For many people, flightsimming is all about the technology. The ability to flip every switch or push every button in their 737 cockpit on a long haul is their reason for flying. I can appreciate this approach because I want to try it too and give myself the satisfaction of accomplishing something I'll never do in real life. Unfortunately, too many of this type of simmer never seem to raise their eyes from the instruments and have a look around. Scenery is wasted on them and they are quite content with FSX in its default state. Take a look at all the boring videos of instrument panels and engine views that are out there. I just saw one demonstrating the 737 autoland function, in very bad weather, and the final touchdown on the runway, barely in from the water's edge, is only shown from a window overlooking the port wing! They often don't even bother to show you the outside of the plane that's being filmed!
I've never really had the opportunity to travel and doubt I'll get much of a chance in the future. Flightsimming gives me the ability to go almost anywhere in the world and, with the addition of increasingly more realistic payware and freeware scenery addons, I can visit places I can only dream of at this time. ORBX has laid the groundwork for many of these places and RTMM is doing some extra landscaping. While I can appreciate the airport to airport flight, I really want to go somewhere different, preferably over some spectacular scenery, which ORBX appears to be providing in spades. If I have to look for my destination in the middle of a forest or tucked away on a cove in some lake, that's part of the appeal. Half the time, I'm on autopilot and looking around outside the aircraft anyway! The various developers make the scenery for a reason - to look at it. (The built-in recording functions of most flight sims now at least allow you to both pilot your plane and do some sightseeing on replay, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. I do the same thing in my train sims.)
The ability to get down on the roads in a vehicle or on the water in a boat has been around for a while but with the lack of detailed groundlevel scenery there's been no real reason to do so. Now there are many excellent sites, and sights, that can only really be appreciated from down low and I don't mean from above the trees. Thanks in large part to the original MM and the current RTMM, many people are starting to realize that the point-to-point flight itself isn't everything. It pays to look around. Now we have hundreds of static objects ranging from people to vehicles to animals (including those deer caught in flagrante delicto); animated fish, birds, animals and people; moving traffic; service vehicles that actually do something; windmills; waterfalls and rapids; the list is growing. If you simply use FSX in the persona of a dedicated pilot, you are missing so much.
I've written this from the point of view of a frustrated, currently non-flying FSXer. If I can get excited over the experience simply from looking at the screenshots and videos presented at RTMM and elsewhere, I can't imagine what it's going to be like when I actually get to fly in this world myself. In a little over 6 weeks, I'll be 'celebrating' my 60th birthday and, one way or another, I'm getting a new computer, even if I have to eat TV dinners for a month! As Doug says, it's all about the journey and it's time I experienced it. (Of course, with all the addons I've been collecting in anticipation, it'll take me another month just to get things installed!)
Cheers,
Mike
