I’m sitting here wondering why people need feedback on bug reports? I mean, sure, it would be nice. If it were an indy product that sold a few thousand copies, it would be cool to be able to interact with the development staff. You guys and gals all have jobs I assume, can you imagine having a user base of millions out there and having to be responsible to develop your bit of code and make sure it runs with everything else, and also being responsible for answering thousands of questions a day on when a users bug will be fixed?
Microsoft and Asobo have built an excellent and efficient system to do this through the News and Announcements and the Dev Q&A’s. What more do people need, Really need?
and yet, every beta I have been involved in has resulted in changes to the testing of the next. Building on the reflections of the testers at the end of each flight. Inviting subject matter experts, building a pool of meticulous individuals that have put in a lot of hours testing the updates.
Following each update the development team has admitted the weaknesses and adjusted the process. The single greatest hurdle to the testing has been timelines. By the time the build is pushed to the beta teams, the final release build has already been coded. Much of the feedback during testing is noted for future updates. Occasionally a bug has appeared that has delayed an update’s release, but then the community goes on a rampage because the update was delayed.
@CoastalGamer has described the evolving process fairly accurately. Teams of users with experience in certain areas, focused on specific bugs. Asobo usually provides a guide for testing. The things that need to be tested are done in a relatively professional manner considering. Combined with that is the “opt in” testers. Regular users, using the sim the same as would on any other session.
The move to a 2 month SU cycle should allow for more time to polish the updates based on the testing feedback. Maybe it is time for all the arm chair experts to get involved. I, for one, get tired of volunteering my time to assist the community only to have uninformed critics tear down the process and efforts of others, without actually putting their time and effort into the ring. (a generalization, not directed at any users in particular, they know who they are)
SU7 being a prime example of lessons not being learnt from past mistakes, I’ve done this argument to death since it’s release, it simply needs to be better across the board…period.
The original push by the community to have betas for updates was to ensure the updates themselves were properly tested BEFORE being finalized. That is literally the whole point. There is zero point to holding a beta if the release build has already been finalized.
The community did not go on a rampage when that has happened, which is very rare. I think we’d all appreciate more complete builds that have been properly tested if it means a delay to the update.
People in this forum can’t even all agree on whether something passes or fails. For instance, some of the testers with weather are seeing better results, some are dead set against the whole thing. And the main point of contention is the clouds, I seem to be the only one testing for the severe transitions of weather that were being experienced with SU7.
So breaking things down into groups. Breaking down what gets tested within a group. Breaking down what constitutes a pass or a fail. Frankly, I don’t want to go through that arguing with people every two months. It’s much easier to organize that type of testing within a company where there is a boss, and everyone all gets paid to do a job. This is a bunch of supporters for a simulation, many whose passions for subjects vary from each other. It may sound like sound engineering, but these are human beings, who all have their own interests, trying to organize something such as suggested just isn’t going to feasibly work.
And what are your findings? I don’t see any posts in the beta thread indicating your test results. I see others have provided some comprehensive detail, but please, share your insight. No point testing if you don’t.
I did put my initial findings in “Please, lets not avoid the problems with live weather”. I was only able to test some last night after work, there will be more tonight. So please don’t call me out for not recording anything when in fact I have.
Not “calling you out”. I was genuinely looking for your report. I have been comparing test results since Sat night and cannot find any consistency in the details. Far too many screen shots are misleading.
I am seeing far too many reports that do not take into consideration what you are trying to test. The Transition and blending of forecast data and METARs.
Of course the METARs don’t perfectly match. METARs are historical and forecasts are predictions. The ONLY way to blend them so as not to have hard transitions is to have the weather engine alter the current data to sit somewhere between the METAR and the forecast unless you are going to toss out the forecast.
As a long time pilot, I have seldom arrived at an airport to find the weather exactly as the METAR described unless the weather is very static or the observations were just published.
I look forward to your input when you are done testing.
Honestly the testing threads are a clownshow… if this is the level of chaotic unstructured feedback being provided I feel for Asobo.
Half the posters don’t show a nearby METAR or their current sim time when they take screenshots so we can tell if the METAR is out of date or not. No-one has verified the METARs being reported by the sim are actually current.
Someone linked a webcam which happened to be a P3D simulation Others are confusing fog and low visibility for low clouds and most are just venting about unrelated issues without focusing on he actual testing items.
One guy even posted pictures of the non-beta branch to cloud (no pun intended) the topic
The general consensus seems to be it’s fixed sometimes and sometimes it’s not or misleadingly looks like it’s not due to out of date METAR or interactions with fog and rain etc.
The moderators have even provided a proforma at the top to be followed but barely anyone uses it. I really hope at the very least people are voting using the controls at the top of each thread, though it appears anyone can vote so there may be a lot of junk feedback there too from non-beta participants.
This METAR was reported on December 7th at 20:51Z.
Anyone posting a screenshot that includes the METAR for that location will be the most current METAR the sim is pulling and should be reflected in the weather in the screenshot.
Live weather is always live, it doesn’t matter what time you set in the sim, it’s always live and current.
Unless you’re suggesting that the METAR info the sim is pulling is out of date, which you can still verify by reading the METAR itself as I’ve shown above.
This makes so much sense, which is why many systems allow you to send a logfile after a crash.
Two types of problems:
one that is caused by bad code
a second that are caused by the hardware or hardware combination, the code cant handle.
Sending automated logfiles that can then be analysed by the bug sorting prog. will soon result in specific markers and pointers to certain hardware combinations the code cant handle and this can then be put right.
Automated logfiles help specifically with the second type of crashes.
The fact that some experience no issues and some do experience a lot must be hardware related or rather the code for some reason cant handle the relevant hardware setup.
Analysing a bunch of automated logfiles often quickly solve these issues.
I dont understand why MSFS doesnt have that facility.
The Zendesk system is so outdated it hurts.
Irrespective that it often causes breakages (they are not fortunetellers) I personally am amazed how quickly the major bugs are being dealt with. SU5 was major works and here we are a very few months later discussing why the weather’s different outside my window. GTA5 was in development for over four years and still they were patching it for weeks after it’s release.
Impersonal it may be but for MS/Asobo collecting crash codes is far easier and quicker than having to read people’s opinion of what went wrong yet they still give that outlet because it is not just about CTD’s… Of course there are far too many users for them to give personal service (beyond developers) but at least you have these forums which do get read.
Others are confusing fog and low visibility for low clouds and most are just venting about unrelated issues without focusing on he actual testing items.
