http://zone.msn.com/en/general/article/ ... otify2.htm
Amongst others, you will see that M$ have officially announced that CFS1 (& 2) will no longer be supported on their Gaming Zone after January 31st.
As a matter of interest, after hearing this earlier today, I tried out Gamespy's host with _SS_MyKill_ and found it to be much better than the Zone's providing noticeably smoother gameplay even for Dial-up users. It was so good I also noticed the handling of the aircraft had changed as well. Probably for the same reason. You can have up to 32 players in a game.
You have to subscribe to the service but you can do this for free under the terms of the subscription (remember to say a rousing "NO!" when asked if you would like to receive extra mail from them ad-infinitum though. If someone hacks your membership they can sign up for services within Gamespy which you are liable for under their terms (good excuse to go out and buy that new firewall).
It looks like they also have a very effective way of controlling the detritous which has / had free reign over the lobby's in the Zone.
When Jan 31st rolls around, I'll try it and see how long it lasts. Nothing more to lose.
I hope M$ will do the decent thing (after the HUGE petition that was submitted to them to retain CFS) and post a referral page to Gamespy on the page the game cd links new players to. But, actually, I doubt the thought has ever entertained the merest shaft of light in their tiny corporate light-bulb brain.
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Flight Simulator and other chat
