Camel_Moe wrote on Mar 11^th, 2012 at 7:31pm:


First let me say that your posts are very humorous - "room full of poo and a broken typewriter" - you got to be kidding me. However, I just checked your spelling of poo with Wikipedia and they immediately changed it to poop, wait - wait - just a moment, somebody just changed it back to poo! Now tell me that wasn't you.

Camel_Moe wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 10:58am:


In all seriousness, Wikipedia is referred by some as a virtual on-line Encyclopedia. I read somewhere that PC Pro created an article and purposely put errors in it, submitted it to Wikipedia, and within hours it was corrected. I would like to think this forum is a friendly discussion group looking for help or just information while not getting involved in worrying whether a post meets some sort of academia standard.

The way I look for new product information is first go to the source of the infromation. In the case of Microsoft Flight, go to the Microsoft Studio. Then if one desires, check several more sources which could or not be Wikipedia. This will give you a better perspective about the new product. In most instances, if it was Wikipedia, Microsoft would have already fed them their information and the only thing new would be their own characteration of the product. In my case, they referred to Microsoft Flight Game as Microsoft Flight Simulator Game which I totally agree. I have also found that Wikipedia has a very sophyticated consensus model with far more internal checks and balances than I first envisioned.

Having said all this and because of the apparent distrust by some in using Wikipedia as a source, I will never refer to them again in this forum.

It's the 11th version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. Leave it where it is.

jetprop wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 1:06pm:


Your right, it is the 11th Flight Simulator Game they produced. So leave it where it is.

First off, nothing personal towards Wing Nut. I am quoting your post simply as a launching pad to post some thoughts.

Wing Nut wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 2:50pm:

Isn't that what we have had to do with every version of FS?

While a lot of addons have been backwards compatible, not all have.

And providing backwards compatibility was probably one of the primary reasons for ACES rehashing old code for new versions instead of starting from scratch. Was that their decision or Microsoft's?

How many complaints have been posted in this forum, and others, over the years complaining about ACES retaining legacy code and not utilizing the latest technologies?

Wing Nut wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 2:50pm:

It was never intended to do that. Anyone who thinks it was simply has not been paying attention.

Wing Nut wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 2:50pm:

Again, isn't that what we have done in the past?

Now we have the beginnings of a new flight sim.......erm, simulated experience, or simulator, that is not tied to code based in the stone ages of personal computing.

Is it FSNext? No.

Do I wish for a new full world, AI populated, ATC controlled with accurate airspace, terrain, flight dynamics flight simulator? You bet.

Do I want it locked to the performance-limiting core of the past, released before it's fixed, followed by Service Paks, each with their own SDK? No friggin' way.

I think that an important idea to remember is, unlike MSFS in which each version was released basically complete (then patched), Flight is in it's infancy and the potential for growth is unlimited.

Back to the issue of "is Flight a simulator or a game?", it's both. It is what you (the flight simming community) want it to be and what you want to get out of it. If you want to play like a game, go ahead, have fun.

If you want to use it as a flight simulator, you can, granted to a different level of immersion than FS9 and FSX,....so far. Personally, I find it very realistic, as I am a GA nut and former resident of Hawaii.

Thanks for reading.

cheers,
Joe

Wing Nut, where did you read that Flight's planes are in .model format?

From what I know it's all in .dll format.

I think the real point is not exactly backwards comparability of add-ons relative to how they work with MSFS. 
Discounting the computer costs, an expense that occurs with every new generation of technology anyway, you could buy any MSFS title, run it, and never buy a thing for it again. You had a larger stable of planes, with a variety to choose from,  a whole world, and assorted features like AI, right out of the box.   
When the next one came out, true you could bring things from past FS versions, but you didn't need to, you still had a whole world, ATC, default aircraft, etc.
Now you have to buy the whole program bit by bit, for a total that could reach into the hundreds of dollars or more, just to get a comparable content when compared to what was standard in a MSFS title.
So the real questions are: Is every version of Flight going to start fresh, and force the user to spend hundreds of dollars yet again to get the basic content and features that approximate an MSFS title? Or, on the flip side, is this it one continually evolving program that get's added to forever? The latter being unlikely just because eventually you'd have an antiquated bit of software with compatability issues pertaining to modern hardware in the future.
This brings us to another question: If there are new versions, and you can use old DLC, wouldn't the sales model eventually implode, as each one would sell less DLC than the previous as people became content with their collections?

Wing Nut wrote on Mar 12^th, 2012 at 6:34pm:



Yep, was trying to help clarify, as he didn't seem to see a difference. Somehow I buggered up the qoutes that tied it all together. They ran away.


I can also point out an example of a game, that while not being free to play, has a simular DLC model.
EA's "The Sims" series.
What EA does, and why I lost interest, is put out new versions with some basic function updates to each one (Sims, 1,2,3),  but most of the popular content stripped from each one.
Each version starts out with has little of the previous DLC/expansion content has they can get away with without causing a revolt, and then they sell it all back to you again in "new" DLC and expansion packs.
The base game was improved enough from Sims 1 to 2, that I put up with it, but by the 3rd version it just wasn't worth buying everything again a third time.
I have the feeling that's where MS is going to try and go with Flight .