The tilt toward X-Plane...

[chipwich]

Last night while getting shot off the boat in the DCS Hornet, after my aircraft was in tension, I ran the engines up to military, did a control wipeout, saluted a make believe yellow shirt, moved to afterburner, and grabbed a virtual towel rack. The salute and towel rack were something that I’d never done before. I’m so glad that my wife wasn’t around to see that, especially since I had my Samsung Odyssey on. Would have probably been spent the night on the sofa.

[near_blind]

@chipwich

Would have probably been spent the night on the sofa.

Laughing so hard as to preclude sharing the bed? Sounds about right

[BeachAV8R]

@Hangar200

I considered Flightsimming my hobby, not a game. So where is the gameplay aspect?

I consider it both. Both FSX and DCS have heavy gameplay aspects - I mean, look at all those missions and challenges that came with FSX, and DCS is all about gameplay unless you are just using it to practice cockpit type techniques. Each mission and campaign is definitely a game to me…sure, a simulation, but a game nonetheless.

I mean, Pilate’s Ghost and Tarnished Gold are both examples of fun gameplay that sprouts directly from the hobby.

Gameplay was the reason I was so enthusiastic about Fighter Ops when that was first announced. I mean, a basic training through attack/fighter aircraft type syllabus with career building type play - sign me up!

[chipwich]

…and don’t forget

Machmell, A Short Story

Machmell Fisheries is a small piece of free scenery created by Propstrike Studio for X-Plane. They offered it for free to promote their new website and to create a little buzz for their upcoming Quatam River Airport . They also sell another small scenery called Allan/Burrows Island. Elsewhere on the forum I sang my praises for both Allan/Burrows and Machmell. What do you say about scenery? That It’s pretty? That the creators obviously worked hard? (Or you can really get in the weeds like I d…

[NEVO]

I would put it this way. Lets say you are creative person and you have two hobies - (1) flight sims and (2) model trains.

So you will start with buying (1) sim and (2) railways. Then (1) planes and (2) trains.

Next you will try to figure out what to do. You have your (1) plain sim and your (2) plain piece of plywood.
So you will develop (1) custom scenery with one airfield and (2) diorama with one station and one railway circuit.

Now what to do? You can (1) fly your aircrafts around your airport and you can (2) drive your trains around your railway circuit. Thats boring…

So here comes some limited gameplay - you will start to (1) fly corect circuits, holding the corect heights, correct speeds, you will try to land always on the same spot and you will start to (2) drive corect speeds on the crosings with roads, corect speeds on the bridges and you will try to enter the station with corect speed and on schedule.

And it will get boring again…

So you will expand. You will develop (1) another airport and you will create (2) another railway station.
And here comes the solid gameplay - you can start your (1) Virtual Airlines plus Air Hauler between that two airports and start to drive your (2) Pasenger Trains and Cargo Trains between that two stations.

Now we see that with model trains you will have to figure out the gameplay part on your own while with sims you can have at least 3rd parties creating the gameplay part for you.
So its always best when the sim is shiped with lots of [gameplay] content on Day 1.

[Hangar200]

@Hangar200

I considered Flightsimming my hobby, not a game. So were is the gameplay aspect?

Actually I agree with all of you. My question was meant to prompt an answer that I tried answer as “it is both”. I was not as eloquent as @Nevo and @BeachAV8R.

Flying planes by the numbers, to me, never gets boring. That sense of success when you put on the parking brakes at your destination and start a proper shut down sequence, is to me, extremely enjoyable.

Obviously one can go beyond that, as I did with, Pilate’s Ghost , and DCS with a built in Mission Editor and Campaign editor is a dream come true, for both the developer side and gameplay side. (I am already beginning work on at least one DCS simNovel).

In other words, Flightsiming is like New Shimmer…

Yahoo Entertainment

Anyway, thank you both for spelling it out better than I did.

[NEVO]

@Navynuke99

I’m still bitter towards Microsoft for the whole “Flight” debacle a few years ago

flightSim.com - Was Microsoft Flight really that bad ?

Was Microsoft Flight really that bad? - Six Years of Microsoft Flight

[NEVO]

@Hangar200

Obviously one can go beyond that,…

I agree, thats imo where the gameplay begins.

And @BeachAV8R put it right in review of your simNovel :

Yes, there are plenty of us that can simply develop a flightplan and entertain ourselves with a basic flight, but giving purpose to flying, whether through utilities such as Air Hauler or FS Economy, or a good story, is an essential component of our simming that often gets overlooked in favor of the shiny new features of the most recent sim release or update.