09.07.2011, 08:22
For the most part all you'll get is more eye-candy rather than any real improvement in simulation. Models will become ever more polyphilic and textures will increase in size and number to satisfy what is an apparent public need to slaver over such details.
In fact the microsoft flight-sim series barely improved for a decade for these very reasons. I would also add they took a backward step. In version 5.0 stalls and spins were reasonably well modelled. In the 5.1 patch they vanished altogether, no doubt because of neophyte PC-flyers discovering that flying as real as it got required a bit more skill than experience in arcade shoot-em-ups and reflected (in commercial minds) on the safety of the real life aeroplanes.
After all, enviromental representation has hardly moved at all for a long time. Okay, some sims are prettier than others, but the rainfall depicted in Looking Glasses Flight Unlimited has never been bettered, and that wasx in 1995.
There is considerable room for improvement in modelling enviroment, air traffic control, and subliminal realism - but it won't happen. Because the industry is encouraged by the public to concentrate on airframe modelling.
In fact the microsoft flight-sim series barely improved for a decade for these very reasons. I would also add they took a backward step. In version 5.0 stalls and spins were reasonably well modelled. In the 5.1 patch they vanished altogether, no doubt because of neophyte PC-flyers discovering that flying as real as it got required a bit more skill than experience in arcade shoot-em-ups and reflected (in commercial minds) on the safety of the real life aeroplanes.
After all, enviromental representation has hardly moved at all for a long time. Okay, some sims are prettier than others, but the rainfall depicted in Looking Glasses Flight Unlimited has never been bettered, and that wasx in 1995.
There is considerable room for improvement in modelling enviroment, air traffic control, and subliminal realism - but it won't happen. Because the industry is encouraged by the public to concentrate on airframe modelling.