I never understood the desire to preorder a digitally downloaded game in the first place. Yeah, you got a plane a couple of months early to fly in 2020, but you couldn’t use it for its intended purpose (wasn’t it a firefighter?) and we’ve already got hundreds of planes to choose from.
If this was some small, independent developer I could understand trying to help keep them funded. But this was Microsoft – this sim was coming out whether you bought it or not. All you did was allow them to earn interest on your money instead of keeping it for yourself.
They knew they had a certain established number of sales before it ever went out the door, so they could release it in any state of readiness, and few very people would go to the trouble of requesting refunds. Most folks would just eat the cost.
Now imagine without those advance sales and knowing the reception it was going to get right away (and yes, they knew!), how much do you think sales would have been impacted once the truth about the condition it was in started spreading? Perhaps they would have spent more time on QA and actually run a public beta before releasing.
So remember this in 4 or 5 years when the next version is getting ready to come out and make them actually deliver a working product before dropping your money on it.
My experience has been that the game installed as it should and most of what was apparently the matter with it turned out to be my failure to understand what needed to be done and indeed how the game works.
I have it working pretty much as it should now, but I have to say that a User Guide would have been extremely helpful, removing the need to look for answers from mostly equally uninformed new users, also finding their way towards a correct setup.
I certainly have great empathy with those who did not have four years of experience with the first version, which at the very least, gave an insight into the way that the developers intended the game to be configured and where the limitations were likely to be found, such a broadband connection speed, the lack of which has plagued me since August 2020.
I agree that some some documentation would go a long way. I cannot fathom that a software product of this complexity has ZERO documentation available. Even if they’d just tell us what the available commands do. Many of them are aviation terms and I can google those, but some of the sim specific ones are not intuitive and you just have to guess or use trial and error to figure them out.
But there are also genuine bugs that severely hamper or even prevent portions of gameplay. For example, mouse freelook is still totally unusable on Xbox and many of us rely heavily on this. Also, I tried to use career mode but could not pass the test flight because the wheel chocks could not be removed. So that portion of the game is totally inaccessible to me at this time.
I think your taking this lol " painting with a broad brush" here. Well I understand what your saying but your talking about Microsoft flight sim. Looking back over the years not just 2020 do they have a history? Yes and its good not bad. Granted looking back over a few years the “put out a game when its still alpha/beta” is the normal. This is sad.
If we look at what they did with the release of MSFS 2020 that was a huge leap they took and was awesome! Keep posting the bugs sure but… the game is out so… keep complain if we want but that won’t help at all. I preorded this I never knew about the “streaming part” or I would never have ordered it. I did get my money back they were very nice about that. I did rebuy it but soooooo much cheaping then I paid the 1st time. Its a flight sim… bugs nor not… man you have to have it haha
I knew I was going to buy this, no matter the state, and that it would be sooner rather than later. I have a hobby budget (I’m on a pension) and had some left for the month, so it made sense to spend the money then rather than have to wait another month when I may or may not have any spare funds.
After the initial launch, stuck in a queue, things settled down really quickly for me, and it has gone from strength to strength. Sure it could be a lot more polished, but that’ll happen over time.
I’m old enough to know that I don’t have a lot of simming years left:)
Hesitated to pre purchase but for example and amongst many such flights, a bug free tour of the Glacier National park in the Hype H165 in VR proved what fantastic value for money I received.
Didn’t take too much patience and tolerance either
Meh, I had PD pre-ordered and still waited until about 12 days later to finally install it. Took 20 minutes and have been tinkering in career, bugs be ■■■■■■ I haven’t had a single crash. My main regret is that for some unknown reason I clicked one little button and uninstalled 2020 so had to slog through that re-installation, it was due for a house cleaning anyway.
I’ll eventually roll fully into it, doesn’t really matter either way when I bought it. I will say being so darn smooth(almost dizzying so) it’s good to know my PC is good to go for at least 4+ years.
And then what, earn a few cents of interest on my money while waiting a few weeks? I knew I wanted to use it on release and I had faith in them sorting out serious launch problems in a reasonable time - and they did.
Perhaps they would have spent more time on QA and actually run a public beta before releasing […] So remember this in 4 or 5 years when the next version is getting ready to come out and make them actually deliver a working product before dropping your money on it.
How long should that public beta have lasted, how much more time should they have spent before release? Who determines when the product is “working”, public beta participants, 3rd party devs because their 2020 add-ons aren’t fully working due to bugs in the backwards compatibility? What are the criteria for reaching the status “working”?
Yes, the launch was bumpy. I have enjoyed 2024 after the server issues of the first days had been solved. It doesn’t make any difference to me if I spend that amount of money a few weeks earlier or not. And it doesn’t make any difference to me if some of those bugs get fixed now or in a few weeks or months. It’s not unplayable for me after the server issues have been solved. I can live without having all of my 2020 add-ons working in 2024 right now.
They have demonstrated for years that they want to fix bugs and improve MSFS. We received a huge amount of free updates and new content. Have they fixed each and every issue in 2020? No, of course not. They never will able to do that. The same will happen with 2024. There will be bugs and there will be improvements. Not pre-ordering won’t change a thing regarding a “working product” on release day.
Preordering might not be the right thing for you but I don’t regret it.
The date of release was never going to move. Matt Booty stated as much in the XBox Showcase Aftershow in 2023. (He said “No, it is going to release in 2024. It has 2024 in the title”).
This was a huge undertaking with many many independant teams, not all of them trained in life cycle management. Keep in mind, many of our third party developers just started out based on their love of aviation and simming. Ingestion into the marketplace was supposed to happen in July. Fixes were supposed to be made. August 3rd party developers were supposed to get the SDK. Instead ingestion didn’t start happening 3 weeks before launch. 3rd party developers didn’t get the final SDK until a couple days before launch. They were running behind to meet a date they didn’t have any control over.
But whether there were pre-orders or not, this was going to happen any way. So I’m finding myself not agreeing with any of the premise of the original post. Not only that, it feels a little like the OP is blaming he had a bad time on launch day because people pre-ordered. He doesn’t come out and state that, but he is saying that if there were no pre-orders, they might have moved the release.
Ultimately, people have to make their own choices for their own lives, based on the factors they have available at the time. Fate happens after that, and one persons choice does not tangentally effect you.
The game has worked all but flawlessly for me since day 2. I’ve flown mostly free flight, only dabbling in career and photography a bit, and stuck generally to a handful of my favorite planes, so maybe I’ve just been shielded from problematic areas, but as the other poster stated, it’s been working pretty much as it should. I see my friend in multiplayer. I see live traffic. I’ve not had a crash to desktop. All of my HOTAS controls are set up (after a bit of experimenting to figure out the new control settings ui) how I want them. My TrackIR worked automatically. I’ve not experienced any game-breaking bugs in any airplane I’ve flown yet.
I certainly don’t discount that many people have had many problems and encountered many bugs. But there are also those of us who’ve had pretty much none.
I never understand why people feel the need to start a thread with ‘why I never preorder….’ Personally I’ve enjoyed the collective carnage of launch, I’m part of a great and humorous Discord group that recognise this is just a game. Also, as disappointed as I was with the launch and the server issues, I’m here to support Asobo in the long term and have no issues assisting in the advancement through Zen tickets and forum feedback.
You’re absolutely right in the case of a company not delivering on their promises at all.
But thats not the case here. If you expect a polished perfect product on launch these days, you are probably a child.
The pre-order money does get re-invested in the people polishing up the sim, just like they did in 2020. The real question is, do you trust microsoft / asobo to deliver in the mid- to long term.
And the answer is yes. This is why you can pre-order if you want.
