[jhb] Re: Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012
- From: "Fossil" <fossil@xxxxxxx>
- To: <jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 20:46:24 +0100
Interesting.
Nice to see Matthijs is still active in FS - he was one of my first pilots
with Noble Air. That was going back to before the Internet when it was just
run on the FSForum of Compuserve.
It seems a bold move. I still have a raft of CD's here for other sims that
never quite made the grade - Fly!, Flight Unlimited etc - all good sims in
their day but they eventually faded away into cult areas.
There seem to be two requirements for a successful sim. One is that the core
product needs to be good. The second is user interaction. Microsoft got it
right from FS4 to FS98 with all those sims being cutting edge at their time.
They also provided enough information for the user base to create tools,
utilities, aircraft and scenery to vastly enhance the basic product. FS98
was probably the best release for the simple reason that FS2000 bombed and
so development continued for a good four years - and this resulted in a
fantastic array of add-ons from the fans and most free to download.
FS2000 didn't do well but FS2002 somewhat made up for this. Two years later
we got FS2004 which could be said to be the last good simulation but, in the
meantime, philosophy had changed. With the FS century series users were
lowly being locked out of the design process because MS started integrating
the processes. Because of their obsession with virtual cockpits (first
introduced in Combat Simulator which also eventually bombed) panel designers
were cast into the void because panels became integral with the aircraft
design. Likewise aircraft and scenery design was limited to GMax (and later
FSDS) but these are complex tools and essentially moved such work from
individuals to teams. In essence we now buy our aircraft add ons from the
likes of Aerosoft, Real Air, PMDG and FSD and the world of the individual
freeware designer has declined markedly.
The decline of add-on software also happened because of MS having a two year
release schedule. Upgrading the sim is no bad thing but if core elements
change to the extent that add-ons become unusable then the designer gets
extremely downheartened. We've lost some superb add-ons over the years
because of this - FSNav, AFCAD, lots of aircraft and scenery - all perfectly
operational and many still desirable as good working tools.
It is obviously good marketing to have users buy a new product every two
years but this is far too short a time period for add-on designers to
consider developing tools for. In the past MS had good reason to release a
new sim every so often as the sim was still evolving - better graphics for
aircraft, panels, scenery, better weather, better ATC. I think this has
reached a peak now and although FSX introduced improved environmental
factors like snow and rain I think innovation in FS is now coming to an end
and the only progress is now in refinement of what we already have.
If Mattijs creates a sim which has all the facilities of FSX but then locks
the core sim engines to allow free development from users then it may prove
successful. I already doubt this as his comment about building the sim
around DX11 shows that he is aiming at loftier goals - am ultimate flight
sim product built for a really top end PC. I suspect some users will desire
this but I regret I won't. I've spend more than 12 years upgrading my PC to
chase decent frame rates in the latest FS version and it's a race I no
longer find affordable or a desirable challenge.
bones
<mailto:bones@xxxxxxx> bones@xxxxxxx
From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Paul Reynolds
Sent: 07 October 2009 06:35
To: JHB Private List
Subject: [jhb] Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012
I'm sure some of you would have seen this mentioned by now but for those who
haven't see
http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showtopic=29444
Comments anyone?
Paul
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