3 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

they could have fixed almost (if not) all of the silly and unrealistic elements that a real pilot or dedicated flight simmer would notice without the gamers ever even noticing the difference.

Given the number of real pilots and dedicated flight simmers in the Beta, and the number of bugs and issues they reported and the limited resources of the development team, MSFS would be exactly the same as it is now.

"Anything is possible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself."

Hook

11 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

Remember, 73% of statistics are made up on the spot!

80% of the time you're right 50% of the time!

Over the years, as I read posts and threads it keeps occurring to me to wonder: Hobby, or obsession?

7 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

I'll say it again: they could have fixed almost (if not) all of the silly and unrealistic elements that a real pilot or dedicated flight simmer would notice without the gamers ever even noticing the difference. They could still cater to both audiences while making it better and more realistic for, let's face it, the people who will be spending 99% of the time that this sim/game is played.

What makes you think they haven’t received the feedback your suggesting?

And do you really think the first professional pilots to test this product we’re the ones in the Alphas? Asobo would be professionally irresponsible if they didn’t have pilots involved in the development process and internal testing over the years. And they don’t strike me as professionally irresponsible in the slightest.

13 hours ago, robert young said:

The only few videos I've seen that refer to actual Flight are a mainly ridiculous efforts, for example, telling us how clever it is to take off in a 50 knot wind and travel zero knots in relation to the ground. "That confirms that they've got it right then", the hapless video author says, not realising that this indicates absolutely nothing about the aerodynamic qualities of the sim, while it passed him by that the C152 he "flew" was jiggering around like a paper aeroplane weighing 5 grams in a gale for no rational reason, a "feature" he regarded as somehow to be expected. The level of sheer ignorance in some of these videos is extraordinary, but they do serve a useful purpose in other ways, allowing us to see some really beautiful scenery and some excellent features that I really do think are impressive. But that's as far as it goes.

Thank you for pointing out that Video. I almost hurled into my coffee cup when I saw that. It was the point that I decided not that I hated MS but that I was for sure going to wait for some time to see what this thing is all about from folks who have a clue. We all know who is out there that are straight shooters. It is not important but I actually did that same trick of hovering in a Cessna back in an old version of FSX. LOL! I got the idea to try it because a Hurricane was heading our way. As always nice to see you name pop up here from time to time.

20 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Over the years, as I read posts and threads it keeps occurring to me to wonder: Hobby, or obsession?

spot on, its comical to read how over the top people can be regarding this, just as bad as the a truck sim/game forum thread someone showed for a laugh where people argued over the scale of street signs and design

like i said people need to chill, i wonder how many self induced breakdowns happen on FS forums

the desperation of some who get so emotive over something that is quite trivial as they want to believe in so hard, what makes it enjoyable while frustrating to read

 

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by jeansy

The real reason those youtubers got a copy is pretty simple. They have a very large user base that watch there videos thus its basically free publicity. 

17 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Make sure to check the Xbox insider hub app regularly. There are reports about people who got into the Alpha, but never received a notification by mail.

Oh yeah, trust me - I have 😆

14 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

making it better and more realistic for, let's face it, the people who will be spending 99% of the time that this sim/game is played

Right, which is not the hardcore market with folks like you and me who frequent these forums...we are, most assuredly, the minority.

I don't think game devs care all that much about total hours played per person as such. I think they care more about the initial mainstream response (sales) and also total hours played by their market/community as a whole (ensures good dlc and aftermarket sales). The fact that they have 5-10% of their market putting in 40x the amount of hours played as compared to the masses is not taken for granted, mind you, but I do not think it is a number 1 priority as far as making the title financially successful.

Squirrel had 3-4 million views on his MSFS videos the last week. That is more than most TV-shows have. Of course they want to market it so that it reaches as many as possible. 

And since 98-99% of them click "like" instead of "dislike" it is clear the the audience likes it.

Flight sim is the only community on twitch that all top streamer set themselves as follower-only chat. That' just show you the god complex mindset they have. They are so important as a streamer that someone needs to follow before you can even interact with them. They average around 60-80 viewers maybe on a good day. In the meantime, Kitboga, has 12k viewers while calling indian scammers and still interact with the chat. No follower-only mode needed.   When you fly a Airbus or Boeing, you have nothing but time during the climb and the cruise to chat with your viewers. They are so great a flight simmer they can't manage a few message in the chat ? why they hell are they streaming in the first place.

/rant over

Sheesh...take a few hours away from the forums and this thread happens!

Suit up fellow testers alpha/beta participants...the hate is about to be unleashed:

5 minutes ago, espent said:

Squirrel had 3-4 million views on his MSFS videos the last week. That is more than most TV-shows have

Yep, as I said...this has been geared for the masses and not the tiny percentage of hardcore forum roamers, like us 🙂

Therefore it's highly unlikely that any new release will be perfectly suited for "us". This is what 3rd party devs have done for us all these years, they bridge the gap for us hardcore simmers...and likely will always need to. MS needs to make profits to keep it going and you don't pay those kinds of bills with only 10% of your market happy.

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by hangar

4 minutes ago, Lotharen said:

The real reason those youtubers got a copy is pretty simple. They have a very large user base that watch there videos thus its basically free publicity. 

I believe that's true. As I pointed out on the Nerd3 video thread just before it was disappeared, whatever people here think of him, that particular You-tuber has 2.5 million subscribers, and his MSFS video has to-date received nearly 280,000 views.

280,000 viewers, many of whom will probably never attain nor even remotely aspire to enthusiast flight simmer standards, but whose money is just as good as anyone's, and who have now been exposed to the sim/game in a way that they have in the past responded well to.

Putting MSFS in front of all of those eyes can't be anything but a win for MS marketing, and more than worth all the free equipment they threw at him.

Some people here don't like that? I'm sure Microsoft is heartbroken........

35 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

There is a kind of self-important arrogance about this post. I know more about flight sim than <this guy> why am I not in the beta while they are....Just utter rubbish salty post to make. I am sorry you didn't get in mate. Trust me,you might think it's a bad thing but it's not. You didn't get the agony of experience certain aspect of the sim that are not operational in the current build.

Well Claude, I could not possibly see things differently.

For almost a year now the vast majority of flight simmers have believed that MSFS was going to be everything that first time and hard core simmers have ever wanted and having a Beta Team to ensure this would make sense to those who believed this - and I'm sure this is accurate only it's not the guys posting or making YouTube videos.  They had the Alpha/Beta software, but are not Beta Testers per se.

Listen, there are only a few developers in the entire flight sim world who actually run a proper Beta Team and I only need the digits on one hand to count them.  In fact, I'll list them:

1. Majestic

2. Leonaro

3. PMDG (though I have no person knowledge here)

4. HiFi, thought mostly internal from what I've seen, external beta testers do not have the requisite knowledge or tools necessary to accurately beta test such a complex group of products.

5. Empty space... not going to say who this is.

 

So, very few people in the flight sim world even know what a proper Beta is, let alone how to be a Beta Tester.  I know people who believe they are experts at running a Beta Team and I wouldn't trust them with a potato gun (I used that phrase long before it made it into a movie).  For my part, I'm a formally trained tester of complex hardware and software, a former test director and acceptance officer for multi-million dollars systems and I also spent a career in the most intensive quality assurance program on the planet (bar none), so I'd like to think I at least have a clue about these things.

In the end, it's all about perspective and beliefs.  It's okay to have either of those wrong so long as someone is willing to learn.