According to yesterday’s Q&A, there will be a beta-test for SU 8. Based on the fact that the previous (hotfix) beta worked well for Steam users (not to say better than for some MS Store users), may I kindly ask to allow Steam users to participate in the beta for SU 8 again?
Thanks for considering.
I have a counter-question for you to answer. Why do we go to supermarket to buy vegetables and fruits and coffee? Supermarkets are the middle man. Even community markets are middle man. Why don’t we go straight to the cabbage farmers to buy cabbages, or drive to the coffee growers and buy coffee from them directly, or drive to the chocolate factory to buy one chocolate bar?
The answer is, simplicity. There’s no way I want to buy games directly from the developers/publishers. Because the number of different publishers and different installation process is a nightmare to maintain. Not to mention I have to keep serial numbers and keys and manage them separately.
Having Steam that becomes a marketplace platform where everyone can post their games in there is simple. I just need one Steam account, I buy it from there, and it automatically manages all the games that I’ve ever purchased. I can uninstall and reinstall anytime I want, and I don’t have to keep serial numbers and licenses separately. I don’t even need to keep installation media like DVDs anymore.
And if that simplicity costs some money that goes to them, then that’s the price to pay. Same way we also pay a portion of the price when we shop at supermarkets. It’s to pay them for their efforts to provide a platform and a place for us to just visit once and have access to all the produce and products that come from multiple people and organisations in one place rather than having to visit the producers directly one by one if we want something.
Now they know how to successfully deploy the beta to Steam, I see no reason why they won’t for what it’s a very important update.
Except they did explicitly say that they couldn’t promise that future flights would also be available on Steam.
LOL. The MSFS marketplace is a build-in middle man for 3rd party content where MS takes a cut from the money but i guess these are the good guys.
Ummm…So what you are saying is that it is practical to travel to every farm, ranch, garden, factory, assembly plant, etc…etc… to go grocery shopping? Your point makes little if any sense.
Look…You have this site. You have direct access to everything that you need right here. But yet people use a 3rd party that has no direct part in to any of these sims, and does not function well at least part of the time, and you don’t get the perks of getting your product here.
We sometimes have to use our heads when doing these things. Everyone readily knows the pitfalls of using steam.
If you like Steam and prefer using it then you know what it’s about. Why come to the forums to complain about something that you knew was going to be like this from previous experience?
And Mods…My point is very much on the subject. If Steam isn’t cutting it … It never has…then cut Steam out of the picture and voila! You have Beta!!!
Look guys, I’m not downing anyone. I’m just at a loss over the logic. I used Steam a few times but eventually I realized that it’s just not worth the aggravation.
Since the SU7 patch beta was available on Steam as well. I don’t see why this one wouldn’t be as well.
Please describe said problems. Because so far, Steam has been by far the most problem free platform outside of some rare DLC purchase issues and the “repair” option potentially forcing a re-download (easy to avoid if you know what you’re doing).
With Steam, you’re not dependent on the MS Store, XBox Live, the MS digital rights management service, and the plethora loosely connected moving parts all being updated in the correct order in order to use the sim. There’s no Rube Goldberg machine between you and playing your sim. You just have Steam and MSFS. Nothing else.
I’ve yet to see Steam issues that prevent people from using their sim. Yet with every update, there are dozens of threads that pop up from MS Store / physical media users about no longer being able to open their sim.
I use Steam for years and never had any issue. What perks am i not getting?
Please define “does not function well” and “perks of getting your product here”.
Outside of PC / Xbox Crossplay functionality with the MS Store, there’s absolutely nothing offered by the MS Store you don’t get from Steam. I’d venture to say that most Steam users knew this from the get-go and couldn’t care less because they don’t own an Xbox and don’t care to when they have a gaming PC already. Unless you consider keeping multiple different apps separately updated and in sync in order for the sim to work to be a perk.
Ditto. Been using it since the day it launched in 2003. Other than the initial growing pains, I’ve never encountered any issues with it. I like having all my software in 1 place, and will typically not even buy a game if it’s not on Steam. I’ve made very few exceptions to that rule over the last decade or so.
Steam is perfectly fine, the previous Beta worked well and if it is missed out during the SU8 Beta then questions will have to be asked (again). If the user above doesn’t use Steam then there’s no issue is there.
Whilst I’m here, Jorg said during the Q&A last night that they call it a “Flight”, please just accept it for what it is and call it a Beta, there’s no need to rewrite the wording used for software coding just for this Sim. The word Beta is known worldwide by many people from different languages, calling it a Flight has already led to confusion in the past and it’s really not worth it.
Not a first world problem by any means of course, just a little bugbear of mine!
What?
All the issues are with MS and steam users have gotten away lightly…
Much better and easier process.
I can see why this nonsense was flagged
Exactly. That was the issue in the past. They didn’t know how to properly deploy the beta to Steam. They were always so late to roll out a beta (typically 2 weeks before the actual launch of an update). With SU7 patch, they finally cracked that.
I honestly don’t see why they wouldn’t roll out any future versions to Steam as well, especially considering the new 2 month cycle between code updates. Like Jorg said, with this new model (no code updates with world updates), that now gives them a full 2 months of dev and testing time between patches.
Everything in what way? Microsoft/Xbox Store is just like every other store, like Steam. It has its own collection, sure but I doesn’t have “everything”. MSFS isn’t the only game I play. MSFS isn’t the center of my world. I play other games too. The Sims, Port Royale, all of the Star Wars games, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Cyberpunk, GTA games… Need I go on? None of these games that I want to play are sold in the Microsoft/Xbox marketplace. But they are in Steam along with MSFS too.
So why do I need to stay with this direct site/store that I “don’t” have access to everything I need while this 3rd party site or store “does” have everything I need including MSFS and its addons too?
Who’s complaining? I’m not complaining. SU7 patch beta test was open to Steam users as well, I know I was using the SU7 patch beta before. OP was just requesting the SU8 beta to be available as well like how they did with the SU7 patch too.
Yes, maybe we can discuss the pros and cons of MS Store vs. Steam in another thread. I just wanted to kindly ask MS to include Steam users into the upcoming beta. That’s it.
I agree with the OP of this topic. Stay on-topic.
This isn’t about what platform is better.
That’s my point. You can ask all day…Microsoft or Asobo isn’t going to put out beta on steam. People keep asking me what perks…You are proving my point.
You want beta??? Not through Steam. No perk…
What on earth are you talking about? They already had a Beta on steam… ie the previous one.
Indeed I 100 % agree the more people who test via ms store/steam together theres more chance of an overall variety of pc systems within the beta so in turn will provide more feedback/bug reports as for one user the sim will be fine but for another user an issue occurs
Please only give people that actually understand what beta testing is the ability to do so. We don’t need the fiasco that was the last public beta. We need people that actually want to test and report, knowing that they may encounter problems and complete reinstalls doing so. And most of all, we need MSFS to actually listen to those users and fix issues reported during beta before going to release (something not done in betas before the last post-SU7-public-beta).
One thing I find absolutely necessary for such type of testing is a complete backup of all simulator files, including the /Community folder. I do this twice a week, but from the previous beta there were indeed quite a number of “testers” who just didn’t have a backup.