euroastar350
SOH-CM-2023
More helicopters, more helicopters and more helicopters. Did I mention more helicopters:costumes:
Thoughts about MSFS 11
- Thread starter Major_Spittle
- Start date
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Pultacatt
Guest
Then its truly a shame that simmers are not the target for the likes of FSX etc
TBO there are a few other sims "just around the corner"...
I didn't say that programming was "so" easy rather some of the things that folk would have hoped for would have been relatively straight forward given the Dev's obvious (enviable) capabilities. One does not need to meet anyone from the FS dev team to grasp the enormity of the task at hand for ACES, I am sure that we are all quite aware of the rough road that todays software Devs have to travel and we tip our hats to them and appreciate their hard work. All the same if they (ACES or whom so ever) incorporate some, not all, of the things that the potential customer would like to see then this helps them to achieve their goal. A prime example of this is Oleg's IL-2 series.
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MCDesigns
Guest
With all due respect, I'd love to see your info to support those claims. Yes, there are things that "many" users wanted , like better AI that did not get improved in FSX, but based on many threads at the other sites like AVSIM and from what has been posted on the developers blogs, a lot of what users did ask for was looked at and implemented if possible. If anything, there was more interaction between the users and ACES for FSX than at any other time in the life of this franchise.
Without being on the ACES team, we can only guess/speculate at why certain features that "we/you" think that could be "easily" implemented were not.
For instance, I posted at most forums and even sent in to MS that I wanted denser autogen, more detail in the textures and road traffic among other things and low and behold...................
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Pultacatt
Guest
May I apologize to all for advancing this thread way off topic - I will desist with this post
MC, I read your comments with understanding and I agree entirely that FSX was built with a noticeable amount of user input and perhaps I should in fact eat a little crow and admit that perhaps my choice of expression could have been better and even guilty of contradicting myself.
However one only has to read this thread for FS11, a wish list, many of the items listed here have been asked for since the dawn (pls don't take me literally) of MSFS and have been overlooked. To make the point I will quote probably one of the most debated subjects and one that has been asked for time and time again (guys I already know the answer but am just making my point): Can we please have, even a basic, combat model. Its an age old chestnut and probably not the best to quote here but it has been asked for repeatedly (and again I am aware of MS's rebuttle - Not the point, we are talking customer satisfaction via a "wishlist" and wanting to be heard).
MC to be completely honest with you and the readership I cannot (and too lazy to go looking for) info to support my claims - But I would like to say that with over 8 years of online flying and getting to know and work with a lot of folk, including dev's and general FS users alike, we all have and continue to scratch our heads as to why some items have not been included; some basic, some impressive and of course the downright ridiculous.
Perhaps not all of us have the means or the where withall to ask for inclusions in the correct manner, I am obviously one of these people - I would not have dreamed of writing MS directly (nor known where / who to contact) for the feeling of being extremely small fry and thus ignored. My own feeling. More than like I am alone in this.
Let me make myself understood a little clearer than I have been able to: I am NOT damning ACES in anyway, they have done a bang up job with FSX and if I could bear their children I most certainly would, their product has given me hours of entertainment and is streets ahead of any previous FS version, and of course some of this acclaim must also go to the likes of yourself who made the effort to have inclusions made possible. I can only look forward to what ACES comes up with for FS11, if FSX is anything to go by then it's going to be Gucci.
MC, I read your comments with understanding and I agree entirely that FSX was built with a noticeable amount of user input and perhaps I should in fact eat a little crow and admit that perhaps my choice of expression could have been better and even guilty of contradicting myself.
However one only has to read this thread for FS11, a wish list, many of the items listed here have been asked for since the dawn (pls don't take me literally) of MSFS and have been overlooked. To make the point I will quote probably one of the most debated subjects and one that has been asked for time and time again (guys I already know the answer but am just making my point): Can we please have, even a basic, combat model. Its an age old chestnut and probably not the best to quote here but it has been asked for repeatedly (and again I am aware of MS's rebuttle - Not the point, we are talking customer satisfaction via a "wishlist" and wanting to be heard).
MC to be completely honest with you and the readership I cannot (and too lazy to go looking for) info to support my claims - But I would like to say that with over 8 years of online flying and getting to know and work with a lot of folk, including dev's and general FS users alike, we all have and continue to scratch our heads as to why some items have not been included; some basic, some impressive and of course the downright ridiculous.
Perhaps not all of us have the means or the where withall to ask for inclusions in the correct manner, I am obviously one of these people - I would not have dreamed of writing MS directly (nor known where / who to contact) for the feeling of being extremely small fry and thus ignored. My own feeling. More than like I am alone in this.
Let me make myself understood a little clearer than I have been able to: I am NOT damning ACES in anyway, they have done a bang up job with FSX and if I could bear their children I most certainly would, their product has given me hours of entertainment and is streets ahead of any previous FS version, and of course some of this acclaim must also go to the likes of yourself who made the effort to have inclusions made possible. I can only look forward to what ACES comes up with for FS11, if FSX is anything to go by then it's going to be Gucci.
Sorry, I've been "slammed" a lot for saying that MS doesn't listen to what we want. I didn't mean to start anything. They do get alot of feed back from beta testers but I sometimes wonder if they hear what's being said? I know they'll never pick me to beta test!!:costumes: I just can't stand the missions; flour bombs? The only ones I do in FSX are the RAZBAM A-6 missions.
All I ever asked for FS9/FSX is to be able to do the same thing "real" pilots do. I don't want it to be a combat sim. But I'm a military pilot at heart. I want to be able to file a flight plan and practice at the bombing range. I want to mid-air refuel; and I'd like to be able to talk to ATC to get clearances, etc.
All I ever asked for FS9/FSX is to be able to do the same thing "real" pilots do. I don't want it to be a combat sim. But I'm a military pilot at heart. I want to be able to file a flight plan and practice at the bombing range. I want to mid-air refuel; and I'd like to be able to talk to ATC to get clearances, etc.
Don't get "smart", you know what I mean! I don't want to drop any flour bombs on anyone!:costumes: Thank you:d
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robby88
Guest
I 100% agree with you on that one Mud.
Also shoot at a few targets and the occasional drone with a missile. Of course that plus the mission system would give us basic combat capability. Hopefully MS will make a decision one of these days on whether to revive the CFS franchise as they did with Train Simulator. If there's not going to be another CFS, then at least have combat functionality in FS for developers to make use of if they want. It's a significant gap in their product range that needs filled. I long for the day we can also have ground vehicle and naval simulations. From what I've read in the past at Gamasutra etc, ESP v2 will feature ground vehicle simulation along with some combat functionality and ESP v3 will possibly offer marine functionality. However given the time simulations take to develop, that could be years away.
As to some of the critisms of MS's coding there's a fair bit of new coding in each version of the sim. FSX introduced a new shader based animation and materials system, a new 3D terrain/world system based on the entire planet, a new mdl format based on xml and many other changes that I don't know about. Aces now base all their sims on the same core engine with products such as Train Sim and ESP ahead of FS in the development pipeline. So hopefully core engine developments and some of the features of these other products will find their way into FS too. I'm guessing that there's still another year of development of FS11 going on what Phil Taylor has made known in the past.
I think MS evaluate and consider all the requests for improvement that they know of, according to dev blogs in the past. They evaluate and rank them according most requested, do-ability, cost, where they see the sim going etc, and probably other factors. They can't implement them all. It's all got to be balanced with other new features and improvements.
I don't think Steve Balmer would be all that happy with an OpenGL FS engine. :costumes: Not to mention that such would be at odds with the core platform concept for Aces simulation products. OpenGL is unlikely to happen.
I'd like to see lighting in general improved in the sim, especially environment rendering and lighting. With detailed virtual cockpits that we have these days the terrain seems somewhat flatly lit in comparison.
The ability to have period environments would also be a boon for those of us who like to fly vintage and warbirds.
It's interesting that Aces have moved FS Developer resources from FSInsider to the MSDN ESP site. http://www.fsinsider.com/developers/Pages/default.aspx That raises some interesting speculative questions about future 3rd party development e.g. will an MSDN subscription be required to develop for FS11 or even TS2?
[EDIT: Reading the FSInsider page again I don't think FS designers have anything to worry about - see my post #30 below.]
There's certainly a lot of changes on the way & my guess is that these changes will be mainly for the better though it will be hard to please everyone. Roll on 2010.
eeeeeks!
Already, its expensive enough for developers. 3D Max is $4,000.00 USD, Photoshop CS3 Pro is either $1,000.00 or $2,000.00 USD. Cessna via EMI demand an annual charge of $2500.00 USD (besides royalties) to even 'think' about doing payware Cessna aircraft for FS. We cant be stretched to much more, especially with a dwindling market. If more companies go to EMI for annual 'club' charges, and other expenses creep in, it will be too expensive to create payware. An average payware aircraft could go from $25.00 to $200.00.
Thank you Sir.
It would sure make things easier when tuning airfiles. :d
Bill
kimdahl
Charter Member
Hi guys
I would personally like to see some sloped runways and getting rid of the flat airport area limitations. We have seen how many problems this gives when combined with high quality 3rd party mesh products, and the sloped runways would give us some more realistic take of and landing challenges. I know it may be a problem to program AI traffic etc. to use these non-flat airports, but I hope it can be done.
Regards
Kim
I would personally like to see some sloped runways and getting rid of the flat airport area limitations. We have seen how many problems this gives when combined with high quality 3rd party mesh products, and the sloped runways would give us some more realistic take of and landing challenges. I know it may be a problem to program AI traffic etc. to use these non-flat airports, but I hope it can be done.
Regards
Kim
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robby88
Guest
Hi Bill reading the web page again I don't think FS developers have anything to worry about. It looks as if we'll still be supported. Though to develop for ESP one would probably need to purchase a MSDN subsrciption or an ESP license. MS appear to be trying to make FS developers aware of the possibilities of also developing for ESP and it also makes sense for them to place development support for all their products on one site.
quote from FSinsider -
"Flight Simulator enthusiasts can rest easy, for Flight Simulator add-on development will certainly continue. It will be each developer’s option to develop for Flight Simulator only, for Microsoft ESP only, or for both platforms."
http://www.fsinsider.com/developers/Pages/default.aspx
Better ground handling. I hate the feel of planes sliding sideways on the ground during landing or takeoff. The acceleration f18 is one of the worst in this respect, but there are others. Is it the fault of the plane designers or FSX or both? Or is it just my misunderstanding of what happens in the real planes. I'm not a real pilot.
I 100% agree with you on that one Mud.
Yup, MSFS may not like to admitt it (for what reason I don't know?) but aircraft sometimes shoot at each other and drop bombs.........But in our FSX world the only thing they are are big tubes of metal that go from point A to point B. How exciting is that?!hehe:costumes: OH crap, I forgot to mention the awesome FLOUR BOMBS!!:costumes:
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EgoR64
Guest
Yes - I agree and an AI Engine that can allow hover control and AI Follow me capabilities.
Cheers !!
Bjoern
worst developer ever
- Better ATC for both humans and AI
- More variation in tiles, plants (Speedtree!!!!), houses, roads, cars, etc...
- Better weather engine
- NO (real) COMBAT CAPABILITIES (like in X-Plane would be okay; if someone wants to go fully military, they should get dedicated combat sims instead of half-arsed implementations)
- More variation in tiles, plants (Speedtree!!!!), houses, roads, cars, etc...
- Better weather engine
- NO (real) COMBAT CAPABILITIES (like in X-Plane would be okay; if someone wants to go fully military, they should get dedicated combat sims instead of half-arsed implementations)
I suppose it would be nice to see houses that actually look like they're from the country they're in, instead of every house being taken straight out of the USA. There's no way that American style houses look right in the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, or anywhere that isn't North America!
As for combat, I think the only reason people don't see migrating to dedicated combat sims as a viable alternative is the lack of modability. If Lock On was as easy to develop for as FS (creating new VCs, adding, instead of replacing aircraft, altering flight dynamics, being able to create totally new scenery, etc), then I'd probably see no reason to fly in FS. It is a bit annoying that you have to be limited to very few aircraft types/scenes. Strike Fighters is much better in that respect, but it's looking very dated now.
As for my wishlist:
- Improved flight dynamics. How you can have an Extra 300 included and not be able to perform 'proper' aerobatics is beyond me.
- Cloud shadows. It's unbelievable that our aircraft are still lit up by the sun when it's totally overcast.
- Sloping runways.
- A better effects system. I'm still not a fan of the way smoke looks. You only have to look at other games using totally different engines to see how realistic you can get smoke and fire to look.
SkippyBing
Charter Member
The problem is most combat sims don't model the entire globe, even if they let you add aircraft. So they're far more restrictive than FS.
To start with they could implement proper dynamics for aircraft dropped loads so you could carry out toss and dive bombing, and let you fire guns and rockets. Basically the same capabilities as with CFS which would open the way for 3rd parties to add things like a homing for missiles if desired.
Funny, I was thinking about this the other day... Terrain tile textures.
I was trying to figure out why the terrain tile textures seem to smoothly transition in FS9 but in FSX, it looks like that are torn apart and butted up against each other. Roads go to a stop in the middle of no where, etc, like copy/pasted art, (in FSX). But in FS9, they seem to be smooth and ever 'flowing'.
In the graphics world, we have 'tile-able' graphics, where say a picture of a rock wall that is square, can be tiled accross a large area and the area looks virtually smooth with no seams between the many tiled sections. They all blend together.
Perhaps a new graphics system for the terrain tiles for FS11 where the terrain tile is better matched for each other so that the Edges of terrain tile arent messed up or harshly broken, but instead made so smooth in transition that breaks are invisible. That would help the base platform to look more appealing, in my humble opinion.
Just some humble input.
Bill
PS: Open GL...! Open GL...! Open GL...! Open GL...! Open GL...! Open GL...! :d
I have to say, it's hard to read some of the comments here without getting a little defensive on behalf of the ACES team. I've met with them, had meals with them, and listened to them talk at length about the challenges of developing FS. To a person, they come across as dedicated, incredibly intelligent, and above all passionate about the flightsim franchise. You will never find a group of people who are bigger FS fans than the ACES themselves, believe me.
We've spoken about some of the challenges they face in creating some of these new features, and trust me, things are never as simple as they seem. One thing that impressed me the most was how well-informed the FS development team is on what the public wants. They do read these forums, guys. They also read the "tell_fs" emails they receive, and they pore over the crash reports that get sent in when you choose to notify MS of an error. If what you're asking for isn't appearing in FS version after version, you can assume that either a.) you're in the minority and other, louder voices are pushing your issue to the bottom of the stack, or b.) what you're asking for is far more complex to implement than you imagine, and they're still working on a solution. To say they don't listen to user feedback is just not true. But listening and being able to do something about it are sometimes two different things.
Oh, and Mud -- buddy, FS is now and always has been a civilian flight sim, and also a civil flight sim. I like a good combat sim as much as anybody, but I think adding the ability to shoot down another plane is not part of the FS mindset. They may be developing a combat sim as well (I hope they are, in fact), but I wouldn't expect to see blazing guns in FSnext anytime soon. Not adding combat doesn't constitute ignoring you. They heard you, they just don't agree that it's a priority.
We've spoken about some of the challenges they face in creating some of these new features, and trust me, things are never as simple as they seem. One thing that impressed me the most was how well-informed the FS development team is on what the public wants. They do read these forums, guys. They also read the "tell_fs" emails they receive, and they pore over the crash reports that get sent in when you choose to notify MS of an error. If what you're asking for isn't appearing in FS version after version, you can assume that either a.) you're in the minority and other, louder voices are pushing your issue to the bottom of the stack, or b.) what you're asking for is far more complex to implement than you imagine, and they're still working on a solution. To say they don't listen to user feedback is just not true. But listening and being able to do something about it are sometimes two different things.
Oh, and Mud -- buddy, FS is now and always has been a civilian flight sim, and also a civil flight sim. I like a good combat sim as much as anybody, but I think adding the ability to shoot down another plane is not part of the FS mindset. They may be developing a combat sim as well (I hope they are, in fact), but I wouldn't expect to see blazing guns in FSnext anytime soon. Not adding combat doesn't constitute ignoring you. They heard you, they just don't agree that it's a priority.
jmig
SOH-CM-2025
I can just see the headlines in the NY Times the day after FSx with combat features is released.
Microsoft Builds Simulator to Train Terrorists
srgalahad
Charter Member 2022
I certainly lack the technical expertise to discuss programming of any potential future of FS?? but I can see some issues arising from the blending-in of combat capabilities. In our already-paranoid world it was bad enough that there was a lot of negative discussion about FS9/X being able to simulate (and therefore "train") pilots to fly large aircraft into large buildings in an urban environment and the uproar probably was heard in Puget Sound. Now, if the blending of combat capabilities led even a few people to practice (and relish in the images) of firing a couple of smart weapons into the Presidential Palace of Ongobongoland, there would be the extreme PolCorr component immediately taking a developer to task and/or suing to ban all sales of this "terrorist training aid" - yeah, we do have to consider the extremists on both sides.
Regardless of that, we have to remember that MS continued to split the two worlds (gentle and violent) not only as probable appeasement but to protect a separate product line (CFS) which may be in development hiatus, but still on sale. I can't imagine a big corp. cutting their own (future) corporate throats even though MSFS likely outsold the CFS line significantly.
Golden Wings proved there was a niche market for a time-regressed scenario, but as much as I'd like to see - say a "pick your decade menu option" - I doubt we'd ever see MS/ACES devote a whole team to researching The World of 1934 for inclusion (and so much data is hard to find today). Look at the number of airports that were misplaced or not included in FS9 & FSX... how may of the new "look at me! I can fly a 747" buyers would be happy paying extra for a world from before autopilots? Sure there's a segment (us) that would love it, but...
[drops 2 cents in the kitty and steps back]
Rob
Regardless of that, we have to remember that MS continued to split the two worlds (gentle and violent) not only as probable appeasement but to protect a separate product line (CFS) which may be in development hiatus, but still on sale. I can't imagine a big corp. cutting their own (future) corporate throats even though MSFS likely outsold the CFS line significantly.
Golden Wings proved there was a niche market for a time-regressed scenario, but as much as I'd like to see - say a "pick your decade menu option" - I doubt we'd ever see MS/ACES devote a whole team to researching The World of 1934 for inclusion (and so much data is hard to find today). Look at the number of airports that were misplaced or not included in FS9 & FSX... how may of the new "look at me! I can fly a 747" buyers would be happy paying extra for a world from before autopilots? Sure there's a segment (us) that would love it, but...
[drops 2 cents in the kitty and steps back]
Rob