Joint world map updates and improvement program

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1

Hej everybody,

I see a lot of nice mods and addons being created and published, all aiming to improve the overall experience with the flight simulator.

Is there is a possibility to contribute in making the original game files, e.g. such as the map & terrain better? For example is there an option to improve a certain area, say adjusting terrain heights or the landscape, making changes to the road layout, rework the foliage and release those changes to the broader public without the necessity to create a mod for this change?
Does Asobo or Microsoft offer such an improvement program which all players / simmers in the end could benefit from as it would alter the original game files?
Changes made by one individual could reach every other pilot.

Would it make sense to establish such a program? Imagine if just a bunch of players would take the time to adjust the areas which they know (maybe because they live in the surroundings, travelled there in the past, spent a lot of time there), have those changes reviewed by another pair of eyes and then those changes merge straight into the official Asobo / MSFS2020 files? Everybody would benefit from those changes.
Or think of flying over a certain area or region and you see the automatically generated terrain is all messed up. Would it not be nice to have an option to point those spots out or edit them directly? So the next pilot could experience the same area just with the made improvements?

What do you guys think?

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I believe this topic came up during the Q&A video in sept (sorry can’t find the link right now)
The idea is to have community driven scenery uploads that would make it into the core program after being approved. The tricky part is that MS doesn’t want to accidentally put eg. Google stuff into their product, which would probably trigger some nasty lawsuits. :wink:
So the main issue I think for now is how to avoid any copyright infringements.
Other than that, I agree this idea would make perfect sense.

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Thank you for pointing this out. I was not aware of this that it came up during a video once already in the past.

I can of course fully understand both Microsoft and Asobo that they do not want to have copyright troubles.

I guess it would need a mechanism which guarantees that only original content is being uploaded (maybe by stating the source for the approver or allow changes only with the help of a certain function in the SDK or such).
But of course it should also be a certain mindset of the people willing to contribute, that the stuff which they share should be their own work and contribution and not someones else’s.

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