We are only human and mistakes happen, but sometimes the outcome of such mistakes is exceptionally fun. Recently Microsoft Flight Simulator saw an error cause that a gigantic tower of 212-story appeared in its representation of a quiet suburban Melbourne neighborhood.
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In Microsoft Flight Simulator, a bizarre eldritch, impossibly narrow skyscraper pierces the skies of Melbourne’s North as a suburban Australian version of the Citadel of Half-Life 2, and I’m all for it. pic.twitter.com/6AH4xgIAWg
– Alexander Muscat (@alexandermuscat) August 19, 2020
Since the program prides itself on being extremely realistic, the performance has caused quite a stir among many Flight Simulator users rushed to find out what happened. With some good detective work, they discovered that the incident was the result of a typo.
One year ago “nathanwright120” edited it @openstreetmap , adding a tag indicating that a building in the suburb of Fawkner in Melbourne, Australia, had 212 floors instead of 2. All his other openstreet map edits seem legit, making it appear to be a typo. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Mwh1LBu3ap
– Liam O 🦆 (@liamosaur) August 20, 2020
It turns out that developer Asobo Studio built its landmarks using data from OpenStreetMap. Kind of like Wikipedia, but for maps this is it a free open source map of the world where anyone can add details.
Last year, a user named “nathanwright120” wrote a post stating that this one building in the suburb of Fawkner in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Further research into the contributions of nathanwright120 would indicate that the edit was a typo, not a prank.
The error was indeed corrected by another OpenStreetMap user, but clearly not before Flight Simulator used the data for his very credible renditions. The end result was a gigantic tower that seems to come out of nowhere and towers over Melbourne.
We have no doubt that Microsoft will be in a hurry to correct this error, so if you are a proud owner of the program, make sure you check the tower before it disappears.
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