Mar 25, 2021
Flight simulation, community, and friendship
Few online experiences within the realm of games create the ideal conditions for a community experience of discovery as Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s something that started nearly three decades ago and has now reached a whole new level.
I turned 66 this Spring. I’ve reached an age where you look towards tomorrow but also glance at the past, aware that most of the road is surely behind you. Yes, I know the feeling has been here earlier, but it’s now, right after leaving 65, which some consider as deserving the definition of old, that I sat down and said to myself: you may still feel like a kid inside — I do! — but your body is telling you otherwise and your ID card confirms it.
It’s at times like this that you start to think you want to try everything NOW, and you fear that you may not have time to wait for things. Believe me, I ‘ve started to think I can’t wait for some stuff to happen. One example: while I understand why Asobo is delaying the introduction of helicopters in Microsoft Flight Simulator, the fact that it comes only in 2022 creates a sense of despair… because while I am willing to wait, I just know I will not have as much time as I would like to explore the brave new world of the simulator using a platform I believe is ideal to do it.
Once upon a time I had time to wait for things to happen. I mean, you never know what tomorrow will bring, but when you’re 20 or even 40, you don’t think much about the road left behind and the one ahead. If something was delayed, I would just say “OK, we will see it in a couple of years”. Now, while I can say it, I feel less confident.
I felt it was important to write this opening note, because it has everything to do with what I am about to write now, which is about Microsoft Flight Simulator, communities, and friendship. I’ve discovered, with this new version of the simulator, the pleasure of online flying, with other people. I fly with my son João — I am trying to get my son Miguel to fly too, but that’s another story — as I’ve shared previously, but I’ve also started flying with other people, in those events published on Microsoft Flight Simulation’s forums.
Never fly alone, there’s REAL people up there
Flying with others has been a slow process for me, as I’ve mostly flown alone most of the time and in previous civilian simulators, for one simple reason: it’s not easy to setup and to find people to fly with. Microsoft Flight Simulator changes all that, as it is in fact a MMO Massive Multiplayer Online simulator, in which as soon as you pick the the All Players option, you are flying with other people around you.
Despite the fact that you do not see the exact planes or liveries used by other players (not yet, but maybe in the future), the notion that you’ve real people flying around you makes the experience so much more interesting that in recent flights I’ve disabled the AI Traffic, because I don’t feel the need to have traffic created by the sim — which also eats cycles from the computer’s CPU — as there is so much REAL people sharing the skies with me.
I’ve also discovered the treasure trove that the Microsoft Flight Simulator events represent: the flight plans available there are some of the best to discover the world waiting to be explored by simmers. You can fly them on your own but, believe me, it becomes even better if you participate in the flight, not only because you’ll be flying with a group of people but you’ll, many times, have a guide that knows the areas being explored and shares his or her experience. It’s like having a tour guide, only this time virtual… and aerial. I’ve spent some time during weekends but also on weekdays, if I’ve a chance, participating in these flights. It’s exciting and you’ll always learn a lot of different things.
Because many of these activities use Discord as a communication tool during the flight — I wish Microsoft could implement voice chat in the sim, as DCS has — I’ve had to learn a bit more of Discord, helped by my son João, who has been my mentor in Discord as he showed me how to use it so we can talk when racing in Project Cars… and also in Microsoft Flight Simulator. I am still lost when I open Discord on my own, but I am trying to get the hang of it, has I’ve already signed with some groups that organize flights in the sim.
Made to explore with friends
The next step will be to use voice when participating in those flights. For now, I’ve been a silent spectator, curious to see how it all works. As a journalist I’ve always been more of a listener than a talker, so it suits me. Furthermore, the events I’ve followed had guides that shared a lot of interesting info, so it’s a pleasure to listen to them. What you discover in those flights is that many people are regulars and there is a community that meets in the skies many times.
In fact, I believe Microsoft Flight Simulator is made to be explored with friends, acquaintances, family, not only because it offers the key tools to get online quickly, but also because it allows us to share in group a different point of view of the world we all live in. This is not new, I believe the idea was there when the first version of the sim rolled out, more than two decades ago. The difference is that the graphics then didn’t help and now the power of computers allows us to fly in a world that looks “as real as it gets”.
So, I am rapidly exploring all the options available online, because I want it all and I want it now! I am, after all, only picking up on what I was trying to do decades ago. In fact, back in the early days of Flight Simulator, I participated in a community that used to fly online — or tried too as it was not that easy then. I also contributed to the creation of a freeware Cessna Skymaster 337 for a version of FS by photographing the airplane and its cockpit at the PoAF Air Base near Sintra, where a whole squadron using this aircraft was stationed.
For a period, before real life took its toll on some of us, the community used to meet monthly, for a dinner where real pilots, virtual pilots, air controllers and everyone interested into flight simulation would spend an evening talking about the different aspects of the sims available. VATSIM and IVAO flyers and those flying mostly offline all shared experiences and contributed to a community that although exploring the newly available Internet still found ways to meet in real life, at the said dinners, and at exhibits — usually related to real aviation — where flight simulation was on display for the public to try.
An experience similar to the Overview Effect
It’s not hard to imagine how it would have been if the Flight Simulator we used then was the one that Asobo and Microsoft now share with simmers. The easy access to the online experience along with the breathtaking graphics in Microsoft Flight Simulator make it a unique Massive Multiplayer Online Flight Simulator (MMOFS, is this a new acronym?) that would have taken the whole community far beyond what it is now. But a whole new generation is now ready to make the sim its own.
It’s all about sharing, as we fly above the surface, and discover, flying together, a sensation not distant from the Overview Effect felt by some astronauts during spaceflight, while viewing the Earth from outer space. We may be flying at lower altitudes here, but this is the closest many of us will get to fly to some parts of the world, in many cases to traverse areas that no other way we would visit. That, the feeling of community you get from those flights and the friendships that may grow in some instances, all make Microsoft Flight Simulator a unique audiovisual experience that also reflects on your feelings and thoughts. There is a whole learning experience waiting for you. That’s why I want to take the most of it, as much as I can, NOW! And do it with a VR headset, for the immersion to be total.
