A Note From The FSW Development Team

[garrett_frank 150]

1 hour ago, fshobby said:

You mean like the fantastically realistic AI and ATC that are in X-Plane and P3D? Oh wait...

Where did anyone in this thread indicate that the AI and ATC in X-Plane and/or P3D are fantastically realistic?

[flyforever 267]

Again, flight simming is a niche market. I suspect that there are no more than 10,000 hard core simmers, and the rest are occasional simmers.  It's interesting to note that Flight Unlimited hit the best selling charts at close to 1000000 units sold, that's right, one million. So what's my point? P3d is not in the sim business for the few of us. Their focus is military, and they use while it's convenient for them.  One never knows, but like MS, Lockheed can shut us off in a blink of an eye.

We have xplane thanks to an owner who has devoted his life to it. And, of course, AE2 in the pipelines. 

The goal for any company, therefore, is to capture those millions of potential users out there. While most of us assume that getting from point A to point B is the essence of simming, there may be other folks out there who are looking for something totally new-- still in the realm of flight simulation.

I am not sure what that is, but to compare future sims to what we currently have is, I think, a waste of time, and time we do have.

So far, FSW has planes that are not "gameish", so it's possible to have a platform for the masses without compromising the needs and wants of the more serious simmers.

I am trying to be open minded, simply because DTG has not come out with a final product. It asked for our feedback, and so I am giving them my input.

What's the rush, anyway?

Lastly, those millions of users may not want to deal with add ons on top of addons. They want to jump in and have a great experience--that is, for their occasional flying.

I am going to leave the business of "experience" up to people who know more than I do.

For the record, I am a hard core simmer, and I have all the sims.

 

 

tony

[Murmur 3,941]

52 minutes ago, flyforever said:

Again, flight simming is a niche market. I suspect that there are no more than 10,000 hard core simmers, and the rest are occasional simmers.

Hmmm... How do you define an hardcore simmer? AVSIM library has 300.000+ members; one of its most popular files has 155.000 downloads; the most popular aircraft on x-plane.org has 80.000 downloads.

If the 3rd party market were a pool of only 10.000 hard core simmers customers, not even a single add-on maker could survive financially. The real number is certainly more than one order of magnitude bigger (100.000), possibly toward two order of magnitudes (1.000.000).

 

[fs4fun 366]

1 hour ago, garrett_frank said:

Where did anyone in this thread indicate that the AI and ATC in X-Plane and/or P3D are fantastically realistic?

To restore some context: The notion was advanced that a lack of realistic AI/ATC was a crippling shortcoming of FSW and needed to be prioritized above other features they are working on. My somewhat sarcastic response was to indicate that sims such as X-Plane and P3D have no better, yet are well-regarded and don't seem to be suffering too badly.

[ClearedtoLand 149]

3 hours ago, fshobby said:

Are you suggesting that DTG add paramedic services? 

Well, paramedics won't hurt anyone.

[SmokeDiddy 262]

Personally, I am eagerly awaiting animated passengers.  I've asked several plane manufacturers about this over the years - well not necessarily animated, but passengers nonetheless.  I continue to ride this roller coaster.  I think in the end, DTG will deliver a great sim.  As with all sims, there isn't one that is great at everything, but they each have areas they excel in.  Quite honestly, I have never met a sim I didn't like in some way.  Therefore, I'll continue to give feedback on the things that are available in the current version of FSW and not speculate on future updates and what may or may not come...I like surprises anyway.

Happy Flying!

[FlyBaby 659]

3 hours ago, SmokeDiddy said:

Personally, I am eagerly awaiting animated passengers.  I've asked several plane manufacturers about this over the years - well not necessarily animated, but passengers nonetheless.  I continue to ride this roller coaster.  I think in the end, DTG will deliver a great sim.  As with all sims, there isn't one that is great at everything, but they each have areas they excel in.  Quite honestly, I have never met a sim I didn't like in some way.  Therefore, I'll continue to give feedback on the things that are available in the current version of FSW and not speculate on future updates and what may or may not come...I like surprises anyway.

Happy Flying!

Earlier, Steven Hood made a comment about not feeling alone in the sim. I do think that adding animated passengers fits well with transport missions etc. for more immersion.

For DTG's train sim, I do like to see commuter passengers seated in the cars and waiting on the platforms when arriving in the train station.

 

[Chock 17,769]

Remains to be seen how much of an immersion factor it adds, can't really hurt and might even be utilised in the missions feature of FSW. For example, in P3D you can have an avatar character walking about, but they've not (as yet) done much with that. Really, there's nothing stopping DTG from adding that feature either, after all, it is no different from modeling an aeroplane - someone walking about is just a model in the sim like any other.

Taking that further, what if, for example, you flew a rescue mission in a chopper, but couldn't land it near where the people you were looking for were? Then you might perhaps get out of your chopper and have to go get them and lead them back to where your chopper was. This of course means that your sim presence would have to switch from being a chopper to being a person and your chopper would have to remain in the sim, but we already know that you can have something like that go on in ESP sims because it's already possible to do that with Lorby's Where Are My Aircraft? utility, in both P3D and FSX.

That sort of thing has kind of been done before with Take On Helicopters, where you do actually walk about and get into the choppers, but in FSW they might then really go for that in a big way by having you perform an actual walkaround of your jetliner, opening panels and checking various bits and bobs. Again, some add-ons in FS have enabled that feature in the past, but not as a person walking about. But being able to perhaps get in a fuel truck to drive up to your aeroplane or whatever, or drive a pushback truck or a set of airstairs might be kind of cool and would certainly make you feel a bit more like you were really there. The fact that the sim is 64 bit means there is not much danger of such features causing VAS issues, as probably would be the case in FSX.

We've already seen this done by DTG in CSX Heavy Haul, where you can actually get out of your locomotive and stroll along its exterior walkways, or climb down and walk about the scenery messing about with couplings and brake connections etc, and whilst it might not be everyone's cup of tea, I though it actually went quite a long way to making the idea that you were in a world with a real locomotive a bit more believable.

Things like this and stuff like actual rain on your aeroplane when it is sat there, scratches appearing on the thing over time, crap all over it when you taxy across a waterlogged airfield etc would all serve to make the thing more immersive and these would indeed be 'killer features'. If I had a quid for every time I've had to get an old car wiper blade and wipe the water off a glider's wings prior to towing it out to the flight line (driving the tractor myself), I'd be rich lol, these are the kind of things you really do have to do with aeroplanes.

[SamYeager 244]

On ‎11‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 4:06 PM, Paraffin said:

He said "passenger animations." I don't think that extends to a populated airport or it would have been mentioned. 

And yeah, one day it would be nice to see fully populated large airports, if we get to the point where it isn't a frame rate killer, and the AI could handle not walking into a prop. But it's not exactly high on my list of priorities in a flight sim. 

To make the airports look less empty perhaps an interim measure would be for DTG to scatter around some non functional aircraft at gates and parking spots. This should hopefully not impact performance whilst making the world look less deserted.