You know there’s an external camera view that most people use flying as much as they do Cockpit view, right?
Where would you get the numbers to support that statement?
How do you think people take screenshots of their plane?
Are you really trying to make an argument that people don’t use external or drone camera views to a large degree, as much as cockpit view? Whatever the ratio split is, all camera views focused on aircraft + cockpit view are heavily used, that’s obvious from the amount of still and video footage floating around. That’s been so from the very first flight simulator.
Fwiw I agree with the OP.
MSFS is really the base system for a digital twin of earth (ie: useful for much more than just a flight sim), so at some point these internal building views will definitely be useful, but at the moment with the current performance limits and hardware issues they are more a “nice to have”, not a “need to have”.
Airport devs are getting a bit ahead of themselves, and focusing on the wrong things to differentiate for the broader market, potentially leading to framerate killing UX for a lot of people in order to make a few nice marketing pics. Performance optimisation should be their core focus, and airport features should be prioritised to meet that objective from the main use cases of a cockpit view or external plane view.
Pretend walking views via drone cam of ordering a coffee from the starbucks situated way back inside the terminal are an edge use case at best for now.
Soon sneakers, clothes, caps and sunglasses will be sold. ![]()
Snowglobes, don’t forget the snowglobes…and bad airport novels!
I know that people use the external view, but I was simply, and politely, asking how you came to the conclusion that people use the external view “as much” as they use the cockpit view.
In regards to this, i once saw a 3rd party review made by Blackbox (a real airline pilot), where he rant on how some 3rd party developers invest more on visuals than actual correct core features of the airport such as correct ILS glide path angle, correct PAPI indication etc…
I really frowned when I saw the subject, it’s the total opposite of how I see things..
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I absolutely love when developers push boundaries. Doesn’t matter in what context but this is what drives innovation, brings us new features and gives us new technologies. I firmly believe this is such a key part of MSFS, because look at what this new sim has done? By pushing boundaries we can explore the whole world in a totally new way. People are in general afraid of changes and some do not handle changes very well. You will always find people who would still prefer 2D cockpits, offline software that rarely gets updated and in this case, airports that are stuck in the FSX mindset.
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MSFS is all about the passion for aviation and I think people forget this and just see it within their own “bubble”. If you love flying airliners, then the ground detail may not be as important as when you fly bush planes, right? But there are people who love helicopters or gliders and then there are people who love ATC. If you can “be” in the tower when doing ATC and get a realistic view of the airport, then it adds another level of immersion. We have people who love airports, that’s just a different part of aviation.
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Immersion. It’s been mentioned plenty, but if I get a great plane, that ticks all the boxes to be “realistic” and hence adds immersion of actually flying it, then I might spend as much time by the gate as I’m in the air and I look at a poorly textured box in front of me…yeah that really takes away from the immersion of some people. Instead, if I can see an airport with a working VDGS, with the terminal full of passengers and life, with the jetway just as I remember it from RL and textures that matches my plane, then sure it adds a lot to me.
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Iv’e seen plenty of airports of “poor” quality with worse FPS than airports with higher quality, even if in some cases they’ve been located at the same place. So just because there is more detail, doesn’t mean the performance is worse. In fact, many of the top-notch airports are made by the best devs out there and who are also good with optimization.
So, I really hope the finest third-party devs when it comes to airports, such Pyreegue with his Belfast airport in the example or FlyTampa, Aerosoft etc, that they keep pushing forward and continue to bring us these amazing airport that really are worthy MSFS. I know I’m not the only one to love them ![]()
Check forums and youtube, it’s not rocket science.
Well these are content creators… you can even watch streamers taking off and during the rotate jumping to cabin views
yes captain leave the cockpit during takeoff to go see the wing from the cabin ![]()
If we are already mentioned immersion on few of the above posts ![]()
Part of this, indeed probably a very large part of this is done for the own amusement of the person creating the airport. I’ve created a few small airports and helipads available over on flightsim.to and its great fun adding all the little details and bringing the scenery to life. A lot of it will be rarely if ever be seen but thats not really the point. Its just great fun putting it all together from my own point of view.
I like how recently with some of the big top tier scenery creators there’s now a bit of a fun little battle going on of who can create the most overly detailed scenery add on. People are adding animated swimmers in swimming pools and that sort of thing. If you’re a study level A320 pilot are you going to notice or even care about this sort of thing? Probably not. But clearly a lot of people do like it and the person who created it would have had a lot of fun making it.
I’m not saying that devs shouldn’t do it at all. The point is to make it at least optional.
Ah, so you don’t have any numbers then?
I’ll leave it to you to count up the cockpit vs external plane shot ratio here: World Photographer & Screenshots - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
Where did i say that nobody uses external plane view? In fact, you will see that I acknowledged that fact in one of my posts.
When you made your initial bold statement about “most people” using external camera view as much as they do cockpit view, you didn’t limit it to the relatively small number of people who create content for youtube or even those that may just go to external camera view to get a screenshot.
I was genuinely interested in how you came to be so confident about your initial statement, but as you appear to be getting more and more defensive, with comments like “its not rocket science” and the obvious sarcasm of your latest post, that does nothing but suggest that your original statement was just an opinion.
Of course, you have every right to voice your opinion, even if it is one that I do not share.
Its up to the developer to decide that they want to develop, and how they are going to market it, set a price point, and what market they are are catering to.
Its up to the purchaser, to decide if a given airport is something they want to spend money on.
Each can make up their own minds, and do not need to be told by others in a forum, what to do or think.
If you don’t like it, or don’t want it — don’t buy it …
If you want something different, and it does not exist – build it yourself.
You will soon learn and appreciate, just how much work & time it take to do this stuff .. most of which , is a “Labor or Love” and dedication to the FS hobby.
I think that with statements like these you would never be a successful scenery developer.
Most scenery developers are small groups(sometimes a single person) that doing it as a side job.
They do not have a marketing departments doing scoping for them.
Without community feedbacks they might lose a big chunk of customers crowed, and eventually will stop developing more sceneries as they found their effort/income ratio is not worth it.
Personally I do not want to see it. I want more developers groups to develop more and more airports.
So saying ‘If you don’t like it, or don’t want it — don’t buy it …’ simply hurting everyone including the community itself.
sometimes. Maybe i want another “i’m waiting to board my plane because the previous crew hasn’t gotten off yet” screenshot. Maybe i just want to look the plane i spent $70 on from a “realistic” perspective. I know it’s a video game and it’s not perfect…
But for 5 minutes let me have this one because flying in real life, commercially or privately, is expensive af.
Here’s the problem i have with feedback like this.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s valid feedback, but it’s more fanboism that is really what’s hurting the community. It’s feedback based on what only a portion of players want and assuming its what everyone wants as well. Statements like the following is evidence (emphasis mine)
It’s fair you don’t want to see certain details in an airport since you don’t see yourself using the drone cam on the interiors. And yes there is a portion of the community thats right there with you in which 99.99% of their time at that airport will likely be in the cockpit or taking external screenshots.
I’m sure the developers take into account the people that won’t buy their product for any reason. “don’t like it don’t buy it” is valid if you ask me. I don’t like buying 3rd party airports because 99% of the time, i’m not flying there regularly enough to justify the purchase.
TLDR: It’s a valid question, but it’s unfair to assume extra details like interiors or animated passengers are what the community wants. I’m sure if there wasn’t a hit to performance as a result, we’d have even more high detailed airports.
It’s easy to use a new market and create 3D models and scenery for a new popular flight sim with a huge customer base. Even if you have absolutely no knowledge about aviation. Several addons and even the sim itself have revealed this background. 3.3 degrees GS? What’s that? What’s a localizer anyway?