Discussion: April 1st, 2021 Development Update

This week’s development update has been released:

Use this thread to discuss the Development Update

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Good news about the beta tests. Also I am wondering, it seems these new simvars either for PMDG or QW :eyes:

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A lot of people will be happy with the pre release test. I’m down to test on behalf of many

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@Jummivana Just a very small typo, thanks for the update!

COMMUNITY SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE
his past week we…

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For the love of everything in the universe, please please please…pretty please…test WU4 thoroughly before releasing it. I’ve been a big fan and mostly silent on criticism until, firstly, the flaps debacle and secondly, the performance issues that a lot of us suffered following the release of WU3.

So, again… test test test test…for the love of Pete, test!

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Disappointing to see that the next sim update has moved from early April to mid-April but it was expected. Has the foot been taken off the gas on VR development? The 2021-2022 timelines aren’t a good sign.

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Definitely a step towards the right direction. XP and DCS World have been doing this for years. Matter of fact the latter have more customers using their Open Beta on a regular basis than the Stable. Good decision.

and for A2A, Milviz, Majestic, Leonardo, JustFlight, iniBuilds, TFDi, Aerosoft, HoldMyBeer, FlightFactor, Simcoders, Carenado, Aerobask, FlyingIron, TorqueSim, Hotstart…let’s hope it’s for all :smiley:

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Is there any news regarding stuff getting in the marketplace today?

They are probably having trouble getting the data because of the Xbox outage, it happened again in a few other development updates recently.

Uhh… @Jummivana just wondering if you know where the new/updated marketplace items are for this week? Not seeing them in the update

Asobo / Microsoft - I mean this with all due respect, but I was very, very disappointed with your announcement of having a sign up for 300 people to help test WU4, for numerous reasons.

  1. it’s way, WAY too late to start testing World Update 4. WU4 should be done at this point - it should be in “final polishing”. There is simply no way 2 weeks is enough time to accomplish anything. These people should already be starting to test for WU5, not WU4.

  2. I’m very disappointed that you’re opening this to a “random pool of testers”. You should already have TONS of data form the Alpha on a) who were testers that found multiple bugs across multiple systems, b) who bothered to write detailed bug reports, c) who has hardware / addons that represent a wide cross section of the population and d) who are real world pilots with real experience (sorry, you need to be focusing on actual pilots at this point). Throwing this data away and starting with a new pool seems like a really, really poor decision. Not “data driven” like Microsoft purports to be helping customers move to.

  3. I’m SUPER concerned that if you think 2 weeks of testing prior to final release is acceptable then you’ve been brainwashed into thinking Agile methodologies work on huge, complicated projects like this. THEY DON’T. Might explain a lot about the major issues you’ve run into though.

Long and short, this seems more like a publicity stunt and “covering your butts” than an actual attempt to make things better. What’s going to happen - people are going to sign up tomorrow, start finding major bugs the day after tomorrow (if not sooner), and then what? You don’t have time to fix them in the 2 weeks until release.

These people honestly should be starting to test WU5 at this point. You have started on that already, right? Right?

I do (honestly) think this is a move in the right direction, but trying to do this now for WU4 implies things behind the scene that have me very worried.

Final question / comment - are you using automated testing procedures? You should be automating as much testing as possible. A computer can absolutely be programmed to take off , fly around for a few hours, and verify there aren’t memory leaks and/or performance issues compared to prior releases. I’m sure there’s ton of other automated testing that could be accomplished also. Betas should only be released to your beta teams AFTER it’s gone through basic, automated testing.

Again, I mean this with all due respect. I really, really want MSFS to be everything it can be. But the poor track records on having major bugs during releases, seeing you recruiting for testers 2 weeks before a major release, and the glacial pace of fixing bugs that have been present for well over a year is starting to make me really cynical that this isn’t ever going to get there.

Scott

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Test WU4 thoroughly? It’s due out in 2 weeks, and they’re just now thinking about signing people up to test. That should’ve been done 6 weeks ago.
Scott

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I agree with what SPowell42 said. It seems too late to start a beta of something that is due to release in two weeks. And MS/Asobo will select 300 people, what will be the criteria? If it’s just PC specs, Asobo will run the risk of selecting a bunch of ‘noobies’ who will sign up only to have the update before everyone else and who will not report bugs if they find one. The same noobies that MS/Asobo let participate in the MSFS beta and had no idea how to fly an aircraft.

I think the best option would be an open beta. So, people would be able to test and see if the update ‘broke’ something in the simulator and if that happened, they could easily go back to the ‘stable’ version and stay there until MS/Asobo fixes the problems. Something that would please everyone and that should be done since the beginning.

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the problem with OB is you will have a lot of false feedback because of people that run mods and dont understand that it may conflict with next update

Check EuroTruckSim2/AmericanTruckSim for example
Each time new OB stats there is A LOT of bugs report from people that still plays with incompatible mods, making the devs wasting their time

I’m curious to know tomorrow how they’ll select their beta participants, but they should make them fill a survey to make sure they understand what it means to be part on a BETA.
And that its not only people that wants stuff before others

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One thing should be clear to MS/Asobo, if they again,
let only childish players and not “real flightsimmers” take part at that test,
the results will as disappointing as the release version!
Looking at the testers PC system as a criterion isn’t the right way!

Scott,simmer for twenty years.

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What is the right way in your opinion? Shouldn’t a Spec/drivers/settings comparison be a place to start from?

Or a very closed one - limited to professional developers and testers (know how to document/partly investigate bugs), real pilots (know if the planes feel right) , and experienced simmers.

It depends how much is in the “World Update”. AFAICS this is just an upgrade of the scenery on a fairly stable system. It’s the system updates that are problematic.

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Hi Scott
I wonder if you wouldn’t be disappointed either way. In your scenario WU4 will be delayed till the end of spring.
Why can’t you just accept the fact that Asobo is working their asses off to get the sim as soon and as stable as possible to us and that this is what it is.
You could choose to just let it mature and enjoy the ride with them and your fellow simmers. Or you could choose to put this sim aside for a year and come back after that to see how it’s developed. I don’t see the point why you vent your opinion in this way. What do you hope to achieve?

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GhostlyFrend,
That’s the way i see it too. (PC Intel core I7 10th gen, 64 gb ram, Geforce RTX 2070 super, only Win10 en MSFS installed) Mostly IVAO online flying and funflying with the Spit and Arrow III) I’am a flightsimmer of the first hour (mid 80’s). What Assobo/MS had achieved till now is great. I’am not complaining. It’s getting better and better. And if, time to time, a small stuttering during flight, what the hell…

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