November 2, 2023 MSFS Development Update

[TASCHMANN 200]

On 11/3/2023 at 9:26 AM, lwt1971 said:

But the plan is for many years to come. At least a handful. Let's put it that way. That's probably a safe way to say it.

Jorg always uses many many words to say absolutely nothing.

One thing seems to be clear: ever since "The Announcement" development of and for MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt.

Why can't they just, for once, drop the BS and be straight with the community.

[lwt1971 7,566]

1 hour ago, TASCHMANN said:

Jorg always uses many many words to say absolutely nothing.

One thing seems to be clear: ever since "The Announcement" development of and for MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt.

Why can't they just, for once, drop the BS and be straight with the community.

And you used the above words to spew absolute BS/nonsense, compared to the words from Jorg and Seb... Pray tell, what exactly are they BS'ing and not being straight about in terms of their intentions for MSFS 2020 and 2024? (are you clairvoyant enough to see into the future where you've figured out they are BS'ing now?). Ever since the MSFS 2024 announce/trailer, AAU2, SU13, WU14, etc dropped, and SU14 is currently in beta, and WU15 is imminent, etc etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that as contradictory to the "MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt" trope. And oh, development of MSFS 2024 is currently ongoing in parallel too. They have been plenty open with the community and the level of communication and engagement far surpasses anything else we've had before in flight sims, and I'll take their word any day over forum members who love to light their hair on fire and exaggerate everything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Also, if one employs enough common sense, one would deduce whatever their intentions are for the future are not set in stone (as with any software development company), especially when they give that disclaimer themselves.
 

Edited November 5, 2023 by lwt1971

[Tuskin38 6,727]

1 hour ago, TASCHMANN said:

ever since "The Announcement" development of and for MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt.

No it hasn't.

[MarcG 3,073]

1 hour ago, TASCHMANN said:

Jorg always uses many many words to say absolutely nothing.

One thing seems to be clear: ever since "The Announcement" development of and for MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt.

Why can't they just, for once, drop the BS and be straight with the community.

Sorry but that's absolute nonsense, there's a beta ongoing now so not sure where you're getting the "grinding halt" thought process from. If anything Jorg openly admitted to wanting too much from the devs in the first place with his ridiculous notion they should release an update every month without beta testing....no lead developer with half a brain would suggest that to a team. Thankfully as time has gone on the updates have become more robust and less often, still not without issues it has to be said and the beta process is still a shambles at times but they've by no means ground to a halt.

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

And you used the above words to spew absolute BS/nonsense, compared to the words from Jorg and Seb... Pray tell, what exactly are they BS'ing and not being straight about in terms of their intentions for MSFS 2020 vs 2024? (are you clairvoyant enough to see into the future where you've figured out they are BS'ing now?). Ever since the MSFS 2024 announce/trailer, AAU2, SU13, WU14, etc dropped, and SU14 is currently in beta, and WU15 is imminent, etc etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that as contradictory to the "MSFS has come to a screeching, grinding halt" trope. And oh, development of MSFS 2024 is currently ongoing in parallel too. They have been plenty open with the community and the level of communication and engagement far surpasses anything else we've had before in flight sims, and I'll take their word any day over forum members who love to light their hair on fire and exaggerate everything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Also, if one employs enough common sense, one would deduce whatever their intentions are for the future are not set in stone (as with any software development company), especially when they give that disclaimer themselves.
 

Just to pick up on the bolded part and coming from someone whose not been around flight sims for ever, they may well communicate more than any other flight sim dev but that doesn't mean it's good communication. The Q&As - as discussed countless times - are mere marketing shows, as I said earlier on just go back and re-read the transcripts and see how much has been complete hot air mixed with stuff that has come to light, the number of times they've clearly side swiped a question, brushed stuff under the carpet, said they'd talk more in detail another time but then they never do - that's not being very open at all.

The point of communication is for it to be precise when it needs to be which in this case it is not; Radio silence during the Flaps debacle, lack of acknowledgement after the graphical downgrade of SU5, nothing about the continuous Live Weather METAR issues since SU7, the constant server downtime, the live weather downtime, the marketplace issues, the severe lack of beta interaction etc etc. So yeah they may be communicating "more" than the past and/or other flight sims, but having come from decades of gaming/beta testing on a whole variety of gaming genres they are nowhere near the level of communication I've witnessed from other gaming developers, especially when it matters most.

It seems the flight sim world is in it's own bubble at times, having (as I said) been part of many games from Alpha to release and thereafter, this MS/Asobo show is very far from perfect and it showed early on with the infamous "what lightning in clear skies bug?", since then the cracks in their communication have been very very obvious and they're not getting any better. The reliance to hide behind official forum devs during the beta periods is a painfully obvious area that needs to drastically improve, yes the game is great and we all want the best from it, but 3+ years on I'm not seeing any improvement on this communication front at all.

[lwt1971 7,566]

2 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Just to pick up on the bolded part and coming from someone whose not been around flight sims for ever, they may well communicate more than any other flight sim dev but that doesn't mean it's good communication...

That's fair that you assess it that way. The bottom line for me, taking the totality of communications and dev Q&As and weekly updates, etc, etc I find them to be:
- appreciably more useful than not (and definitely not *merely* marketing, especially the deep dives that Seb gives)
- actually better compared to the early days
- *not* intentionally lying or trying to pull fast ones (that's the accusation I find most ridiculous)
- when issues that I myself would like to see get addressed doesn't specifically get addressed/mentioned, or they regress here and there, I don't let that then irk me into getting all dramatic about how they're mostly just lying and/or spewing marketing 🙂

Could they improve? Absolutely. Does that mean all the comms/info they do give now is completely useless? Absolutely not. And in my case, the current comms fall more on the side of useful than useless.
 

[MarcG 3,073]

9 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

That's fair that you assess it that way. The bottom line for me, taking the totality of communications and dev Q&As and weekly updates, etc, etc I find them to be:
- appreciably more useful than not (and definitely not *merely* marketing, especially the deep dives that Seb gives)
- actually better compared to the early days
- *not* intentionally lying or trying to pull fast ones (that's the accusation I find most ridiculous)
- when issues that I myself would like to see get addressed doesn't specifically get addressed/mentioned, or they regress here and there, I don't let that then irk me into getting all dramatic about how they're mostly just lying and/or spewing marketing 🙂

Could they improve? Absolutely. Does that mean all the comms/info they do give now is completely useless? Absolutely not. And in my case, the current comms fall more on the side of useful than useless.
 

Totally agree on the Seb point as I posted earlier in the thread. They may not intentionally lie, but to say they'll talk more about a subject next time then not bother is poor form, as for the weekly updates they are mainly pointless but I've gone over that area before 😉