Welcome to "Missions and Multiplayer," the section of FSInsider devoted to two of the coolest new features in Flight Simulator X: missions and multiplayer!

I'm an "Enthusiast Evangelist" on the Aces Studio Community team, and my focus is on crafting fun and educational experiences for our partners and for the community. I've worked on or with the Flight Simulator team at Microsoft doing writing and design since 1998. I helped design the missions in FSX, and I wrote or rewrote many of the audio scripts. I also designed most of the new multiplayer Tower Controller feature.

I'm about as hardcore a simmer as they come. I have a huge collection of Flight Simulator add-ons, I read real-world aircraft manuals just for fun, and I'm a virtual air traffic controller with VATSIM's Los Angeles Center. I'm also a real-world instrument-rated pilot, but that fact doesn't seem to make a difference when I excuse myself to go upstairs "to fly" for hours on end. In short, I'm as excited about all this as you are.

Okay, on to "Missions and Multiplayer."

Missions

What are missions? Structured experiences. You get a briefing, you have a series of goals, and you get evaluated on your performance. If you succeed, you get rewarded for your efforts.

Until recently, I spent most of my simming time in Free Flight, making realistic flights between one airport and another. So, it was a big leap for me to work on the missions in FSX because...well, I feared we were turning my SIM into a GAME! After a while though I realized that realism and fun are not mutually exclusive. We worked hard to make our fun missions realistic, and to make our realistic missions fun. And I think we succeeded.

If you haven't tried the missions yet, you're missing out. The best part is that the missions we shipped on the DVD are just the beginning. Passionate individuals and organizations in the community have already started making missions of their own, and there are some real creative geniuses at work out there. I'll be scouring the Web for the best stuff, and when I find it, I'll share it with you here.

Multiplayer

And multiplayer? What's so fun about flying around with other people? Well, you can fly with other people from around the world. You can simulate realistic scenarios with some people acting as pilots, and others acting as air traffic controllers. You can practice formation flying. Landings. Mock dogfighting. You can share your aircraft with another user. And through it all, you can communicate with each other in your own voices. Imagine flying a Boeing 747 into Las Vegas at night with a retired real-world airline pilot from Paris as your co-pilot, and a kid from Russia as the Tower controller, and you'll begin to get a sense of what's possible.

From virtual airlines, to small flying clubs, to huge organizations that offer simulated air traffic control on dedicated servers, there's lots of interesting stuff going on in the world of multiplayer. Again, I'll hunt for the best of what the community's doing, and I'll let you know about it.

If you have suggestions or comments about what you see here, let me know. Just click the "Send us your feedback" link at the bottom of any FSInsider page.

See you online!

Mike