MSFS will never allow users to stay on an older version

[ADamiani 470]

33 minutes ago, Reader said:

Looking at the opening post, it features the clear explanation from Asobo as to why there will not be parallel versions.
The subsequent suggestion in the same opening post, that parallel versions are the way forward, displays either an inability to understand the written text, or an inability to accept the answer.
The remainder of the topic is arguably of little value, they are not going to make a beta version option available to the whole customer base.

No way to avoid personal attacks? 

But I am interested in your opinion: do you think the beta opt-in solution would help improve the overall quality of our experience or not? And why?

Good night anyway, it's late here. I'll read your answer tomorrow.

A.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

5 hours ago, Reader said:

Looking at the opening post, it features the clear explanation from Asobo as to why there will not be parallel versions.
The subsequent suggestion in the same opening post, that parallel versions are the way forward, displays either an inability to understand the written text, or an inability to accept the answer.
The remainder of the topic is arguably of little value, they are not going to make a beta version option available to the whole customer base.

I think you have reading comprehension issues,  There won’t be “parallel” versions going forward.  Read my post clearly again.

Also, how do you know for certain that there will never be an “opt in” beta test?  It’s widely used in the video game industry.  Do you even play other video games?  If you did, you would know that “opt in” beta testing is pretty common.  Microsoft/Asobo providing “opt in” beta testing is nothing new or ground breaking.  It would just bring MSFS up to speed with many other video games out there.

[Reader 2,030]

Quote

 

There are no plans to allow running on previous versions at this time.

The sim uses a number of cloud services that are synchronized with the sim (not just scenery data services, but also auth, profile, marketplace entitlements, settings storage, etc) and the team does not have plans to maintain the multiple versions of the large amount of backend infrastructure that would be required or take each service and abstract in into a cacheable model.

We understand sometimes that updates can cause unintended issues, but the team strongly believes that having the full community (which will now also include XBox) on the same version ensures the best possible feedback and telemetry to the team to get those problems sorted quicker, and avoids the user confusion of having multiple versions of the product running side by side.

Matt | Working Title

 

 

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I think you have reading comprehension issues

We have already established that I can write something and that you can understand something different.
I have made the assumption that an open beta version available to all users would effectively be multiple versions of the large amount of backend infrastructure that would be required or take each service and abstract in into a cacheable model.
If a beta version available to every user is in fact something different, then I stand corrected.

 

[abrams_tank 7,426]

50 minutes ago, Reader said:

 

We have already established that I can write something and that you can understand something different.
I have made the assumption that an open beta version available to all users would effectively be multiple versions of the large amount of backend infrastructure that would be required or take each service and abstract in into a cacheable model.
If a beta version available to every user is in fact something different, then I stand corrected.

 

There already is a beta version that is used before each update!  Don't you know that Asobo has asked people to sign up for a beta test before? Asobo has already had multiple beta tests, asking several hundred people (or more) to sign up for each beta.

Also, you do have reading comprehension issues if you didn't understand my original post.  I said "so for those who want to stay on an older version of MSFS because you think it's more stable, forget it, it will never happen," which means there won't be multiple production/release versions of MSFS.  Older version does not mean beta and I think almost everyone understood that (except you).  Of course I don't consider the beta version to be an official production/release version of MSFS, what would make you think that?  

And why do you assume "multiple versions of the large amount of backend infrastructure that would be required or take each service and abstract in into a cacheable model" is required for an "opt in" beta?  Cacheable in the context that Matt wrote, means Asobo needs to keep a cached content for older versions of MSFS.  Why would Asobo keep cached content for a new beta version that is used for beta testing?

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by abrams_tank

[Reader 2,030]

You are the expert here.
The difference to me seems to be between whether there are a few beta testers or that a beta version is made available to everyone.
There was only one version at a time during the pre-release "beta testing".
To my mind, making a beta version available to all the customers is effectively the same as running two versions at the same time in parallel
and the very thing that the quote in the opening post said was not going to happen.

If a fully available beta version at the same time as a fully available release version is not the same as a rollback version at the same time as
the current version, then once again, I stand corrected.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

34 minutes ago, Reader said:

You are the expert here.
The difference to me seems to be between whether there are a few beta testers or that a beta version is made available to everyone.
There was only one version at a time during the pre-release "beta testing".
To my mind, making a beta version available to all the customers is effectively the same as running two versions at the same time in parallel
and the very thing that the quote in the opening post said was not going to happen.

If a fully available beta version at the same time as a fully available release version is not the same as a rollback version at the same time as
the current version, then once again, I stand corrected.

Making an older release/production version of MSFS compatible with the server makes things more complex, even if only the last version is to be compatible with the server.  This is what Matt means.  Client/server code is tricky so that's probably why Microsoft/Asobo want to avoid the complexities involved with supporting older versions of MSFS (it would require a lot more testing and could result in even more bugs because the complexity is much higher if older versions are supported, not to mention the other issues that Matt mentioned).

Microsoft/Asobo already have a beta version for testing before each update, but it's limited to a certain number of beta testers (300 beta testers were invited for the April beta test).  I don't think the beta version they use for updates uses any cached data at all.  If it really costs Microsoft/Asobo a lot of money to setup infrastructure for a fully "opt in" beta test, they should let us know that it's too expensive so the community can understand this.  For other video games, they are able to do an "opt in" beta with their player base with their infrastructure.  

Having said that, Microsoft/Asobo has never said that scaling up to an "opt in" beta test is too expensive.  

[akita 429]

Amazing how people are willing to defend this BS so much like it's there own product.

Forcing users is not a good thing generally. forcing users on a product that needs multiple hotfixes for almost every update is even worse.

Simple as that, others do this whole process MUCH better, Asobo's process of updating and beta testing is very underwhelming, to a point where forcing users to use broken updates is really rude.

 

[cobalt 798]

On 8/18/2021 at 5:34 AM, akita said:

Amazing how people are willing to defend this BS so much like it's there own product.

Forcing users is not a good thing generally. forcing users on a product that needs multiple hotfixes for almost every update is even worse.

Simple as that, others do this whole process MUCH better, Asobo's process of updating and beta testing is very underwhelming, to a point where forcing users to use broken updates is really rude.

 

 

Does simply saying "I am happy with MSFS, post-SU5" constitute "defending" the product? Curious to know. I suppose rudeness takes different forms ...

 

[Bobsk8 12,754]

On 8/18/2021 at 5:34 AM, akita said:

Amazing how people are willing to defend this BS so much like it's there own product.

Forcing users is not a good thing generally. forcing users on a product that needs multiple hotfixes for almost every update is even worse.

Simple as that, others do this whole process MUCH better, Asobo's process of updating and beta testing is very underwhelming, to a point where forcing users to use broken updates is really rude.

 

What really is amazing is after an update, within days they release two hotfixes. I wonder if they ever thought of fixing the update, before releasing it in the first place. 

[ADamiani 470]

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

What really is amazing is after an update, within days they release two hotfixes. I wonder if they ever thought of fixing the update, before releasing it in the first place. 

Imagine that on July 21, thanks to MSFS, I had one of my greatest flightsimming experiences of all time (40 years, including level-D MD80 and 747 and a static but totally real 737-300 cockpit at a friends of mine's).

I was looking forward to my two weeks vacation from work after about 12 months working 7/7 to do some longer flights, explorations, all the nice stuff, and before I could enjoy even one day, SU5 shot down my 172.

I'll be back at work next Monday, so when the patch comes out in September I'll just have less than an hour a day. Not funny at all.

I just hope that they have learned the lesson and will never again push an unstable update. The fact that they are delaying the patch sounds good. We will see.

A.

Edited August 19, 2021 by ADamiani

[akita 429]

2 hours ago, cobalt said:

Does simply saying "I am happy with MSFS, post-SU5" constitute "defending" the product? Curious to know. I suppose rudeness takes different forms ...

 

Try to read my post again, you interpreted very wrong. If you enjoy it, great. But those gaslighting others are the ones i'm talking about. There are users that can't use the product, asobo/ms are aware, still want to force them use the broken updates with this policy, and those users are being told that this policy is a "good thing".

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by akita

[Manny 1,293]

On 8/16/2021 at 10:00 AM, abrams_tank said:

So as a software developer myself, I always suspected there was no way Asobo would allow users to stay on an older version of MSFS.  Anyways, we don't need to guess why anymore.  Matt from Working Title has provided a technical answer on why Microsoft/Asobo cannot allow users to stay on older versions of MSFS, and why users must update to the latest version of MSFS each time an update is released:

So for those who want to stay on an older version of MSFS because you think it's more stable, forget it, it will never happen.  Instead, if you want a more stable release, the most productive way forward is to push Asobo to implement an "opt in" beta for every player in MSFS, so that the beta testing can be expanded to every player who wants to "opt into" the beta (you can vote for the "opt in" beta request here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/add-a-beta-version-players-can-enable-before-releasing-a-patch/277648/42).

Is there a Problem

[neil0311 366]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

What really is amazing is after an update, within days they release two hotfixes. I wonder if they ever thought of fixing the update, before releasing it in the first place. 

And I bet that had they made a decision to halt the update and not release on the day they had said it was coming, then the usual suspects would be whining that they had to wait for it. There were people complaining that the hotfix wasn’t released fast enough, and then whining that it didn’t address enough issues for them.

This SU5 was a milestone release. It was tied to specific commercial launch of MSFS on Xbox. Some users had issues, and many didn’t have issues. Asobo released hotfixes within days to address a large part of the most egregious issues the folks experiencing issues were seeing.

But that’s evidently not good enough for the folks who want a pound of flesh. So let me ask…what would be the correct move? Fire Jorg? Fire the dev team?

They’re releasing yet another world update with more fixes on Tuesday. Frankly, they’ve done more than most developers and more than the old MSFS Aces team ever did. That team never fixed any of the same old bugs, release after release. 

[Bobsk8 12,754]

12 hours ago, neil0311 said:

 

 So let me ask…what would be the correct move? Fire Jorg? Fire the dev team?

 

Simple, I have beta tested several flight sim products over the years. Just listen to the beta testers and fix the bugs they report, before releasing the update. That has always been my experience while I was beta testing. Releasing something that is bug riddled is counter productive. 

[neil0311 366]

31 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Simple, I have beta tested several flight sim products over the years. Just listen to the beta testers and fix the bugs they report, before releasing the update. That has always been my experience while I was beta testing. Releasing something that is bug riddled is counter productive. 

And in a perfect world I’d agree. And you make assumptions that they had reports of bugs and ignored them deliberately.  That’s possible, especially with a milestone. But it’s also possible that none of the issues were reported, or they were reported in a very small % of use cases and yes…it was deemed ok to release and deal with them later.

And I’ve been on beta test teams for years as well, both for FS and other software. I was on the FSX beta for the Aces team and reported bugs. That team ignored many terrain and scenery bugs that never were fixed. Asobo released hotfixes within hours, and another major update will be out within a month.

Again…I think there’s a lot of ignorance about software development, how decisions get made, and the motives behind those decisions.