.................continued from above..............
This is not to say that M$ don't have a gamey approach - they have the Combat Flight Sims - but I for one have no interest in those whatsoever. Clearly the way M$ do those is quite different from the way they have done FS9, FS2002, FS2000 and so on.
I too do not have much interest in combat sims. I also do not play "shoot em' ups" on the computer. In fact....I don't play computer "games" at all. The only thing that I do that is vaguely anything like that is fly the simulator.
Now if as users we change our stance and begin to let M$ think that OK, the flight sims are just games, that's what I think we will eventually get. But as it is, because most users see them as being 'serious' applications, it constantly encourages M$ to strive for new levels of 'true' realism and not just 'trashy' visual effects.
Unfortunately some would say that a "trashy" visual effect is stuff like the "Maid of the Mist" that goes around at Niagra Falls in a totally unrealistic manner. But hey.... I think they should add ALL those kinds of things (with attention to framerates of course). And then add the sliders to activate or deactivate them, to match user preference.
The more Microsoft does.... the better the "base" that the add-on developers start with ;D.
A lot of people on the forum complain about ATC and say they switch it off. If they had got their way M$ would never have done it and the 'serious' users would have been the losers. This is just one of many examples of M$ going the extra mile which maybe they other wise might not have.
My guess is that of the total number of units of the simulator that are sold worldwide........ for years far more units go to people looking at them more as "games" than "seriously". Yet Microsoft still seems to keep it more rooted in the simulation field.
So there you are. That's why I think we DO have to draw a line. If third party developers want to create 'crash effect add-ons' and some people want to install em, that's fine by me. But I want - nay insist - that M$ continue devoting their programming horsepower to more worthwhile aspects of realism.
I don't think we really disagree all that much, Roller. When it comes to Microsoft's part in all this..... I guess it all comes down to the word "worthwhile" in your sentence above. You spent an amazing amount of time getting Kai Tak to visually look the way it does. Would you tend say that it would be good if Microsoft put more like that level of attention into the scenery it creates?
There are some in the sim community that would say that all that "eye candy" that makes it look so real (and potentially hits the framerates) is not "worthwhile" either. All you really need to "land" there are the nav devices to be accurate, the runway heading and location to be accurate, the weather to be accurate, and a few structures and mouintains to make the weird approach as difficult as it was.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on the British Caledonian (as it then was) DC10 simulator at Gatwick and shoot the Kai Tak Rwy 13 approach. If I'd crashed it, which I'm glad to say I didn't, I don't think I and the others on the 'flight deck' would have seen a display of smoke and flames, but I don't think our suspension of disbelief in the realism was any the worse for that.
I really don't know about that. Of course such a simulator would
really increase the realism all by itself. But think about how in training police officers and military and such, simulated "live fire" (and even real live fire) is frequently used to "up" the immersion in the "reality" of the training exercise. This is done for a very good reason.
Have you ever flown the sim with the sound off? It is amazing how much that detail adds. Every little added detail increases the sense of reality.
I know, of course, that many forum members will disagree with all of this, especially a lot of the younger ones. But maybe a few others with the mellowness and wisdom of the years under their belts will find it easier to understand my point of view.
That is the beauty of the simulation........ you can install add-ons and controllers and simpits and such to your hearts content and make the sim as real as you want it to be. And you are right........ many forum members will have a different view on the contribution that crash effects might make. But as one who is well over 50........ I still feel that crash effects make another nice contribution to the sim.
best,
.......................john
I certainly do not view the simulator as a game..... although it is also certainly not a "life and death" serious pursuit. So I am not advocating that the flight sim series (as opposed to the combat sim series) be looked at as a "game".
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