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Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Every day, we get a number of suggestions sent to our tell_fs@microsoft.com email address. And, when I say “suggestions”, I mean letters from the widows of Nigerian finance ministers, offers for discounted Viagra, complaints about our copy protection, and . . . suggestions. Contrary to popular mythology, we read them all. The majority of the suggestions are great: well-reasoned and carefully thought out ideas from unusually dedicated and passionate customers, the kind of customers any smart business dreams of. Sometimes, though, we get ideas that are unrealistic, complaints that lack any real useful information, and suggestions that are actually offensive.

Yesterday, we got one that is all of that and more. Against my better judgment, I’ll preserve the sender’s anonymity, and refer to them only as “MD”. If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll parse their entire message, bit by bit:

 

You should make it so that the scenery changes depending upon what year is entered. Like if its 1940 you'd have the buildings of NYC look all old n stuff.

 

We’ve actually dabbled in this area in past versions – we used to model the existence and absence of the Berlin wall based on date, for one example, and the eruption of Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii for another.  The problem, of course, is that we already build everywhere, it gets almost infinitely more complicated when you ask us to build everywhen. Thankfully, if MD really wants to see NYC looking “all old n stuff”, all they need to do is get a hold of my friend Bill Lyons’ superlative Golden Wings add-on one of my all time favorites. Bill, if you’re reading this, you’d better hurry up and recreate every other moment in time. I’d like it by Christmas, if you please.  

 

Or if the years set to 1400 you'd just see like trees and mountains etc.

 

Because everybody knows there was nothing in the year 1400 but “like trees and mountains”. I have ancestors who fought prominently in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and, going back further, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. They must have been pretty stupid, fighting actual wars when there was nothing at stake but like trees and mountains.

 

At the very least ya should make it easier for scenery designers to create time-reactive scenery.

 

Since I’m far from a scenery expert, I don’t really have a sense for how hard this is now, but I’m happy to agree with MD anyway and say yes, it would be great if we made it easier.

 

OTHER SUGGESTIONS:

-Make altitudes over 30,000.' more realistic re: temp, air density, etc

 

Okay . . . I’m willing to bet that MD has no idea what, if anything, is wrong with the way we model these things at higher altitudes, but somebody told them it wasn’t realistic. But, for the record, if I had my way, we’d remove our 100,000 foot cap, and model the atmosphere right on out to where there isn’t any anymore, which brings me to . . .

 

-Make it so ya can go into outer space or even the moon

 

We’d love to, in fact, we already did once, but it didn’t sell all that well. Regardless, we’d love to do this again, but remember when I said that building everywhen on top of everywhere is almost infinitely more complicated? Well, multiply everywhere by everything, and that “almost” just disappears.

 

-More dynamic scenery like the car lights there used to be in FS2000

 

My friend and esteemed colleague Jason has written about these in particular, but, in general, I agree. The real world is a living environment, and, in an earlier post, I offered my formula for designing Flight Sim: (Reality – Last Version) = Goals for the Next One, or More Reality > Less.

 

-Cars ya can drive to the airport in

 

We get this one all the time, and it seems silly at first, but it intrigues me. In my perfect world (where I own all the airplanes and it rains Hot Tamales) multiple titles and platforms could exist in the same world. Why should we literally reinvent the wheel(s), when our neighbors upstairs have already built titles like Forza and Project Gotham?

 

-Cooler explosions like when the plane crashes wt fire and people running around screaming and woman going like, "Oh my god! MY BABY, MY BABYS ON FIRE!!!". OR HEY, how bout showing like Hiroshima getting nuked if you set the date to the exact moment in 1945 when it happened.

Seriously the time travel thing would be way cool!!

 

MD, we were doing okay up to this point, but you are a loathsome and sad little idiot. If by some chance you happen to read this, and you can prove who you are, I have a proposition: send me your address and I will personally, out of my own pocket, refund the full purchase price of Flight Simulator 2004, just so I don’t have to think of you as a customer anymore. 

Published Sunday, November 13, 2005 10:32 AM by Hal9000

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Comments

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

LOL!!! I concure with that last statement, Hal. If he identifies himself - I'll throw in a couple of $$ myself!

O
Sunday, November 13, 2005 4:01 PM by OwenHewitt

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Hey Hal.. just in case he does not ask for his money back, I answered one of the questions on my blog ;)

http://msmvps.com/thenakedmvp/archive/2005/11/13/75335.aspx



Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:28 PM by Nick Whittome

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

I will PayPal you some money also to help get rid of him of this sick mind.
Sunday, November 13, 2005 7:19 PM by BobS

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

My suggestion for flight sim, better texture masking transitions for the distant scenery when high up, especially for water textures. Also vis limits shouldnt cut off the world so you have less land to look at infront of you, it should just blur the land with a haze effect infront of it.
Sunday, November 13, 2005 7:24 PM by Alex

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Hi Hal,

Business as usual. :>)
Hope you are feeling better.

Jim
Sunday, November 13, 2005 9:43 PM by roadog

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

I don't know about driving the cars, but always seemed to me that since the decision was made to kill Train Sim (guess that was just MS branded product?) it would be possible to combine the two in one product, or at least make two products that are compatible. Which brings up the question, whatever happen to Combat Flight Sim???
Monday, November 14, 2005 2:45 AM by scot s.

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

I've often dreamed of the 'uber-cool' product named "MS World." It would simply be the core engine that models the world, to which one could add modules such as, Flight Simulator, Car Simulator, Train Simulator, etc. ;)
Monday, November 14, 2005 1:53 PM by n4gix

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Now MS World sounds like a billion dollar idea ;-).
Although I'm enjoying the FS9 module at the moment.
I just love being able to travel to places that I can not afford to travel too. (or is that not brave enough to travel to??)

madagascar - great place for bush flying (I know I know spelling, but where is the MS spell check when you need it ;-)
Monday, November 14, 2005 2:21 PM by Mr. Funi

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

>> Or if the years {sic} set to 1400 you'd just see like trees and mountains etc.

This is Flight Simulator, not history simulator. Wouldn't anything prior to 1783 be superfluous?
Monday, November 14, 2005 10:22 PM by BruceN

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

"Wouldn't anything prior to 1783 be superfluous?"

Well, there's Daedalus & Icarus of course... but we can't have feathered dudes flapping their wings and jumping off towers without inverse kinematics and vertex animation support, so... what was that email addy again?
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 10:24 AM by Gerard van der Harst

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Hal, just please try and make this a regular feature: "Extracts from the FS team inbox".

Seriously, since I first saw this, every time I feel like the day is going downhill I just come back and have a read again.

Thanks for sharing.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:11 PM by Paul Golding

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Thanks to everyone who commented - I'm glad you seem to have had as much, or more, fun with this than I did!

So far, MD hasn't written for his refund, but I have a feeling this story isn't over yet.

- Hal
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 4:24 PM by Hal9000

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

Hahahaha, flying the 737 to the battle of Hastings, that would be an idea ;-))) Sinking the almighty Spanish Armada with only one spitfire, now wouldn't that be fun...;-)
On the other hand this guy is complaining about the lack of realism in FS??? sad, very sad... I hope these mails aren't delaying the development of FS10 too much, I'm really looking forward to it. Keep up the great work FS!

grtz,

stroman
Friday, November 18, 2005 6:15 AM by stroman

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

I think that Microsoft should provide a solid base environment for Flight Simulation with a lot of features.

You said ""we already build everywhere", which is a very huge task. I'm a scenery designer myself for two years now and I know how much work and time it takes to model an airport. Therefor Microsoft should only provide a basic FS world, with some default airport. Designers around the world will model their airport much more detailed than the default airports.

They should also provide more features and documentation for scenery designers. One thing that would be cool is a separate system for ground traffic, so you can really see vehicles (busses, pushback trucks, catering cars,...) driving around the airport and serving other aircraft.

So in my opinion they shouldn't 'waste' much time on scenery design, but more on implementing (expandable) features.

Thomas
Thursday, November 24, 2005 7:08 AM by Thomas

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

mmm, dinosaurs would be great, but please write in the manual in what year I can find them... and king kong on top of a building!!
Tuesday, January 03, 2006 8:14 AM by stephan

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn't Blog on a Sunday Morning

I miss one thing in FS - cloud shadows on bright sunny day. That would add much more realism. All the other features are great.
Thursday, March 02, 2006 8:24 PM by KPL

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

luogo interessante, soddisfare interessante, buon!

Tuesday, March 06, 2007 3:18 AM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

Luogo molto buon:) Buona fortuna!

Saturday, March 10, 2007 11:55 PM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

E evidente che il luogo e stato fatto dalla persona che realmente conosce il mestiere!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:46 PM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

luogo interessante, soddisfare interessante, buon!

Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:33 PM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

Lo trovo piuttosto impressionante. Lavoro grande fatto..)

Saturday, March 17, 2007 3:32 PM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

Stupore! ho una sensibilit molto buona circa il vostro luogo!!!!

Monday, March 19, 2007 6:45 AM by ...

# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

Ich erklare meinen Freunden uber diese Seite. Interessieren!

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# re: Tell FS . . . Why I shouldn

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