking the NDA.

+1

+1

Yeah, that's my biggest beef with my iphone/ipad. Oh wait, no, that's why I like it so much. :)The third party stuff is coming. We have plenty to play with on Feb 29th and there will be a steady stream of additional content to keep us entertained as Flight evolves. It's not time for a PMDG 737. . .

Obviously, there will be. Or you could say, "However, when the 172 is released, I'll compare it with a nice scenery add-on of Hawaii, and a Carenado Cessna for instance, and enjoy the added scenery, the ATC talking to me, the AI aircraft around me. . .and I'll keep in mind that I paid $30 for smooth-as-butter Flight and $189 for the other that studders, slide-shows, crashes, has weird graphical glitches, and an ATC that makes me go-around 6 times."I'm just poking. Who knows, maybe Flight will never have a 172 or ATC.

Corinco and RichLP - I'm in your camp and I want to thank both of you for posting your thoughts on the direction of Flight. Flight will be FS11, 12, 13, 14, 15, etc. On February 29th, it'll be FS1-NG (Flight Simulator 1 - Next Generation). We get to take the ride all over again and it's going to be exciting. Remember how exciting it was with each new release of Flight Sim? Back then, we had to wait years between releases as the economic model pretty much mandated that approach, but today we can wake up the next day and see an update that takes it to FS1.1 or FS2 or see a new plane added or scenery area or challenge or ATC. Remember when a jet powered plane was added? How about when ATC came online? Exciting times ahead.It's surprising that so many people think that Feb 29th indicates the FINAL PRODUCT. I know MS doesn't think that way. I'm am so thankful that the series hasn't been cancelled (as I did a few years ago). It's going to be FUN to go along for the ride while Flight evolves from it's humble beginnings on Feb 29th to what it will eventually become. Feb 29th is not the end of Flight, it's the beginning of a new flight simulator. One that won't crash-to-desktop on final after an three hour flight or reduce your experience to a slide-show.

On second thought - you are absolutely right. If MS models the entire US and all it's major airports and cities to the level I assume can be found in the Hawaii package, then yeah, $1,000 sounds about right - pretty much what it would cost to do that in FSX. . .

Oops. Yes I did. Sorry. I think we agree.

The 'risk of the addon not selling enough [to make a profit]' is true with or without Microsoft and having MS look over your code to make sure you're not going to mess up 1M installations is not a bad thing.'Fat 30% of sales' is actually pretty cheap - not only do you get the commerce solution, but the most important thing is you get incredibly, enviously targeted marketing of your product with 99% viewing and one-click purchasing and installation ease. It makes WAY more sense to forgo 30% so your business can make planes and NOT have to hire marketing, distribution, collections, and other personel just to make only some people aware of your product and hope that a fraction of that fraction actually go out of their way to buy it and then hope you've hired enough support people to help with installation and to moderate your support forum. . .Really, 30% is a bargain for 3PDs.

That's certainly one way to look at it. I'll look at it differently. . .Hawaii is a beautiful region of the US with mountains, beaches, water, volcanos, waterfalls, and even cruise ships. It's topography has a lot of neat features. It also happens to be isolated and relatively small. Those items make it a perfect launching point for Flight. Firstly, for zero dollars you get a nicely done main island and at least a couple of planes. For $20 more you get the rest of this very well done scenery and at least another plane. Now, instead of thinking that you're only getting the rest of the state and at least one more plane for $20, maybe consider that at least part, if not all, of your money goes towards actually paying for Flight (the program) which happens to include all of Hawaii and half-a-dozen planes. Now consider Kansas. Somehow I doubt they can sell Kansas, even at the level of detail of Hawaii, for $20 - it's just not interesting. Think of all the other states that wouldn't sell. So, to think the 50 US states are going to be DLC @ $1,000 for the set is, well, a crazy thought. Also consider there is a HUGE market outside of the US. England, Germany, France, Australia - most of them, I'm sure, would prefer some local content too. I'm thinking we'll see large geographic regions with minimal structures, but accurately placed runways/airports/NAVAIDs (for a price, of course). Then we'll see "Hawaii-level" detailed areas (mainly cities and airports and/or regions) also available for purchase.

Uhmmm. . .your original argument was that Hawaii took a really long time to make, ergo the rest of the world would take until the next century to make. So I said that it would not take long because it's already been made. To answer your "follow up", no I haven't seen anything that says Flight will have "global coverage out of the box". I'm quite certain on Feb 29th it won't. The point is that "global coverage" is on the shelf and can be sold in the hundreds-of-thousands, maybe millions, of units. It would seem rather silly to never sell a digital product with multi-million dollar potential, don't you think? Actually, as it stands, Flight won't as much fun for me as it's opposite of what I like the most. Eye-candy is fine, but IFR flight is more my thang. I don't think Feb 29th will be too IFR friendly.

Although you could not be more wrong about me on a personal/professional level, Microsoft is a publically traded corporation and by it's definition is passionately financially-oriented. Not sure the application of this to the discussion. Sure he was passionate about Windows - Apple and others showed him the way of a GUI OS and the certain demise of DOS and his OS (financial) dominance had he not done something different. They're really not, one just needs to listen Already have. No kidding, but that's not exactly a 'vision', more along the lines of 'duh'.