Quite sad but possible explanation of poor Asobo's quality

[cavaricooper 2,615]

I’m an Asobo fan, and I’d also like to be able to boot up my sim... hopefully that will happen in the next few days.

C

[marsman2020 1,310]

Obviously everyone is struggling a bit right now. We all have been.

My biggest thing is this - the community has offered time and time again since launch to participate in a testing process that would allow some of us to be on a 'Beta' or 'Insider' or whatever you want to call it track that might allow some of these things to be resolved before it goes out to everyone.  It's clear that they don't have enough internal QA resources to properly test everything.

I get it, it's Microsoft, it's like turning the Queen Mary 2.  But this thing is headed for an iceberg if they can't come up with a better process here.  As cool as some of the features of this software are, every update with these problems consumes some of the goodwill people have toward the product. 

I honestly think they need to stop doing any patches until they can standup a new user beta program.  That needs to not be Update 9, it needs to be Update 6.  Three more updates with problems like the last few will completely tank the reputation here.

Or.....if offering a 'Beta' is too much of admitting defeat, they could allow users to hold back the update of their copy of the sim to the prior patch to allow people to asses the potential issues before upgrading (which basically turns every release into a Beta without saying so...)

[CFIJose 5,485]

If you are on lock down please stop issuing updates. They are breaking more than they are fixing. They broke my Turbo Bonanza, my Mooney, and my throttle doesn't work.

Edited October 30, 2020 by DJJose

[odourboy 1,290]

What a waste of time. CTD during load everytime. Taking my toys and going home. Asobo, please call me when you get it together.

[AmeliaCat 201]

Lock down is NO excuse,, Its a computer game,,Covid has been going on for most of the year,,, They should be well prepared to work from home . And be able to communicate and have meetings from home.   unless key employees are sick or dying off,  Covid isnt a valid excuse this late in the year and the game.

Edited October 30, 2020 by AmeliaCat

[kaosfere 3,115]

I seriously doubt that COVID has had the impact that's being projected upon it in this thread.   Tech companies the world over have been able to adapt to the times better, perhaps, than most because of existing infrastructure investments and established work patterns.   A partially or fully remote workforce was not an unusual thing in tech even before the Ronas.

One area that could be negatively effected would be a wide ranging hardware-based test program -- it's hard to have an extensive test lab in a WFH situation.   I don't know to what extent that would even be relevant here, though, as the issues we have, for the most part, don't seem to be tied to any particular hardware.

I think it's more that this is a hugely complicated application with an even more vast and complex ecosystem around it and they are trying to make changes at a fairly rapid rate.   Hopefully a broader testing program will help.

Edited October 30, 2020 by kaosfere

[AmeliaCat 201]

2 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Hopefully a broader testing program will help

agreed i dont think whatever they are doing is represntative of the player population

[EmaRacing 302]

1 hour ago, WarpD said:

Fortunately, those of you who think Asobo isn't up to the task have clearly produced your own replacement flight simulation product that we call purchase and enjoy today, without any issues!  Right?

It's not my job to produce flight simulators.

Also, in my job I don't overpromise and underdeliver, then rush to fix stuff, making it worse.

[TASCHMANN 200]

3 hours ago, Gate99 said:

And I'm sure they are doing their best

Me too.  That's what really scares me!

 

[robert young 2,897]

3 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Apart from the Kardashians...

Star Post of the month !

[DylanM 1,069]

4 hours ago, AmeliaCat said:

yah water looks worse.. draw distance is worse but somewhat improved this update.. night lighting is definitly worse in los angeles and las vegas,,, weather is worse,,, load times are worse.. the press any key is gone.

Gotta drop the catnip dose...at least temporarily Ms Cat. I'd say calm water is better, terrain and building rendering better with improved AA, load times into the sim and menus are better. On the fence about the night lighting though. And I can't mash any key.

[rtodepart 761]

Since i cant go past a simple line of code without pulling my hair out it will be disrespectful of me to say that

“Asobo don’t know what they are doing “

”they have no idea what a plane is supposed to act like”

“This is a game ill be back when things get fixed “ etc 

people always forget the last FIASCO when ever a new version comes out and also forgot that till this day there has not been any home use simulator that had been released free of bugs/problems that even after years of patching by someone else still not working. You cant act like your current simulator is the best there is because there’s no other options and you are afraid that the new release becomes successful and you have to spend money again on every single addon all over again (like we had been doing) 

When you tell the mechanic he doesn’t know what he’s doing im assuming you are better than him or else you should be careful with what you said . 
 

I and others Had been seeing this wave of experts with every new release of MSFS ...

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by rtodepart

[RaptyrOne 1,456]

I recon that there will be some sort of hot fix solution available during the next 12 hours. I really hope so. I doubt too many people on the Asobo team got much sleep last night. With so many people experiencing the CTD issue and it seemingly been focused around USB controllers, won’t be long until they figure out what has gone bad.
 

On the other hand, I am one of the lucky ones for reasons I cannot know... to me this is the best update yet and by a country mile. No CTD’s and the sim is looking better than ever. I have so many USB devices connected, CH Products Yoke, throttle quad, rudder pedals, keyboard, mouse, Track IR...

For me, AA is fixed, ocean water looks so much better, LOD has improved significantly (and that alone has a huge impact on visuals) sim is fluid and just looking so good. Plus the small things like the Press Any Key, metric system (which admittedly is very poorly implemented at this stage) and cockpit mouse over tool tips.

Holding thumbs for all you guys and girls with CTD so you can see for yourselves. It will be fixed quickly, I’m sure of it.

[Wobbie 938]

I cannot believe the arrogance of relatively  newbies judging a well established gaming developing company.

Seriously? I'm sure that they are professional enough to cope with game developing. There are hundreds in their team, all working for the greater good of gamers.

You REALLY think that they are going to blame COVID for not pandering to gamerz?

You do realize that there are 1000's that are very successful with the sim, & that there are even more different PC configurations out there? It's no wonder that some PC's are falling over.

[Chock 17,769]

6 hours ago, WarpD said:

Fortunately, those of you who think Asobo isn't up to the task have clearly produced your own replacement flight simulation product that we call purchase and enjoy today, without any issues!  Right?

In my experience, and I'm fairly sure most people have found similar, when people say things such as 'alright then, let's see if you could do better!', it's usually because they know they've done something poorly, or not as well as they could have done, so it's not really a valid excuse. Granted, sometimes that might be because of pressure, or being overwhelmed with tasks or some such, but the solution to that is to address these contributing issues. However, if someone is for example employed as a truck driver, but they are constantly backing their truck into walls at the depot, delivering stuff late, or constantly taking cargo to the wrong addresses and arriving with it in a damaged condition from being bounced around all over the place, this would be more akin to what is the issue, i.e. one of competence at your given task. And whilst the solution might be offered in suggesting that an Asobo coder may do a better job of driving that truck, in reality it's up to the person whose job it is to drive that truck to do so properly, or if not, then to find a better truck driver.

Ironically, the Covid 19 situation and the social distancing it has forced many of us into, whilst not ideal of course, is perhaps for a software developer one of the jobs which might lend itself to remote working better than others and in some ways it might even be easier; there is for example, no commute to and from the workplace and you don't have to go out to buy lunch or make it the evening before or whatever.

In fact this way of working was already quite commonplace among developers of flight sim add-ons, with contributors in different locations around the globe already working in exactly that fashion. One only has to look at how freeware developers and contributors have come together from all over the world to set about modding things in MSFS whilst using social media to connect to one another, managing to do so at a pace which can only serve to impress - and this for free, in their spare time - to see that not being able to be in the same room is far from being an insurmountable impedance to progress with software creation.

Of course not everyone involved in the project at Asobo or MS, is hammering away at a keyboard typing code, but even so, lots of people who are now working from home have had to get familiar with knowing about how to set up, join, and use conference calls on laptops, tablets and phones etc, ensuring everyone is in the loop on what is going on. So one would assume that people working in the computer software industry, would take to this like a proverbial duck to water compared to most people.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Chock