GlideBy

I want my hang glider. That is the true way to cloud surf, thermal surf, ridgeline surf, etc.

If they are pulling live real traffic, would this happen naturally?

I never said, that you said they can't do it. But based on these two statements, you seem to be saying that doing so would be difficult for the dev team, and would use too much computer power. As the dev team said, weather and flight physics only use 5% on one core, and CPUs have several cores. It would be a waste if they didn't use all cores at least.

You are a dev, do you not know how to prioritize things? To answer your question, the devs have asked us what we want. People are saying what they want. If you don't want to see it, or don't think it is a big deal, then just say that. But don't assume the devs can't do something. I think most would have assumed they couldn't have done what they have done. And I have done some programming. I had a customer ask me to do a project once, which I did. Months later I overheard someone talking and saying they wish it did something, I will call function X. I asked the project lead for the customer, why didn't you ask for it to do function X? They told me, "I didn't think you could do it". (This was a while ago, so I am paraphrasing.) I told him it would have been easy to do when I wrote the program. I could still do it, but it would take more time. And the guy just exclaimed how he wish he had known, as it cost the company money. And he was happy I dropped by and over heard that conversation. Needless to say, function X was added. My point, don't assume what Asobo and Microsoft, and a large well funded dev team can do. (By the way, there are already animals in the sim. So you may see rabbits running in fields.)

I like the idea of NOTAMs being in the sim, and in various formats and usages. And using it for marking closed runways sounds nice.

I keep seeing people that are worried that adding something, is too much. Keep in mind they have over a hundred devs. And each dev handles different areas. And in you think it is too much work for the CPU, someone asked them about this. They were talking about how detailed the flight model is with thousands of points being calculated, and the very complex weather and wind system. How that must need a lot of CPU power for just that. "It seems that we are going to need a lot of computing power. Or are all these calculations going to be done in the cloud? -No, computers and consoles are extremely powerful today. In our performance analyzes, calculations for the entire climate system and the flight model are not going to need more than 5% of the capacity of a processor core, and today the processors have several cores. So it won't be a problem." The devs are smart, give them credit. They are also able to prioritize things, and know what is important or not.

If you are flying VFR and following a freeway, you notice cars more.

Not seeing many cars around Los Angeles, will make it feel like a ghost town . On the other hand, I wonder if they can handle the thousands of cars LA has. Maybe they can fake it somehow. And I think traffic at night looks great in real life, so hope they can do it somehow. If they don't get more car traffic, it will be funny to see the five o'clock live traffic helicopters flying over invisible traffic jams.

The last photo by Nedo68. Someone said you could see cars with lights. Which is a good start. I wonder if they can do thousands to make Los Angeles look alive.

I only counted five cars with lights. I assume they haven't focused too much on cars yet. Either way, they have a long way to go to make Los Angeles roads look normal from the air.

Which is why the following sentence said. The screaming was probably the biggest issue. BTW - I have never used X-Plane either. I am a bit biased against them because of a bad experience with x-plane.org, which is why I can't wait for something better. Have a good day all

Microsoft have said you can play offline, without ever downloading anything other than the core game. Wloch: -"We have considered all the possibilities. If you have no connection at all, the simulator will generate the world, with trees, cities, mountains and others. Now, if you have an Internet connection, ..."

Not obvious to someone that has never used X-Plane. Keep in mind that MSFS is attracting new people to this hobby. And it certainly isn't obvious in MSFS that those are part of the 80 upgraded airports. I don't even know which ones are upgraded or not. So one might assume that all airports in MSFS will have that same level of detail. Anyway, it isn't important. The people in this forum know better, I assume. (And so much for trying not keep talking about the same thing over and over 😀)

Maybe, we don't know. It still goes back to my point. Just adding "default" before X-Plane would have been less misleading. Or putting the comparison info below the video in the text would have. Just a fair disclosure. (I think I have said enough on this, so I won't keep going on about it.) Anyway, MSFS doesn't need an unfair fight to win. I almost feel sorry for X-Plane.

No where in the video does it say it is default against default. And if you want to compare default, then show what MSFS has built in without downloading extra from the internet. My point being, disclose the basis of the comparison, unless the intent is to mislead. And if adding four second screams to X-Plane shots isn't cheap, then I guess I don't understand the term. I am not a fan of X-Plane. I do like facts presented without misinformation though. Personally I think this video could have done a fair representation of both, and still blown X-Plane out of the water. In fact, that is why I started watching.

I think MSFS having multiple levels of clouds, helps on this. So it should be able to render fog, or thick clouds below you and above you if needed.

This video seems childish to me. Everytime they show a X-Plane airport someone screams. Certainly not an unbiased, objective comparison at all. This just seems to be a cheap attempt to make X-Plane look bad.

I agree, those look blurry when they shouldn't. But I also don't think clouds should always look sharp. I would guess distance, and thickness matter.

Did I count correctly, 22 planes? I wonder what the biggest group that can fly is. And I wonder how a large group affects AI traffic.

I assume you mean I was disrespectful. I did not laugh at what he said, nor did I call him names, nor imply names. So not sure what was disrespectful. If you mean the your/you're, that was meant to be helpful. In another post I told him how to do quotes, so we would know who he was talking to. That was also meant to be helpful and not condescending. It is hard to hear tone in a typed message. Which is why I often edit my messages if I reread them and I think the wrong message could be sent. So, sorry if it was disrespectful. And sorry if this reply somehow came off as disrespectful. (That is not sarcasm, but sincere)

They posted this a while back. https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FMSFSofficial%2Fstatus%2F1228567454927863808&widget=Tweet

They do it for money and feedback, and testing. The way Microsoft is doing it is just for feedback amd testing. It takes the money out of it. I think having to pay money to test a unfinished product is just wrong. And for a company that can well afford it, it becomes questionable. No, this is a Alpha test. The devs want to test their product with their core market, not just the ones that have money to buy their way into an Alpha or Early Access. If I wait until launch, the product is done. All they can do is make minor changes. We already have a ton of people saying how great it looks, and don't criticize it since is Alpha or it looks better than what we have. All I can really report that they will work on at that time, will be bugs. The no one test, is what I was commenting on. If you were in, you would have no complaints. As for then being totally upfront, you make it sound like they lied. It is their Alpha, maybe they don't know what or who they want to test until the build is done or they see what choices they have. And if they did post entry requirements, people would complain that "I have those specs but still didn't get in, so Microsoft lied. " Last I looked there were 25,000 people that didn't get in that wanted in. (I won't reveal the source of that, so you can ignore if you wish). More people want in than will get in at this stage. Doing an Early Access would be too much for them, so they would need to limit it anyway as they have too many people. And they would limit it to the specs and people they want anyway, as they are not ready for 4GB systems. End result is the same, or worse you still aren't in and you are out money. I think Microsoft has done the right thing to get testing from the community that doesn't require people to buy it before it is released, reviewed, or feature complete. And Microsoft doesn't need the money from Early Access.

Yes, many other games do a early access. They do it to raise money. And some of those don't raise enough money and never release or stop progressing. Microsoft/Asobo don't need to raise money. This is a good thing, as they have a good budget. So why are they doing an Alpha? To test it, of course. If they did an Early Access, they would have to announce a price. Which they are not ready to do. This would also mean that only those that can pay the price can test the sim. This means you wouldn't get feedback from the poor. This means that your testing is biased as you only get richer people that can gamble on a unfinished product. Now you might say, if they can't afford EA, then they won't buy the game. This is not true. Not until the end will they announce all the features, those final features will help sell the product. There are other flaws with Early Access. It is essentially a kick starter for the game, but you can play it while it is being developed. But in some ways it can be worse. I have seen many games that were great at one point in Early Access. So people buy in at that point. They play for more than two hours, so now they can't return it. Then the devs change the game, and it just loses its magic, and never gets it back. Those users are stuck. I am not saying all games, nor this sim, just it is another risk of Early Access. Personally I don't buy pre orders, and I don't buy Early Access. So this Alpha would have excluded me and my feedback. Speaking of feedback, you implied that users want to play it early. This is not true of all users, nor even all Alpha testers. I am not in the Alpha to play it early. I signed up because I wanted to give feedback. I wanted to help make sure that it was a great sim in the end. So giving feedback was my primary reason for signing up. Next, you say they should have not done any external testing. Which is the idea that since you can't test that nobody should be able to, as you made it clear you wanted to test. But that aside, doing that limits your testing severely. They have said that one of the big reasons they are doing this, is for the dedicated flight sim community and pilots. You won't find many game testers that are dedicated flight simmers, and pilots. So if they do in house testing, they aren't testing for the final demographic. You would be asking non-pilots if they thought the 172 was doing a spin when it should. Bottom line, this is the way you test a product if you want testing unbiased by money, and you want feedback from your actual target audience world wide.

olderndirt, are you talking to me or someone else, or just a random comment? If you are on PC you can highlight text using a mouse, then a quote option comes up, just click it. That way that person gets an alert, and they know exactly what you are talking about. I assume you are referencing this Notice that I didn't mention a plane or a speed. And here is a quote from AOPA "VFE, the maximum velocity at which the airplane can be flown with its flaps fully extended, is the high-speed limit of the white arc. Flying at speeds greater than VFE with full flaps can result in damage, perhaps to the point of losing one or both flaps. Not a good thing. A number of airplanes, however, do allow the use of approach flaps, usually around 10 degrees, at speeds higher than VFE. The POH will give the specific details." https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/students/maneuvers/topics/airspeed

Can you post the link here? I assume you are talking About Asobo?