Cusance wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2012 at 6:16pm:


Cusance, I agree with you completely. While we have every right to be annoyed that MS isn't catering for us simmers, they are after all a for-profit company answerable to their shareholders. It is inevitable that they will take whatever route brings them the greatest return on their investment.

Misrepresentations to the flight sim community are however another issue altogether...

Well if MS thinks I'm going to drop unlimited dollars into Flight while FSX, X-Plane, Flight Gear, Outerra, and several others I can't think of are available, they are nuts. 

Plain and simple...

alrot wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2012 at 8:40pm:

no. i said that i could not comment on that as I dont know you. however language can be confusing. I explained how I interpreted or as seems misinterpreted your words. now that i understand your meaning, I still have to point out to you that its unrealistic to expect a company such as MS to invest and continue investing in a product that is very niche. you may have noticed that MS has ditched most of its niche software or has reinvented it, such as FS. however their PR over flight was misleading. They knew from the start (as indicated in interviews) that they were going to upset the simmer community, while the PR seemed to suggest that the experienced flyer (simmer ??) would also be catered for. The latter is simply not true. THAT is something MS got wrong and someone in their PR department should get the boot for that. I would classify it as a classic 'cock up'. although some have suggested a more cynical motive such as keeping simmers from investing in other products while waiting for Flight.
Either way, their PR on Flight was misleading.

Joe, I think what Cusance means by misleading is that MS didn't give out enough information for people to gauge whether Flight was a sim or not so people assumed that it was.

I am one of those experienced simmers enjoying Flight for what it is, A Game.

JoBee wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2012 at 4:41pm:

I do not recall saying that because there was no AI, ATC or the whole world etc that therefore the PR was misleading. You mention all these factors, I didnt. I am referring to a general expectation that had been created about this game by MS.
I followed the various posts very carefully. I also emailed some specific questions and some of those were picked up in their replies. It was stated several times that this game would appeal to novices and experienced flyers. This i consider was misleading. there is simply too much missing for the game to really appeal to the experienced simmer. The very fact that they KNEW the simmer world would not like it (as stated by MS personnel in interviews) and yet their replies to repeated questions about this was that the experienced simmer would not be forgotten warrants, in my view the contention that the PR was misleading. It would have been easy for them to say from the start that experienced simmers would NOT like it.
They chose to side step the issues.You are correct in saying that none of these things were promised. however these are all aspects of flying an experienced simmer would expect.  the very fact that so many simmers are so very dissapointed with the game shows that they were expecting more. They must have had that impression from somewhere. An expectation had been created. In the UK we would say that in this instance MS had been 'economical with the truth'. it doesnt mean Flight doesnt do well, what it does.

JoBee wrote on Mar 25^th, 2012 at 1:39pm:


I have to say JoBee,you are defensife about flight.
You aren't the only experienced simmer,you are however,the only experienced simmer I know of that actualy LIKES flight.

And just do some maths here people,if 1 state in america costs 20-30 dollars X 50 = between 1000 and 1500 dollars.
Sound like a pure money scedule to me.

Oh and this is what it sais on the MS flight site at the moment:

The sky's the limit! Now anyone can enjoy the fun, freedom and adventure of flight. Feel the power at your fingertips as you take to the skies and launch into thrilling missions and exciting challenges over the free-to-play Big Island of Hawaii. Take off today and fly into the ever-expanding world of Microsoft Flight.

Better one would be:Your wallet's the limit!

   Hehe, some people surf YouTube to pass the time during the sleepless times. I surf game related sites and watch the fanboys fight it out with the ultra extremist critics instead. Doesn't really matter what game, it's just fun to watch people argue something as unimportant as video games with an often religious type zeal, were opinion is treated as absolute fact, and anyone caught in the center is lucky not to be flamed in the crossfire.  (Note: This thread is not what I refer too. This sites been pretty calm/adult.)
    Avsim, being the FS site that is now famous for going on lockdown and censoring the multitude of negative posts following Flight's release, is probably the best site for fans currently. Your not really allowed to to post negatively much beyond "I'm a true  fan, but it would be great if the all power full MS made this teeny tiny little change, if they feel like it. No hurry, I'm probably wrong. Please don't hit me MS..." type comments, before such comments, or the following replies, get the whole thread deleted. 
    All in all, with a third attempt going at AVsim, to gage the user feedback of flight with a sticky poll, the overall reaction there, just like here, is "meh" at best. Most of the 1100* users polled to date, never got beyond the freebie part, and are not committing to purchasing of DLC at this time. 
    Certainly Avsim is better for fans than MS flights own site. The official site only gets more negative with every news item they post. Many of those negative posts apparently coming from people who thought Flight was great only a week before. It's getting pretty hostile over there.
    As for other sites, the reaction is pretty much the same as here. Quite a bit of "meh", quite a bit of people who gave it a chance, kinda supported it, and are now backing away, and just a bit of outright hatred thrown in here and there to keep things spicy. The last having calmed quite a bit as people moved on with life.
What I do not see is any great effort to support it, like it, or otherwise defend it. There are some supporters, but they seem mainly comprised of the "ugh, I tried FSX, and it was too hard, didn't run on my PC, bored me to death, etc.." crowd, that while they do seem to fit the intended customer base, I don't think qualify as experienced simmers any more than my cats qualify has  experienced simmers after batting around my joystick for five minutes.
    The vast majority of what support I do see, regardless of who is doing it, seems to be based off the notion that Flight will become "FS11", in a year or two, and completely disregards the notion that FS11 is exactly what MS does not want to do. If it was, they wouldn't have canned Aces, wouldn't have sold the remains of the FS series to Lockheed, wouldn't have tried to pass Flight off as a "reboot", and nobody would be having these discussions because we'd be talking about FS11 instead.

*current Avsim poll numbers:

Have you downloaded and installed FLIGHT?
Yes (842 votes [77.60%])
No (243 votes [22.40%])

Have purchased any of the Downloadable Content? (DLC's)?
Yes (350 votes [32.26%])
No (735 votes [67.74%])

Will you purchase DLC's in the future?
Yes (250 votes [23.04%])
No (317 votes [29.22%])
Maybe - it depends upon the DLC (518 votes [47.74%])

If you have NOT downloaded FLIGHT will you do so?
Yes (27 votes [2.49%])
No (128 votes [11.80%])
Maybe sometime in the future (104 votes [9.59%])
I have already downloaded it. (826 votes [76.13%])

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/364541-flight-poll-one-more-time/