Lets all be a bit careful what we wish for...

[chickster25 153]

I have been following the forums avidly this weekend, reading about issues people have found in various degrees of anger and frustration. I think nearly all of us have found at least one of more issues. There is quite a bit of noise going on about Microsoft and Asobo.

I think we need to be realistic going forward and appreciate that this is going to take a while to fix.

What I dont want to happen is for this project to get canned or have budget cuts by MS. 

The last thing any of us want is for MSFS to bite the dust, we all want it to be a success and a fantastic flight sim.

The only alternatives are P3D or X-plane. There may be new versions in the pipeline but how long will they take to come to fruition? Whatever route our flight simming takes, it going to be a while to get what we want. It will be a poorer place without any MSFS.

Once the anger has subsided, we need to be a united force in that we want MSFS - but we want it to be a great product. 

Please dont give up hope on this, lets support Asobo like a parent supports a naughty child - because ultimately we all win or fail together!

[Tom Wright 438]

Oh I agree. The bugs and issues are annoying, but it's still by far the best sim to fly for me, even with the issues. I've not touched any of the others since it was released and I have no plan to in the slightest.

[Bosco19 198]

Obviously, the baby was premature, but we must accept that this pony is only going to be running on three legs for the foreseeable future. Like many, I was thrilled upon introduction, but as time went on and the shortcomings started making themselves known, I had to change my attitude from disappointment, to acceptance. It's still a fabulous toy and time-waster, but when I reach some point where a flaw disrupts my conception of perfection, I have taught myself to stop - take a breath - calm down - and move on with what does work, or step away entirely. It is what it is and I hope it will someday be what I expected it to be from the pre-sales marketing hype. I choose limited involvement, small challenges, or, like at present, the puzzle of getting MSFS functions to work through a Stream Deck and an Xtouch Mini midi box. That's often disappointing too, as not every function in MSFS is available to users as yet. Basically, I've detached myself from MSFS at a level of intense dedication. I just take it for an occasional spin to keep my hand in, while I wait for the promises to manifest. I feel sorry for those who have converted a room of their home into an A320 cockpit, in preparation for this, but the truth can be ugly.

[PurdueKev 159]

Allow me to make a slight counter-argument...

I have been fairly fortunate in that I have not encountered the CTD's and the only issues I have run into are either annoyances, or issues that while disappointing still allow use of the sim.  However, that doesn't help the not-insignificant segment of the user base that isn't able to use a product that they paid for because a mandatory update was pushed to them.

If the platform is intended to be as developmental as you say, and indeed as the developers openly suggest, then frankly the constant drumbeat of mandatory updates that either break major features of the sim or break compatibility with major complementary payware packages (packages that the develop encourages by providing an in-game marketplace, by the way) is not compatible with that objective.  It simply creates extreme frustration amongst the user base and third-party developers, and it is borderline questionable from the standpoint of a business practice.  Any user that has their use of the program interrupted by program-breaking bugs in a mandatory update really has no recourse but to complain as loudly as they can - the publisher already has their money, and they can't get a refund. What else are they supposed to do?

DCS and Xplane have largely taken a different approach with updates - there is almost always an optional public beta branch for the next update cycle in order to test new features and changes with the maximum number of users, and that allows experimentation in a development environment where users aren't forced participate and thus have full use of the product they paid for while bugs are worked out on the beta.  For both platforms, those public betas have in many cases taken months before release candidates were rolled out to everyone.  This is especially important in a PC environment with so many different configurations of hardware and software.

It is laudable that the developers have a long-term vision for the platform, and I agree that the level of commitment to a very public long-term roadmap is a breath of fresh air.  But there is a commercial term for when software developers would like to offer a product to users with the promise of long-term development where features may be removed, broken, repaired and reintroduced in an experimental manner - it is called Early Access.  But that is not how this program is marketed, is it?

In my opinion, the flight sim community has been far too tolerant of this kind of behavior from developers and publishers.  When someone has paid full price for a product or service, it is reasonable to expect that product or service to be available for use and not rendered unusable (as it is for some users right now) or with major features and performance removed or dismantled.  MSFS isn't a community payware product - so why do we contend we have to treat it like that?  The best and most trusted developers are the ones who try to get it right out of the gate, and take care to keep it that way as they continue to improve their product.  And they get a massive amount of loyalty because of it.

Again, I am overall satisified with MSFS myself and haven't gone back to [other flight sim that shall not be named] in many months, and excited for the development possibilities for the future.  I certainly expect this sim to innovate far beyond what [other flight sim that shall not be named] did in a similar period of time.  But the "tut-tutting" from certain quarters that implies people should just be happy with whatever bugs, CTDs and broken features they are served on a regular basis gets tiresome. And Asobo/Microsoft really should rethink their approach to rolling these mandatory updates out if they want more flexibility to "push the envelope."

Edited August 1, 2021 by PurdueKev

[rtodepart 761]

A VERY simple solution is to have a calm and mature discussion about issues that had come up without acting out of hand that does not provide any positive input at all . 

as i mentioned before ,its clear by now that we had good and bad outcomes even after the hot fix explaining what happened in both good A and bad B running installs including system specs if need to probably helps the next person add themselves to group A or B eventually giving a better idea and amount of folks having certain issues . its frustrating for some but unfortunately its a long journey to fixing things . 

Actually i think the beta test group should be bigger . 

Edited August 1, 2021 by rtodepart

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

35 minutes ago, rtodepart said:

Actually i think the beta test group should be bigger . 

 What they *should* have done is made the beta available for everyone without being mandatory.  There are folks that relish testing...trying out new things even if it's buggy.  But there are a whole a lot of folks that don't.  At all.  They want to just go up and take a relaxing flight.  The way they did it, though, is they made everyone a beta tester.  Major installation problems, CTDs, some aircraft broken, and nobody can fly above FL200 with real weather.  Asobo burned some "trust capital" with this attempt. 

Listen. I think it's brilliant working toward making this mainstream.  More customers, a bigger market, the possibilities of using the platform for other things like trains, sailboats, etc.  But, you probably can't keep doing this this way in the long run.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Gregg_Seipp

[fppilot 4,371]

34 minutes ago, Gregg_Seipp said:

What they *should* have done is made the beta available for everyone without being mandatory.

Absolutely.  And a method to roll back if desired.....

[Adamski_NZ 952]

I don't see why we have to molly-coddle developers that are plainly way out of their depth. A shoddy product is a shoddy product - and MSFS gets shoddier with each "update".

The list of broken (or removed) features is growing by the day. Maybe if someone compiles an exhaustive list of what doesn't work and what *used* to work, then maybe .. just maybe ... the men in suits will take notice, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

I've spent around 16 hours trying to get SU5 to work as it should - mostly wasted. Add that to the countless hours trying workarounds for all the previous "fixes".

1) The marketing team needs to be fired. The XBox version should either have not been tied into the PC version, or only have been released when the PC version was ready/adequately tested/de-bugged.

2) The dev team needs better management or more resources. Failing that, they probably need to be fired as well.

The whole thing is turning into an embarrassing shambles IMHO.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

Who’s wishing for this project to be cancelled or to “bite the dust”?

Microsoft is worth 2 Trillion… that’s  $2,000,000,000,000. They are not going to bite the dust. 

The fact that a company with the resources Microsoft can turn out such sh!tty software, release, after release, after release should be the main concern here. It’s pathetic. Microsoft should be utterly embarrassed but they clearly have no shame. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Virtual-Chris

[Bobsk8 12,735]

3 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Who’s wishing for this project to be cancelled or to “bite the dust”?

Microsoft is worth 2 Trillion… that’s  $2,000,000,000,000. They are not going to bite the dust. 

The fact that a company with the resources Microsoft can turn out such sh!tty software, release, after release, after release should be the main concern here. It’s pathetic. Microsoft should be utterly embarrassed but they clearly have no shame. 

If anything, if MS loses a bit of money on this sim, they will pull the plug on just like they did with MS Flight. One day it is there, the next day, it's gone. Big company like Microsoft, MSFS is like a pimple on an elephant's behind. The X Box will make money for them whether it has MSFS or it doesn't. 

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

2 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

If anything, if MS loses a bit of money on this sim, they will pull the plug on just like they did with MS Flight. One day it is there, the next day, it's gone. Big company like Microsoft, MSFS is like a pimple on an elephant's behind. The X Box will make money for them whether it has MSFS or it doesn't. 

Yeah, I'm not nearly as angry as some folks.  There's a lot I love about it even with some features taken away.  I'll just hope they come back.  I feel for folks that are getting CTDs, but I'm not a "baby with the bath" guy...not with this.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

Generally the ranting and complaining eventually settles down, people have had their say - but then someone decides to chip in posting with a  "no idea what you guys are on about this update is totally amazing, patch went flawlessly and no CTDs and the best graphics I have seen EVA .... you guys are imagining things "    sort of comment and it all fires up again.

[SmokeDiddy 262]

I just had a great flight in MSFS after several days away.  This latest update, is a BIG winner for me, but it's obvious not everyone is having the same results.

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

3 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Generally the ranting and complaining eventually settles down, people have had their say - but then someone decides to chip in posting with a  "no idea what you guys are on about this update is totally amazing, patch went flawlessly and no CTDs and the best graphics I have seen EVA .... you guys are imagining things "    sort of comment and it all fires up again.

Very true.  Perhaps, as they add sales they'll be able to hire some developers who can focus more on individual systems.  Perhaps.  One can hope.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

2 hours ago, rtodepart said:

A VERY simple solution is to have a calm and mature discussion about issues that had come up without acting out of hand that does not provide any positive input at all . 

as i mentioned before ,its clear by now that we had good and bad outcomes even after the hot fix explaining what happened in both good A and bad B running installs including system specs if need to probably helps the next person add themselves to group A or B eventually giving a better idea and amount of folks having certain issues . its frustrating for some but unfortunately its a long journey to fixing things . 

Actually i think the beta test group should be bigger . 

A long journey to fix what wasn't broken in the first place.