I was thinking about this yesterday after watching the previews again. There is going to be a fully modelled world with varying levels of visual fidelity. Regardless of where you are (Outer Mongolia or downtown New York) each road, field and hill will be accurately mapped with trees, objects and buildings intelligently overlaid. As such, would it be too much of a stretch to add a mod where you can drive a car around the world?

Now I know what you're thinking..., that would look terrible close-up. Yes, some of it would look pretty ropey as even with the minimum resolution of 3cm it wouldn't be a 1-1, but with the auto-gen trees and houses being added, it would give you a more or less decent representation of most areas in the world if you plopped a car down. Thinking back to my FSX days, I think there was a car mod which you could get to drive around on the ground, so this new version would just lend itself even more to it.

So...what do you think? Microsoft Car Simulator as a future expansion... or maybe a 3rd party can step in 😊

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by tronied

Personally I would be more than happy just to be able to virtually drive in Google Maps (or Bing of course). But even then, having to move around with mouse clicks is not too bad and I'm more than thankful even just for that.

I am sure people will be "crashing" their aircraft in the new MSFS with damage turned off just to see what happens when on the ground (but not at an airport). I know I will be!

Personally, I think that’s the goal. I think MS is focused on selling services and content vice the actual game. Flight Simulator 2020 is only a portal, prototype, advertisement, proof of concept , opportunity to showcase Azure and the data. I expect MS to sell / lease the data to other game studios with the goal to bring different genre of games into a single platform. Eventually, expect to fly over you friend that’s racing in Daytona that has hot dogs delivered by Truck-em US simulator that just left Fort Bragg and some first person shooters getting ready to deploy to some rainbow shooter special ops conflict. MS wants to provide the data and content and the world that everyone plays in.

This is a long-unfulfilled wish, a car simulator like City Car Driving with graphics like Forza Horizon 4, car physics like assetto corsa and

a world wide scenery like in fs2020.

But why not combining the two, driving with a car to the airport, flying with your aircraft to a location and taking a rental car at the destination

in order to explore the location?

In GTA you can already do something like that but unfortunately in a very "arcadish" way.

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by mdsim

What we've seen so far, seems a vast improvement over the sims we have today. At the same time, it is still very far from what a flightsim could be.

I say, let them focus for the years to come on that, flight dynamics, weather etc. and not on car, sailboat, train simulations inside fs20.

Also speaking of Mongolia, you would be need a horse or camel simulator. Kidding of course, I would love to be able to fly the SIlk road from oasis to oasis in a Cub !

I think it will take a decade or so before we get a simulated world in which you can do whatever is talked about in this topic. MSFS certainly won't offer that world right away. Of course you can always drive the Cessna anywhere you want as if it is a car. 😉 Don't expect pretty pictures though. Ready Player One won't become reality the coming year already. One day we'll get there I am sure (but I don't know if I will live to see it).

In FSX/P3D there were ship mods too 😄 Who knows, once a hydroplane is out i am sure people will be able to toy with it and tweak it.

Still, keep in mind that the data around the world is not the same quality so even thinking that Mongolia or New York will have the same detail is likely to get you disappointed.

5 minutes ago, france89 said:

In FSX/P3D there were ship mods too 😄 Who knows, once a hydroplane is out i am sure people will be able to toy with it and tweak it.

Still, keep in mind that the data around the world is not the same quality so even thinking that Mongolia or New York will have the same detail is likely to get you disappointed.

I invite you to have look at Mongolia in Bing. You clearly see yurts and the car of the owner close by even in small cities 😀. 

3 hours ago, tronied said:

I was thinking about this yesterday after watching the previews again. There is going to be a fully modelled world with varying levels of visual fidelity. Regardless of where you are (Outer Mongolia or downtown New York) each road, field and hill will be accurately mapped with trees, objects and buildings intelligently overlaid. As such, would it be too much of a stretch to add a mod where you can drive a car around the world?

Now I know what you're thinking..., that would look terrible close-up. Yes, some of it would look pretty ropey as even with the minimum resolution of 3cm it wouldn't be a 1-1, but with the auto-gen trees and houses being added, it would give you a more or less decent representation of most areas in the world if you plopped a car down. Thinking back to my FSX days, I think there was a car mod which you could get to drive around on the ground, so this new version would just lend itself even more to it.

So...what do you think? Microsoft Car Simulator as a future expansion... or maybe a 3rd party can step in 😊

Well.....

Don't forget that while its been mostly out of sight and so probably out of mind, Outerra is still out there and has recently been incorporating whole-earth satellite imagery at varying resolutions, and recently variable real-time snow etc. And it already has drivable roads etc.

Wonder what they could have pulled off with a 120 member team......

 

 

I was also viewing the preview again and thinking the same.

The potential of this "simulation" is immense.It's more than flight, driving, boating, first person shooting, and MMORPG. This could be the virtual living space people have been dreaming about. 

Google Earth is meant to be sort of this dream, but it's quite primitive, and lacks aesthetics. Facebook wants to create a virtual social space, but it's too abstract and hard to be attached emotionally. Could Microsoft be creating something that will be the ultimate space for second life? We will see.

That might also be the reason why Microsoft is rebooting an abandoned niche product with a 120 team. Surely a limited revenue from flight simmers could not match such massive investment?

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by yanfeng12342000

The "oasis" lol

4 hours ago, tronied said:

 So...what do you think? Microsoft Car Simulator as a future expansion... or maybe a 3rd party can step in 

We can find our own houses in the sim. So I totally want to drive to work in flight simulator. 

1. Cars need to not be respawning in your vicinity as you drive.

2. There needs to be basic traffic rules: cars stop at stop signs and red lights.

3. Don't wanna drive?  call Uber and sit in the back.

4. Witness random pull overs, wrecks, police chases etc.

5. Immersive sounds.

3 hours ago, domkle said:

I invite you to have look at Mongolia in Bing. You clearly see yurts and the car of the owner close by even in small cities 😀. 

I was just following an example created by the OP. Change Mongolia with any other part of the world in which it's likely there will be less detailed orthos and/or missing aerial shots!

6 minutes ago, france89 said:

I was just following an example created by the OP. Change Mongolia with any other part of the world in which it's likely there will be less detailed orthos and/or missing aerial shots!

There was no sarcasm in my post 😉, I just wanted to underline that even in remote parts of the  world Bing maps are sometimes incredible. I had the same experience with small villages in Sulawesi.

3 hours ago, france89 said:

In FSX/P3D there were ship mods too 😄 Who knows, once a hydroplane is out i am sure people will be able to toy with it and tweak it.

Yeah! I dream of being a ship's Captain directing my bridge crew from NYC to Bermuda on one of Princess Line's mammoth cruise ships!

Or a large passenger liner from San Francisco to Hawaii and then on to Tokyo for a thirteen day trans-Pacific cruise...

...NOT!