Place your bets..

[Steve M]

It's already May 2011 and no recent teaser updates. I would love to be a fly on the wall over at MS. I have to admit they are marketing experts but I still doubt they can get it done this year. The EULA will likely take 6 months to conjure up!

[BrandonF]

So you reckon that FS2000 was a mistake... and the first release (pre-patch) of FS9 and FSX as a whole not? ::)

And as you can see, I'm not going further back in time, where we could find something else as interesting, if not more, like the many problems of FS5 and maybe even more.

Interesting point of view, yours... one that has no relation to reality, but interesting. You should try your hand in writing Sci-Fi.

What Dave was trying to depict, and sadly I quite agree with him, is the most plausible path M$ will follow in the marketing of Flight. A path that follows the grim money-squeezing one used for FSX. :-/

May I remind you for last that ACES had hand only with the failure of FSX as an application and that the marketing was instead in the hand of the headquarters?

What will happen of Flight... at the moment is difficult to say, but... well, I am not ashamed to admit to be among those who think that the dropping of all the pretenses of it being any kind of simulator is quite ominous. Only time will be able to tell though. I for one am preparing myself to another failure, so in the [honestly hoped for] case it will a good program, I'll have a nice surprise and an even better time... and if [sadly] will really be a failure... I hope it will smart less than what happened with FSX. :-X

For sure this time around I'll take my sweet time letting OTHERS check the... I would like to call it sim, but... as I was saying, I'll take my sweet time letting others check the program out, before even thinking about buying it... and I'll buy it only if worthy of my money.

Unlike you, I'm going to look at things from a more reasonable point of view, (and without extra childish comments  ) being an add-on developer and knowing quite a bit about the way the sim works...

I don't believe I mentioned anything about FS2000 or FS2004. In fact, I've never heard of FS5 being a bad release. (actually, FS2000 was just so far ahead of its time, that people couldn't run it. There were not really any big problems, from what I understand) Very few people could run FSX when it was released due to programming bugs. Now this is a different story. ACES was not given the chance to change some parts of the code that would have let FSX take advantage of modern hardware. The engine itself was fine, just not optimized well enough for our computers.

From what I can see from the screenshots and videos, the engine in Flight is using some newer technology and finally catching up with today. (in some ways) Microsoft has said repeatedly that their #1 focus since day one is performance. After FSX, they would not be stupid enough to limit the development team to just modify certain parts of the code, so that the sim can be optimized for modern hardware.

I feel that the right approach has been taken this time for Flight. To appeal to a wider audience, performance must be kept in mind. Considering this, it is very likely Flight will be the new FS9, (performance-wise) but we'll just have to wait and see when it's released.

[New Light]

being an add-on developer

   Brandon, I kinda figured you were in-the-know with Flight by your responses. I understand why you said that I (Someone) is stuck in the days of FSX. The reason for the comment is that companies are just starting to come out with new aircraft (Carenado, etc) and scenery programs (REX, IS2, etc) for FSX. These programs are, also, still coming out with more updates, patches etc. to enhance FSX, thus my counter-comment of still being the days of FSX.

   Kudos to you for stepping forward. Now that you're out in the open, I think we can have more constructive conversations about what is really happening. I'm not sure if you are working on add-on programming directly for MS Flight or an aftermarket developer. I'm sure it affects you and all developers the same way. So, I'll ease up on you from now on.

   I know that you can't divulge any information even if their is anything solid happening with Flight. I will say that I hope that Flight is tested much better than FSX was. I don't know of the pressures on the new team (ACES +++, err... whatever you or they are called now), but I do hope MS double & triple checks the program before the program goes to market.

   As exciting as the news of the new program is, I'd rather wait until '13 and recieve a very good program (some minor bugs will always exist), than waste so much money, effort and aggrevation that we all experienced with FSX. If you consider all the time that MS used up fixing FSX, it would have been better if they just pushed back the release date, or better yet, MS should not have even suggested a general time period for release. If I remember correctly, FSX was released in October of '07 (may be wrong, but anyway), if MS would have taken the extra year and a half to get things right and released in, say, March of '09, which is about the time when everything was finally straightened out. It would have saved everyone a lot of grief Like I said, I'd rather wait awhile and get a good product than get a lesser product and get strung along for months and years of excuses etc.

   Hope all goes well...

Semper Fi,

Dave (err Someone if you like)

   

[Strategic Retreat]

...being an add-on developer...

STOP! Stop... these four (or are they five?) words are enough. Not going to discuss about this with someone who has his livelihood on the line on the matter.

Wouldn't be neither nice nor fair. You'll be interested to divert as much water to your mill you can and I'd be interested in fairness, decaying into a all-out war that would the higher-ups get mad...

...most likely only at me.

If you'd like me to say you are right, act like if I did. You are.

The End.

[BrandonF]

[quote]

[Fr. Bill]

While I'd never consider myself to be among the elite of developers, I do have considerable contact with most of the major and minor ones in this tiny industry.

Having both read and signed more than one NDA with Microsoft, I am fully aware of the "neither confirm nor deny" clause that's included in the multi-paragraph screed...

However, there's absolutely NO restriction for anyone who's not actually signed an NDA to say they haven't, so...

...whenever I ask one of my fellow developers if they have signed any NDA for "MS Flight" and receive an emphatic "No, I haven't!" in reply...

...I'm confident I've received an honest answer. The fact that no one, to the best of my knowledge HAS signed an NDA for "MS Flight" yet suggests to me that MSGS isn't even close to finishing up the Alpha coding yet...

So, my best "guess" for possible release will be late (Holiday?) 2012 at the very earliest.

[patchz]

[quote]

[New Light]

   Gotcha Larry!   8-)  Sorry about that, I thought I had made a comment about that in this particular thread. I have posted in a few other threads that I do understand about all of the other great sub-disciplines of FS (scenery, painting textures, screenshots etc...). Although at the end of the day, I do take the "flying" part very seriously, I also enjoy writing flight plans, overhauling local airports using AFX and adding some goodies in with IS2 and such... Sorry about the mix up

Semper Fi,

Dave

[patchz]

[quote]

[jensenkov]

Very much ... If it is remarkable for it. Beautiful, but the highlight of the show at all.