I’ve been noodling on this for a bit; I don’t know about everyone here but the Flight Sim world generally feels surreally empty or non-immersive. I’m not talking about things like raindrops, vapor, cirrus clouds, etc. but more like the things that give the world a heartbeat:
Interactions with the world
Bustling and dynamic environment
Random sporadic events
People walking around
Generally, it feels like the world is kinda…dead. There isn’t much happening, everything is predictable, and apart from the AI aircraft following predetermined flight plans and the ground crew servicing aircraft, it’s a bit too dull and uninteresting.
On that note, a similar thing can be said about Half Life 2 maps; they’re so eerie because of how uncomfortably empty they are. And I think flight sim kinda falls into that same category of “eerily empty”
Not sure if this helps or not, but there’s a tag #living-world in Wishlist at least some of the things you mentioned.
Most of those posts are about traffic, so here is a search about living world topics not dealing with traffic. It includes things like people in cities and at the airport, etc.
I am curious to know what you mean by “dynamic environment”. As you probably know, an implementation of seasons is currently being worked on, but I assume you are referring to more than that.
Im talking moreso about a world that’s never the same every time you come around. For example, I’ve flown at night and occasionally saw house parties (tons of cars parked in the driveway, hella lights)
I’m also talking about things like rush hour traffic, night lighting differences between 8PM with lots of lit building windows vs 3AM when all the lights are down because everyone’s asleep, potential emergencies called by other aircraft, construction on the road and moving service vehicles, you name it.
EDIT: A neat addition too would be beach-life. Beach-goers, kayaks and sailboats, etc. in touristy beaches. With Bing data, some of this data may very well be available to be manipulated. It’s such a small detail, but can make light vs day difference in such an “empty world”
I’m on VATSIM, yeah, but that’s not particularly what I mean. Sure there’s ATC and airplanes, but that doesn’t fill the world. I’m talking outside and seeing a world in motion, not seeing an artificially generated terrain with a few shakey SimConnect-injected airplane models with voices on the radio.
I can only imagine a MSFS world where thre are people, cars, buses, trains and more all over the world.
Everywhere we go we would see a busy world, much like real life…
…
BUT… Can you imagine the Huge Computing Power Needed to render a flight simulation world like that ? Seriously doubt that our current home hardware could handle it at this point in time. Maybe in 5 or 10 years.??
I fear you are asking for a lot. For example on Xbox we still can’t see ANY moving ships or sailboats on seas or lakes, a feature that was supposed to be implemented on the game release.
I’m all for extra immersion and anything that makes the sim feel more alive. However I do think there comes a point people need to realise this is ‘only’ a flight sim.
Some of the suggested additions in this thread sound good on paper but would be utterly ignored by the vast majority of simmers. The Victoria Falls scenery thats available has people bungee jumping and white water rafters and people riding a cable car, and its all fantastic, I love the attention to detail, but I do have to confess that after marvelling at it to begin with you soon pretty much ignore it all and just enjoy the scenery from the air and see next to none of the detailing.
The H145 action pack from Hype performance is the closest thing the sim has to bridging the gap between FS and something like GTA. I love it, its great fun and does add something to the sim. So, yeah I love stuff that adds to the immersion but it does have to be specific to things you do in real world aviation. GSX falls into this category too.
I’ve now voted for all those. I’ll provide some commentary on my takes on them a little later. Re: the 2nd one with the bulleted list, are you saying that it’s no longer being considered, or that future ones like that will no longer be considered?
Actually, this is a really good example. I’ve lived near Niagara Falls and I’ve seen it from the air. What makes a difference is:
Helicopter tours going back and forth between the falls and the lodge north along the river.
The constantly bustling hectic mania that is Clifton Hill and all the tourist sights at full glory (including the go-kart track and the Ferris Wheel)
The cars waiting in line at the Rainbow Bridge to cross into the United States and Canada
The pedestrians all over the promenade looking at the falls and walking back and forth; from the sky they’re like a wave of beads moving around and crowding the streets and the overlook.
These are all visible from the sky, and when I look at Niagara Falls in the sim, it lacks that life and “pop” that makes you feel like you’re there: it lacks the bustle of a hot tourist spot, and becomes a picture of “The Niagara Falls and all the buildings around it”. That’s my take on it, at least.
I’m sure a third party developer could make a Niagra Falls scenery with all those additional features to make the area more alive.
Quite a lot of the features asked for in making the world more alive really fall into the remit of what third party developers could make rather than what Asobo/MS should put into the sim as standard.
The SDK for the sim will continue to be developed enabling people to add all sorts of interesting immersive things for those that want them.
I agree with the diagnosis, but I don’t think we can really expect much at this time, given current hardware. I think for the foreseeable future any extra processing power is going to be invested into improving the flight modelling and weather/climate, because it is a flight sim afterall.
You might find some 3rd party devs adding some of these things though in future.
Amen ! I sure hope so… For me, the “Flight Simulation” is the most important. Maybe the future will be that Addons that provide unlimited “Eye Candy” outside of the Flight Simulation part will be availble as an enhancement for sale. That will make all the $$ hunters happy and also apease those that want that super immersion part of the fs world too.
I definitely want to buzz a ■■■■ beach in Nice, France and watch the sunbathers scatter. My Optica would be good for that: Low and slow, with that bubble canopy. Yes, please…
in addition to that, if you’re on PC you can get the excellent ‘Marinas’ mod for free to add a load of docks, (sailing) boats etc. you can get GAIST as well for commercial shipping traffic.
when a 3D cockpit was science fiction and boredom was only a word 