from the don't-forget-your-preflight-checks dept.
How Microsoft Flight Simulator returned to the skies:
Let's play a quick game of word association: Microsoft — Windows? Excel? Xbox? All solid answers. But for me, for a while in the '90s at least, I would have immediately answered "Flight Simulator." Microsoft Flight Simulator is the very first thing I can remember ever doing on a computer, sat on my granddad's lap as we soared across blocky landscapes together with a Sidewinder joystick. It is one of Microsoft's all-time iconic brands.
It's also a brand that the company has more or less ignored in the past decade-plus. The last release, Flight Simulator X, came out in 2006, and a few years later, its developer, Aces Game Studio, was closed as part of widespread layoffs at Microsoft. A 2012 free-to-play spinoff called Microsoft Flight was less than well-received.
In just a few weeks, though, Microsoft is releasing perhaps the biggest upgrade to the series in its 38-year history. The new title, developed by French studio Asobo and simply called Microsoft Flight Simulator, is an ambitious attempt to leverage Microsoft's Bing Maps data and Azure-powered procedural generation technology to render our planet in unprecedented detail.
I've been playing a pre-release alpha version for a couple of weeks, and it's frankly astonishing. This is a full-throttle effort from Microsoft to re-create the natural world and the magic of flight. And while it carries the weight of an iconic series, it feels like it came from nowhere. Why is Microsoft reviving Flight Simulator now?
So my dear Soylentils, how many of you have played Microsoft Flight Simulator and if so, what did you think?
Related Stories
The OpenStreetMap project is an excellent example of how powerful crowdsourced data can be, but that's not to say the system is perfect. Invalid data, added intentionally or otherwise, can sometimes slip through the cracks and lead to some interesting problems. A fact that developers Asobo Studio are becoming keenly aware of as players explore their recently released Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
Like a Wiki, users can update OpenStreetMap and about a year ago, user nathanwright120 marked a 2 story building near Melbourne, Australia as having an incredible 212 floors[*] (we think it's this commit). The rest of his edits seem legitimate enough, so it's a safe bet that it was simply a typo made in haste. The sort of thing that could happen to anyone. Not long after, thanks to the beauty of open source, another user picked up on the error and got it fixed up.
But not before some script written by Asobo Studio went through [and] sucked up the OpenStreetMap data for Australia and implemented it into their virtual recreation of the planet. The result is that the hotly anticipated flight simulator now features a majestic structure in the Melbourne skyline [Tweet] that rises far above...everything.
The whole thing is great fun, and honestly, players probably wouldn't even mind if it got left in as a Easter egg. It's certainly providing them with some free publicity; in the video below you can see a player by the name of Conor O'Kane land his aircraft on the dizzying edifice, a feat which has earned him nearly 100,000 views in just a few days.
[*] By way of comparison, the tallest building in the world — the Burj Khalifa — has 163 floors. This "Tower of Melbourne" exceeds that record by nearly 50 floors!
There are links to a YouTube video: Landing on the Melbourne Citadel in Microsoft Flight Simulator (06:30) and also to a Redit thread Found the Wall in the North.
It's a great article that considers the challenges of validating user-sourced data — well worth the quick read!
Which leads me to ask: what glaring data errors have you encountered, user-sourced or otherwise?
Previously:
(2020-08-02) How Microsoft Flight Simulator Returned to the Skies
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:01AM (3 children)
Microsoft Flight Simulator started life as SubLogic Flight Simulator .... 10x10 grid with 2-d mountains at the back, as I recall.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:12AM (1 child)
I have a copy of that somewhere.
For Apple ][.
On cassette.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:02AM
It was vector graphics with either no outside traffic, or some fighter planes that mostly showed up as dots on the screen. It had much more interesting taxing and airport behavior compared to other sims, but much less 'fun' activities, as I remember it. Ace of Aces, Battle of Britain, and a few others were all much more impressive both during the same era and a few years after.
Ace of Aces did a lot more with the limited capabilities of the C64 than Flight Simulator did, but it was still quite an impressive piece of work for the era. The sound of the engines in particular, while low fidelity still causes me flashbacks any time I hear the right pitch of engine flying above me today.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:10PM
It jumped the shark in version 4, where an animated Muslim called Clippy the Jihadi would pop up and say "I see you're trying to fly into the World Trade Center... would you like some help with that?"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:05AM (1 child)
The new generation of Saudis gotta learn how to fly. They only need to "land" once
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:40AM
Hopefully MS will eventually fix the 737max Arab version of the cruise control problem in a future update.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:35AM
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/ms-flight-simulator-our-yoke-on-look-at-new-features-gorgeous-flights/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday August 03 2020, @04:13AM (2 children)
I played it back in the early 80s on an Apple II and/or the Commodore 64.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by hopp on Tuesday August 04 2020, @04:57AM (1 child)
Came here to say this! If I had a nickel for every time I overshot Megis field...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @09:06AM
The upgrade from flight sim on the c64 to flight sim 3 on a 286 was one of those "wow" moments I just don't get from computers anymore. Same as the first time playing descent a few years later...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:02AM (2 children)
Yes, I flew Micro$oft Fight Stimulator, back in the day. Cruising along in my Sopwith Camel, when out of nowhere I was attacked by a Blue Screen of Death. Thought it was just the sky, at first. Never managed to get it up, again.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday August 03 2020, @10:11AM
" Never managed to get it up, again. "
Cos it's a Micro Soft product! ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 04 2020, @12:13PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Monday August 03 2020, @11:19AM
>Let's play a quick game of word association: Microsoft —
hell
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @12:08PM (2 children)
The one question on all of our minds is: will it work in wine?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 03 2020, @12:57PM
It's not listed here yet: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=278 [winehq.org]
The release date is August 18th but alpha and beta builds have been available.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Tuesday August 04 2020, @09:10AM
GOOD question.. I've seen this new version and Holy Chit, Batman!! If there was ANYthing that would entice me to go back to Winblowz after 100% Linux for the last ten years, THIS would be IT! It would ALMOST be worth having another machine, with a castrated to hell and back install of Win10 JUST to play this sim..... I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet it WILL NOT "work in wine".. So much is the pity..
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday August 03 2020, @12:20PM
Does "on a CGA monitor, on an original IBM PC" count? :)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 03 2020, @05:32PM (2 children)
I'm curious what they're aiming at.
For general civilian aviation my understanding is x-plane 11 is where its at. So if you want to fly a reasonably well simulated C172 or 747-400 you use x-plane for many years now.
For military "accurate to the button press" aviation my understanding is everyone uses DCS World. I'm getting halfway good at hovering the Huey. The Huey is a cool copter, weak and crude enough to make is challenge to fly but complicated enough to keep you busy.
There are video games with levels of simulation mostly arcade level physics.
So people would buy MSFS because they want ... retro? More MS in their lives? I think they're trying to push scenery pretty hard. The problem with also being real is both in sims and in actual cockpit the view isn't really all that good all the time and you're busy looking for traffic or flying the plane or navigating, or in sims like DCS, trying to achieve a mission without being shot down.
If it'll run on the xbox then it can't have performance as good as DCS or x-plane...
I have this feeling it'll be the flight simulator equivalent of the Zune.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:16PM (1 child)
>> I'm curious what they're aiming at.
It's a hyper-realistic simulation of the millennial aviation market in which you can select what tattoos the pilots have on their arms, what gender the stewardesses identify as, the amount of carbon credits to charge to each passenger, and you can even set the level of virtue signalling the airline needs to undertake to avoid bankruptcy after one of their security guards accidentally kills a Black transvestite who refused to give up their seat for a deadheading VP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @09:47PM
Damn it I still can't customize the logo on the outside of the plane I'm inside of?! When will they get the important features!
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday August 04 2020, @12:07AM (2 children)
After reading all the childish ignorant posts on this subject so far, I was compelled to share this [youtube.com] link.
Procedurally generated terrain.
Real time real world weather conditions.
Adjustable levels of simulation (from needing to press every switch and lever to start the plane and take off, to a more simplified experience).
Insane cockpit detail, down to the rivets and leather in the seats.
Reflection of the panel displays off the inside of the cockpit windows at night.
Clouds that cast shadows on themselves and other clouds.
It pulls data from Azure as you play for unprecedented levels of world accuracy and detail.
Before you act like petulant children who need their bottoms powdered, maybe you should learn a little bit about the subject before you just start spewing cliche anti Microsoft bile.
This simulator is absolutely amazing.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @12:32AM (1 child)
Does it simulate the 737 Max 8 ?
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:06AM
No. Here's the list [windowscentral.com].
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:08AM
Many, many moons ago, we had what I still consider the best flight sim I've ever experienced.
It ran on Sun workstations, back around the transition from SunOS to Solaris, so I'm not sure if it ran on one, the other, or both.
Aircraft were detailed models, and the terrain was from USGS databases.
Air-to-air combat was included, but it was a bit uncomfortable to discover that the "pilot" of whatever you just shot down was your boss.
My second favorite was "Strike Aces" on the Amiga. Detail was a lot less than what the workstations did, of course, but the mission planning (load-out, route, ...) was spot-on and the difficulties completing the missions wasn't exaggerated. Still, fast as an FB-111 is, unless I was willing to discard mission-critical ordnance, I was never able to shake the adversary F-14s.
Given the capabilities of even a PS 2 or XBox, much less their successors, I was never able to find a satisfactory flight simulator for them.