Update 1.5.2 and news round-up

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Today, both Nicosia and Croydon received updates to 1.5.2. This is the same patch-level Tempelhof had at launch. As such, please find all changes and updates in the respective announcement.

Besides this, we’d like to use this opportunity to point your attention towards some topics that might have been neglected due to the release of 1.5 and the launch of Tempelhof.

Upcoming development

After the development of 1.5, which lasted about one year, we are now shifting to a lower gear for a few weeks to gain some fresh energy for AirlineSim and other projects. But don’t worry: After this vacation we will work towards reaching our old update schedule. This is: One maintenance release each month containing bugfixes and minor features and improvements.

Concerning the longer term goals for AirlineSim we are still evaluating the various possible and wished-for features we got on our list. For now, what AS 1.6 might look like and when it will be released is completely up in the air though.

AirlineSim Holiday Event 2010

It’s almost become a tradition already: After our previous christmas events in Vienna and Dresden, this year we will meet in Nuremberg. The event is a non-aviation, family-friendly meet-up that takes place in a beautiful city with a traditional christmas market. This year’s date is Saturday, the 18th of December.

Please sign up on Facebook and or on our forums.

AirlineSim on Twitter and Facebook

For those who missed it so far: AirlineSim and simulogics are present on both Facebook and Twitter. We use these channels to release tiny updates and bits of information that do not warrant an own entry on the portal or in the forums. You can follow the Twitter streams without having an account yourself by using the Twitter website or and RSS reader. These are our profiles:

Don’t forget: Every now and then we publish voucher codes for free credits on these profiles!

Tempelhof takes off for AirlineSim!

Monday, August 16th, 2010

This is an official press release intended for immediate release. If you are a press outlet and require additional information, please contact media@simulogics.net.

Online aviation simulation AirlineSim (www.airlinesim.aero) is pleased to be able to present, from the 16th of August 2010, its third international game world. Known as “Tempelhof”, it will provide up to 1200 users with the opportunity to manage their own virtual airlines in a detailed and realistic global economic environment. The new game world will run the latest version of AirlineSim’s server software, currently at version 1.5, which provides a greatly improved player-oriented interface, an expanded range of statistical data and improvements to the economic, flight planning and management systems. “Our simulated passenger and freight distribution system has been made significantly more detailed and transparent”, says Martin Simons, lead developer of AirlineSim; “These improvements, combined with real traffic data from airports all over the world, give players a realistic backdrop to airline management that you won’t find in any other browser-based multiplayer online game.”

While the hardware and software are state of the art, the game world’s name looks back to the history of aviation. Tempelhof is the name of the famous inner-city airport in Berlin, one of the icons of 20th century aviation even after its 2008 closure. “There was never any doubt that we would name a game world after Tempelhof”, says Sascha Kunert; “Since we name all our game worlds after former airports, it was only a matter of time. We had perhaps expected to use the name for a German-speaking game world, however.”

Instead, Tempelhof is expected to become the first AirlineSim game world to operate in a truly multilingual environment, with players given the ability to change the game’s display language. “Up to now, because of the way the servers are set up, we’ve been restricted to one language per game world”, says Martin Simons; “With the lifting of that restriction, we have plans to add support for a variety of languages. While we’re not in a position to make any official announcements as to which languages are expected yet, our very international community, now over 2000 strong, is helping us with the translations.”

Third international game world starts today

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Rumors have been floating around the forums and elsewhere for quite a while, but now it’s official: A new game world will launch later today! We will start the game whenever the technical setup is ready and last minute issues have been addressed. Therefore expect the doors to open in the late afternoon, European time.

The new game world – the name will be officially announced as soon as it’s opened – will run the latest patch level 1.5.2 and bleeding-edge master data (airports, aircraft etc.). These facts are worth knowing if you are interested in playing on the new server:

  • The game will run on a standard configuration (all aircraft, all airports, ground networks enabled).
  • The initial passenger demand has been slightly reduced for the start-up phase and will be adjusted as the amount of players/airlines grows.
  • Some airport and aircraft characteristics differ from the existing game worlds.

At this point I’d like to point your attention towards a policy that has been common practice for quite some time, but has never been officially announced: From 1.5.2 we will do data patches in a way that will not worsen the situation of any single player in a harmful way. Prime examples for this are changes in airport size or the addition of new nighttime bans, both of which cause major disturbance to the schedules of any airline operating out of the affected airports. Updates like these will only be applied to new game worlds, while existing ones only receive positive or neutral changes (extended runway length, more slots, updated demand etc.).

For a complete list of changes, new features and bugfixes contained in 1.5.2, please read on.

(more…)

Upgrade to AirlineSim 1.5 completed

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

We are happy to announce that the upgrade of all five game worlds to AirlineSim’s latest version 1.5 went about smoothly and has been completed successfully. At this point I’d like to express our sincere appreciation for the work that has been put into this endeavour by our team of supporters! Without their countless hours of work on things like the completely revised tutorial for AirlineSim 1.5, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we have reached today. Also, we’d like to thank the many testers who looked for and reported issues during the alpha and beta testing stage. We are confident that the effort of all who participated in achieving this milestone will pay off as the best version of AirlineSim that has existed to this day!

A few more words about the patch itself and the further actions: Even though AS 1.5 has been tested for a very long time, small issues right after launch are to be expected. If you come across any problems, please report them to our support address (support@airlinesim.aero) or on the forums. Currently known issues include wrong timezones for airports within sub-hour timezones (like India, 4.5h) and a problem affecting the new FRS that rates direct connections worse than multi-segment flights. We will look after these and any other issues as soon as possible and will issue hotfixes respectively.

We hope you enjoy AirlineSim 1.5! Have fun!

Last minute info about tomorrow’s patchday

Monday, July 19th, 2010

We are only hours away from AirlineSim’s biggest update in years. So let us give you some last minute information on how the patchday will take place.

We have decided to upgrade all game worlds, including the German ones, in an alphabetical order. Consequently the sequence looks like this: Croydon, Devau (German), Idlewild (German), Kaitak (German) and Nicosia. Each game world requires several hours to be patches put we will run more than one upgrade in parallel.

As such we expect the whole procedure to be over on the 20th. Thank you very much for your patience and your understanding!

AirlineSim 1.5 will launch on July the 20th

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

It’s been nine months since we announced the development of AirlineSim 1.5. That development process, we’re happy to report, is coming to a close, and we’re planning to release AirlineSim 1.5 two weeks from now – on the 20th of July, to be exact.

AirlineSim 1.5 is the most significant game update since the introduction of the current generation of the game. The flight-planning system has been revised completely, and now offers a much clearer planning interface as well as a stable implementation of indirect routings, or ‘via’ flights. The new flight rating system is being implemented at last – this will make ratings for both individual flights and connection opportunities much more transparent, and in doing so will offer new opportunities for players to compete in a busy airline marketplace. Additionally, a new statistics system is being introduced, which will make available to the player more – and more detailed – statistics and analysis, with more to come further into the 1.5 development sequence. Also of importance is a significant change to the way firms are structured: ‘Holdings’ have taken on a special role as unsaleable parent companies, but can take on the roles of operating businesses – flying aircraft, constructing and owning buildings, and so on. What are currently operating airlines – ‘Enterprises’ – are likewise able to act in most ways as holding companies do now – purchasing and owning shares, owning subsidiary companies, etc.

Although these represent the most important changes, they are not the only ones. Besides the introduction of a completely new user interface, significant optimisation has taken place with regards to geographical data, players’ ability to customize the layout of their interface and much more! We’re very optimistic about the success of this update, considering the time and effort which have been invested in it and, importantly, the very significant amount of user testing we’ve been able to accomplish – something we haven’t always had the opportunity to do.

Many of you will be familiar with AirlineSim 1.5 as a result of participating in one of these user tests. For those of you who aren’t – and for anyone who needs a refresher – we’ll be providing information regarding potential gameplay effects of the changes and how you might consider approaching them to all accounts currently registered on active servers, through the in-game message system. If you have any further questions, of course, our forums and support service are as always at your disposal.

Concurrently with the update, we’ll be introducing some changes to the game rules themselves, to be considered applicable two weeks from now – in other words, when the update has been introduced. A complete list of changes is available HERE.

Beta test for 1.5 has started

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

We proudly announce the launch of the release 1.5 public beta-test! All data from existing game world nicosia have been converted to this new server and release. This means – if you already have an account and airline on nicosia, you will find your airline on the test-server too.

Your way to the public beta-test: http://stapleton.airlinesim.aero

And of course some faq regarding the beta-test:

1.) How long is the public beta-test intended to last?
We’re planing a beta-test period of three weeks. Due to maybe found errors or problems it might be shorter or even longer.

2.) Is there any tutorial for the new release?

No, not at the moment.All wiki-pages are still based on the 1.3 release. But we’re working on it!

3.) Why can’t I find my fleet, flights etc.?
There is no difference between holdings and enterprises anymore. Therefor your current company selection might be the former holding, where is no airline business. Simply change the company/enterprise on the header bar.

4.) Why are all booked flights (flight instances) deleted?
Due to the conversion of the release 1.3 data to 1.5 all booked flights have to be cancelled. The system is now starting like the flights would have been all new. This is also necessary for the new flight rating system.

5.) Does the system books passengers and freight like in release 1.3?
No, the flight-rating system is completely new. Therefor you should avoid to high prices and reduce them to a “normal” scale. Flights with 200% prices might not be booked.

6.) May I delete a former holding?
Every company/enterprise – also the former holding may be deleted. But by deleting an enterprise you may also delete subsidiaries where this enterprise is a major stakeholder.

7.) Do I have to pay for the beta test?
No – the public beta test doesn’t cost you any credits. But you have to register an account and your account mustn’t have a negative credit balance.

8.) Where to report bugs or errors?
Like any error or bug – simply send us an e-mail to support@airlinesim.aero – please don’t forget to mention the server (Stapleton) and enterprise.

9.) Is there any “known-bugs” overview?
Not at the moment. But we will provide one.

AirlineSim 1.5 Beta test to start this week

Monday, May 10th, 2010

We are currently planning to launch a public beta test of our new version 1.5 later this week. Although there is no exact date yet, here are some early bits of information you might be interested in.

The first and most important part of the test is the “patching process”. To test this we will use current live data from Nicosia, install it on the public test-server and upgrade it to the new version 1.5. After the upgrade, the simulation will continue running as it did before but with the new flight rating system (FRS) in action. As all existing flight instances will be deleted in the process, airlines will miss about 3 to 4 days of bookings and a considerable part of flight operations. All newly created flight instances will be rated by the new flight rating system, so the new ratings will be a lot more price-sensitive even in no-competition scenarios. If you manage an airline on Nicosia and want to take full advantage of the testing we recommend you save up some money and set all your flights to standard prices (you should be fine if you operate below default prices already) to avoid going bankrupt.

After the test has been started we intend to run it for at least two to three weeks. Getting over the disturbance brought about by the patch is expected to take airlines about a week alone and we calculate about another week for the FRS to catch on. Consequently everybody should have quite a good idea about the effects of the upgrade after three weeks.

During the Beta test we will operate a special board on the forums for you to post your ideas, feedback and possible issues. We will continuously update the test world and fix bugs as they appear. As soon as we think that the new version is ready for a release, the test world will be resetted and made the first regular 1.5 game. The updates for existing servers will follow shortly after, given that no unforseen problems prevent it.

Please excuse the fact that we can only use the live data from one game world, giving a slight advantage to those playing on Nicosia. We decided that a test would only make sense in a saturated market and we cannot afford to run more then one free server at a time (testing the Beta will not cost you any credits!).

More information on the test will be posted as they become available. We recommend you follow us on either Facebook, Twitter or both for smaller updates not worthy of a blog post.

Summer. Airplanes. Amsterdam!

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

What’s better than a combination of warm, sunny weather, the smell of burned kerosene, some heavy metal passing over your head, plenty of good food, some cool beers and long discussions with fellow aviation geeks about your favorite airline simulation? Can’t think of anything? We neither!

Summer is coming and we will have our traditional summer meet-up! For the first time ever the event will take place in the wonderful city of Amsterdam, Netherlands, with the official part of the meeting commencing on August the 7th, 2010. Usually there is some inofficial get-together on the following day for all those who don’t leave the day before already.

As mentioned above and contrary to our city events (like London 2010, don’t forget to sign up!), the event is supposed to have a somewhat strong aviation focus. As usual though, the program is more or less open and we look forward to your suggestions on how we can make this a fun event for everybody! We invite anyone to join the discussions on our forums.

For those of you who are on Facebook, we have also created an event page HERE!

See you in Amsterdam!

AirlineSim moves into new Frankfurt office

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

April Fools! These news are of course imaginary.

The International version of AirlineSim has been a great success so far, having outpaced our growth predictions significantly. However, as you all know, growth can’t take place in a vacuum – some level of infrastructure is needed to keep things organised. Therefore, simulogics, the parent company through which we operate AirlineSim, will be opening its first physical office sooner than planned. It’s great news for us, and of course it would be wrong not to give the project an aeronautical theme. Therefore, we will be renting a complete floor in the old air traffic control tower at Frankfurt airport, previously used for aircraft gate assignments and soon to be on the head office and nerve center for simulogics – and, of course, a place where our faithful players can drop in to say hello!

Besides the offices for our seemingly ever-growing team, we will be installing a lounge in the front of the building, with a view over the airport apron. For a charge of a few credits players will be able to shorten their wait time until their flight departs, and even use the lounge to discuss new features with the developers who will show up occasionally. We aren’t aware of any other gaming companies that have achieved such a seamless fusion between an online game world and the real world, and we’re looking forward to the exciting new opportunities it will bring both to our team and to our players.

As the contract with FRAport has not been finalized, details on the subscription and entry costs to the new player lounge are not available just yet. However, current AirlineSim players are advised to get in touch with us via fra@simulogics.net, as we’re holding a prize draw for tickets to the opening celebration! The exact date of the meeting is yet to be announced, but will definitely be a weekend in order to maximise the number of players we can accomodate.

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