I have been flying flight sim since FS 98. I played FS 2000, FS 2002, FS 2004, FSX and now the new FS 2020. I played throughout the early 00’s on the MSN Gaming Zone Lobby for flight sim.
Does anybody remember this? There were lobbies and you could join individual games by pressing a join button. There was a live chat room with emoticons, and some people would hack/lag the servers deliberately to annoy people. The functionality of multiplayer then was good, because you could chat to people before you joined a game. You could advertise specific flights or airports and people would join you accordingly. You don’t get this with FS 2020, unless you arrange it on a forum. You also don’t get live chat on the multiplayer. Somehow, multiplayer still seemed a lot more “fun” than it does now. The game launched as soon as enough people joined a particular lobby. It was a sad day when Microsoft switched off the Flight Sim gaming Zone lobbies. !! Maybe the developers of FS2020 can develop FS 2020 Multiplayer further to make it more fun like the good old days. Microsoft retired the Lobby system in June 2006.
Interested who was part of the MSN flight sim lobby as well? My user name ID back then was Jumbo_Jet. We have set up a reunion Flight Sim group for MSN Gaming Zone users on Discord. It is here: Discord
I have been with Flight Simulator since the late 80’s, Flight Simulator 3.0. I did very little with the multiplayer side. I might still have my diskettes for the program for that 3.0 version.
I have flown since 198x. I have de opportunity to use all MS versions, and I remember ATP ( Air Transport Pilot).
However, I don’t remember had used MSN Gaming Zone Lobby…
Started with Flight Simulator II on a Apple IIc…Processor was clocked at 1.0 MHz and had 128K, yes kilo of memory. 5.25 floppy. I have played them all…
I started with FS 3.0 in 1989, when I got my first PC with an EGA capable graphics card. I bought every version of FS since then and was quite upset when MS announced they would stop after FSX.
Remember buying floppy disks with “World expansion packs” like Paris, where you would have block renditions of the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame?
Since I beta tested Windows 95/98/98SE/W2KWS(Project Lead at work), I got FS98 and have been sliming since then. I still use FSX since it works. This one makes me mad as heck about 90% of the time, because things just don’t work.
I know, FS 2020 is full of issues. A patch gets issued and then 50 other problems and glitches are generated. It is a joke and an embarrassment to the franchise. Not even basic things like autopilot works in some aircraft.
Late 80,s here with 3.0 and others on floppy. Mid 90,s with Fighter Ace in ms games was a blast, flew that till it’s very last day when the servers were shut off.
Ms Combat series could have been great but, like fsx…well you know the story…
Started with Sublogic Flight Simulator by Bruce Artwick on an Apple II. It was all vector graphics and the “world” consisted of a 10x10 grid with two “airports.” The original Microsoft Flight Simulator was such a step up from that. FS2020 is so far beyond what I could have imagined back then…
The Zone was a “legal Liability nightmare” – Volunteer Moderators called M-Plusses , and a load of “script kiddies”, who had manged to get a script that would CRASH the Microsoft Zone server, and Microsoft could/would do nothing to stop them.
Hi N6722C, yes it is me JJ, lol… I remember M pluses - wow what nostalgia that is. I’m sorry if I caused havoc for you in the past, but I was a lot younger then.
The Zone Hacks website had all the scripts to lag/crash the server and flood the messages. That must have been what, mid 00s now? lol.
I’m glad to hear from you! Were you going out with that “Carrie” ?
Richard Raine is on my Facebook, haha and I have a few friends from Zone still on my Facebook. I remember Delta_Yankee, he was a bit of an idiot.
haha, I am in the air force now, I have been for ten years. I have been to Afghanistan twice, you name it… I also have my PPL now and I work in Air Traffic… Flight Sim really rubbed off on me for the better. I live the dream I always wanted. What about you? I do miss the older days… FS 2020 is great, but full of bugs and the multiplayer isn’t quite as fun as “back in the day”. ! I have a one year old daughter too.
Thank you, I appreciate it. No I don’t remember those, I remember RJ though. I still speak to Patrick Madden and Ben Weller, American friends I met on there. As well as Danny Harter from the UK. Patrick Madden flies Airliners for American Airlines now. I never went commercial, because I had a baby and I didn’t want to waste my money - glad I didn’t because COVID struck.
I was very lucky to win my RAF pilot scholarship so I got my PPL for free. I don’t intend to fly again until this COVID stuff is over. What you been up to?
