I really love where this sim is headed...

[rgbinns 31]

7 hours ago, RobJC said:

When Microsoft walked away from the franchise i was kind of surprised because i felt it was really part of their heritage as a company. Sort of like they turned their back on who they were. It was always a great product to show case that MS was a bleeding edge company.

Yes indeed I never thought of it like that even though I was part of that era. I first played it on Apple-Mac in 1982.  According to Prof Google it is the longest-running software product line for Microsoft, predating Ms-Dos and Windows by three years. Microsoft Flight Simulator may be the longest-running PC game series of all time.  ( forgetting the 10 year hiatus!!)

Kind regards to all

[XCLTM3 112]

I'd just very much like to know at what point in time did any dev release a product of this magnitude with no issues (minor or major) and at some point introduce a line of fixes that in itself caused further issues.......?

It's fair game to highlight the issues and report them appropriately as MS and Asobo are playing/swimming in the big pond now.

However, the era of "instant gratification" has seen many having a perception of entitlement as though they should be able to have direct face to face access to the devs in order to vent (ie whine, cry, and toss their pacifiers) at them for not releasing a perfect bug free simulator or for inadvertently introducing some more bugs.

There has not been a game/simulator ever produced of this magnitude. Period.

I agree that there could be a valid debate on whether the product was released a little sooner than perhaps it should have, and some direct/pertinent questions raised on the various testing phases and criteria (QA).

But that's in the past, and we're here dealing with the now.

I have no sense of entitlement and I'm under no illusions.

This is not a paid advertisement nor am I affiliated in any way shape or form to any of the devs.

I've been around the block too many times to count - and with that experience I know a winner when I see one (or fly one)........

And I can say this unequivocally - MSFS is the future. It is the benchmark upon which all others will be measured.

MS and Asobo have trailblazed here......never an easy thing to do or achieve and most certainly open to easy criticism/s......

Edited September 19, 2020 by XCLTM3

[HiFlyer 9,359]

10 hours ago, Chock said:

Knocking out an update which appears to have had little to no testing and which makes the aeroplanes all pretty much unflyable, since the avionics conk out, and this includes the payware ones in the built-in store which went on sale AFTER that patch released, which they want even more money for, is not a minor bug, that one is a shockingly poor showstopper. And worse, it shows a massive disdain for paying customers.

But then we have it both ways.

Step 1: If they had slowly and carefully taken a few months with the second patch, we would have essentially been howling at the moon by the time it was released, and twice as mad if they took that long and there were still bugs.

Step 2: But if they rush and try to get something to us as fast as possible and its not perfect, then they are also open to criticism.

Already people are mumbling that all this needs to be fixed sooner rather than later,

Rinse and repeat step 2... 

[Chock 17,769]

6 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

But then we have it both ways.

Step 1: If they had slowly and carefully taken a few months with the second patch, we would have essentially been howling at the moon by the time it was released, and twice as mad if they took that long and there were still bugs.

Step 2: But if they rush and try to get something to us as fast as possible and its not perfect, then they are also open to criticism.

Already people are mumbling that all this needs to be fixed sooner rather than later,

Rinse and repeat step 2... 

If it were a simple bug or gripe such as a plane having some characteristics which were questionable such as an incorrect rotation speed or an ILS not working, I'd tend to agree with you. But it's not in this case, it's a patch which removed the ability to stop the controllers being massively oversensitive and caused the avionics conking out to the point where you can't navigate nor talk to ATC, which whilst it doesn't make the aeroplanes actually unflyable, it does make them not really usable in any remotely realistic manner. If there was the ability to roll back the patch, or choose whether or not to install it, it would not be so bad, but since this is not a methodology they have implemented, it's pretty bad to roll out a patch which pretty-near breaks the sim completely, then just sit there and say 'well there'll be a patch in a week or two and that'll probably sort it'.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

it's pretty bad to roll out a patch which pretty-near breaks the sim completely, then just sit there and say 'well there'll be a patch in a week or two and that'll probably sort it'.

Game breaking patches on a program this complicated are far from unusual. Its happened before and its going to happen again.

The alternative is that they drop to something like 6 months between patches (or more) and the nature of the beast is that they still might miss something...

How many people right now are refusing to "update" to P3D version 5 right now because of just such circumstances?

Only thing I can think of is a path like X-planes with so called stable branches and beta branches, but with a program so enormous and constantly online and with so many real-time moving pieces that probably require all users to be on the same page, it sounds like a nightmare.

[Chock 17,769]

20 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Game breaking patches on a program this complicated are far from unusual. Its happened before and its going to happen again.

The alternative is that they drop to something like 6 months between patches (or more) and the nature of the beast is that they still might miss something...

How many people right now are refusing to "update" to P3D version 5 right now because of just such circumstances?

Only thing I can think of is a path like X-planes with so called stable branches and beta branches, but with a program so enormous and constantly online and with so many real-time moving pieces that probably require all users to be on the same page, it sounds like a nightmare.

Oh I know that, but in my experience, whenever there was a 'game-breaker' error for some software, it was pretty much unanimously the case that it'd be an 'all hands on deck' scenario for the developer as a matter of urgency, resulting in, almost without exception, a hotfix being deployed within 24 hours.

An example of this is Adobe InDesign, which is a program that has been around since 1999. Although I would invariably train authorised Adobe courses on it and all the other Adobe programs whereby you train on the latest version, we would nevertheless never patch it the day before a training course was due to take place, just in case there was a 'game-breaker' in the latest version, since we didn't want delegates turning up and using machines with a busted version of the software.

But even if that had occurred, you could roll it back to any previous version if you wanted to in about 20 minutes with a decent intertron connection. But although that is possible to do, in all that time from its release in 1999, I have only ever seen one patch to it be so problematic to the point where you actually would want to roll it back to the preceding version, and when that occurred, we did so, but in any case Adobe sorted the issue out within about 12 hours. And that's a program which is constantly being updated with new video, audio and image CODECS and minor tweaks, and it runs to two version as well, one for Mac and one for PC.

This is the level of competence and service you should expect when you are a customer, and especially a customer of one of the largest computer companies in the world, because this is hardly Microsoft, nor Asobo's first rodeo. Saying that ropey service is common in the software world, is not an acceptable excuse for indulging in it; these people should be aiming high.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Chock