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Reality Check

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Okay, back from reading through the links at sim-outhouse regarding my combat post. There certainly is a lot of cynicism out there regarding "M$"... Let me address some of the general comments. I was going to post this as a comment to my combat post, but I decided to do it as a new post instead so it won't get buried immediately.

I am a representative of Microsoft and I am the lead designer for FSX. I am also somewhat of an aviation and aircraft subject matter expert and have been flying since 1982, but I have a lot to learn still :). (BTW it's a P-12C, not a PC-12. Although Pilatus makes great aircraft I'm more partial to a biplane with guns.) I didn't ask for permission to make this post and considering I'm not making any promises or releasing any confidential information I'm comfortable doing so. I don't know if I would be the designer on a CFS title, but I do expect I would be involved to some degree. And yes I am listening, but I guarantee that we could not possibly do everything for everyone, so no matter what happens in the future someone (and maybe a lot of someones) will feel slighted, ignored, lied too, or all of that and more. That is simply inevitable. However if what I have in mind were done, I do think we would have a lot of very happy campers when allowed to mature.

CFS3 was a mistake on many levels. That said, there was a lot of really great stuff in there which if allowed to develop over time could have resulted in a winning franchise. The team that designed CFS3 wrongly decided that realism wasn't as important as game-like play, didn't have faith in FS as a platform and started from scratch with a new engine without the time to finish it as a stable engine (remember that the next time you ask for an all new engine for FS-Next). It's no wonder that beta testers wanting realism were ignored when the designers intentionally chose not to create that. Even if they wanted to listen or could have been swayed, it would have been too late by then anyway. If we had done CFS4, you would have found higher fidelity aircraft with accurate systems as I was the aircraft program manager at the time. Too bad about that.

I wasn't at Microsoft during CFS2 development as I joined at the very tail end of CFS3 when the team was in the final throws of trying to get it shipped. So I don't have a file folder full of all the feedback and ideas from the community. You would thinkt that in this digital age all of that data would be a search query away at my fingertips, but I doubt I could find it if I had a month to search (which I don't). Having been in the computer game industry for 18 years playing sims all the while, with subject matter expertise under my belt I have a good foundation for designing a combat sim. I hate patting myself on the back but you asked who I am and why you should care. I do genuinely care what you think and I want to hear from you. I can search through forum archives and all that, but frankly I have very little time for that. Hell I'm doing this on my holiday and I'm happy to do it because I have great passion for the subject.

I can't say we will do anything at all, because I just don't know. But I do know that interacting with you and discussing this can only help in the short and long term. This isn't even pre-production as that would imply we decided to go down the path of CFS again. This is pre-design discussion and yes I do have pre-conceived ideas of what we should do (if we were to do...)

This conversation is about dreaming and ideas and innovation. Without that and a vision nothing will ever happen. I have a vision, the passion, and the drive. Do you want to go with me, or watch from the ground?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Sounds like a nice dream to me...

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Very clear, and as much as we can reasonably hope for. Thanks P-12C

  • Why do I have the suspicion that any new CFS X will be based on the Inter War years?* :)

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Greetings, I'm a CFS2 pilot. I want combat in my sim, and I want to be able to have a powerful mission editor that uses triggers and events to let me come up with an infinite amount of ideas to explore in my sim. That's why I still fly CFS2 all these years later. I want that aspect of CFS2 with better graphics, better terrain, and most importantly better artificial intelligence. I want the ground units and the sea units engaging each other in battle, along with the air units. I'd like to have mission based multiplayer features as well, along with the old tried and true dogfighting. Era is secondary to the rest for me personally, though I would prefer anything in the 1914-1945 range. In my opinion, the most important thing is that the ai be priority number one. If the ai is good, and we can use it effectively in multiplayer, you'll have an extremely happy, vibrant community on your hands that will flood the servers with freeware product.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    "So what is needed may not be any improvements to the basic sim engine, but simply a way of combining sucsessful elements that already exist, and encouraging the 3rd party developers, much as FSX has done." Think Toybox, a place where a P-12C can strafe a PC-12!

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    hey Paul, Like Francois said, you're not gonna please everyone, no matter what ya do! You just have to do the best you can an be happy with it. I was never much for standing back an watching, so if ya don't mind, think I'll tag along with ya!! Anthony

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Paul, I read this with interest.  I have always dared to dream.  Has a child it was to fly off aircraft carriers but then I found I was color blind.  Then has a 30 something I found the world of flightsim.  Now I dream of the day when one sim does all.  So instead of buying three or four sims I will only need to buy one.   So then if I want to fly over the battlefields of WWI or WWII I will be able too or if I want to fly F-18 in some fictious war with a fleet reserve squadron I can.  Then when my tour is finished with this squadron I can go back to my normal sim job of hauling passengers around the world.  Who knows if I dream long enough it may become a reality.  

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    i completely agree with you and very well said. I worked for M$ myself for a long time. And no matter what you do or how good you do your best you can never ever realy please everyone. But im definatly looking forward to any new future products coming from this company.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Paul, some of your text is bound to fall on deaf ears... no matter when you say it and how honest you are. Some people just never learn to look over the wall of their little foxhole ;-) In general though I think you will have the undivided attention and cooperation of the majority of 'simmers'. Playing computer games IS all about DREAMING after all, isn't it!? Doing things we cannot do in real life..... and often would not WANT to do in real life even :-) So don't despair, black out the negatives and continue the dialogue. it IS appreciated by most! Happy Holidays ! François

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    im a dreamer also and many dreams come true in my life anyway H

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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I agree that FS X would be a great platform for new combat simulations. Add the ballistics model and damage model, an ability to string missions together, ability to modify the GUI ... its that close. Why not? This amount of work would be fractional compared to what is alreay there, and would open up an entirely new arena of third party development.