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FSW DLC: things that ought to be built in, or legitimate enhancements?

by: Dave -
More On: Flight Sim World

There are two new pieces of DLC available for Flight Sim World (FSW), but they aren't airplanes or airports. They're tools. There's nothing wrong with that; every complex flight sim is usually made better with sophisticated add-ons. The problem here is not with the enhanced camera management app - plenty of people want far better camera control because they like to make videos, but there are enough that don't care about the camera at all for the developers to not go to the next level with that aspect of the sim.

On the other hand, just about anyone that has used FSW has been left scratching their heads in confusion as they try to figure out the shortcut key and/or the menu item to bring up an in-flight map. I myself spent quite a bit of time looking for it until I resorted to a Google search. That search proved that no such functionality was included in the game. I did find precisely one guy that vociferously insisted that this was Dovetail's nod to accuracy because "real pilots aren't flying around with maps in front of them!"  Really??? Google "Dynon Skyview" and you will see what I fly around with in my tiny little RV-12. This is nothing new - we have had moving map GPS in airplanes for a couple of decades now.

Now you can buy an in-flight map for FSW as a piece of DLC. It's $19.99. Sure, I'm free to not pay $20 for something that by all rights should have been built into the game, but I am also every bit as free to express an opinion: this is a terrible move by Dovetail. Everyone expects to pay for what can easily be seen as "extras," like study-level airplanes and highly detail scenery. No one is going to feel that way about maps. Maps are expected.