If I read this one more time I'm gonna...

[sarcasm]
I, for one, will be very dissatisfied if there's not a flapping fish tail flailing out the side of the pelican's pouch! Surely you guys can understand the fundamental importance of realism in a sim of this type. After these many years I hope the team has finally come to understand that this product will never quite hit the mark until it satisfies ALL MY needs!
[/sarcasm]

Doug :)

YEESSSS.....YOU KNOW WHAT???? ONE QUESTION ...DID YOU DO ANYTHING WITH FLIGHT MODEL ??? THIS IS REALISM NOT YOUR`S BIRDS ....WHAT FOR BIRDS WITHOUT INTERACTION WITH PLANES..(ANY BIRDSSTRIKE?? NOT ).TDRAGGER TOLD THAT THIS IS ONLY EYE CANDY...

Well said Steve !

I don't care about the gauge update thing that every x-plane fan talks about... That's not going to decide whether I'll buy the new version or not, I love your product, whatever you put in it, I know it's going to rock !

(Loved the first shaders I saw Steve, nice job on the window reflection effect on the windshield of the cessna!)

Keep it up !
Matthieu

Hi ,

Steve and all dev team working hard for me you and all simm.... and i agree with post of Steve that "Search Realism and immersion" and if i can give you my opinion Realism and immersion there was there is and there will... and bird and other things (ex sea waves ) add more and more and more realism and immersion... REMEMBER that are small things that make this product better than other (X-WHAT?!?)

Bye Ciao

Fabio

Hey Steve, I'm pretty much embarrassed when I read about half the posts on Avsim and Flightsim.com. I can't understand why so many people are so quick to shred the developers of their favourite sim / hobby / (and in some cases) life?!! It just irritates the heck out of me. It's so obvious to the rest of us how hard you guys are working. Each rendition of FS has brought so much to all of us and I speak for all the nay-saying whiners too!
By the way if you ever want to grab a pint in Freemont, let me know! I live in Ballard and stem from the isles of UK (and am not - in the words of Tom Allensworth - 'limp wristed' - which is cool if I was!)

Keep up the excellent work, I'm really excited about FSX...

Shane

Hi Steve,

I wondered how you guys would handle the fact that a vocal 1% of the community was not considering the big picture, IMHO. Despite the overwhelmingly positive comments, I too would be irked by being judged and dismissed based on a tiny fraction of the product nearly a year before release. I think you can be assured that the vast majority of folks will appreciate the level of immersion FSX will bring.

And I appreciate the team engaging with the community as you are, and risking the inevitable pot-shots. Thank you.

Jon

You know what? I do like birds in the sim, and eye candy stuff!! I would love to find deers, cows, etc. I can´t understand why those things would be a bad idea, really, there are a lot of people in the forums pretending to be guardians of the sim purity, but give them a great sim with FS 1.0 graphics and no one would buy it. Bunch of hypocrites

Steve, I really appreciate the way you are interacting with the community, for me the best feature of FS X is how the developers speak openly about the sim, please don´t take seriously certain people.

When I viewed the interviews of Mike and Chris on Gamespot and saw the splashing in the background video [fish/dolphins/birds?] my thoughts at the time were it would be cool to make some pelicans.... well you've beaten me to the punch LOL... cool.

All these little details add greatly to immersion whioh adds greatly to game/simulation experience. In that sense it's time well spent.

I think some FS users don't understand that FS has to appeal to a broad audience and that not everyone wants to fly a Boeing 737 or 777 [though I do occasionally enjoy the challenge]. Many people like flying low and slow; helicopters, bush flying, vintage etc.

I'm looking forward to exploring Amazonia in FSX in the Grumman or Beaver. Virtual toucans?

Great stuff guys! Looking forward to the new shaders too ;)

Steve,

Shane, Jon, and Jorge have got it right. Instead of looking at your hard work and saying "Damn, thats cool...I've seen that in a sim before." people want to bash and flame. Its unbelievable.

I can only speak for myself, though I'm positive that I'm part of the (mostly) silent majority when I say: great job! I love the look and feel of FSX, and I love the new "open door" policy that you and the team have adopted.

I only hope that the immaturity of the vocal minority doesn't prevent you guys from continuing to interact with the community.

Thanks for sharing with us, Steve. Keep up the excellent work!

Nick

Steve, I share Nicks sentiments as well, please don't let the small minority of whiners get to you. A more dynamic, immersive world is the one thing I was hoping for in the next version and it looks like I won't be dissapointed. Thanks for all the hard work and for sharing info like this, it's appreciated!

BTW any chance for flamingos? ;-)

Michael

Good morning Steve,

(well, to me it is, you're still happily dreaming of anything-but-FS I would hope).

Read your post and you know what? It is taken from my heart ! I have often wondered what you guys must feel with so many (vocal) people falling over anything you do, instead of being in awe of what has been achieved in the past 20 years. AND with every new itteration of FS,for that matter.

I am glad to see you feel exactly the same as I do.... and countless happy simmers with me.

As you will no doubt know, there are a few distinct type of FS buyers (oh yeah, they ALL buy it!!!! ):

1. the vast majority of average PC owners who buythis game becasue it is a nice box, is about aircraft, is from MS and looks to be interesting. You NEVER hear about them, and I wonder how many of those boxes are gathering dust on a shelf.

2. a large group of fanatics who are with YOU all the way, using FS on a daily basis, crowding forums, making freeware, making commercial add-ons.... and most of the time too busy enjoying the product than to bash anybody.

3. a small but extremely vocal group of people with many chips on their shoulders, leaving no stone unturned of criticizing 'anything FS' (that includes you, MS, me and just about every other developer in the Universe). You find this specimen on specific forums and they seem to have more time for complaining than for simming.

4. the largest group: people who have never heard of Flight Simulator, or heard of it but haveno idea if it is for them or not.

Now.... personally.... as a commercial publisher, BUT also as an FS and aviation enthusiast, I focus on group 1 and 4.... 'we' need to get them IN ON IT !!
And I respect group 3 to no end... these are like-minded people.

I try VERY hard to IGNORE group 3, but must admit I am not always 100% successful..... . It is a bit like sitting in an economy seat, transatlantic flight, with a kid behind you who kicks your too-small and already-upright seat with 10 second intervals. You humor him from Amsterdam till Greenland, then he falls asleep when the icebergs come into sight...... but when he starts kicking agin over Goose Bay... something might snap !! ;-)

Now.... as to your Pelicans !!! Allow me to rant: I WANT MOOSE AND CARIBOU !!! Who cares about birds !!!! :-))))))

Seriously...... keep up the good work and please, keep up the good humor. It is what kept ME going for 53 years... and a few to come. Nothing beats it ! ;-)

Warm regards from Europe,
Francois

Thanks all!

Maybe I came off sounding a bit down or something - that wasn't my intent. I just needed to vent a little at the "I need to say something controversial just to be heard" crowd.

Maybe that's why I don't work in PR :-)

Oh and Francois, I'll ping Jason about the Moose and Caribou in the morning...

Cheers.

Steve;

I think the birds,fish,and animals are a great
idea.

But I must confess my main question is, have you
as yet any models of the "Mustang Ranch" or the
"Cherry Patch" in Nevada. These would be of great
intrest to lots of simmers if some of the local
fauna could be seen whilst sunbathing in the buff.
LOL. Not to mention thier historical significance.

I might explain to the unenlightned that both
places are brothels. It seems that Nevada is the
only place here in the states that legally permits activities of such a recreational nature.

So instead of Pelicans....welll you know.[grin]

Denny aka deltanovember

I appreciate any new effort being placed into MSFS as I enjoy it immensely as a part of my life and have done so since the 80s. The visual realism is a part of the suspension of disbelief and is almost a defacto requirement if the product is to remain competitive and viable.

While I know the slim margin of "expert" simmers (those of us who are spending 100s and 1000s of $ per year on enhancements) would never sustain this product I also know that this crowd drives and inspires new innovations in subsequent versions. Therefore, while there is a kind way to express the sentiment, it is not unreasonable to hope for improvement in technical areas that only have meaning to the tiniest fraction of users. Whereas the casual user loads the sim up a few times, checks out the "WOW" and perhaps TRIES to learn to fly, the "hard core" are using the product to the nth degree ( I am certain this is also the case with MS Office).

Steve, who on the team is closest to the flight modeling and such? Might we also hear from them?

J-

Hey Steve,

Your comments are very well-said - I agree that the FS community is quick to tear things to shreds!

I'm also going to take back my comments about how FSX looks like FS9 with addons after seeing many more of the shots on the various FS sites. I'm really excited about this new version!

Dan

I love the idea of animals roaming around and the otther new dynamic elements that are going to be featured in FSX.

I love the idea of animals roaming around and the otther new dynamic elements that are going to be featured in FSX.

When I first read about the animals bit it raised a lot of questions in me...NOT 'why are they wasting time on that' but wow!

'will you be able to hear them'? (from a glider)
'will they react to the noise of my plane'? (NOT a glider ;-) )
'will birds follow their RW migration routes'?
etc.

In other words: spend all the time you want on the creature feature...

Best,
Martijn

Steve, I agree with all the other posters, its great to see animals in FSX.. Its also great there are traffic on the roads. But are you guys going to develop trains in FSX? Maybe you can reuse some of the models from that other project ?

Jeff.

I'm going to drop a funny bomb here.

I am the person who wrote the inflammatory comment cited in this blog.

It was a piece of sarcasm, a bit of poking at the ultra realist crowd at that site.

They know me there, and they know what I was doing.

They also know what I've said many times - the beauty of FS is that they've always made it downscaleable - I've yet to see a version that couldn't be made to run great AND with a decent experience...

The same cannot be said for many, many game/sim titles...

Mr. Steve - I'm sorry that you caught my words out of context. While to SOME degree I guess it could be said I'm aligned with that "purist crowd" I've never thought FS or it's team were in any way bad.

Why do I bother to say this? Because I'd sure hate to be even one piece of discouragement to the people who build FS. Simple as that.