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pcgames.de interview

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pcgames.de has two articles that I believe nobody translated yet (maybe due to copyright reasons, don't know).
The originals (in German) are here and here

Some of the information in these interviews (that I have not seen mentioned here) are, for instance:

  • The first alpha test has approx. 2000 players.
  • They can currently announce 8 to 9 aircraft manufacturers in the sim and that would not even be half of what they have in the sim.
  • Out of 250 companies who are creating addons, they are in contact with 60-70 of them [this number we knew already] and they are already giving feedback for the SDK.
  • When increasing the simulation speed, as the textures need to be streamed, allegedly this should not be noticeable, at best the textures may look a little bit blurred then.
  • The platform created quite some interest, they received several calls from developers of other games, but, allegedly, the first ones who called were airlines who want them to build simulators for them.

Maybe someone wants to translate the entire interview(s).

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Siggy Schwarz

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So low and slow for none blurred scenery, no F45 in this sim.


 

Raymond Fry.

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1 hour ago, rjfry said:

So low and slow for none blurred scenery, no F45 in this sim.

I think they meant if you use time compression then you can get some blurred scenery. Although this can happen anyway in FSX/P3D depending on what level of time compression you’re using.


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I can read both of the original post links in English because I use the Firefox browser with the addon named "Page Translate".

I just click their icon on the browser bar...

and poof, it's all in English instantly.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-translate-toolbar-en-ru/?src=search

 

Edited by Fielder
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4 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

I think they meant if you use time compression then you can get some blurred scenery.

I would agree. There is a big difference technically between flying twice as fast and speeding up the "universe" 2x. In the former only your speed changes. In the latter the speed of everything changes.

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One of the major problems I see in MFS, as far as I am concerned, is the "STREAMING" and on how it'll demand from my internet connection bandwidth limitations....

The other is the "new" flight model approach - finite-element based - debuting, and for sure requiring a lot of fine tuning that has taken year for XP to converge to, and not be "there" 100 % already....

I guess a good percentage of aircraft add-ons being ported into MFS will use the allowed Legacy model. Most devs will probably not feel ready to go "finite-element" from scratch, before earning some good money on that platform...

OTOH, and depending on the SDK and tools that will be made available ( I still remember so well "Aircraft and Adventure Factory" ... ) some devs from XP will probably feel easier with this new approach.

Edited by jcomm
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PC Games: Regarding all the flight factors considered (wind, technology, etc.): How realistic is the new part? How close is that to flying properly?
Sebastian Wloch: The simulation is more realistic than ever, it works with full physics. According to the PHB, the pilot's manual, everything is now correct. The power of the engine, the speed, the buoyancy are all correct. The plane has real performance. If the Cessna accelerates and takes off to 65 knots, it is exactly the same here. Computer simulations are not the reality, of course, you are not sitting in a real plane. The controller is not exactly the same, the screen is not exactly as big. However, all controllers have been tested and tuned by a real pilot to make it feel realistic.
Jörg Neumann: In addition, the weather is real-time and the area is up to 65,000 feet true to the original worldwide. So every storm in the world is really at stake. We also have real flight data. All the planes that are currently in the air can also be found in the game.

PC Games: Does that mean you also had experienced pilots on the development team?
Jörg Neumann: Exactly. Sebastian has already done this and now goes directly to the aircraft manufacturers with me after the show and then we sit together with the test pilots or the designers of the aircraft. They fly and give feedback. We don't let go until we all say that's right now. As accurate as we can do it.

 


PC Games: We currently have three different planes here, there will probably be more to come. Will you open the new flight simulator to the community again, like with the FSX, so that they can build their own planes via mods?
Jörg Neumann: A new trailer is coming out tonight. You probably haven't seen it yet. There we announce that we have signed a contract / license with Boing. We show the 747 8I. We're also showing a new Textron aircraft, the Cessna Citation CJ4. We have been able to announce eight or nine manufacturers with different models so far, and that's not even half of what we have in the game. There will be a number of planes. It starts with very simple aircraft such as the Piper Cub or the Cessna and continues to the modern Airbus. The whole spectrum is supported. There is also an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the people who make mods. There are 250 companies currently making mods for flight simulators and we are in contact with 60 or 70. They are already giving us feedback regarding the SDK. Ultimately, it was these modders who kept the genre alive over the past decade.
om € 22.62


PC Games: In many old parts of the flight simulator it was only possible to use multiple screens indirectly. Will that be better in the new part?
Sebastian Wloch: I would basically say yes. At least with our current setup this is possible. In any case, we are working on the fact that it will be possible for everyone and we will continuously improve it through the feedback.


PC Games: Will there be another mission system or even a campaign, or will it just be free flight?
Sebastian Wloch: We look through the forums every day and we are also aware that many players want a campaign. However, we have the feeling that sandbox mode works better than individual missions. We have things that work much like the landing challenge. There is also a mission editor. But let's see if it continues with the feedback ... we listen to the people.
Jörg Neumann: In any case, we didn't want any content that had to be activated or microtransactions or similar things.


PC Games: The textures are mostly streamed. How does it work if you increase the simulation speed? Less details?
Sebastian Wloch: This is usually not visible. At most, everything will be a little bit washed out. In principle, the Fast Forward is like Motionblur. The only problem would be if you were really low above the ground, because you couldn't jump forward 1000 kilometers at a time. But in practice you don't notice it, because something like that is not feasible in the game.


PC Games: And the whole thing only works online. When I'm offline there are far fewer details; then I basically only have a basic world?
Jörg Neumann: Yes, you have a basic world that is much better and bigger than the previous one. All of the trees, houses, streets, mountains, lakes and coasts have now all been (firmly) erected.

PC Games: Then certain areas of the map can be downloaded beforehand, which then appear in the highest level of detail?
Jörg Neumann:Theoretically yes, but normally the content is downloaded automatically. If you always fly around in the same areas, it is rarely necessary to reload something, since the program does not delete downloaded data directly. Of course, the size of the storage space always depends on the width of the area or your route. While metropolitan areas need a lot of storage, you can fly over the ocean for hours without having to load a lot. You can preset how much memory you want to free up for it. The Frankfurt-London route would normally occupy less than 10 GB. The more memory you free up, the less often something needs to be reloaded. Of course, that also depends on the altitude at which you fly. It matters a lot. The lower you fly


PC Games: You now have this system in which you have virtually recreated the whole world. Are there any plans on how you can use them further?
Jörg Neumann:I have received several calls from game developers who want to make completely different games based on technology. But the first ones to call were the airlines, who all want us to build a simulator for them. However, there are many airlines that currently cannot agree on any standard. Self-flying planes, self-driving cars are also a big topic here. The spectrum of interested companies is huge. There are very, very many potential things we could do. Above all else, it stands that we make simulation fans happy. Then we'll see. We have no answers, but we talk to a lot of people and we listen.


PC Games: Is VR an Option for the Flight Simulator?
Jörg Neumann: We actually threw this option out of our plan because there are more important things that we have to take care of. But then a lot of people shouted out loud, which of course we heard. Officially, we can't say anything about this at the moment, but we're trying as hard as we can to make it possible.


PC Games: when can we expect an alpha or even a beta?
Jörg Neumann: In the next few days or weeks. We have been only a few bugs away from finally letting it out for a few weeks. In the first test we had around 2,000 players and currently everyone who is interested can register for the second test.

Edited by highflyer2020
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13 hours ago, siggy said:
  • The first alpha test has approx. 2000 players.

I'm pretty sure those numbers are not related to the first alpha, if you pay attention to the date this article was written, it was around the X019 event in London, and the Alpha was released weeks after that.

I think that number (2.000 people testing it) is the number of people that was testing the CLOSED Alpha, probably the developers and industry partners .

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38 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

I'm pretty sure those numbers are not related to the first alpha, if you pay attention to the date this article was written, it was around the X019 event in London, and the Alpha was released weeks after that.

I think that number (2.000 people testing it) is the number of people that was testing the CLOSED Alpha, probably the developers and industry partners .

 

The number of forum users on the TA forums is around ~2k.

 

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45 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

I'm pretty sure those numbers are not related to the first alpha, if you pay attention to the date this article was written, it was around the X019 event in London, and the Alpha was released weeks after that.

I think that number (2.000 people testing it) is the number of people that was testing the CLOSED Alpha, probably the developers and industry partners .

XO19 was well after they sent invites to the Tech 1 participants, so they would've known how many people will be in the test.

And the current alpha is a closed alpha.  There has been no other alpha test I'm aware of.

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3 hours ago, highflyer2020 said:

Jörg Neumann: In any case, we didn't want any content that had to be activated or microtransactions or similar things.

Take note...


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7 hours ago, highflyer2020 said:

We also have real flight data. All the planes that are currently in the air can also be found in the game.

This is something that has been reported before and talked about some, but this is just a really cool thing that I'm excited about. Isn't this something that was currently available only with a subscription service? To have this as a default feature is just too cool.

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4 hours ago, Scottoest said:

XO19 was well after they sent invites to the Tech 1 participants, so they would've known how many people will be in the test.

And the current alpha is a closed alpha.  There has been no other alpha test I'm aware of.

He didn't say they had chosen 2000 alpha testers, he said they had 2000 people "testing" it. Which means people had access to the alpha build and were running it (in november, before the people from the insider program had access).

Based on the date of the article, I'm sure no Alpha testers that were chosen on the insider program had access to the build. The access some time after that article.

When I said CLOSED ALPHA, which I really meant was an Alpha aimed for their internal testers/partners. 

That said, What I really think is, if they had 2000 people testing on november, when the article was writen, it was not the guys chosen on the insider program.

Edited by ca_metal

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You're overthinking it. You're inferring nuance in a statement where clearly nuance has been lost in translation.

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