What happened?

[u2fly]

ysflight - Аnalysis - Google Trends
(1 FEB 2004 -- 1 FEB 2017)

SOURCE - https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... q=ysflight

[Neocon]

I split the topic because I think this deserves its own thread. I think this is an interesting issue. 2004 is about the time I found YS Flight. At the time, FS9 was just coming out, and was pretty popular. FSX came out a couple of years later and was a huge hit. I suspect those titles probably caused a lot of interest in flight simulation in general, which brought a lot of people here.

I compared searches for "flight simulator" and "Microsoft Flight Simulator" and found that they both had similar declines to the data on YSF. Of course, when I added YSFlight to be compared it looked flat in comparison. Judging from this information, I would say that flight simulation in general has been on a stead decline for the last ten years.

[Turbofan]

I maybe wrong about this but I think partly it's also the fact that YS Flight is a niche game i.e. it does not appeal to the mass gaming market out there. Most people will give it a once-over, decide if they like it or not, they might but then they do not care much for the graphics (which have stayed more or less where they were in the mid 2000s and later) or the newer games with more "eye-candy" caught their attention.

Those who stayed did mostly because YS Flight's simplicity and the fan community's creativity appealed to them, and thus we are here, the part of the gaming world that loves this game and has accepted it for what it is. It's our own little corner of the internet and we're fine with that.

That being said, I think another resurgence has been taking place, and much credit goes to people like Eric, wingz, and many of the creators/modders here who keep things fresh and make it fun for those of us who like the game.

One thing that will help though is some marketing of the game, but in general, like I said, YS is a niche game.

Just my humble 2 cents' worth.

[Flake]

What happened is the developer kept the program closed source and refused help from other willing people.

Plus the developer got ahead of himself and added more features then the code could sustain-ably have. Now he's trying to chase his tail to fix the code inefficiencies and pinch points but it's just not built right.

I've looked at the code for polycrest - so many single letter variable names. No comments. No segmentation. The code is just not nice to read - it's very functional and powerful. But it can't be easily maintained without years experience and a masters in comp-sci.

So what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened, and that's exactly what went wrong.

Why the slow decline then? Because we are holding on here.

Open the program up, please. It's time.

[Krux]

Open the program up, please. It's time.

I really can't think of what would happen if YS went open source... Looks like a nice horizon, i think?

[Nodoka Hanamura]

What happened is the developer kept the program closed source and refused help from other willing people.

Plus the developer got ahead of himself and added more features then the code could sustain-ably have. Now he's trying to chase his tail to fix the code inefficiencies and pinch points but it's just not built right.

I've looked at the code for polycrest - so many single letter variable names. No comments. No segmentation. The code is just not nice to read - it's very functional and powerful. But it can't be easily maintained without years experience and a masters in comp-sci.

So what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened, and that's exactly what went wrong.

Why the slow decline then? Because we are holding on here.

Open the program up, please. It's time.

I may be persona non grata as a result of my shameful acts of the past (and evidenced by my Probation, which is understandable policy due to possible fear I may return and raise hell, which I won't), but I thought I'd throw in my two cents and side with Flake, and as seen in the beta thread, Swift. It would be best for HQ to either implore Soji to release the source code, or, using the dnm, srf and other files in a new engine and work together to make a game compatible with the mods we already have.

Soji shouldn't have copyrights on the file formats, as they're all like u2fly said, lines of plaintext data and variables. YSFlight is just a executable that compiles that data into a model in the same way GrunSol's NadekoBot runs JIT Compliation on first startup (and after every update), and in turn uses them as part of a simulator. That can't be copyrighted because anyone could do that, with or without reading a single line of a DNM, DAT or SRF file.

Soji ergo has no legal grounds to hinder that front, and frankly for the sake of the future of YS, It is for the best that if Soji refuses to budge, that you guys push to create a answer to YS.

All and all, if and when I decide to return in full, I wish you all good luck.