Simples, the ATC was designed and built for a single player environment.
I fully agree.
The whole purpose of Vatsim is for serious flying, and we know serious flying is actually fun, people can believe it or not.
Iâm pretty positive gamers (and less serious flyers) will never turn Vatsim into a âgameâ. Beginners are always welcome, and they will learn to be serious while flying in Vatsim controlled airspace, or they will be booted. A beginner is welcome to practice ATC commâs, and hone their aircraft control skills in a âCessnaâ, but to fly 747âs day one out of KORD or EHAM is not likely going to be permitted on Vatsim.
Less serious flyers who donât concern themselves about airspace rules and the like will simply not be welcome at Vatsim. But less serious flyers have several options other than Vatsim, serious flyers have just a couple realistic options.
If Vatsim becomes more like a game, it is no longer of any use at all, the Vatsim management knows this.
The only question I have is, this âpartnershipâ between MSFS and Vatsim; since MSFS is currently not really a serious sim (yes the scenery is lovely), how can the two be compatible?
Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Definition of multiverse
cosmology
: a theoretical reality that includes a possibly infinite number of parallel universes
As it stands, IMHO, they are not yet compatible, with the hopefully soon-to-be-corrected SimConnect issues and live weather being just two factors.
The conversation in this thread developed more out of the âfearâ of a few potential new vatsim members, myself included, who were somewhat concerned by what appeared to be a âdo not enterâ rather than a âwelcomeâ sign. That concern has largely died away, thanks to the final post in the thread, from @N417ZS.
That now just leaves the terror of the first flight, which will probably be a VFR outing for me, after the simconnect issues have been resolved. Hopefully, by the time the other âincompatibilitiesâ have been sorted, I should be good to go for my first IFR flight.
Whatâs so daft about that, if you mind expanding on it?
Why the outrage of people doing what they want to do? I might be daft, but I just donât understand.
This is exactly what I would like to ask you too. 
Sorry, I disagree. This is not war thunder or pubg where we need ranked lobbies.
What are you disagreeing with though? That you donât want MSFS to be gamified? Do you not enjoy the landing challenges and tutorials for example? What is there to loose for you or other players if there would be a platform/server/group for people who would like to do stuff according to procedures to the best of their abilities? You can still think of playin âunrankedâ or again - turn MSFS multiplayer completely off. Everything I suggest doesnât take away from other players wanting to play in multiplayer however they want. That is the whole point of the TrueSkill/ranking math - to match other players with players who are on their skill level. In theory - when you match players with statistics - it is possible to approach the best multiplayer gaming experience possible for the players.
Btw⊠Iâve been a part of trying to create something like what I am talking about with @NguyenQHy & https://events.flighttracker.tech/ for about 6 months⊠Yes, it doesnât have any of the gamification features (yet, anyway), but it does work very nicely for The ATC events Iâve been taking part in organising during the beta and now also the release: ATConnect. The Informal ATC Group
Feel free to join our next events and also our group!
how dare YOU, hahaha !
OK, I am sold. Ultimately I want to fly on VATSIM but the learning curve is very steep (more like a learning wall) to start directly. I joined one of VATSIMâs Newbie events in Germany last weekend and I am a little less scared now. Nevertheless one of the joys of flight simulators for me was always the just-try-it-out aspect. Then reading about it and try again, getting closer and closer to the actual real life procedures.
Currently I am training with Pilot2ATC as another intermediate step.
Once I got the hang of it, I will be glad to join your group: Learning together sounds like a lot of fun. Trying to be realistic and not being excommunicated for doing something wrong, but rather help each other to improve, sounds like the approach I was looking for.
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Great, the Avsim forum has leaked into hereâŠ
Edit: It always makes me chuckle when I see people scream about other users playing FS in an unrealistic way. Guess what is super unrealistic? The fact that I, with no flight experience whatsoever can get into the cockpit of a fully loaded and fueled 747 and takeoff from Heathrow airport without being chased down by a pair of RAF Typhoons.
MSFS by itâs very nature is unrealistic. If I swan dive into the ground from 30,000ft, thereâs no consequences, no AAIB investigation, no inquest, nothing other than a Dark Souls style âYou Crashedâ screen.
If other people are having fun, regardless of how theyâre doing it, why is it even an issue?
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One thing is so true, thankfully collision with other players is disabledđ
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And we all know that in RL, you canât collide with other people eh? 
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Well they have the right to play
After thinking for a bit I had an idea that might satisfy everyone.
As things stand there are three settings that virtual pilots will use. They will have the realistic flight model on, and most probably are also flying live and have multiplayer set to live players. Being able to share your multiplayer with live players only means you arenât sharing airspace with someone who might be flying in totally different weather to you, which aids realism.
What if there was also a setting for ATC realism. Right now ATC is entirely optional, you can request take off and landing clearance and airspace transition, or you can choose to just not bother. ATC wonât say anything if you just decide to land on the main runway at Heathrow or buzz the White House, and then clearances you ask for are always granted. How about first improving ATC so that their responses and reactions to you were more realistic and then adding a setting to either use this realistic ATC or the current optional ATC. In the more realistic setting, clearance wonât always be granted, you canât for example just expect to turn up at a major international airport and be allowed to land, theyâll say to you that all landing slots are taken up (and there would have to be a system to book landing slots in advance)
Then add a couple more options to the multiplayer settings:
Realistic Flight Model only, like live only will prevent players appearing in your session who donât have the realistic flight model, so virtual pilots donât have the immersion-breaking spectacle of someone doing aerobatics over a city centre in a 747 to deal with.
Realistic ATC only, and this will prevent players appearing in your session who donât have the more realistic ATC enabled, so you arenât instanced with pilots who sit at the threshold, or land without warning.
The question is, how do you enforce realistic ATC? The realistic flight model is simple to enforce, you break the rules of physics and your plane will crash and itâs game over. In real life the consequences of ignoring ATC arenât so easy to model in-game; lose your pilots licence?; police waiting for you on the runway?; intercepted by a fighter-jet? These things canât be added to the game.
My idea for that would be simply that if you have realistic ATC enabled and you break the rules, you will first be warned, depending on the severity of your infringement continual breaking of the law will result in you simply being bumped down to default ATC and no longer being visible to those players who have realistic ATC only multiplayer turned on.
You would filter out these easy pilots. But you would decrease Asobo and Microsoftâs incomes as well.
Disable multiplayer and be happy.
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How would that be? I canât see how changing what players you can see in game will affect profits.
More limits and restrictions -> fewer users flying just for fun -> fewer buyers in the future. Good for us, not so good for Asobo.
But my suggestion was optional, players can already choose whether or not to use a realistic flight model, how would giving them the same options regarding ATC restrict their fun?
Create a group of people, thatâs the best option.
This shall be working of course because youâre pretty sure your friends will be similarly minded regarding ATC/flight rules in your group. However:
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Isnât the main issue with creating groups in this case being you must have a list of âfriendsâ to create the group with?
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What about the times youâd like to fly any place and encounter strangers sharing the same airspace and abiding by the same set of âflying rulesâ (as close as IRL)?
Some others are recommending âif youâd like flying âby the rulesâ then use Vatsimâ. This is probably the best solution to fly by the rules with communications but there are times you probably canât talk (relatives sleeping) or wonât talk (not mastering the phraseology enough for Vatsim for example).
- In these cases what about flying by the rules with synthetic communications?
I believe suggestions for a âseparately identifiedâ lobby/server doesnât preclude flying in groups. Instead it is promoting flying together with similarly minded pilots.
I also believe no one as a perfect solution and given more options, and with more people using those options, the community as a whole, like a living organism, will determine the best balance. In this case, more options could just be as simple as having clearly named lobbies*
For example the âLIVEâ lobby could be subtitled:
âUse this lobby for sharing the airspace with other virtual pilots abiding by ATC rulesâ
The âNormalâ lobby could be subtitled:
âUse this lobby for fun flying or for exploring the vast FS2020 worldâ
.
.
.
*it is a nudge like house fly images in urinals.
Thaler and co-author Cass Sunstein define it as a choice âthat alters peopleâs behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.â The important thing about nudges? Theyâre not mandates. Nudges donât attempt to make it impossible to do the wrong thing, but rather they make it easier to do the right thing.