Flight is not what you are hoping for

[poplar 39]

They're not losing legacy, they're not creating an Arcade experience..... ________________________________________________________________________________ A number of you have asked, “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?” In addition to the FAQ on this topic, we want to directly address the concern that by dropping the “Simulator” from the name, we’re dumbing down the experience. Quite the contrary! We’ve developed on the “simulation” aspect for many years and have no intention of losing that legacy. What we’re doing now is improving the total experience while building on this legacy, enhancing the enjoyment for all who share a passion for flight. The more people who join us in the Flight experience, the greater the opportunity we’ll have to do even more. Many of you are concerned that because we want to appeal to a wider audience, we must be building an arcade game. We don’t need to create an arcade game to welcome a wider audience. But we do need to improve the total user experience if we’re to be successful in welcoming new audiences into the experience of Flight. The passion and fascination of flight is powerful, with so many different aspects to aviation and different levels of enjoyment to experience. There is distinct value and strength to be gained by welcoming a wider audience, and we can’t claim to have done the best job of it in the past. What does appealing to a wider audience mean? It means improving the user-interface experience, achieving better performance on today’s hardware, providing more focused challenges for people who aren’t quite sure what to do next, and introducing more persistent experiences for people who return often. It also means keeping alive the freedom to go where you want, when you want, and to do what you want. Regardless of their hardware power, piloting experience, or level of interest, many people have enjoyed the traditional flight-simulation experience as a solitary activity. We see a compelling social aspect to the experience inherent in the fun, and we need to better enable and support this dynamic to strengthen the entire Flight experience for everyone. Based on the previous webisode, we’ve heard, “This doesn’t look any different from FSX!” As we said in the introduction, we’re still early in the development cycle, so the fact that you comment on the similarity to FSX is great! This comment alone should ease some of the arcade concerns. Please follow along with our progress as we continue to release more webisodes, screenshots, and additional information. In the end, we hope that you’ll have a great time looking back at these early samples and being part of the evolution. Thank you for all your enthusiasm and support!

[alainneedle1 97]

Oouch..who poured the cold water on me

I know, I tried to warm peoples up to the fact that....never mind. Wait!!, wait!!, I'm sure that some peoples here will say that MS and the devs. are lunching their own rumour or misinformation stunt to counteract the rumours we have read about Flight so far, so at the end MS will release something fantastic since we are not expecting it anymore....clever....can that be???

[Sherv_CLS 0]

I hope I'm DEAD WRONG and this is purely speculation, but as some people mentioned before, they may just release a base pack that includes Hawaii. Then they may release " expansion packs " as time goes on. I mean after all of these months of development, they haven't shown us any other areas of the world for us to drool over. MS may be getting this idea looking at what 3PD are charging for their products and adjusting accordingly. All we can do is wait until next month for updates that may give additional clues.

[masondom 0]

Hi everybody, I am taking a look at Microsoft News Center.This news center is concentrating all strategic topics for the firm.What is strategic ? Microsoft "highest executives" are focused on Bing, Consumer products (Microsft. national survey to inspirenew generation of Doctors and scientitst),They are focused on BUILD and Kinnect, on Microsoft Dynamics, on Hardware department, on Dynamics depart.on MSN, Office, Security, Servers, Windows, Client, Windows 8, Windows embedded, aah..........and Windows Live and XBOX.So i suppose that in Windows Live department, there is 3% concern about FLIGHT.But i am following the News Center for quite a long time and don't see any news on FLIGHT.FLIGHT isn't even a far far sattellite of Microsoft core profits, it's a white dwarf sun.And we, poor simmers, are some free electrons graviting around some space rocks near this dwarf sun,(these poor desolated rocks are FS9 and FSX).For me, who lived the FS adventure from the beginning, it is not about fight or revenge. It is sad news becauseMicrosoft betrayed one of its very original creation twenty five years ago. (please copy this, author of Wikipedia)Dom Mason

[Chock 17,769]

They're not losing legacy, they're not creating an Arcade experience.....

Yup, we've all seen that interview/press release, and it's all very fine marketing-speak, but at no point in any of it does is put any meat on the bone of contention regarding what it actually will be, i.e. there is not one fact along the lines of 'there will be 25,000 airports', or 'there'll be a full simulation of hydraulic systems', it's all: 'we are expanding the user experience' and that kind of poncy PR bollox, which frankly, is so nebulous that it could mean anything, either good or bad. Any other forthcoming game or sim actually tells you what is coming with a decent video preview showing all that you can expect, or a list of features, even PMDG showed some video of their long-awaited NG, but not Flight, unless all you can expect is to fly a Stearman around Pearl Harbor, and if one can indeed do more, then it has to be said that the marketing is terrible in this regard, because it makes no mention of it at all, which is why everyone is calling it Hawaii Simulator, because that's exactly what it looks like it is going to be, if we are going off the marketing campaign thus far. Al

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

It all just doesn't seem right...Microsoft knows that a sim that is "not what we are hoping for" with all the non-features mentioned in the other thread would fail miserably. There's no market for something like that. I'm just lost right now...I don't know what to believe anymore!

[poplar 39]

I agree with you Al - there is no meat on the bone of contention outside Hawaii. I love what they've developed so far in Hawaii and am really hoping that the marketing hype turns out to be true. Some of the hype suggested us experienced simmers won't be disappointed, surely a company like Microsoft actually knows what this means by not forgetting to include the rest of the world's airports - unless they're living on a different planet.

[Chock 17,769]

It all just doesn't seem right...Microsoft knows that a sim that is "not what we are hoping for" with all the non-features mentioned in the other thread would fail miserably. There's no market for something like that.

There almost certainly is a market for something like that, just not necessarily around here. Pilot Wings sold well over a million copies within two years of its release, it spawned sequels too (which is something only sales successes usually manage, and games makers want titles 'with legs'). It gets ranked pretty highly in the many 'best ever' games lists you find dotted around the intertron. Might not appeal to you, certainly doesn't appeal to me, but MS are not in the business of pleasing me, which is why they will please themselves, although if their marketing isn't right, it could still tank, and worryingly for them, traditionally MS's marketing is not the best where games have been concerned, but there is no doubt they have the clout to push it in terms of connections, so if they get it right, it could do very well. Al

[poplar 39]

There almost certainly is a market for something like that, just not necessarily around here. Pilot Wings sold well over a million copies within two years of its release, it spawned sequels too (which is something only sales successes usually manage, and games makers want titles 'with legs'). It gets ranked pretty highly in the many 'best ever' games lists you find dotted around the intertron. Might not appeal to you, certainly doesn't appeal to me, but MS are not in the business of pleasing me, which is why they will please themselves, although if their marketing isn't right, it could still tank, and worryingly for them, traditionally MS's marketing is not the best where games have been concerned, but there is no doubt they have the clout to push it in terms of connections, so if they get it right, it could do very well. Al

Good point well made.

[Jacoba 55]

Anyway with all this smoke, a fire is more than likely going on

That's what I'm taking from all of this... and the more one thinks about it logically. It seems that the most realistic explanation is one where Flight is still alive, but MS has locked out the add on developers and THAT is why we are getting all these nasty rumors, folks pushing the envelopes of their NDA's etc... These folks, the add on developers just had their world changed and were told they won;t be making any money off of MS Flight. Wouldn't you be upset too? I'm beginning to think your statement is factual, where there is smoke there is fire. One thing is certain, there is alot of anger coming from somewhere over Flight being both directly and indirectly aimed at MS. Maybe there are good reasons there are so few updates, so little info and the only pics anyone has seen are of Hawaii...

[MarkW 1,490]

http://www.usatoday....mpionship_n.htm

Actually I was referring to Howard Stern's father. They use the clip on the show all the time.

[alainneedle1 97]

Actually I was referring to Howard Stern's father. They use the clip on the show all the time.

Haaa! i c...

[greggerm 312]

AVSIM Staff, Could you kindly crosscheck "Anondev" 's posting IP address with that of the other members here at Avsim?I'd be curious to see if there is a correlation. By all means do not tell us who it may be if there is a correlation, but I would be very curious to know if there was. -Greg ~ --- ~ --- ~ Mr./Ms. Anondev: I've bookmarked this thread. Time will tell if your prognostications are accurate. -Greg

[booterboy 0]

Hawaii and a couple of planes?Don't know what to make of the recent rumors but surely after 3 years of development MS has something more in the pipeline.Will just have to wait for official news,but the news of addon devs being locked out doesn't fill me with confidence.

[byork 2,258]

AVSIM Staff, Could you kindly crosscheck "Anondev" 's posting IP address with that of the other members here at Avsim?I'd be curious to see if there is a correlation. By all means do not tell us who it may be if there is a correlation, but I would be very curious to know if there was. -Greg ~ --- ~ --- ~ Mr./Ms. Anondev: I've bookmarked this thread. Time will tell if your prognostications are accurate. -Greg

I think "Deep Throat" would be smart enough, especially if he was a Dev, to create the account using a Proxy to hide his true IP.