Were Zendesk resources used at all when planning World Update 10? If so, what was the triage process?

During the planning/prep for World Update 10 USA, was there any data used from the Zendesk database that the Community has amassed?

Was there any consideration given to all of the Community input via Zendesk for airports that are broken that needed to be fixed?

We’ve been told that opening Zendesk tickets is the key to getting problems identified and triaged so that they can be fixed. I’d really like to know if there was any thoughts given to deficiencies that have been logged in Zendesk over the last two years.

For instance, did anyone check the database for International airports that were in bad shape that would benefit from a refresh while they were doing the second USA WU? If so, what kind of triage was utilized?

Here are 2 Zendesk tickets for KBWI, an international airport and hub for Southwest Airlines:

  • Ticket 34188, created August 20th, 2020.
  • Ticket 107166, created May 31, 2021.

As it appears in the base sim, the runway layout barely resembles the real airport 2 years after release of the title. Please note that I’m not talking about a cosmetic problem or building/object placement; the highest use runway is missing.

Runway 15R/33L is missing altogether and runway 4/22 is being displayed in the sim but does not exist anymore!

I would think that international airports with missing runways would have been high on the list for inclusion in World Update 10 (and World Update 2 for that matter).

Additional Info:
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/baltimore-washington-international-kbwi-still-missing-main-runway-15r-33l/368166/15?u=popsmcdaddyo

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Great observations however it’ll fall on deaf ears in line with Asobo’s reluctance to engage properly.

Also a long-standing bone of contention.

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MSFS is a Game in Development.
Doubt if any “offical” comments will result from the thread.
Game developers do not, usually, have much interaction with customers. They just let them vent, discuss and fume on some obscure forum on the web…and keep pushing out sales content.

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If I were to guess, no. This was a World Update, not a Sim Update. Logically,

  1. World Update data is provided typically by 3rd parties such as Black Shark, Gaya, and others, who likely do not have any view into Asobo’s database of bugs to be fixed. Obviously, the United States is huge, so the “World” update, is actually a selection of updates of small areas of whatever country they are covering in the update, the addition of a few POI models, and sometimes other improvements from Bing World data on a larger scale, but, still limited to relatively small areas, typically around a city. I have noticed that the Boston area seems to have been improved to some extent, but, I can’t say at all what other improvements were made, or that it is actually improved.

  2. Any fixes to airports would have been a consequence in a World Update of the integration of new Bing World Data. Integrating Bing World Data is extremely time consuming as it needs to manually fixed for many different things, and therefore is only done on a "smal"l scale across the world, a relatively small area at a time.

  3. Any fixes as you are requesting would be done by Asobo according to their priority, I would imagine most likely be released in a Sim Update as a consequence. Fixes to airports that were built automatically from Black Shark AI and Bing data is an interesting question. Do they attack airports individually to fix them, or do they wait until that area is scheduled to get an update from Bing Data, and therefore, does Bing Data even have accurate up to date information? It’s likely a combination of the two. But who knows.

Personally, I have a hard time believing they’ll explain in detail their bug triage process any deeper than they have already, it’s not like they have the time to do that, or that they could explain it in a context that could be understood by the general public.

I highly recommend you peruse the devsupport.flightsimulator.com forum. You’ll learn a lot about what the devs are thinking, and they are heavily involved in responding to threads on that forum.
You’re certainly welcome to redo the airport yourself (assuming you’re on PC and not Xbox). I’ve fixed a ton of airports, most of which I haven’t had time to prepare for release on flightsim.to, not to mention problems created by the Living World/Airport Services debacle that currently exists that makes it well nigh impossible to properly control ground traffic and services on an airport by airport basis. (Yes, you can do a little, but, until we can control Living World on an airport basis, it’s super frustrating working on anything but very large airports. I’ve never ever seen a bus or fire trucks just roaming the airports I fly into and out of for example, but there’s not really anything I can do about it without affecting the whole region.). I don’t feel comfortable releasing them without Living World fixes, but, including the “fixes” I’ve made would actually probably create more problems for users than they would fix.

It sure will be nice when Xbox users finally have access to the same addon resources that PC users have.

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Why should they… It is only a game and is there for “Profit”. No need to appease the masses as long as sales can be maintained at a reasonable level.

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I can’t speak to who has access to the bug tracker, but I can say that default airports are also done by a team from Orbx. (Note that this addendum to the World Update 2 release notes mentions Orbx.)

Airport fixes are often deployed in world updates. As you mentioned, many of them are a consequence of new data inside the boundaries of the world update. However, airport fixes outside of the world update area are also deployed in world updates, such as this update from World Update 8.

I don’t know why BWI was not fixed in this round. I don’t have visibility into what dependencies there are, etc. But I can assure @PopsMcDaddyo that it is in the bug tracker. So it will be fixed at some point, but unfortunately, I don’t know when.

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@FlyingsCool5650

I was asking about World Updates specifically because the response I got from my Zendesk ticket pointed me in that direction (notice the date, August 24, 2020, just 5 days after the title was released). Screenshot:

As far as “explaining in detail their bug triage process”, I never asked for that. I asked a much higher level question, the kind of question that has been asked and answered on Live Dev Q&As many times. To paraphrase, I asked if they checked with Zendesk when they were working on the 2nd USA World Update and if so, how did they pick what to include. Clearly, it wouldn’t take much time at all to answer that question, and I’m pretty sure anyone in the general public could understand the answer. It would go something like this:

No, we didn’t, but we should have. However, we have added this step to our prep process so we don’t miss it in the future.

@MeridianOwl4306 As far as “why they should”… they answer questions from the Community all the time. They must realize that there’s value in engaging with Customers; they even have a Director of Consumer Engagement ( @Skeedorr ) Screenshot:

To sum up why I asked the question in the first place:

  • KBWI has been severely broken since the sim was released. Severely.
  • I’ve submitted Zendesk tickets as we were told to do.
  • After 2 USA World Updates, and close to 2 years it hasn’t been touched.
  • I posted here hoping to bring attention to the fact that Zendesk has a HUGE list of airports that need attention and it is being ignored.
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and I also submitted Zendesk tickets shorlty after initial release of the MSFS Game concerning "Missing Bridges, Missing Interstate Bridge Spans and Cars traversing waterways under bridges but on top of water. Never a fix or response and that is why I said: It is only a game and is there for “Profit”. No need to appease the masses as long as sales can be maintained at a reasonable level.

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Understood!

Thank you for the reply @N316TS

I understand that the Moderators have limited visibility into the belly of the beast. I’m sure that access is limited to specific roles and on a need to know basis which makes perfect sense.

For the most part, the hope with a post like this one is that it gets escalated to a Community Manager and then to someone who can take action on it. In this case, there are 3rd part Devs who are equipped with exactly the right skill set to assist. And, they have resources available to handle it. But until it’s a blip on the right person’s radar, it may as well not exist😊

No problem!
We are not employees, so there is only so much we know.
That being said, I am 100% certain that there is a bug for this airport right now. I can’t access it but I can see the link to it. So rest assured that it is there.

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I TOTALLY understood what you were asking and why, and I answered with I think the most logical explanation as to why it didn’t get fixed in this WU. They likely didn’t do anything about airports or the terrain/Bing maps around Washington DC so it didn’t get coincidentally “fixed”. For instance, Concord NH is still missing the taxiway on 12-30 (but I recreated the whole airport to add it in). And it didn’t get fixed by Zendesk bug report because, as I said, the bug report proably wasn’t prioritized to be solved at this time. While, yes, I think they do also include some bug fixing like adding in forgotten airports, but, there’s so many, they can’t get to them all, so they somehow prioritize either totally missing airports first, or maybe they go through certain regions. It’s an ongoing process bug fixing. Add to that that airports change ALL the time, so the job is never ending. Just look at how many changes have been made to KBOS over the last 4 years.

That answer you got from Zendesk is ridiculous, as if the responder didn’t even bother to read your question. It’s just a marketing response and has nothing to do with bug fixing or development response, and it didn’t answer your question AT ALL.

As far as the development team interacting with the public, they never respond here. On purpose. They do, however read this forum extensively. As I said, they respond at devsupport.flightsimulator.com all the time, that’s the official development team access forum. They don’t answer everything, but they do answer a ton. I’ve gotten responses to many questions, and helped them out with information, too. Will they answer a question about a particular airport, not likely, that’s a little too granular, but, they might. They discuss features more. You might also get an answer to a question phrased regarding how they choose airports to fix vs adding in missing airports, and when… like, not when exactly, but, is that fixing done in WU’s vs SU’s, and how is stuff prioritized. I’ve seen missing airports be added in WU’s that are not in the host country of the WU.

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The best input about current triage is on Asobo´s website:

https://www.asobostudio.com/careers

A good bunch of job offers focused on MSFS have been recently posted. This is clearly on the scope of the following months because whenever they are hired some training will be needed first.

About old tickets they are most likely put on the list. We have tons on them open since months ago. There´s a bottleneck and not because they are not enough people to solve it but because they generated an insane amount of bugs during two years.

Cheers

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Thank you for the thoughtful, detailed reply. It got through my thick noggin this time😊 Not sure why I got a “bad read” on your other post, but I did. I apologize if my response was salty or had an edge to it.

I agree with all the points you made, especially about the Zendesk response being ridiculous! Also, about the appropriate place to ask that kind of question and the granularity of it; points well taken.

Thanks again for taking the time to put together a solid reply. I sure do appreciate it.

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I didn’t take your response badly. I wouldn’t have responded back if I had :slight_smile:

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