“The flight sim community is very welcoming to new pilots and veteran pilots alike and gives everyone a chance to be a part of the community.”

– Dima, Discord Mod and MSFS Bot Developer

Today we’d like to highlight a few community members who have gone above and beyond, showing that our community is not only passionate about the sim, but talented as well.

Our Moderator, Punda

Punda, once a casual Alpha member but now full on moderator, took it upon himself several months ago to build a community for Microsoft Flight Simulator on Discord. He envisioned it as a great place for simmers to learn and fly together and invited the community to join. Punda grew it from the ground up, until it was a vibrant corner of the internet for flight simmers of all backgrounds to unite. His passion led to what is now the Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Discord server!

He says, “It’s great to share a passion with others! Being able to discuss such topics naturally is great, I personally learn new things from others all the time, from new aircraft, to parts of an aircraft that I didn’t know existed!”

Our team worked with Punda to assess his goals for the Discord, and while he continues to improve and build upon it, we decided to work together to make it official. There is now presence from our team in the server to help run it, but Punda still heads the Discord community. We are very excited to work hand-in-hand with members of the community to bring you the best server possible. Our entire Discord moderation team has been extremely helpful with keeping the conversation fun, insightful, and positive. Thank you to Joe, John, Pieter, Punda, Dima, Harry, Silvrav, Toby, Simtom, Wuper, Zyonix, Deebz and Nxther for being Discord mods.

After months of hard work from Punda and everything he has done, we are proud to make it public and invite aviation and flight sim enthusiasts to join in the conversation.

What’s so great about having a Discord server?

Our Discord is the central hub for the MSFS community to communicate, whether through text chatting or in voice channels, about the latest and greatest in the sim world. You’ll find a diverse group of sim enthusiasts who share the same passion for aviation and a place to connect and interact when flying together in the sim.

What are some features of the Discord server?

There are channels to discuss flight simming as a whole, hardware, peripherals, screenshots and more, both for public and Alpha simmers alike. 

Harry, one of the Discord mods, added, “In the Flight Simulator community, people help each other, share content, and photos on social media to offer a good taste around the world about aviation and how amazing it is to see what pilots can do, learn, and even give you the motivation to become one. Overall, the Flight Simulator community is amazing and I can’t wait to see more people coming in!”

One feature we’d like to highlight on the Discord is the Flight Events section. Our Alpha members have a closed, private section to not only discuss Alpha news, but to fly together via Multiplayer in voice channels. There is a Flight Events bot to help simulate ATC and radio among players. For now, our fly-in events are Alpha-only, but we can’t wait to see the events created once the sim is released and available to all!

Our Bot Developers: Dima, Xignotic, and Harry

Three members of the flight sim community took it upon themselves to create a custom bot for our server, and with their talents combined built something to be proud of.

Dima explains, “As I am studying computer science, [I thought] it would be a good idea to spread some of my knowledge and help the server grow with a quality custom-coded bot. Having a custom bot allows for finer control of certain details to fit the needs of the server and staff team.”

Complete with MSFS content feeds, moderation tools, verification system, leveling system, and more, the bot offers many cool features. Harry described one of his favorites, “I think one of my favorite features of the bot is the METAR command. That’s because virtual or real pilots can use it to search the current weather around the airport. But we do not just aim to help everyone by giving them a raw text of information, but analyzed information.”

Xignotic also states, “It’s amazing to work with the other members that are developing the bot, they’re good at communicating and are extremely friendly.“

We love how passionate and skilled our community is, and are excited for the future of the Discord server. Thank you to everyone involved with this effort. We can’t express enough how lucky we are to have the community we do. Thank you!

-The MSFS Team-