As an Alpha like a lot of other was amazed when the release date was announced and we could still see issues. 

8 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

What I do not understand is why they didn’t structure the testers population into small dedicated groups: by type of aircraft, by regions of  scenery, UI etc.

Because they weren't paying us?  Because if you try to do that people won't bother to test?  Of course with that many testers (16,000 at the end) you'll get someone doing it.  But the way we *were* doing it, we found a lot more than we would with structured testing.  That's the strength of doing it the way they did.

Don't assume any of these airports were missed.

Hook

5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Personally I have been playing continuously for 6 hours and have nothing but praise for the sim.  I never expected great flight dynamics from the default aircraft, and neither did I load the sim with expectations of perfection on day one.

After adjusting sensitivity I can honestly say that I've never experienced such a realistic feeling of a plane in a sim! And I've played XP.

When you start your takeoff roll you can feel how the aircraft becomes alive aerodynamically. You can feel the air forces taking place and you need to correct. Once airborn there are gusts that can shake your plane in a realistic manner, turbulent air above mountain ridges and so on ...

This all refers to experience with the default C172 with steam gauges.

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

(just look at the rivers in southern Papua-NewGuinea)

Sums up this thread for me...

duplicate

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by ShezA

2 minutes ago, tweekz said:

When you start your takeoff roll you can feel how the aircraft becomes alive aerodynamically. You can feel the air forces taking place and you need to correct.

Something that surprised me was how much it felt like you were in an aircraft when on the ground.  You can still tell it's an airplane, even if your wheels are firmly planted.  It moves with wind currents.  It is not rock stable.  And it impressed me every time I got into the sim.

Hook

3 minutes ago, LHookins said:

 

Don't assume any of these airports were missed.

Hook

I don’t. If they were not missed by the testers and I entirely believe your confirmation on that (after all, Valdez is among the first places I would have checked myself even before my house 😄), the conclusion is that the alpha test was just a PR stunt.

12 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I don’t. If they were not missed by the testers and I entirely believe your confirmation on that (after all, Valdez is among the first places I would have checked myself even before my house 😄), the conclusion is that the alpha test was just a PR stunt.

None of these scenery problems were missed during testing. It's just how the current MSFS scenery development pipeline works, and how it relies on Bing imagery. If there's no or inadequate imagery in Bing, it doesn't make it into the sim currently, it's as simple as that.

15 hours ago, norman_99 said:

I’m trying really hard to stay optimistic about 2020, but I keep finding mind numbingly poor features/decisions/physics that make me wonder what was going on during Alpha/Beta? Was there any constructive feedback or was everyone to busy drooling at the scenery to see the glaring issues? 

Did you report this to the Devs? As they said in their latest stream, they are relying on us users to report any discrepencies we come across. I would also advise you to make yourself and your experience known to the Devs as they are looking to put together the next group of testers.

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by 188AHC
Pruned quote

13 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

None of these scenery problems were missed during testing. It's just how the current MSFS scenery development pipeline works, and how it relies on Bing imagery. If there's no or inadequate imagery in Bing, it doesn't make it into the sim currently, it's as simple as that.

And that is absolutely the wrong approach to devloping this if you ask me.

This is a flightsim, not a Bing Sim. There is tons of published data on active airfields worldwide availabe. If your in house satellite imagery does not cover it, you look for a fallback instead of deciding to simply ommit those places.

I get it that not every ulralight grass field in the world is included as a starting point, but this is just ludicrous.

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by Farlis

3 hours ago, flycln said:

For the most part it was NOT the alpha testers responsible for the ridiculous hype in recent months. 

For ages I’ve been trying to subtly get across that people shouldn’t be so hyped up.
[...]
It was frustrating as hell. The PR machine for this game was perfect and testers weren’t allowed to even talk about the real state the game was in. 

And trust me, thousands of bugs were reported. It’s funny how in public Asobo looked super-engaged with the community but as a tester... wait, am I even allowed to talk about my experience now? See the issue? 

The thing I kept repeating in public during alpha was: “Being an an alpha tester, I am pretty sure I’m not uninstalling P3D anytime soon.”

The whole process was frustrating.  

I think the sim has enormous potential but also enormous issues and many of those issues have been around since 2019. 

How true everything described in this post is. Sums up my feelings entirely.

The hype was at levels where the RTM version could only disappoint a large number of people and yet even when subtly trying to tell non-testers that there were significant problems still unresolved at a late stage, testers were slapped down by overexcited fans and even by a number of vocal testers telling us, even 'guaranteeing' that the release candidate would be better - well, it isn't.

Plenty of exciting new tech has been included at the start and there's huge potential with what has been announced, but v1.0 could and should have been released in a more mature state.
I hope that come Xbox series X release date, the major problems identified (e.g. autopilot, glass screens performance, over-sensitive controls) will be fixed.
 

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

And that is absolutely the wrong approach to devloping this if you ask me.

This is a flightsim, not a Bing Sim. There is tons of published data on active airfields worldwide availabe. If your in house satellite imagery does not cover it, you look for a fallback instead of deciding to simply ommit those places.

I get it that not every ulralight grass field in the world is included as a starting point, but this is just ludicrous

This ^^. 

I was writing something very close to it 😏. No need.

7 hours ago, LHookins said:

There were 16,000 of us at the end reporting bugs and glitches.  Some were even getting fixed.  Our purpose wasn't to report bugs, but to stress test the servers. 

As for the bugs, we did our best.  Asobo had an internal team of testers that verified our bugs and passed them on to developers.  Many of us were worried about reactions just like yours. 🙂 

Hook

16,000 is a staggeringly high number. That many testers is bound to create an unmanageable ocean of white noise. Even for a complex sim/game/application you need a modest pool of observant people who are experienced at testing. You don't need more than 50-100 testers even for a vast project. What you do need is people who have reasonable expertise in various fields within a given sim. 16,000 people all chiming in with conflicting perceptions and priorities makes for unworkable chaos.

Among those 16,000 will be just a few who are very experienced on sims and have piloting experience on type. Among the thousands of others their views are hardly going to get a look in. 

 

 

6 hours ago, scotchegg said:

As is the same with XP, P3D, DCS, IL2, Elite Dangerous....there must be something these games have in common...

I'm leaning back watching all the angst, and just thinking to myself "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Also, people seem to have really short memories,

I remember similar howling when FSX was released. And when Flight was released. And when P3D was released.

We seem to heap so many hopes and dreams into these things, constructing these wild expectations that nothing could realistically meet, and then going into explosions of drama when reality happens.

As usual, most will stay the course and eventually settle down. As usual, Asobo/Microsoft will release fixes. As usual, the third parties will assist. (though those who haven't fully taken aboard how far the graphical bar has been raised might get some shocks)

As usual, time will pass. As usual, things will shake out. As usual, eventually there will be people who will become supporters of the sim to the point they will be parted from it only over their dead bodies.

As usual, many of them will be same people kicking over the pram right now.

As usual, I will continue my lifetime contemplation of human beans.

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by HiFlyer

The Alpha/Beta imo was just a front to test their infrastructure & get performance stast on a variety of configs with the occasional targeting testing to get feedback.