Ant1975uk

4 hours ago, fsiscool said:

They are not sloopy. They are skillfully balancing opposing forces. 

Read this: Project management triangle - Wikipedia

I personally know from similar large software projects, that keeping an already huge codebase in maintainable state is pure art. Above a certain threshold, which MSFS has passed long ago, adding new features often not only comes with a large price tag, it also comes with serious risk of destabilizing existing functionality. The result is a testimony, that they manage the project most of the time quite well.

Ah so its not their fault. They are 'forced' to introduce features at the cost of the customer. Doesn't matter if that customer has invested x amount and cant enjoy the sim as its supposed to be, its just tough luck because the alright jacks of Noel, Fsiscool and co are doing ok.

You can always introduce features but you have to take the time to test them thoroughly. They just don't do this, although im sure you will say the opposite. They only agreed to slow down the update roll out process this year due to the amount of mess they were creating that was causing the community to get frustrated.

I was going to update to SU13 a few weeks back, but of course at the time, you couldn't even install it correctly due to poor download speeds and other issues (or have I imagined that too?). Oh I almost forgot, the whole sh*tstorm cooked up over the marketplace and the lack of quality assurance that was supposedly introducing better testing methods for third party apps and the lack of being able to get refunds for broken content (unbelievable they didn't test add ons on an actual xbox). This of course didn't exist especially as I bought Orbx Auckland for PC and Xbox after the fact, with the xbox version flattening the entire area around the map.

Yep they really did the quality checks they promised, then released it for sale anyway.

Anyway lets leave it there.

2 hours ago, Noel said:

Hey, progress, you're getting some insight about yourself.  Great first step keep it up there's hope for you after all.

Yep, definitely an alright jack.

3 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

Possibly - or could it be that he, like many, many more of us, simply knows how to run his machinery? One doesn’t need to “work in a global IT company” or “test software for a living” to know one’s way around a PC …

Ah so its me and my PC's fault. Got it.

Just now, fsiscool said:

You are surprised that a software as over the top complex as MSFS is having issues? And that from a userbase as big as MSFS's there are many complaints recorded? You do not reveal much insight in software development, if you think MSFS should be working for everyone...

Just as a hint, there are not many software products on this earth, which have such a high complexity, whcih have so man conflicting requirements and such challenging runtime dependencies. Looking at the average experience users have, MSFS is not broken but a running miracle!

 

It's nothing like a miracle and its exactly this attitude and outlook that affords Microsoft and Asobo the leeway to be sloppy. 

2 hours ago, Maxis said:

I checked your post history because other members alluded to your post history and after taking a look at it i am inclined to concur with Noel and Btacon... who i might add i usually do not concur frequently with.  Funny you posit the argument about "my game and feeling threatened". If that's your judgement that's on you.. your entitled to it but it demonstrates to me clearly that you really haven't been around here much.

 

Have a good one.

I haven't been around here much. Do I need to be?

1 minute ago, btacon said:

No need to visit the forums.  I’ve been visiting and posting since Day 1 release. My opinion of the sim on day one was nothing like my opinion is now. Day one for me was probably more akin to your position down it remained so for most of the first year.  Back then I flew mostly P3d.  Nowadays, P3 What?

Enjoy yourself posting about your self fulfilling miseries. Me?  I just love to fly!

-B

Why do people equate criticism to misery? Really odd way of looking at things. 

Criticism and feedback in the right hands feeds progress. Pandering feeds regression. Remember that.

2 hours ago, Maxis said:

Ian take a look at his post history.. This guy is certainly entitled to his opinion but if the user is always showing up to have a moan then even the more reasonable among us are going to discount what he has to say much less the people who actively promote the sim within the actual forums of the sim.

Frankly speaking the guy only shows up to complain. sorry to say but the label is kinda accurate in this rare instance.

I asked a valid question. I don't spend every waking moment of my day on forums and I call a spade a spade. 

The world has become soft.

Also why would you go check a posters history unless you feel like your game is threatened? Strange behaviour.

Just now, btacon said:

“This game is unstable and that remains my opinion Mr Btacon”.

There fixed it for you and thanks for the Hat Props

-B

Well I suggest you go over to the official forums and dip into the official SU13 feedback thread. It says hi.

2 hours ago, Farlis said:

Then why do I do not have constant crashes, if it is not stable?

You are fortunate.

2 hours ago, btacon said:

How?  Well, in my opinion the poster in question who you are defending as only having an “opinion” is in fact expressing his “opinion” as “facts” and so I will agree with Noel on this one. He (poster in question) sounds like he wants to troll rather than offer constructive critique. 

Just my opinion and that doesn’t make it fact. The poster in question would do well to remember that for himself.

”So is this game still broken? The amount of good will afforded to Asobo and Microsoft is indeed staggering. This game has been out for a few years now and its still not in a stable state. Its also getting replaced next year which doesn't bode well for its currently iteration.”

-B

This game is unstable and thats a fact Mr Btacon. Go visit the forums. A stable game would be working for everyone across multiple platforms.

Nice hat.

2 hours ago, Noel said:

The game isn't "broken", it's exceedingly "stable", runs performance circles around everything else relative to what it's displaying at least on PC and anyone who is modestly "serious" about flight simming isn't using Xbox for this, has a fabulous set of advanced aircraft, and is wonderfully satisfying and overall continues its steady pace of improvements.  Sounds like you should save yourself the angst and uninstall it if that is what you see in MSFS as your cup, for MSFS, is clearly 90% empty.  Sorry, you sound to me like another troll, which having a look at past posts isn't the case, it's just ongoing focus on negativity, what's missing, not what's there.   You knew full well you'd get replies like this so I"m happy to oblige.  😉

Oh Noel.

I own it on both Xbox and PC. I user test software for a living. I once spent literally days of my time for free helping out Seafront Sims with some conflicts I was finding. I dedicated hours and hours and hours to testing all manner of third party add ons for the Xbox community to try and guide users into not having a CTD fest in their sessions.

But I won't do that anymore because either its too big for Asobo and they cant cope or they have their eye off the ball. If you are an alright jack, lovely, enjoy your sim. Just because its probably the only sim on the market worth playing doesn't excuse the amount of money and time people drop on it only to be continually frustrated. For every happy Noel, theres an unhappy simmer.

When it works its exceptional, when it doesn't that literally means its broken. I consider it broken if live weather fails to load, if third party or even first party add ons crash the game, if ground textures and maps fail to stream. Theres lots of other things too but you get the point.

3 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I agree with your sentiments, but I fear the backlash you will now receive in these forums because of this post. 

Ah don't worry about me pal.

I work for a global IT company helping to design and build software. I'm well aware of the problems Asobo could face, but like anything if you are sloppy you just make things worse and they are sloppy with their QA. I cant imagine if we treated our software releases like msfs we'd have no customers left. Its because there's only really one flight sim worth having which is why everyone puts up with it.

I understand you get bugs but when the same features break constantly, map textures, weather, clouds etc its just baffling.

I remember one release there was no night lighting...none. How did that get past testing? No lights across the planet. Crazy.

So is this game still broken? The amount of good will afforded to Asobo and Microsoft is indeed staggering. This game has been out for a few years now and its still not in a stable state. Its also getting replaced next year which doesn't bode well for its currently iteration.

I've just been going through all the official forums and there seems to be nothing but problems on xbox and PC across the board. There was issues with SU13 beta and then the release, and now with SU14 beta so far. It was already a bit of a dogs dinner when I last played which was SU12.

Its such a shame because it was a really engrossing sim at one point and beautiful to boot but they just keep breaking everything on every release which is nuts. Things that previously worked shouldn't still be breaking years on from release.

Cant imagine what it will be like supporting TWO branches of the same sim next year. Catastrophe no doubt.

They are ripping you off, thats basically the gist.

All the points the previous poster made and all the products they pointed out flies in the face of what they are saying. But thats ok, us humans have a way of of simply ignoring the facts to suit us.

I used to be excited for picking up the 600 on xbox but I'm no longer bothering. Im sticking to PC as and when I decide to play because its been a massive fustercluck trying to enjoy this sim the last few years, topped off with a brand new announcement.

I guess im just tired of constantly trying to get the game to work as it should, dealing with gatekeepers, dealing with sensitive moderators on the official forum, the arguing, the finger pointing, the lot.

Maybe one day we will get a game we can just turn on and enjoy without all the drama.

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

Whatever was shown in this teaser trailer was meant for the XBox gaming showcase event, and ok so it focused on missions type activities which could be called "gamification" or not. But regardless, how do we know at this point that core simulator features/fixes *have* taken a back seat? How is it obvious that API support has taken a backseat since it can't be used by XBox? Admittedly all we have now is this initial teaser trailer for the XBox showcase event, we definitely need to find out more from MS/Asobo before drawing broad conclusions... I have a feeling a lot more will be clear by the end of this month and FSExpo.

After having come this far since the initial release in 2020 to keep improving the core sim and focus on aircraft/avionics fidelity and other "non-gamification" aspects, why would they stop doing that for the 2024 release since after all it's meant to be the proper successor/sequel to the sim? I just don't see them doing that. Sometimes I see a lot of folks immediately jump to the conclusion that when visuals or other stuff is improved and focused on by MS/Asobo that therefore automatically means that's at the expense of sim realism. With a huge team and deep pockets of MS, I don't think it has to be an either/or.
 

How will what we saw work on xbox? I own both PC and Xbox Series X versions and the xbox version is always teetering on collapse, especially when you load in the A310 or the PMDG or any other slightly complex plane. How are they gonna fit in trees with moving leaves, raytracing, lots of animated humans and tornadoes? The xbox will explode.

Is the reason for bing tiles changing because they have been testing seasons? Would make sense now as it wasn't all over the world just in certain places like Malta where sunny yellow/brown bing imagery would turn to green as you fly over.

2 hours ago, cyril972 said:

That’s exactly the right way to behave, positive guys. The negativity around this announcement is honestly so sad to see.
 

Asobo and MS are currently doing a fantastic job, MSFS the best thing ever happened to the flight sim world, those guys showed multiple time they where listening to user. What we saw today is the announcement, the product is coming next year MS have pleinty time to give the community all the bells and whistles about this new product. Msfs 2020 will not be abandoned, compatibility is taken into account ….

Chill guys, simply wait and see what is comming

A fantastic job is debatable. Ive still got ATC issues, water masking issues, bing imagery changing as I fly over it etc, etc.

I'm nervous because they haven't exactly pulled out all the stops to fix major issues and their testing and QA is suspect at the best of times even when the whole community is pointing stuff out to them.

Then you've got the server issues. The servers are barely coping now. The amount of times you get dropped bandwidth messages, poor photogrammetry and poor streaming day in and day out is regular even with a great, stable connection.

So how do they support both? I guess we will see. When the sim runs as it should its a sight to behold and an amazing experience but a lot of the time its a bit of a mess and I don't think Asobo and MS have dealt with it THAT well.

47 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

Only for those with silly high standards.

this is normal for the industry

Normal doesn't mean right. Look at it in this context.

• You release a new product with a ten year life span and a yearly road map
• Community buys into said road map and vision
• Third party partners with msoft and buys into roadmap and vision
• Community pays into the marketplace and buys into the vision
• Asobo and Microsoft seemingly dedicate themselves to the vision by producing content
• In a lot of peoples eyes, the sim is seemingly still not at its expected potential (lots of outstanding bugs etc)

Then:

• Three years in you drop a new game on the community and third party devs completely out of the blue, with no explanation with how it will work, how it fits with the vision everyone is bought into.

Thats not high standards its just common sense fella. People are human and they usually need explanations when it basically will effect their investment of time and money.

9 minutes ago, nikolajz1 said:

If that's one of the worst pieces of marketing you've ever seen you must watch very little online. So hyperbolic. 

Nothing hyperbolic about it. It was poor communication.

19 minutes ago, michdb8 said:

that trailer is focus on casual gamers no sim players, is show on the biggest videogame conference of the year,  a flight simulator trailer which is a big niche, so the trailers focus on bring new players  i pretty sure latter they release other trailers more focus on sim improves.

and the Microsoft conference yesterday was the best by far in all summer fest conferences

Aye and it caused the flight simulator community uncertainty, so it failed in its objective. Its not the casual simmers (of which I am one to a degree) that will keep the longevity of this title going, its the die hards, they are the guys who build their world by spending money on it.

Whichever way you look at it, it was one of the worst pieces of marketing I've ever seen. In the day and age of the consumer and empathy it was a massive fail. I used to run campaigns for people like Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Tata Steel, theres no way the strategy you saw yesterday would have flown (excuse the pun) 10 years ago never mind now.

Xbox hasn't had a good time of it the last six months and some of their decision making has been damaging.

The surprise and wow factor of last nights trailer was completely lost in uncertainty. They should have showed the trailer and then said something like "And the great news is FS2020 players can carry on playing with the content they already own" or something simple like that, would have cleared up 80% of questions.

Just now, ryanbatc said:

Dramatic.  This is no different than the update from FS2002 to 2004 (FS9).

I thought that but ive just seen a bit of text that describes 'Asobos new engine'

Its an upgrade, thats my two penneth.

Take this base game and all that comes with it including add ons and marketplace and then give it a next gen upgrade.

Better environmental effects like trees and weather

better humans

a career mode

And then rebadge it as MSFS 2024.

My only concern is the specs. Can they squeeze more life out of the game? Because currently its a bit of a bug fest and certain things don't work as they should, as is. then you get Xbox which this is clearly aimed at and that still struggles to work as it should on that hardware.

Interesting times.

Thanks for all the suggestions folks, appreciated.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

MSFS works fine on my system,, Maybe instead of posting things like " What have they done this sim?". you title the thread, " Anyone have any ideas on what could be wrong with my system?"

Oh wow Bob, good for you. I'm glad everything is fine and dandy your end.

I've just done a hour-ish flight from Vegas to San Diego, PC. All fine and dandy taking off and cruise, left the room for 5 minutes just before descent into Sand Diego and I have no ATC, only engine sounds, poor LOD around San Diego, photogrammetry popping in. All this with top internet speed. I mean it was only a short flight in the PMDG.

And that's after i had to start it up 4 times for a ridiculous no disc error.

Yes its a beautiful sim WHEN IT WORKS, but just because its fine for some in here, doesn't mean it doesn't need work and it doesn't mean it doesn't have issues and it doesn't mean I need to look at myself or my set up. I been building PCs for 20 years and I'm not stupid.