If I have a technical problem with a 3rd party mod or new aircraft, my first step is to find a forum and post it there.
Crickets…
Step 2 is to join the Discord and make a post with detailed information, troubleshooting steps, etc.
Crickets…
I know devs are busy, but isn’t Discord supposed to be a place the devs monitor? A place where humble users like me can hope for help? All I ask for is, “Hmmm, that’s a weird problem. Looks like you’ve taken the right troubleshooting steps. Let me think about it and get back to you.”
Not too much to ask, methinks…
I have a generally unpleasant taste in my mouth for Discord anyway, but I’m trying to play the game.
This forum does not seem amenable to asking devs for help.
What other options do I have?
Send them an email if they provide one or DM them if you are not getting them replying. The issue with Discord and Forums is it’s not a personal medium. You get others who are obviously not the dev trying to answer your question. Sometimes that helps but also I’ve seen many instances where either the responses are giving out wrong information or are just a waste of space. I suppose there is nothing wrong in only asking for dev replies if that is what you think is required.
I could be wrong, but I believe the policy here is that “devs” are not allowed to provide tech assistance…they must use their own channels/resources like Discord, Facebook etc. for that purpose. The Asobo devs do not provide tech support here either. We are asked to use Zendesk for that purpose.
PMDG answers their forums reasonably quickly. Got Friends has a Discord channel and they’re reasonably prompt too. When did you post? Was the dev in the US? This last weekend was the 4th of July and pretty much everyone was on holiday.
How long have you been waiting? Devs have lives too and you don’t know what may be happening at their end.
Some Dev’s are only a couple of people, so they can’t afford ticketing systems and their own dedicated support staff. Then again, its well documented that some, particularly in the marketplace are mediocre at best.
I posted the following on their Discord a week ago. No response.
I’m having a devil of a time mapping the landing lights switch in SPAD.NeXT for the (GotGravel MonsterNX Cub( and having it work properly. The pic on the left shows Event Viewer. When I run it that SimConnect event floods the screen. The one on the right shows the data value that changes when I flip the switch in the virtual cockpit. No matter what commands I assign to the HC Alpha switch, all that happens is the landing lights come on for a brief moment, then turn off. It’s as though the sim is sending a constant command to turn the lights off. I removed everything else from Community. I disconnected the Alpha and the Bravo. I made sure no other controls were mapping anything to Landing Lights. None of that changed anything. I’m kinda ‘in the dark’ about what’s going on here.
What we notice is that some users will first enquire literally everywhere other than via the official support channels and once the desperation level is high enough, they will finally go to the dev’s website and follow official support channels. You’ll rarely get a response from a 3rd party dev on Microsoft’s forums.
Most issues can be resolved quickly via Discord and it is often the easiest way for users to enquire about an issue. That is true.
From a dev’s perspective though, it becomes very hard to track and organize. When a dev is out and about (we’re humans too), ticket systems or well-organized and dev-controlled forums are way more efficient to deal with.
In our case (//42), we direct users to our Wiki that contains most common issues. Then we have a Discord server with user-to-user support where we chime in from time to time and finally, for more specific issue, we direct users to our ticket system.
Be really careful when posting on the PMDG forums. I own their B737-700. I criticized them for a rude post they made and I got banned. Just be careful what you post. They don’t like criticism.
Devs want their customers to be happy, but they have families, children, a day job (sometimes), and sometimes they just want to go out with their friends for a beer or three.
The hot water heater breaks, a child breaks a leg, the car dies on the expressway, their dev system decides to start giving off that magic smoke and sometimes things go all pear-shaped in ways we don’t expect.
They’re human, with human problems, and we need to be patient and respectful too.
If this was baseball, I’d already be outta the game here 'cause I’ve racked up enough “warnings” to get me banned from three forums! (Maybe it’s my twisted sense of humor? They’ve been remarkably patient with me.)
In any event, it’s their forum and their rules and as a guest there, you are oblidged to be on your best behavior.
I don’t know what, or how it was said, so I am not competent to have an opinion.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s not the criticism but rather the delivery?
I don’t know. That’s between the two of you but I haven’t noticed that. I have never seen them to be anything other than polite, professional, and courteous to both others and myself.
I have many different landing lights working but I don’t have that aircraft so can’t help with this one. It should be possible unless they are another dev who lacks awareness in making their aircraft play nice for external control.
Forums on this site are for general discussion only, this is a requirement from MS as per forum TOS.
As @runshotgun mentions, I’d always go with the official direct channel first.
Discord is very hit and miss I find. Some Discords/Devs you can almost instantly be in touch with the main devs (for different reasons, and you need to treat that with respect), other requests get lost in a sea of general conversation so it’s pot luck sometimes, especially if it’s a narrow technical question that requires specific expertise/knowledge.
GG’s discord is a pretty busy one, so that’s kind of pot luck sometimes I think, through no fault of their own. It’s just the nature of Discord, it’s great for synchronous, but quickly gets messy at asynchronous conversations with multiple threads going on, and then it becomes channel trouble with tribbles type thing trying to manage that.
Go direct via link above, but it is a free product so you can’t be too grabby about things missing in them you’d like.
Bugs, though, are another issue and if you can provide a good replicable case for a real issue then they are typically always welcome (well, welcome but not welcome hahaha, but always good to know about!)
about what’s going on here.
They’ve been remarkably patient with me.)
