Where is the ground personnel?

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

Some people in the streets (very low polys sprites are enough), near the houses, are also necessary for not having the feeling of flying over ghost country.

I reply now to the two usual objections which will come almost mecanically from the fanboi permanence office :

1 : yes, I've flown at low altitudes, over cities or country town, at the speed of a WIII aircraft and yes, people in the street, near the houses, are quite visible (some animals in the country, cows, horses, would be quite interesting too).

2 : we are in 2011, standard personal computers in 2011 can stand a few more polys for basic people and animal sprites (after all, these sprites have to be realistic from some hundreds of meters far away, not be realistic like in a FPS game).

Traffic has been planned as a feature since way back - I remember Oleg saying that they had buses and traffic moving around in the streets along pre-programmed routes. Likely to be one of those features that may not make initial release though.

Adding people in the street I can see would have difficulties - potential for A LOT of individual objects. Also, I can foresee a lot of criticism if they don't have some level of AI ("I did a low pass in my 109 and they didn't even move or look up!"), and as for a 'basic' representation - you've read the forums - 'basic' doesn't cut it with the whingers.