MSFS: “A Loss Of Trust From Our Player Community"

[fsiscool 251]

1 hour ago, flying_carpet said:

Are they changing every few months the way they transmit (stream) the data from the server to the clients? That would be indeed a reason to update every few months server and client, so they both talk the same "language".

Server and client are always in sync. New software versions often require new data attributes, so sender and receiver need to adapt. For beta groups and actively running sessions of older version, running small backends for a short time with reduced SLA might be acceptable, but the majority of the userbase must be on the same version.

1 hour ago, flying_carpet said:

Oh no! Slow download speeds were a problem already before, and if I have bad luck, I have to wait some hours until the update is finished.

You sound as if it would be a punishment if you have to play with X-Plane for a while.

Edited December 14, 2023 by fsiscool

[fsiscool 251]

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

My livelihood depends on the internet. You can disagree on the importance. 

Nobodies livelihood depends on MSFS for the few hours the update took. Strange argument. It is a no brainer, that SLA's of different cloud based products are different.

Edited December 14, 2023 by fsiscool

[GoranM 3,772]

3 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

Nobodies livelihood depends on MSFS for the few hours the update took. Strange argument. It is a no brainer, that SLA's of different cloud based products are different.

Cool. Thanks. 

[bobcat999 8,502]

11 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

Client and server maintain very complex bidirectional interaction. Being able to maintain different versions on both sides can easily increase the complexity into dramatic dimensions. Therefore the cloud backend and the client software need to migrate to new versions in sync.

I agree, but they do it successfully for the beta's.  I was on SU14 beta for nearly six weeks with a lot of other people, while a lot of others were still on SU13. 
(Out of interest, it would be good to know the percentage of owners who are joining the beta's, or the SU14 beta at least).

They have also stated they have various 'in-house' branches at any one time, and this has lead to them getting updates 'muddled' at some stages, including regressions.
I hope they take a good look at their operations in general, especially before MSFS2024 comes out, as they say there will be a 'light client' for this.

As for the trust issue.  Mine has basically evaporated to nothing.  I simply own MSFS, use it, and hope for the best.  I have very little faith in Asobo or the part of Microsoft that crosses over into MSFS territory.
I have had too many regressions that have taken too long, too many long standing immersion killing bugs not fixed, too many settings wiped, my log book wiped, and constant connection / disconnection problems even to this day (now being told my connection isn't fast enough for photogrammetry, while it is testing at 250Mbs outside the sim! ), or slow downloads from the marketplace at about 1% of my capable download speed.  It all comes across as very sloppy and unprofessional. 
What use is a technical report that most people will not understand when this is still happening?   
 

[fsiscool 251]

19 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I agree, but they do it successfully for the beta's

As mentioned, for betas they have to run a second instance of the backend, which is much smaller and probably has a relaxed SLA. What is not possible, is large chunks of the userbase running on different versions at the same time.

[threexgreen 3,156]

 

9 hours ago, GoranM said:

But I do know it irks you, and some others, that people from the X-Plane forums come here to post.

What "irks" people is that you refused to educate yourself on what's actually happening because you're "too busy" to read the report but have plenty of time to have a lengthy argument about the flaw of 'the other sim' and blow the issue up talking about people's livelihoods depending on a PC game's update issue of a few hours when you're not even developing for this sim yourself. And this is entirely 'my sim vs. your sim', no matter how many times you say you're not going to engage in it.

No one has a problem with XP people posting here - unless the agenda is showing (and not for the first time either). I don't know why tribalism is so prevalent in flight simming. It's just a PC game after all, and it doesn't matter which one. Just stick to whichever you're happy with.

Edited December 14, 2023 by threegreen

[bobcat999 8,502]

20 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

As mentioned, for betas they have to run a second instance of the backend, which is much smaller and probably has a relaxed SLA. What is not possible, is large chunks of the userbase running on different versions at the same time.

Sure, I understand the problems, but my point is it would only be two different versions at most, as they have done with the beta. 

I think most people just want to skip a compulsory update if they want to fly that day, say if they have just bought a new aircraft or scenery to try out.
This happened to me many times when I was on an old 5Mbs connection.  I would start up MSFS only to see I had many Gigabytes of update to download before I could fly, which at that download speed is an 'over-nighter' while asleep bed. 
The chance to skip an update would also help when we get information that the servers aren't working properly (like for SU14), and so still be able to get in and fly until things calm down.

A product called Stripr actually allows this anyway (skipping of updates), although it is not recommended by Asobo obviously!   I have bought it but I haven't installed it yet to try it. 
I think being able to skip an update from within the sim (even for a limited time period) would definitely help mitigate a lot of these problems and reduce the complaints.
The limit would be that you must update before the next beta starts, that would be enough time, and would still only require two servers still. 

This has been proposed quite a lot.  I hope they look at this for MSFS 2024, as it would stop a lot of the complaints / bad feeling.

Edited December 14, 2023 by bobcat999

[GoranM 3,772]

15 minutes ago, threegreen said:

 

What "irks" people is that you refused to educate yourself on what's actually happening because you're "too busy" to read the report but have plenty of time to have a lengthy argument about the flaw of 'the other sim' and blow the issue up talking about people's livelihoods depending on a PC game's update issue of a few hours when you're not even developing for this sim yourself. And this is entirely 'my sim vs. your sim', no matter how many times you say you're not going to engage in it.

No one has a problem with XP people posting here - unless the agenda is showing (and not for the first time either). I don't know why tribalism is so prevalent in flight simming. It's just a PC game after all, and it doesn't matter which one. Just stick to whichever you're happy with.

And where have you seen me display tribalism?  If anything, I’m more neutral than most people in here  Does it matter which sim I am or am not developing for?  Does that, or my opinion on backup servers determine whether or not I can post in these forums?  

[threexgreen 3,156]

Just now, GoranM said:

And where have you seen me display tribalism?  If anything, I’m more neutral than most people in here  Does it matter which sim I am or am not developing for?  Does that, or my opinion on backup servers determine whether or not I can post in these forums?  

You know this isn't about your opinion on backup servers. I wouldn't go to the XP forums if XP had an issue to criticize it, and say I'm too busy to read up on what the issue even is exactly but still detail in great length just how bad it is and make up overdramatic examples. Given I have never owned XP I'm sure you would find that a tad irritating and suspect, so yes, in this context it does matter which sim you develop for.

[GoranM 3,772]

7 minutes ago, threegreen said:

You know this isn't about your opinion on backup servers.

How you interpret my post is on you. Forums are for discussion. Seeing as I own MSFS, and I was trying download said update, I figured I criticise something I know a bit about. 
 

7 minutes ago, threegreen said:

I wouldn't go to the XP forums if XP had an issue to criticize it

Why not?  Others do. Many times. 

7 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Given I have never owned XP I'm sure you would find that a tad irritating and suspect

As I said, I have owned MSFS for over a year.   Primarily to see the dev environment. It’s no secret, and I’ve mentioned that before. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoranM

[flying_carpet 657]

1 hour ago, fsiscool said:

Server and client are always in sync. New software versions often require new data attributes, so sender and receiver need to adapt. For beta groups and actively running sessions of older version, running small backends for a short time with reduced SLA might be acceptable, but the majority of the userbase must be on the same version.

 

1 hour ago, fsiscool said:

As mentioned, for betas they have to run a second instance of the backend, which is much smaller and probably has a relaxed SLA.

Thanks for confirming my and bobcats earlier statement of the need of call it backend-/fallback-/backup-servers. The initial opinion in this thread (although not by you) was, that such thing isn't possible (or required).

 

1 hour ago, fsiscool said:

What is not possible, is large chunks of the userbase running on different versions at the same time.

Why?

 

1 hour ago, fsiscool said:

You sound as if it would be a punishment if you have to play with X-Plane for a while.

??? That's not the topic of this thread as we are in the "glorified scenery simulator"-forum here 😁.

Edited December 14, 2023 by flying_carpet

[threexgreen 3,156]

14 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Why not?  Others do. Many times.

You picked the first part of what I said there and ignore the rest which is the whole point. I told you twice what triggers the replies you get posting in the MSFS forum but you seem oblivious to it. Maybe for you it's just about saying something about a sim you own but it doesn't come across like that.

[gdjak 176]

30 minutes ago, flying_carpet said:

Thanks for confirming my and bobcats earlier statement of the need of call it backend-/fallback-/backup-servers. The initial opinion in this thread (although not by you) was, that such thing isn't possible (or required).

Even if they had an entire backup environment ready to switch over, I don't see how they wouldn't have run into the exact same issue there. It was a configuration problem - can't fix that by throwing more machines at it.

[threexgreen 3,156]

45 minutes ago, flying_carpet said:

?? That's not the topic of this thread as we are in the "glorified scenery simulator"-forum here 😁

You people post stuff like this and wonder why others think you're just here to stir the pot.

[fsiscool 251]

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

Sure, I understand the problems, but my point is it would only be two different versions at most, as they have done with the beta. 

Only two fully maintained and full-capacity environments? No, it does not seem that you understand the problems or costs that come with that. As a former web architect I know how pita it is to do what you suggest. It is basically the hosting effort x 2. Years ago at my working place we had a huge webapp running in two major versions in production. Basically everything is doubled effort, starting from the work of the programmers.

 

46 minutes ago, flying_carpet said:

Thanks for confirming my and bobcats earlier statement of the need of call it backend-/fallback-/backup-servers.

This is vintage thinking. There were clusters of instances, more than enough to cope with demand, which elastically could provide the data as needed. The issue was not at all about backup capacity. So no, this does not confirm anything you said. In fact, your allegation are so decoupled from how a cloud really works, that I am not sure whether it can be explained to you at all.