Hello KeepingCoder267. Actually, I never wanted a game. I’m a long time simmer. I played FS since it was made by Sublogic in its version 1 running on an Apple II. At that time the scenery was all wireframe and the plane was an unspecified biblane. And I played almost every release until FSX Acceleration. I still own some of the printed manuals, which are pure gold, with flying theory, lots of knownledge and a few navigation charts. But I never tried the “after MS” versions (P3D and DoveTail) or the competitors (like X-Plane).
In all this experience, I got used to a very high level of quality of the “simulators” as you want to call them. They all had their problems and shortcommings, but none of them were bugged, missing features, crashing and, in the case of some of the people in this forum, to the point of being unplayable. All those versions were virtually crash free from day one and, most of them, never needed an update or patch. If I remember well, FSX had a total of 4 patches and 1 addon. That’s it! And it never once crashed in a repeatable manner.
Now you say Asobo for some reason should be excused. I respectfully disagree. The software was released and, thus, delared complete. This has legal implications, to say the least.
Finally, you say FSX, P3D and Xplane have years of development. Don’t forget that it is clear that MS retained at least some part of the IP of FSX, since its flight model is included as an option in FS 2020. There simply is no excuse to release a software this unfinished.
Hello FunkiSushi, actually I never purchased any FS besides the ones made by Microsoft (call me a fanboy, ). So, I wont make another purchase right now.
But, even if I had them, the fact that I purchased FS 2020 means that I’m ready for an upgrade or, at least, the marketting got to me and I want to have what I paid for.
Now, to be clear, are you requesting “the devs” to not release the world updates and keep them under wraps, even if they are ready?
Although your question was not directed at me, it feels like it could, so, with your permission:
Of course not. But these releases indicate that the release was made berfore the development lifecycle was complete. They are just now finishing all the features originally intended. That also suggests that the testing phase was rushed, to say the least.
Now that the bugs are more than clear, the development of new features MUST be halted, at least to fix the bugs, at most to not make the bugs even more serious.
Like a civil engineering construction, if you detect a problem in a part of the building that has already been built, you can’t continue adding floors, you have to fix the problems below before continuing.
Someone mentioned No Man’s Sky as well. Although I never played these two games, as far as I read about them, they were either different from the advertised, were explorative or other things, but as far as I know, they didn’t crash (like MSFS), didn’t kill you when using a game feature (like autopilot) and so forth.
Hey CassiKess.
It is very funny because your first paragraph could be me word for word. Also started way back with sublogic and also never got further than FSX, among other things because I did not have a computer that I thought could handle it.
I also can remember the forums back then fs2000, 2004, fsx being full of simmers complaining, both over perceived or real bugs or missing features. I was quite content, never grasping why people was complaining if a planes stall speed was way off…by several knots, and such. Many, many people was complaining about low fps or stuttering, and only as the computers got better this was somewhat alleviated, though never quite solved or the planes “sticking to the ground” when trying to taxi.
Back then you had to release what you thought was a 95% finished game as there was no way of making large patches available due to limited internet.
Have been following the loooong launch of MSFS closely on YouTube since it was announced especially the interviews with MS and Asobo. Especially noted that they have said that this is a evolving platform, where there should be plenty of scope for the 3party developers, regarding planes, scenery and other.
I was not expecting .. but now I am…sitting by the yoke in a tbm930 and entering in a full flightplan with sids and stars. That could certainly not be done in fsx. Yes the g530/g1000/g3000 are not complete but they work at a certain level, and there is good reason to expect that they will work even better in the future (see latest interview withMS/Asobo).
I have had in total 4-5 crash and one freeze during 57 hours I have had so far. I can live with that. Had no problems with download or patches at all.
Might be because i bought a new up to date PC and new high speed internet connection.
Also i am amazed that people are implementing mods at this early state, expecting that this not to effect the software.
I do respect your view that this is commercial software and should work right out of the box, but if this approach had been taken we would not have a MSFS at all or in a highly scaled down version. I much rather have the sim with the ambition and vision we have now with bugs and potential to evolve, than a Newyork and Seattle area sim with 5 planes where every little thing are working.
Most of all it boils down to expectations. You certainly expected this to quite complete and working.
When the launch date was announced I said to my self that I would be satisfied if the sim was in a 60-80% ready state.
For me I have had little problems and enjoying myself immensely.
As a tongue in cheek comment, flying the DR400 from Bordeaux to Arcachon works like a charm, you may be onto something with your reference to the home region and planes of the studio in charge
Credit where credit is due, Asobo have done a great job making the beginning of what COULD be an amazing flight simulation platform (It remains to be seen if Asobo is actually going to deliver for the simmers). But it was released early with too many bugs, and not enough support. They should be apologizing, and putting all hands on deck to get the product up to what was advertised.
People can make all the excuses in the world for them but it doesn’t change reality.
You are right, credit where credit is due…but also blame where blame is due.
I cannot for the life of me see what Asobo should gain from being the ones deciding to launch early. They know exactly the state of the sim and its shortcomings.
They are the ones that have to put right the bugs and finish the details. They have not financially gained anything from this “early” launch.
MS on the other hand need this to come out on xbox early next year, because they have fallen behind with other xbox games, and they need to se some return from their 3 year investment.
Someone high in the MS hierarchy have decided that MSFS needs to be launched by august 2020 and that Asobo better make it work. End of story…next item on the agenda.
I am pretty sure that Asobo have been/are ■■■■■■ that their baby had to be launched prematurely…and now they get the blame and have to put it right.
Having worked most of my life in big corporations, this is how they function. Reasonable…not at all, but executive careers are not made by setting reasonable objectives.
I am sure that had something to do with it, but it really doesn’t matter, it is what it is. I just want Asobo to acknowledge it and let us know when we can expect fixes to the new issues they have introduced in the last two patches. So far it’s been mostly radio silence, no overnight hotfixes for critical issues, just wait for the next update and hope it’s fixed.
While I do agree with the general sentiment of the OP, we do need to consider that there are multiple teams working on different aspects of the sim (blackshark for the world, meteoblue for the weather, Asobo for the core, etc etc). This way multiple aspects of the sim can be developed in parallel, and as someone above mentioned, you can’t instantly retrain a world developer to work on the G1000 implementation.
I think however, that this parallel development style might be the cause of most of the new bugs introduced. When working like this, you’ll need a really good management/consolidation layer in the organization (which should be on Asobo’s task list), to make sure that the different branches don’t end up creating new bugs while fixing old ones.
I think from the latest development update vlog we saw that they’re more aware of this now, which is probably why they’ve announced beta branches to make sure this won’t happen anymore (or at least, a lot less). I think they’ve heard us already, and are working on it.
In the mean time I’m still VERY impressed with the work they’ve done, and if that means flying mostly GA for a while, that’s ok with me. I’ve got a whole world to explore, and with the bush planes, I don’t even need airports.
Yes, I can imagine people who mostly want to fly tubeliners or the CJ4 are more displeased (and rightfully so), but I have hope for the future, and have plenty to have fun with in the sim as it stands currently.
I am impressed with what they’ve done so far too, and I don’t know about all the parallel teams stuff. I don’t really care about that, as a consumer I just want what I bought to work. Reality is what it is, no twisting of words or excuses changes that.
That said, it’s not just “tubeliners” that are broken, the autopilot systems in most of the GA planes are basically non functional for simulation purposes. I have tried using the G36 for realistic VFR (won’t even mention IFR problems they are numerous) flights and it just doesn’t work. You can hand fly sure, but that’s not realistic for long flights. I expect basic stuff like heading hold and alt hold to work at least… FLC and NAV hold ideally. The logic for this isn’t even complicated, it should be doable for them. Furthermore it was working prior to patch 2, it’s been broken since then. Now with patch 3 my camera just goes completely haywire and buttons are still being pushed randomly by AI/player pilots. This stuff needs to be hotfixed, it’s critical game breaking stuff.
For sight-seeing, basic VFR sure.. it’s been fun. There is still a long way to go to make it a proper sim though.
I have to say that you and your sim appear to have peculiar problems of your own.
Just to check I took the G36 Launceston to Davenport Tasmania, short VFR hop climbed using vs, no problem, used heading bug steering for a while no problem, set a direct to to Davenport and engaged nav mode, no problem. Landed uneventfully.
The direct to is still a problem. It works when you enter a waypoint and turn on NAV mode. But when you are on IFR with your route already on NAV and want direct to a waypoint on your FPL, as soon as your aircraft reaches it, it will turn back to the waypoint you have missed. I see for some it works, but for me it did never.
That is a „simple“ thing they could easly work on but instead they work on content nobody, at least the most of us, has ask for. And then it breaks other things. Fact for me is, the sim looks not so good as it looked at release. Double checked everything and tried some little workarounds from this forum but nope.
Imagine you spend money on a new car and after a month they say „hey, we take your indicators away because then your car is lighter“. That‘s what it is.
Some say Asobo has different teams to work on different things but then i ask, why they can‘t focus on these things?
I‘m still with this sim and of course it needs time, that‘s absolutely ok. But downgrade it and not fix bugs and issues that where there from day one isn‘t a good sign to make reals simmers happy.
For me it look like they do everything to get this thing working on console. It should never be on console in my opinion. It‘s called a Flight Simulator and me and the rest of the community are real simmers with interest in flying an aircraft as real as it gets and we are not searching for out houses and do random bs.
Sorry but i‘m a bit upset about they handle some things. Especially in this time window where they should focus on getting this sim going and not working on content. Leave that in first place to 3rd party devs.
We agree afterall! Maybe with quite a switch of perspectives: My experience with FSX was absolutely glorious and I never visited the forums, I just looked up for updates but never really needed them.
It seems FS 2020 give a much better experience to who prefers GA and VFR. But, as noted by @Rab1dSmurf, it fails to offer even the most basic automations that worked very well since FS95 (at least as I remember it). Seeing such basic and old features fail so many decades later is at least painfull. Not to mention the misteriously shutting down avionics and engines, no matter how buses are energised and fuel lines are pressurized.
(Now I learn that most of my crashes happen because I dared to enable player, real or AI air traffic…)
Maybe Asobo is waiting for 3rd party developers or the talented community to fix everything that is either broken or not working? They need a fully developed SDK for that venture, which by the way is still a WIP.
It’s really sad that we paid money for a game that is technically still in beta.
I’m enjoying the sim for what it does well. What is does well it does it better than any other sim I have. That’s a fully loaded P3D v4.5 & XP 11 and yet I still gravitate to this amazing sim.
This thread should have 2000 votes because it’s what Asobo should be focusing on, a basic working sim as advertised.
I just realized that in a couple of years at least one competitor flight simulator will feature Google Maps as default scenery. When this happens, MSFS will lose its only feature that makes it a killer app. If, by then, MSFS hasn’t not only fixed all its bugs but also included amazing new features, it will simply not sell anymore.
I thought that I could let this thread die after update 1.10.7. But then came 1.10.8… And we’re having different levels of CTDs. Me myself have a CTD at most after 5 minutes of flight. If I try to record with nVidia screen capture, the game crashes in less than 1 minute. For the record, at launch, I recorded hours of gameplay and even posted some on YouTube.
If this is not the definition of “unplayable”, I don’t know what is.
). So, I wont make another purchase right now.