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| The Man Behind Flight Sims -- Scot Bayless Chat Excerpts | |
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On July 3, 2000, Scot Bayless, Product Unit Manager of all of Microsoft's Flight Sim products, took to the floor on the MSN Gaming Zone. He answered any and all questions about the series of products, and all of our Zone armchair pilots had a great time. We thank Scot and the Zoners for making it a wonderful evening. If you were unable to attend, we've excerpted some of the highlights:
+GoldBuzz> Imagine being in charge of a whole fleet of planes -- all kinds from every era. The design, the physics, the look and feel, all of this is up to you. And then imagine if that was your day-to-day job! Pretty awesome! Scot Bayless has this "out-of-this-world"job. As the Product Unit Manager of Flight, he is "THE MAN" for all Microsoft Flight Sim games such as Fighter Ace, Combat Flight Sim, Flight Simulator 2000 and more. Scot is here with us now to try and answer your Flight Simulations questions, whether it be FA, or FS2K!
_Alliance_> What would be the possibility of arranging a consistent meeting between Squad CO's (being the core consumer) and the FA devteam so we can give some direct input into how we would like to see the game evolve. And what is the possibility of these people [being] given the ability to test changes before they actually go public so we can give feedback? And on a design note, FA is a fine balance between playability and historical accuracy, which do you deem more important as you seek to evolve this game?
Buzzcut@Flight> Cool. Three questions in one. :) Let me try to take them in order. First, the FA team spends quite a bit of time sifting the discussion groups and chats for input on how to improve the game. I think the notion of an organized discussion is a good one. No promises today, but I'll take it up with the team and see what we can put together. Second, I'm not totally clear on testing changes. Do you mean changes to the incremental updates or changes to the big revisions like FA2? Third, GREAT question about the balance between accuracy and playability. I'll answer with a question. How come everybody plays in the Intermediate arenas? _Alliance_> Inter[mediate] is the jewel in FA's crown in answer to your question. WRS_Achilles> First of all, thanks for taking the time to chat. I was wondering what planes are on the drawing board? (Hint: Hellcat.) And second, I've heard rumors of Aircraft Carriers, any chance? Buzzcut@Flight> Can't give you the full list today, but your sources, umm... accurate. ;) Yeah, we're looking toward the Pacific. WRS_Achilles> Will I be able to drop torpedoes? Buzzcut@Flight> It's on the feature list, but it's too early in the process to say definitively. Given the historical attrition rates on torp bombers, it'd be interesting to see how many people want to fly them once they're in. :) _617_Wings_UK> Could one or both of the TC rooms be set up so that each day is only (for example) one year, with new planes being introduced as the week progresses? This would mean that the older planes would have to be used, and as time progressed, air superiority between the countries would change, like it did in WW2? And, if you can't give the full list of planes today, how about a shorter version ;o) ? Buzzcut@Flight> Excellent question. One of the things most of you probably don't know about me is that I was directing X-Fighters for Dynamix when we had to strip the team to salvage RB2 and ProPilot. My point being that a strategic feature like the one you propose is close to my heart. We haven't locked down the design for the next version of FA, but it may well include something like this. SAS_Groundruner> Hello, 2 questions: Does FA have any intention of manning the AI gunners of bombers, and, if so, when? Also, how does FA plan to compete against sims like WW2 On-Line (now in beta) that will offer sea, tank, infantry, and air units to the player? Buzzcut@Flight> Ok, now we're into the hard questions. We've been back and forth on multi-position aircraft. A lot of us like the feature, but if you look at usage, not just in Warbirds, but as far back as SWOTL, you find that people do it for a while because it's cool and then go back to flying. Short answer: don't know yet but we're thinking about it. On the mixed arms question: ask yourself how much fun it is to be a tank in a world where there are fighter bombers. <g ? DOH_Witham> Hi, and thank you both for having this information sharing opportunity. FIGHTER ACE II ROCKS!!! :) Can you tell us the timetable for implementation of the Pacific Theater? Buzzcut@Flight> Can't give you specific dates, but we're actively working on it. Patience Grasshopper... ;) BadJoints> What does CFS2 have to offer that CFS now doesn't have? CFS now has weather mission editors, "eye-candy" and shared targets, plus the planes that CFS2 offers. What incentive is there to buy CFS2? Why are bombs and rockets not in CFS2 for MP? Buzzcut@Flight> CFS2 MP is still pretty limited in scope. That's mainly a function of the other stuff we wanted to get into the game. Having said that, let me take that question up with the team. _DFA_satdown> I really wish you could improve the diving speed and the maneuvering of the P-47. The P-47 could outdive any plane in the war due to its huge weight. It also shot down the most [enemies] out of all the others; as it is now, it can't beat any in Fighter Ace. Buzzcut@Flight> Agree. Truth to tell, I've never seen anyone really do the P-47 right. It's on my personal list of aircraft to tune up for coming revs. _DFA_BANE> Hello, Scott. Thanks for chatting with us. Is there any chance of changing the GPW room to Allied vs. Axis? You will get more folks using that resource if you do; last I looked there was only one person in there all week. Buzzcut@Flight> My pleasure. Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. I've been working with the designers and the FA production team to drill down on what GPW's not offering. One of the prevailing opinions is that more people are interested in the Western Front. If so, keep your eyes peeled for some stuff that's already in the queue. PG_AG> We are currently conducting an extensive test on plane characteristics in ITC, and finding planes either overmodeled "LA-7" or undermodeled "most JP/GE." Is anything being done for these country planes? Heavy bomber for Ge "HE-177" in the works? Maybe a ground pounder like the ME-410 to replace a stuka :) Buzzcut@Flight> Balance is one of the biggest issues we're addressing for updates and future versions. I happen to agree with you that some of the Sov's are a touch hot. On the other hand, we try REALLY hard not to let ourselves get swayed by subjective impressions. We're planning some rigorous testing in the coming months. We're still reviewing the list of future aircraft. At the moment, I can't give you a firm answer, but we'll definitely take it under advisement. _Klatuu_> My question deals with the air to air rocket issue. I realize GE and SU had them, to some extent. However, their use in the TC rooms tends to take the game further from a historical sim, and more to a FPS, IMO. Any chance that the air-to-air functionality could be done away with, or the range tags removed? At least in one of the rooms? Buzzcut@Flight> This is one of those game vss reality issues. It's not particularly realistic, but it's kinda fun. Good suggestion on the advanced arenas though. That may be a good way to address the issue for the purists among us. There's a really interesting engineering question in there that I don't have enough time to go into here. Maybe it's worth an article though. The basic problem is one of squeezing a real pilot's 120 degrees or so of vision into the 30 degrees of a PC monitor. +GoldBuzz> Well folks, I'm afraid to say that's it for today! I'm pleased to announce that Scot will be back in the near future to answer your questions! Please send you FS related questions to flight_events@hotmail.com and our Z-Team members will do their best to answer them! Buzzcut@Flight> Thanks for having me, guys. It's been great fun. I'll be back as soon as we can set it up. |
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