This area has been severely neglected and is an area that I would very much love to see some TLC. I hope Asobo/MS can work their magic to bring this area to life.

Unfortunately this area is lacking a lot of detail. I am talking about the countries of

Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. This area is such a beautiful place with many attractions.

We did get Japan.  Which at least is Asia.

If anyone should be complaining it should be the South Americans or the Africans.   😄

Don’t forget the Middle East. Dubai looks like an autogen case study. 
 

Edit: I’d love to see some SE Asia too, as well as Africa and SA. 

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by FAZZ3

I am pleased to see that they seem to be using better photos for thailand.  It does make flying much better.  I do think that it is an area that needs work.

I'd like to see Switzerland and Italy personally especially after Joern saying they have super detailed data for Switzerland.

All in due time.

Italy is already confirmed to be on the list for next year, as I remember.

The Alps I consider as a given at some point as well so that'll be Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria and possiblly Germany as well, which will come for sure at some point.

Right now I wouldn't mind moving away from Europe, but it is always a matter of what kind of data is available.

I would love to see some Indonesia or India, Russia for sure and Columbia or Chile would also be appreciated.

But the coolest thing would be China. That should be so full of places to visit, POI's to construct.

 

There is however one quite crucial set of data that has not been updated with the World Updates and that is the vector data. The coastlines and rivers are still more or less default quality. This is very apparent in Alaska where you'll see jagged coastlines or rivers that don't follow the satellite image at all. Take the Mariposa Bush trip and fly the leg from Hawthorn to Schurz and you'll see what I mean as you fly along the Walker River.

I really want to see that included in future updates and retrofited into the ones already done.

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by Farlis

The Nordics were a good choice because it is one of the areas that has the worst appearance in the game, I think Asobo should concentrate on updating the areas that look worst first.

2 minutes ago, Ixoye said:

The Nordics were a good choice because it is one of the areas that has the worst appearance in the game, I think Asobo should concentrate on updating the areas that look worst first.

Agreed. I just hope they don't forget to include proper excludes for vegetation.

I don't want to see trees above the arctic circle and especially not in Iceland.

4 minutes ago, Ixoye said:

The Nordics were a good choice because it is one of the areas that has the worst appearance in the game, I think Asobo should concentrate on updating the areas that look worst first.

I think that Asobo should concentrate on updating the areas that I fly first. 🤣 

I think the issue is, obtaining the data, I can picture many of south east asian countries like Malaysia or Thailand won't be easy to work with in regards to obtaining the data. However for Malaysia, I see they have a portal for the DEM data (you need to contact them to obtain the data):

http://www.mygeoportal.gov.my/glossary/digital-elevation-model-dem

Maybe they will respond to Microsoft? No idea, I lived in Malaysia for 7 years and it was painful to work with any governmental authorities. No idea 😀

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by omarsmak30

3 hours ago, steve310002 said:

I'd like to see Switzerland and Italy personally especially after Joern saying they have super detailed data for Switzerland.

I‘m on the same page here. However, I think they first need to sort out the many terrain issues. As the latest update clearly shows, there’s still a lot of work to do be done before we can have a convincing representation of the Alps.
I‘m happy with their choice to update Scandinavia, but I agree with the OP, maybe it‘s time to focus on some countries outside Europe and North America. 

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by Shack95

1 hour ago, omarsmak30 said:

I think the issue is, obtaining the data, I can picture many of south east asian countries like Malaysia or Thailand won't be easy to work with in regards to obtaining the data. 

That's the thing people aren't considering. 

Most governments around the world don't want to hand over slavishly accurate mapping data or cooperate with anyone who wants to create it.

People often moan about the lack of photogrammetry from Google outside Western countries. It's because the rest of the world doesn't want to play with them. 

I dunno if there's that big a strategic difference between a fairly rubbish satellite photo vs a 3d creation but it may well remain that way. 

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by superspud

40 minutes ago, superspud said:

Most governments around the world don't want to hand over slavishly accurate mapping data or cooperate with anyone who wants to create it.

Of course, I think their decision which countries come next based on the data availability (I think they mentioned that in one of the Dev Q&As). I can think for many western countries the process is bit easier, although I can picture it to be bureaucratic in some countries (Germany for example) but at the end, you will get the data. However, I literally don't see many Asians or Middle Eastern countries apart from Singapore and Japan that open to provide such data .

With the military junta in power, we can forget getting data from Thailand for quite a long time.

I would bet that the next 15-20 WU, will focus on Europe, North America and Oceania (Autralia, NZ, etc)

Or if photogrammetry is not a priority, you can get worldwide 12m DEM, with Airbus. I am sure you can even find something more accurate covering the entire planet

Edit : I found something much better : 

https://www.aw3d.jp/en/products/

I just did the math, for a relatively inexpensive 17 billion USD, you can get world wide 50cm DTM and 30cm ortho

 

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by bendead

(President Trump voice imitation) Chi-na!

And India would be nice, Australia, New Zealand...