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About Microsoft Flight


Nels_Anderson

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We've known it was coming for some time, since August 17, 2010 when Microsoft first announced their new product "Microsoft Flight". For a long time we knew little about it but gradually Microsoft released more and more, with screen shots, videos and some news items with limited details.

 

On December 1, 2011, the Microsoft team announced "the Microsoft Flight launch sequence has begun!" so the product really is real and is now possibly only months away from release.

 

In that same announcement, a request for beta testers was made, with beta testing set to kick off in January 2012.

 

We will keep you up to date with new information as we know it. In the meantime, be sure the visit to official Microsoft Flight web site for official information:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

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Microsoft invited a select group of community organizations to Redmond, Washington, for a preview and discussion regarding Microsoft's soon to be released FLIGHT simulator.

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I think the other big question (apart from system specs), will be the backwards compatibility of add on aircraft and scenery. I make use of a lot of add ons that developers spend huge amounts of time on that I get to use for free but like a lot of folk I have also invested quite a lot of cash on on aircraft and scenery, particularly scenery that enhances where I live. It would be nice to know if I'll be able to "take it with me" to Microsoft Flight.
Footprints of a Squirel ...
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Backwards compatability is the biggest road block to enhancements in performance, new features and new capabilities.

 

I fully understand where you are coming from, but as we saw when FSX was released - a great many "FS2004" aircraft were using FS2000 gauge technology. We are going to lose some addons with every new version. And we have to remember and budget for that to happen.

 

Of course, nothing keeps anyone from staying with a older version. FS2004 has a strong dedicate following.

Hello Dave

 

@ PawPaw's house - near KADS, Addison, Texas, USA

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Nels:

 

Looking forward to the new "Flight" Yes I can see it coming that we are going to loose some of the "goodies" from 2004. Even some old stuff won't even work in 2004. I have stuck with 2004 as it has been the most stabile and easy to work with Sim So far, and most addon developer friendly so far. Just think if they would have upgraded 2004 with all the stuff available what a sim it would be, even more than it is now. And they said, the water is crappy, no moving cars, can't have cars going under bridges, scenery needs help. Thats just a tip of the icberg what 2004 offered with all the developers & still does, as opposed to FSX and the new Offering.. It was backward t0 FS98, and it still is forward to 2011 addons. Well time marches on. I hope to be a beta tester..

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Backward compatibility very well might put a stranglehold on it. While I'd love to be able to use at least my FSX native add-ons, I'd much rather have the capability to run photo scenery on 2m mesh with PMDG class aircraft at 30+ FPS on a GOOD computer using multiple monitors, or possibly 3D.

Hanging on to old technology may hurt the natural progression to a realistically simulated planet, visually and environmentally...Don

HAF 932 Adv, PC P&C 950w, ASUS R4E,i7-3820 5.0GHz(MCR320-XP 6 fans wet), GTX 970 FTW

16GB DDR3-2400, 128GB SAMSUNG 830(Win 7 Ult x64), 512GB SAMSUNG 840 Pro(FSX P3D FS9)

WD 1TB Black(FS98, CFS2&3, ROF, etc.), WD 2TB Black-(Storage/Backup)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah thanks a bunch Microsoft. An incomplete GAME. NOT a simulator!

 

Just another attempt by microsoft to make you pay again and again for a program you've already bought.:mad:

 

As stated on thier site - "Those looking to deepen their experience can purchase and download additional content that adds new aircraft, regions and customization options."

 

Thanks but no thanks.

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  • 1 month later...
Throwing away code that's taken years to get right means that now you have to take years to get the new stuff right. It's kind of pointless.

Yeah, but rewriting it to accomodate expansion seems to be the direction MS went.

 

 

For us that wanna know things about Flight, and maybe a hint of what it's capabilities are, I took another gander into the workings of it.

 

Just a few items I found interesting in CorePropDefs.pak:

propflightplan.xml

propRadioSystem.xml

propworldbase.xml

 

Unpak it and peruse some of the *.xml.

a single element if propflightplan.xml for example;

            id          = "{D0EFA29E-6DCA-4f2f-A984-0BA8A5018965}"
           name        = "FPType"
  type  = "ENUM"
           descr       = "IFR or VFR flight plan"
           default  = "None">

                    name = "NONE" 
                   xml_name = "None"/>
                    name = "VFR" 
                   xml_name = "VFR"/>
                    name = "IFR" 
                   xml_name = "IFR"/>

is just a hint of the variables available.

 

Flight's future could be quite bright IF MS follows up an the ground work that has been laid...Don

HAF 932 Adv, PC P&C 950w, ASUS R4E,i7-3820 5.0GHz(MCR320-XP 6 fans wet), GTX 970 FTW

16GB DDR3-2400, 128GB SAMSUNG 830(Win 7 Ult x64), 512GB SAMSUNG 840 Pro(FSX P3D FS9)

WD 1TB Black(FS98, CFS2&3, ROF, etc.), WD 2TB Black-(Storage/Backup)

Active Sky Next, Rex4 TD/Soft Clouds

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Yeah thanks a bunch Microsoft. An incomplete GAME. NOT a simulator!

 

Just another attempt by microsoft to make you pay again and again for a program you've already bought.:mad:

 

As stated on thier site - "Those looking to deepen their experience can purchase and download additional content that adds new aircraft, regions and customization options."

 

Thanks but no thanks.

 

Even though MSflight appears to barely please most of its new users, i think we are gonna need to put some or "many moneys"

on it if we want to have some airplanes in there and the rest of the world airports ( if there is..)

 

P51 is something like 15$ hawai is like 25$ . am i wrong ?

imagine what it will be when extended..

FSX ACCELERATION, ASUS P5QPL VM EPU-INTEL E8400-3GHZ-DDR2RAM4GO-WINDOWS7SP1 -GT220GEFORCE

if you never wonder about something, its because you know everything....:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Depends where you are coming from.. I guess as a GTA fan this is a dream come true :) I think to get a better idea of what's in store you should check out the awards. Quite a bucket list , and some of them certainly impossible with the given aircraft. Can any of those aricraft actually do Mach 3, i think you need auto rudder for that? Or carry 100,000 or whatever passengers? That's going to take awhile in the two seaters...
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Even though MSflight appears to barely please most of its new users, i think we are gonna need to put some or "many moneys"

on it if we want to have some airplanes in there and the rest of the world airports ( if there is..)

 

P51 is something like 15$ hawai is like 25$ . am i wrong ?

imagine what it will be when extended..

I think you are right on target.

Even with all of the investigating of flight's core files I have done, it is not, I believe, to be capable of being a competitor to FSX. Even a 1,000 DLCs later.

My tweaked FSX Hawaii, totally freeware except the mesh, is as much fun to fly, low and slow, as Flight is.

Unless I'm really hugging the deck, or sitting still watching Flight's trees sway(neat feature!), there really isn't a lot of visible difference between the two.

For me it's more about the challenges of flying rather than sightseeing anyway.

 

MS pricing is way out of whack, considering that thier P-51, for example, is nowhere near 1/4 as capable as a $30 A2A Spitfire is even without the Accusim treatment.

The Hawaiian Adventure Pack at $25 is miniscule(with the Vans RV-6A, though) in comparison to the FTX Australia SP4 with an MSRP of $99.95.

 

I've been trying to devote at least an hour a day to "Free Flight"(pun intended), but, there just isn't enough "area" to keep my interest.

 

PNW, CRM, NRM, PF, NZSI all afford large areas of detailed terrain. Aerosoft's Antartica X is another fine example of excellent scenery that will provide great flying.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg when we talk scenery enhancements. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of square miles of detailed terrain with good autogen and shorelines, enhancing the thousands of airports to visit. All available now.

I fear that MS Flight developers won't be able to compete on such a grand scale, know it, and not even try.

 

Future DLC may address the lack of Nav/Comm Radios, ATC, and ILS capable aircraft for those IFR only conditions, but, I'm already getting impatient...Don

HAF 932 Adv, PC P&C 950w, ASUS R4E,i7-3820 5.0GHz(MCR320-XP 6 fans wet), GTX 970 FTW

16GB DDR3-2400, 128GB SAMSUNG 830(Win 7 Ult x64), 512GB SAMSUNG 840 Pro(FSX P3D FS9)

WD 1TB Black(FS98, CFS2&3, ROF, etc.), WD 2TB Black-(Storage/Backup)

Active Sky Next, Rex4 TD/Soft Clouds

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I want to like Flight, I really do. Because the title is from one of the largest software companies in the world I expected more. Not more as in FSNext. More as in the announced new title, new direction, new audience. What we got is FSX-Hawaii (ATM), done up with some quality add-ons. While the game doesn't look "bad" I don't see anything state of the art or innovative at all. The game looks about 4 years old and counting compared to others. This is disappointing.

 

Completely empty Hawaii is disappointing. I'll get to multiplayer in a minute.

 

Yes, some performance gains have been found. On my system at everything maxed (yay) it runs pretty well with some familiar FSX quirks and peculiarities, but that is to be expected on any game/sim of this type. I'm not going to harp on the few technical flaws, they'll get it ironed out eventually, they'll have too, simple as that.

 

The marriage of RPG elements with a Mission/Achievement/Award system is interesting. Unfortunately it appears they have copied only the basic mechanics for these features, leaving the compelling aspects behind. For example, as you accomplish missions/jobs/goals and receive awards/rewards (paints?!?, C'mon Man!) these "features" actually do nothing to better your in-game character or the equipment your character is flying. In-game character advancement (and loot) is the cornerstone of a good quest (mission/job/achievement) system. This implementation is rudimentary and disappointing, I'm looking forward to some tweaking in this area. A Maul Autopilot comes to mind after 10 hrs in-game flight time (doh!). Microsoft will need to get some creativity flowing for this to go anywhere.

 

Along those same lines, Flight multiplayer. Someone please explain the point. Where are the "social" tools? Where are even the basics for a vibrant online community to thrive in? Quick Match is about as Skip to Waypoint as you can get in the "Live" arena. Please, Microsoft Studio guys and gals, you can do better. If you need some ideas, ask.

 

They're trying something new here so version 2 will probably be a more mature offering as they learn, if they choose to do so.

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  • 4 weeks later...

You're assuming MS DID get the code right..... Flight is SO much smoother with FAR more objects (trees etc) than FSX is with far fewer objects. This is a comparison with my current system (quad core 3.0, 560TI, 8 gigs of ram, 7200 HD etc. I don't know anything about code, but I can say that Flight's code seems to be much smoother.

 

If no backwards compatibility means smoother flying... so be it.

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I want to like Flight, I really do. Because the title is from one of the largest software companies in the world I expected more. Not more as in FSNext. More as in the announced new title, new direction, new audience. What we got is FSX-Hawaii (ATM), done up with some quality add-ons. While the game doesn't look "bad" I don't see anything state of the art or innovative at all. The game looks about 4 years old and counting compared to others. This is disappointing.

 

Completely empty Hawaii is disappointing. I'll get to multiplayer in a minute.

 

Yes, some performance gains have been found. On my system at everything maxed (yay) it runs pretty well with some familiar FSX quirks and peculiarities, but that is to be expected on any game/sim of this type. I'm not going to harp on the few technical flaws, they'll get it ironed out eventually, they'll have too, simple as that.

 

The marriage of RPG elements with a Mission/Achievement/Award system is interesting. Unfortunately it appears they have copied only the basic mechanics for these features, leaving the compelling aspects behind. For example, as you accomplish missions/jobs/goals and receive awards/rewards (paints?!?, C'mon Man!) these "features" actually do nothing to better your in-game character or the equipment your character is flying. In-game character advancement (and loot) is the cornerstone of a good quest (mission/job/achievement) system. This implementation is rudimentary and disappointing, I'm looking forward to some tweaking in this area. A Maul Autopilot comes to mind after 10 hrs in-game flight time (doh!). Microsoft will need to get some creativity flowing for this to go anywhere.

 

Along those same lines, Flight multiplayer. Someone please explain the point. Where are the "social" tools? Where are even the basics for a vibrant online community to thrive in? Quick Match is about as Skip to Waypoint as you can get in the "Live" arena. Please, Microsoft Studio guys and gals, you can do better. If you need some ideas, ask.

 

They're trying something new here so version 2 will probably be a more mature offering as they learn, if they choose to do so.

 

MS has taken us in a new direction. This is why they offer the free demo. If it's not your cuppa tea... leave it be and continue with FSX. I have said it before and I'll say it again, from a marketing point of view, piece mealing the game is genius.

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MS has taken us in a new direction. This is why they offer the free demo. If it's not your cuppa tea... leave it be and continue with FSX. I have said it before and I'll say it again, from a marketing point of view, piece mealing the game is genius.

 

I explicitly said, "Not more as in FSNext. More as in the announced new title, new direction, new audience." I then expressed my disappointment with how they implemented the very rudimentary and (for some) pointless "features" they expect to bring 20 million new users (Joshua Howard's quote) in with eventually. Although I did comment that some of the performance idiosyncrasies were comparable to similar problems with FSX, this was merely a truthful operator observation, nothing more.

 

A stripped down title, slow-release DLC schedule, features that are broken (latest patch), worthless, or implemented in a poor manner all combine to sour the "new" experience for me. As I have said before, script kiddies running EMUs have demonstrated more gaming theory, creativity and innovation than a multimillion dollar studio. This is why I said they can do better. A f2p game with a serious lack of DLC is a problem whether Microsoft recognizes it or not. One might even wonder if the supposed "new market" demographic research has taken into consideration that 8 to 13 year olds probably don't have much disposable income. Either way, the lack of available content for Flight in a variety of forms for users who do have money to spend could be interpreted as a foot meet bullet situation for Microsoft.

 

That is disappointing and demonstrates a lack of forethought by the powers that be.

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