himmelhorse,

Thank you for that.

Hopefully I'll get there in the end. I'm certainly not going to throw in the towel  and abandon MS2020..I've had tougher things do deal with over the years, as no doubt lots of us have.

I'm now going to fly a Carenado on the other sim, which I haven't done for a few weeks.

Kind regards

Andy

The SDK is your manual. To formalize it just adds alot of chaff ie technospeak.

Regards

bs

Edited September 26, 20205 yr by bean_sprout

1 minute ago, andy a said:

I'm now going to fly a Carenado on the other sim, which I haven't done for a few weeks.

I know how you feel mate, I do this every day and use a lot of different aircraft on both P3D and Xplane. 

Thank you Lord for alternatives. It won't be long, however, before the alternatives may not be as good or up to the same standards. Both, however are a continuous "work in progress" and we are the winners because of that. 

Regards

Tony

4 minutes ago, bean_sprout said:

The SDK is your manual.

BS,

Strangely, I have always regarded the SDK as the province of  Developers and have never bothered to either download it or read it. 

If it involves "technospeak" though, it may well be beyond me. 

Perhaps, I do need to re-evaluate my attitude and at least check it out.

Thanks for the tip

Tony 

59 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

BS,

Strangely, I have always regarded the SDK as the province of  Developers and have never bothered to either download it or read it. 

If it involves "technospeak" though, it may well be beyond me. 

Perhaps, I do need to re-evaluate my attitude and at least check it out.

Thanks for the tip

Tony 

It's the bible.  Learn it .

Cheers

bs

A lack of manuals keep beginners away, especially young ones. Any program, including a sim will die without new blood.

The solution is that Youtube and forums like this are a very good replacement for manuals. Confused newbies will run to their moma youtube and later to internet forums, and then soon all be well. Asobo invested time and development monies and now has a golden egg laying goose.

16 minutes ago, Fielder said:

A lack of manuals keep beginners away, especially young ones. Any program, including a sim will die without new blood.

The solution is that Youtube and forums like this are a very good replacement for manuals. Confused newbies will run to their moma youtube and later to internet forums, and then soon all be well. Asobo invested time and development monies and now has a golden egg laying goose.

Yeah as much as I hate to admit it YouTube has replaced manuals for younger people I think.  Even trying to look up how to fix something simple less often brings me to a forum and instead shows me a YouTube video that takes 5 minutes to show me what 10 seconds of reading can do lol.  Gosh I am getting old but seriously I think you are right.  Though I am not even sure they will go to the forums anymore.  But that's why they been doing those tutorial twitch streams and sent out Flight Sim care packages to youtubers because that is where the audience has moved to.

15 hours ago, pjs37 said:

Yeah as much as I hate to admit it YouTube has replaced manuals for younger people I think.

^ This.   My son is 23 and if he wants to learn how to do something he automatically goes to youtube.  It's instinctual to his generation.  We're the old farts who loved sitting on the can thumbing through our thick MS 4.0 manual.  

I didn't mean to offend anyone with my "bark at the moon' comments, but I was just saying that times move on.  And unfortunately large printed manuals are a thing of the past.  Even the company I work for is ditching them.   And as Tech Support I'd love to say.  "here, read the manual..".  but I can't.   It's Job security I suppose.

BTW.  Saw a great series on Youtube for basic startup of the A320 for us jetliner noobs.   Part one begins here:  Good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbPU7ccsTZw&t=9s

 

Edited September 27, 20205 yr by wthomas33065

wthomas33065,

I appreciate where you are going with this .. the trend to YouTube.  My point is just who authenticates these videos as being correct or accurate. (there certainly appears to be nothing from Asobo which could be regarded as a tutorial and they seem to confine themselves to explaining what their projects are etc.) 

To my way of thinking, this is MS/Asobo simply sitting back and telling the community to sort out their own problems and we do not really care how you manage that, nor do we care whose advice you listen to or look at. Personally, I see this, rightly or wrongly, as a total lack of responsibility.

It may well be correct to say that a manual is expensive to produce, and, if you are not going to provide much support, other than updates and fixes, by any other means, there is probably no need to provide a manual either. I simply see this in the same way I see the reaction of many companies in times of duress and fiscal problems ... the first thing to be cut (to save money) generally is product support. Even governments do this in various ways. This is not helpful in any way to people who need that support in the form of manuals or further instructions on the product they have just bought. I just do not see the benefits in this "suck it and see" approach to totally new software, mainly because, to many, this produces instant frustration and a lack of satisfaction in the purchase.

It is all very well to say that the younger generation has it all together utilizing a new form of tutorials or instructions and that we (the older generation) need to adapt.  Why is that so one sided ... why are video tutorials so much better,  and who actually decided that Video is a better, and subsequently, the only method to follow. 

I do understand the need for change ... even constant change, but to me, some of these changes are somewhat non-sensical.  I also appreciate that if we go through every stage of our lives without learning, we are not living our lives to the fullest.  However, some of this learning is forced upon us and at my age, it can be stressful.

Again, I am not trying to start a war with this, I am just trying to express a view on why I think a manual is necessary. Even a link to an official instructional video on various aspects would be so much more helpful than .... nothing?

Tony 

 

 

22 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

I am just trying to express a view on why I think a manual is necessary

And I agree.  Even in my company I bemoned the fact that we didn't have a manual for the latest version of our software.  But I was in the minority.  There's a whole Youtube economy that I'm almost totally unaware of.  They create free content and then it gets monetized by the number of views they get.  So there's a whole cottage industry that grows up around the product.  The editors of this content are the viewers themselves.  If something is inaccurate, someone will call them out on it.  It's pretty brutal.

The other limitation of printed documentation is that it ages.  If MSFS is going to be truly a "living" platform, then there will be more planes, more content, etc.  The tech writers couldn't dream of keeping up.  

If you ask me, it's all Minecraft's fault.  That program released with an open sandbox, almost no instructions and scant documentation on what to do.  And the "kids" ate it up.  Not only did they figure it out, they talked about it, had dedicated forums for it, etc.  It's almost like part of figuring it out was part of the fun.  Can't say I agree with that for Flight Sim, but it did show others that software, even complex software, can thrive without documentaiton.

I hope Asobo decides to put in more tutorials.  Like ones for Jets, and for Avionics systems.  That would go a long ways in bridging the gap.  Until then I'll have to rely on Google and YouTube.

Edited September 27, 20205 yr by wthomas33065
remove "word not alllowed"....waddidIsay?

I mean at least they have the Learning Center with some basics.  And they have been hosting MSFS Official Twitch Tutorials. I miss my manuals lol but C'est La Vie.

Edited September 27, 20205 yr by pjs37