Microsoft Flight

[Biggles]

One can now apply for access to the Microsoft Flight Beta starting in January!

http://www.microsoft.com/games/fligh...g_applications

Thought people might be interested...

[Herr-Berbunch]

Can't talk

[Oberon]

Judging from what I've seen and heard so far, I'll pass for now.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Judging from what I've seen and heard so far, I'll pass for now.

This is the whole SH3/4/5 thing in a different guise. Only you will know if you will like it by trying it yourself. It's free, aside from a little space on your drive and some time, what have you got to lose?

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

... what have you got to lose?

A good deal of faith in humanity.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Arclight

A good deal of faith in humanity.

I wasn't aware that existed in any significant quantity on Earth.

I'll probably give it a try when I have nothing do at some point, but I'm not expecting too much of it.

[longam]

There banking on Live monthly subscriptions and pay for ad-on this go around.

[CCIP]

So far I haven't heard much of anything especially great about it, including from some people I know in the beta. It's good if you just want to fool around in the sky or hunt for some achievements and cool scenic spots around the islands - but honestly achievement-based gameplay has 0 appeal to me whatsoever, while the limitations imposed by hopping around Hawaii even in free flight will eventually grow old. The fact that the code is closed is already kind of a killer, because you really need that in order to get the most out of FS. I cannot even imagine playing stock FSX for any length of time - even with the global coverage and steady supply of new aircraft, there's really no interest in it on my part if I can't fly complex aircraft on realistic, ordinary operations (rather than doing cool one-off stuff and adventures, which are only fun once). Restricted to Hawaii - I don't know, even less likely to stick.

On the other hand, no need to be cynical, it might turn out neat. But even at its best, it's likely to be a better comparison to the old Flight Unlimited series (which were my introduction to civil flight sims) rather than MSFS proper. It will be good for getting more casual gamers interested, for sure. But I think for FS fans, X-plane and Prepar3D are much more likely to be the way forward.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Finally it's released into the wild.

Don't all rush at once. Especially if you have FSX, or FS9, or 2002, 2000, or FlightGear, or X-plane, maybe even YSFlight.

At least it's free, for the basic Big Island and the Icon A5.

Save your bandwidth and get Rise of Flight Demo instead.

I played the beta, and whilst I had little or no issues running it nicely (aside from excessive loading times - for one small island!!!) it was just soooooo sterile - even when they wanted the MP servers maxed out it was just empty!

[Skybird]

The day PMDG goes X-plane and releases the 737ngx for X-plane, is the day I most likely switch from FS to X-plane. After learning the 737ngx, one does not want any other anymore, and x-plane 10 has real multi-core-support. .

[GSpector]

I had high hopes for M$ Flight from the videos. I was looking forward to it.

Then it came out. I should have known it was going to be more "game" than "Sim". After all, I remember when M$ started the whole "Games For Windows" push. One of the requirements for any game to use that on their boxes (so as to get better placing on store shelves), they had to agree to make their software compatible with XBox controllers.

I did not know until very recently that M$ Flight would require a "Games For Windows Live" account, so, that being said, when I read that, and read that it can auto detect a Gamepad when connected, there was no way M$ Flight could be anything like FSX.

I'll stick with all my other sims to include FSX. I've read the reviews and the comments posted by those that have tried it and I will be leaving it alone. Shame, it had such great potential.

All I've seen from M$ is software to encourage people to migrate from the PC to the XBox. sorry, I have no plans to ever get any XBox or any type of console platform.

[Skybird]

A first review (they call it "comment") of Flight is up at simHQ.

http://www.simhq.com/_air14/air_525a.html

They did not leave many feathers on this chicken. Somebody's in for a belly landing, I think.

As I said earlier here or somewhere else: this is just an attempt to condition the audience to become more receptive for future DLC policies and cloud computing things.

Hope they drill their noses very deep into the mud with this one. When reading the first feedbacks about the consumer preview for Windows 8, I hope the same for that, too. Microsoft tries to chnage some things fundamentally. And not for the better of customers, but for the good of Microsoft and probably at the cost of consumers.

[AngusJS]

I hadn't really followed Flight - I always thought that it would just be a rebranding of FS. So I opened this thread, expecting to see the new features and planes that would be available.

Then I read the SimHQ commentary.



So much for flying over the Aluetians in a Stearman. So much for flying from London to Sydney in a Gypsy Moth. So much for flying across Tibet in a Grumman Goose. So much for flying rings around Everest in an F-18.

So much for setting my own weather. So much for perusing the countless add-on planes and sceneries. So much for using FS as a way to see the world.

Microsoft has apparently decided that the whole time I was using FS2000, 2002/2004 and FSX, I was enjoying flight simulation incorrectly. They have determined that the proper way to enjoy flight simulation is to restrict yourself to one small island and one plane, and then pay them for the sceneries and planes that they decide you should want.

All the freeware plane designers can go to hell, as can the scenery designers and the mission designers. The payware developers can do the same.

Likewise, the untold thousands of virtual pilots from around the world can go to hell if they want to fly in their own locales, or anywhere else that isn't one #&$^@ island in Hawaii.

@#$% YOU, MICROSOFT.

[joea]

So long MSFS 1998-2000-2002 (my versions) hello Xplane.

I wonder if it's worth it to get FSX or 2004 now?

[steve_the_slim]

FSX is still a decent sim, assuming your machine can run it. 2004 is really showing its age by now, but it's not bad either. Lots of freeware is still being made for both of them, and there's plenty of payware still being made for FSX. FS2004 payware is no longer being produced for the most part, but you can still buy lots of older FS2004 addons.