Is the alpha made to test the sim or to test the testers ?

[Dominique_K 10,138]

This is an interesting tongue-in-ckeek comment on a French forum.  How does the real customer really play, not the picky hardcore  forum crowd ? MS and Asobo may have had the feeling that most of them actually play like in the wretched 320/SFO video : no flaps, full throttle, staying in external view, and soon and so forth. Heaven protect us ! 

Also, on the same forum, not so encouraging returns on the flight models of the aerobatic aircraft : Pitts, Cap 10 and Extra. Very Carenado-like.

I think that the ToS prevent me to give a link. This is Pilote Virtuel.
 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Dominique_K

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

Also, on the same forum, not so encouraging returns on the flight models of the aerobatic aircraft : Pitts, Cap 10 and Extra. Very Carenado-like.

I wouldn't be surprised if those models are actually supplied by Carenado. The Pitts and the Extra are already sold via Alabeo for current simulators.

[ckyliu 1,749]

That'll be fine, so long as Carenado/Alabeo didn't do the systems or flight dynamics! Their stuff always looked pretty.

[ludekbrno 302]

"Is the alpha made to test the sim or to test the testers ?"

I think both and some more 🙂. They must test some technical aspects of MSFS, especially how it works with many different HW and SW configuration, they must test, how average server load will be per user and users behavior in MSFS too.

[G-RFRY 1,710]

I don`t think they are bothered as long as enough people buy the sim, how they use it is up to the users if only hardcore simmers buy it less revenue.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

1 hour ago, ludekbrno said:

 

I think both and some more 🙂.

Of course 😀 but I found the paradox funny. I wonder what was the ratio of testers behaving like a simmer should and those, how to say it, the anything-goes arcaders. If the later were the majority, that was not a strong incentive to release high quality default aircraft. So far the only good news I have been reading across various sources is that 152 and the DR 400 are not so bad. Nobody speaks of the  Xcub not sure that it was even in the alpha or, curiously, of the TBM. 

[Farlis 2,281]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Also, on the same forum, not so encouraging returns on the flight models of the aerobatic aircraft : Pitts, Cap 10 and Extra. Very Carenado-like.

I don't feel the discouragement. Default aircraft were always abysmal in terms of realism

What I'm more interested about is whether the core flight dynamics of the sim really enable improved flight characteristics if a developer takes their precious time with it. 

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

If they fly like Carenado then, providing we have some form of editable code (aircraft.cfg, etc in FSX/ P3D) they can be made to fly much better.

Unless I've paid top dollar for a study-level addon I've always viewed the addon payware aircraft such as Carenado's aircraft.cfg as the starting point for modifications to flight dynamics, weights, endurance, etc

Edited July 20, 2020 by Will Fly For Cheese
Appalling spelling

[Dominique_K 10,138]

39 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I don't feel the discouragement. Default aircraft were always abysmal in terms of realism

What I'm more interested about is whether the core flight dynamics of the sim really enable improved flight characteristics if a developer takes their precious time with it. 

I am not discouraged at all ! I eagerly look forward to this sim. But I try to keep a balanced view from what I read and see. Good, bad, excessive. Here and other forums. The potential as a sim is obviously here. The implementation may lack a little in  the flight modeling. Nothing new in the history of FS.  I am just a little worried by the temptation MS may have to dumb down the sim to attract new comers. 

And I wholeheartedly agree with your second paragraph. The key will be to have serious dev looking into it. 

29 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

If thy fly like Carenado then, providing we have some form of editable code (aircraft.cfg, etc in FSX/ P3D) they can be made to fly much better.

Unless I've paid top dollar for a study-level addon I've always viewed the addon payware aircraft such as Carenado's aircraft.cfg as the starting point for modifications to flight dynamics, weights, endurance, etc

I have no skill for this kind of witchcraft  I love to make sceneries but I leave aircraft tweaking  to people like you.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Dominique_K

[RALF9636 1,951]

6 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

This is an interesting tongue-in-ckeek comment on a French forum.  How does the real customer really play, not the picky hardcore  forum crowd ? MS and Asobo may have had the feeling that most of them actually play like in the wretched 320/SFO video : no flaps, full throttle, staying in external view, and soon and so forth. Heaven protect us ! 

 

Interesting idea and it does sound plausible.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I am just a little worried by the temptation MS may have to dumb down the sim to attract new comers. 

I don't see a need to dumb down the whole sim. Just adding an "arcade mode" with simplistic flight models would be enough. And maybe it's already included and that is exactly what could be seen in some of the leaks?

Edited July 20, 2020 by RALF9636

[Dominique_K 10,138]

4 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

 

I don't see a need to dumb down the whole sim. Just adding an "arcade mode" with simplistic flight models would be enough. And maybe it's already included and that is exactly what could be seen in some of the leaks.

I agree on the arcade mode but I've read quite a lot of reports saying the aircraft numbers were quite a bit off . 

[threexgreen 3,139]

The Alpha testing is definitely both. Obviously, a lot of bug reporting is going on and with the Beta ahead the fixing will increase a lot. There is a lot of feedback from the testers. Given the high number of testers and the fact they are still inviting people it's undoubtedly also a test of infrastructure and how the sim works on a wide range of systems.

I'm also pretty sure they take all the qualitative feedback from Alpha testers they can get, e.g. what people prefer, want or even demand, what they do in the sim, what aspects receive a lot of scrutiny, what aspects are being criticized the most, etc. I think you could call this testing the testers and the community in general in terms of the way they use the sim and what the community 'is made of'.

[shivers9 1,174]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I am just a little worried by the temptation MS may have to dumb down the sim to attract new comers.

I do try to remain hopeful but we do have to not get too excited until release. We have to temper our hope with the knowledge that MS I believe is the company that said that a Flight Sim did not even need a cockpit because most of the kids just like to fly from an outside view. I am pretty sure that they have modifyied that approach to some degree and we will know how much pretty soon! I guess the two things that keep my head out of the clouds is that as you mentioned there are more and more little leaks about the aircraft being more on the lower end and I don't recall seeing one "DEV" such as A2A or Milviz jumping up and down with joy and excitement.

Edited July 20, 2020 by shivers9

[threexgreen 3,139]

I can obviously not go into detail due to the NDA, but it's not a dumbed down sim for newcomers at all. As they said publicly, there are avenues for people with different 'seniority' in terms of flight simming. The level of detail and realism I thought was pretty clear from the official feature videos. And the reason why no developer is jumping and down out of joy is because those in the know are under the NDA as well. It won't be perfect and it won't be disappointing.

[MatthewS 761]

Primary, this game is for the Xbox kids. 

Once the game is released (and the initial development budget spent) it will enter "maintenance mode", don't expect any serious "simulation grade" fixes. 

Just hope Asobo has provided enough flexibility in the SDK so that 3rd party developers can extend it in ways we are used to, like PMDG and their custom flight model and ground physics in P3D.

All IMHO ofc.