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Better sit down again

I seem to remember some pretty good flight sims from the mid to late 90's such as the Jane's Simulations, Pro Pilot and some others. If M$ decides to do away with flight simulation totally, then sooner or later someone WILL come up with another good simulation that will fill that empty place. M$ knows this as well, and they will try tooth and nail to stay on "the cutting edge" to keep other companies from filling this niche. Another thing--and this HAS been ruled on by the courts--If you no longer work for a company through no fault of your own, such as layoffs, then you CANNOT BE BARRED from working for a competing organization. You can be barred from revealing trade secrets, but that is all. For example,if I am an engineer working for Boeing and get laid off, then I CANNOT be barred from going to work for another aerospace company, doing the same job. I just cannot reveal proprietary information.
 
Lionheart said:
Nice panel there Bill!

What model of Garmins are those?
Click to expand...

The new G300's developed for the C162. This is the same panel/gauge set I posted about at Freeflight Design some months ago... ;)

Aside from the panel background (1680x1500) and gauge bezels, it is 100% vector drawn. :wiggle:
 
I looked at X-plane's scenery how-to's and got lost. Although there was a thread on one of their forums where a guy was trying to transfer my NAS Pensacola Scenery into X-Plane. Other folks were helping the gent along like no problems exist with doing whatever you wish with others' copyrighted material.... Put a bad taste in my mouth for X-Plane for sure.
 
yikes...!

Good find there Nick...


Makes me wish I had already been converting packages to XP9. Looks like the moguls are looking for a replacement for FS 'now!'



Bill
 
I don't think so yet Bill, I think they feel hurt and are looking for explanations and information from MS to enable them to plan for the future.
 
JT8D-9A said:
"Microsoft today unveiled new features for the Games for Windows – Live gaming service. The online service will now allow users to access a new in-game marketplace and upload their personal settings from any Windows PC."

source:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/n...-windows-ndash-live-features-announced/?biz=1
Click to expand...

Surprise surprise what? People seem to be jumping on the "let's bash live" bandwagon and there seems to be a huge amount of misinformation about what exactly this has to do with Flight Simulator.
 
I'm a MS, Live and FSX basher since the beginning lol
Just an information, no bashing - not even a comment if i like the idea or not.
It's simply not a huge surprise and i think the future predictable.
 
It's not a surprise though, not at all. Not for the reason that everybody expects though. Live has been around for years. Games for Windows Live has been around years, too. MS are just updating it to fall in line with Xbox Live.
 
Live is just a "pay-to-play" scheme. A way for MS to keep a revenue stream going vs users just paying one time for the game and being to play it "forever".

Each business model has its merits and drawbacks.

Several things IMO have to happen before the flightsim community can embrace the "pay-to-play" idea. For over 20 years now we have been used to buying a sim program then flying it for a year or two then upgrading to the next version. We always had the option of keeping what we had or moving up. Or skipping a "generation" and moving up later. That's because flight sims seem to have a longer shelf life. We flight simmers don't get too bored with what we have in short order. Mostly because 3rd party developers keep offering freeware or payware items to keep things fresh.

This doesn't happen in the console world (or typical FPS PC games). You get what is released and play it until you get bored because you reached all the levels and it becomes the same-old, same-old. There are no 3rd party ad-ons or updates. You play what you have until the developers release a new version/sequel/update/whatever. This insures a revenue stream for the software developer. As an off-hand guess I would say FPS gamers get bored with what they have within a few months (is there a vast majority of guys still playing the original HALO?)

Flight sims are always different each time you boot them up. It's a harder nut for the game developer to crack. We flight simmers get set in our ways and have other sources to spice things up so we're not tired with the same 10 airplanes to choose from. MS may have thought at one time it was cool to release the code to allow add-ons for 3rd parties but I think they see now how it limits their revenue. With pay-to-play they can control what we get, when we get it and how we use it plus they make a buck off it.

If (and this is a big IF) they want to be successful with pay-to-play they'll need to make sure they keep adding things to make the simmer WANT to continue. MS will need to keep introducing new aircraft, scenery, color schemes, etc. to make sure simmers stay connected. I think most simmers are solitary by nature when they fly and don't want to have to deal with other simmers in a 'multi-player' environment. I know flying "live" doesn't interest me in the least.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. There will be a definite pardigm shift coming in the next few years.

-G-
 
I saw a news item this morning that I-Tunes (I think, not sure, I don't use such services, not interested) raised the per tune DL from 0.99cents to $1.29.

Therein lies my issue with subscription based. If they needed an almost 30% increase to cover, whatever, the product was never priced correctly or honestly to begin with, but the business model is hookem' and cookem'. It's all about the money, always has been, always will be. That's what capitalism is all about. The more you can convince people that your product or service is worth the money the better it is for you as the provider of that product or service. And if it isn't really better you can use marketing and other techniques to work around the facts, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And in some cases you increase rates just because you can (the credit card companies come to mind). The problem with applying this to a flight sim as I see it is the product itself. Let's face it, does anyone think the hundreds of forums that exist worldwide dedicated to flight simming exist because the products work as they should, as advertised, with all features intact?

How many postings say, "boy this works perfectly and meets my expectations", because at that point there's little to post about anymore.

Given the trials and tribulations I've been through with FSX and it's predecesors there's no way I'd join a subscription service for this kind of product performance, especially since you know it's only going to go up in monthly cost as quickly as they feel thay can get away with it.

I won't be the first on my block to get involved with pay for play, I've already got a belly full of that with Comcast (no competion where I am, satellite dishes not permitted, fios won't or can't come into the condo complex), product quality never really improves, basically I only watch a dozen or so of the hundreds of channels I'm having to pay for monthly.

Fortunately, we do have a choice, we don't have to subscribe, if that's the future for flight sims, and although it might sound heretical, for me I'm certain there can be life after flight simming. I've discovered this all through my life with a number of diversions I've enjoyed getting deeply involved with but no longer do for one reason or another. But I do think about support for the current product as pertains to reinstallations going forward. If the OS's and software weren't so buggy and fubar ridden it might not be an issue. That, in my experience, has not been the case.

I also have no interest on the "Live" or anything "on line". I'm of those solitary simmers referred to above.

But the beauty of capitalism is that if the demand is there for some product or service delivered in a certain way, someone will try and meet that demand if they think hey can make a profit from it.
 
LOL fellas, the funny thing is Comcast has a good reliabilty record in my locale, but it still represents very poor value for dollar. Especially as, since I first got cable in the early 80's, I've never rented a movie even once or watched a pay-per-view sports event.

Maybe I'll go back to rabbit ears with a digital coverter for off the air signal.
 
As i read the article i thought about how modifiable will be a new Live Game - if modifications and add-ons will be only allowed through the in-game marketplace and if there are limitations because of the authentication.
I think there are also a lot positive aspects and possibilities but freeware is my main concern, because i think a community can only exist if everyone is able to contribute something.
 
JT8D-9A said:
As i read the article i thought about how modifiable will be a new Live Game - if modifications and add-ons will be only allowed through the in-game marketplace and if there are limitations because of the authentication.
I think there are also a lot positive aspects and possibilities but freeware is my main concern, because i think a community can only exist if everyone is able to contribute something.
Click to expand...


Two very good points. Upgradeability and freeware.

Freeware is what caused the massive, huge interest in Flight Simulator. A platform that was easy to make planes for and a huge number of people were suddenly making everything and anything to fly in FS with. Then came the 'ultra models' and enter the payware world of sophisticated, decked out, detailed planes.

With FSX, came a ultra sophistication of models and freeware has dried up I believe about 90% to 95%. Where we had perhaps 100 devs in the freeware world, I think we probably have a few now. Paul, Tim, Jans, to mention several. Time to make a bird is now longer, almost over a year on the average, so the lag between releases is causing a drop in FS instrest.

I would have to say that flying a new plane once a week in FS is what really got me hooked or addicted. Now its about every 2 months that a nice bird comes out, if that.

Its sort of like the movies. A new movie once a week gives you something to do on the weekends. A movie coming out once every 6 to 8 weeks, and you are suddenly needing to find something else to do on Friday nights, unless you want to go watch the same movies over and over.


As for payware online playing with FS, lol.. well.. I think thats a bit hilarious. Thats like running Windows Word online and paying 'moment to moment'. People will migrate to XP9 so fast. And people in Word will migrate to OpenGL Office.

We (the customers) are broke these days. We are saving all our pennies now.


As for the others like Star Wars and some of the games that are role playing, that are totally based on payware online playing 'only', they have been massively successful. But they started out that way, and they have some cool features and things (if I am correct), so they have their own world. But, I, well, I dont see how you can get a guy in there that just wants to fly a Cessna 140 from Phoenix to Flagstaff and pay $5.00 to do it is going to happen.


Hey,

Ubuntu! :d

:ernae:


Bill
 
I am personally against this idea strongly, however it may be a commercially good idea. Are most people who use MSFS people like us that visit forums, upload and download freeware and so on or are they people who don't even know forums exist and walk into a shop and buy an addon ? If it is the latter, its a good commercial decision, as they will know no better and do it. It is the avid fans that will suffer, but if we are in the minority, MS will not give a stuff, its all about ££££ or $$$ at the end of the day.

Does anyone know any statistics in this respect ?
 
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