I'm one of a very large number who have now't to do with Virtual Cockpits! It's quite easy, in FSX, to avoid VC and just as easy to design 2D panels. The big threat has now disappeared. Rumour had it that FSXI was to be VC only, so we've been spared that!
The threat was enough to convince me that FSX would be my version of choice for the foreseeable future.
Gerry Winskill Fossil wrote:
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 bones@xxxxxxx <mailto: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 2012I’m sure some of you would have seen this mentioned by now but for those who haven’t seehttp://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showtopic=29444Comments anyone?Paul
