5 hours ago, nickhod said:

I can understand the argument that uncontrolled pay to test is useless. But, explicitly saying "if you have 32gb and a 2080ti you can pay $___ to test. 1000 spaces available, first come, first served".

I don’t think that would achieve what they’re looking for. By having a closed, by-selection, alpha they are able to choose a wide range of hardware standards to test on which probably wouldn’t happen if it was down to who was quickest to apply and had plenty of money. There’d be nothing worse than finally releasing a sim which only ran on the highest power gaming systems, especially as that’s not what most gamers have.

3 hours ago, nickhod said:

Why did it take 1000 people to make GTA V and "only" 100 to make MSFS?

I thought I read that there were 200 working on the sim? But to answer your question, they don’t just make GTA V. Rockstar have produced many AAA games with more in the pipeline and not just for the PC. GTA V was released for XBox (360 & One), PlayStation (3 & 4) and Windows - different ecosystems which would need different development teams and skills. Also, are you absolutely certain that 1000 people worked exclusively on GTA V? Where many of them not working on other projects as well?

2 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I would say instead that Flightsim users are the most hard to please of any gaming genre.

You’ve clearly never been on a racing sim forum! “The wing mirrors are not quite the correct shape”, “the brakes don’t quite heat up at the rate the real cars do”, “the windscreen wipers don't seem to move at the same speed as the real car”, “the pit crew are not standing in quite the right place", “I’m sure the grass is slightly darker at Silverstone”. I could go on!

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by vortex681

23 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

I thought I read that there were 200 working on the sim?

http://en.wikigta.org/wiki/Credits_(GTA_V)

https://starcitizen.tools/Development_Team More than 500 currently working directly on Star citizen

23 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

You’ve clearly never been on a racing sim forum! “The wing mirrors are not quite the correct shape”, “the brakes don’t quite heat up at the rate the real cars do”, “the windscreen wipers don't seem to move at the same speed as the real car”, “the pit crew are not standing in quite the right place", “I’m sure the grass is slightly darker at Silverstone”. I could go on!

I am on them, occasionally..... maybe it's a prejudice of mine, but those arguments never seem quite as hard headed as I see within this genre.

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

2 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

http://en.wikigta.org/wiki/Credits_(GTA_V)

This isn’t an official Rockstar website, it’s just a fansite. Also, even if correct, the list includes admin personnel, HR support, IT support, many in the publishing team, many (many!) testers and a long list of “special thanks” mentions.

2 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

This isn’t an official Rockstar website, it’s just a fansite. 

A Rockstar exec said in an interview that it was more than 1000

http://www.gamechup.com/gta-5-dev-team-size-more-than-1000-manpower-dependent-on-game-detail/

I think some people are confusing 'testing' with 'early access' here. Now it is true that if you are part of a software testing program, you will indeed get to experience part of the software early, but that's a completely different thing to where one buys a semi-complete version of the thing under an early access agreement, which you can then basically have any kind of fun you like with.

I'll give you an example of some testing I did for a well-known payware Boeing 737 for FSX a few years ago: Each time a new version was presented to the testers, we were asked to fly a specific flight plan, on specific weather settings, with many other parameters being the same for each tester, and to do this numerous times. In this way, the makers could be sure that everyone testing the thing were all 'on the same page'. And you were expected to write up a report on your experiences too. so, not quite the 'I get to play with it early' carefree experience many like to imagine testing stuff actually is.

Now granted, if you did this, there was not much stopping you from from doing some additional flights of your own for fun, but some systems which were not implemented in the build would mean attempts to do stuff outside of the test scenarios wouldn't always work. So you really had to want to do the testing, and this is what proper testing is very often like. It is a far cry from buying an early access version of a game which might have a few as yet to be implemented features, but is basically playable for fun.

Of course not all software tests are like this, but many of them are.

3 minutes ago, Chock said:

'I get to play with it early' carefree experience many like to imagine testing stuff actually is.

The leaked video seemed to show someone doing exactly that. Messing around in MSFS care free, not structured testing.

Maybe some testers have some arduous testing regime they have to follow, but I'm sceptical.

If it's not early access, the same as every other game, it sure looked a lot like it.

44 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

You’ve clearly never been on a racing sim forum! “The wing mirrors are not quite the correct shape”, “the brakes don’t quite heat up at the rate the real cars do”, “the windscreen wipers don't seem to move at the same speed as the real car”, “the pit crew are not standing in quite the right place", “I’m sure the grass is slightly darker at Silverstone”. I could go on!

Are you are an iRacer too, then?

1 minute ago, Jazz said:

Are you are an iRacer too, then?

No, I prefer something more realistic like Assetto Corsa Competizione!

4 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

I'm not sure, isn't the release tied anyway, to the next installment of the XBox gaming platform as a whole? I thought that MSFS was one of the launch titles for that?

Nope, they have never said it would be a launch title for the Xbox, only that the Xbox version is coming after the PC one. I think some people in different forums have been getting confused with Xbox Studios (the umbrella division in Microsoft for all Xbox and PC game studios) vs Xbox console.

4 hours ago, nickhod said:

Why did it take 1000 people to make GTA V and "only" 100 to make MSFS? Surely head count on a team is a reasonable indicator of the complexity of a project.

The complexity with GTA V comes from the multiple platforms it runs on and the detailed modelling of the city in the game. It would be like having the new sim developed for Macs and Playstations while also having all cities and airports modelled to the highest degree. Basically both projects are complex, but in different areas that require different numbers of people.

7 hours ago, nickhod said:

I don't think the way the alpha testing scheme is set up makes commercial or marketing sense.

Yes, many other games do a early access.  They do it to raise money.  And some of those don't raise enough money and never release or stop progressing.

Microsoft/Asobo don't need to raise money.  This is a good thing, as they have a good budget.

So why are they doing an Alpha?  To test it, of course.  If they did an Early Access, they would have to announce a price.  Which they are not ready to do.  This would also mean that only those that can pay the price can test the sim.  This means you wouldn't get feedback from the poor.  This means that your testing is biased as you only get richer people that can gamble on a unfinished product.  Now you might say, if they can't afford EA, then they won't buy the game.  This is not true.  Not until the end will they announce all the features, those final features will help sell the product.

There are other flaws with Early Access.  It is essentially a kick starter for the game, but you can play it while it is being developed.  But in some ways it can be worse.  I have seen many games that were great at one point in Early Access.  So people buy in at that point.  They play for more than two hours, so now they can't return it.  Then the devs change the game, and it just loses its magic, and never gets it back.  Those users are stuck.  I am not saying all games, nor this sim, just it is another risk of Early Access.  Personally I don't buy pre orders, and I don't buy Early Access.  So this Alpha would have excluded me and my feedback.  

Speaking of feedback, you implied that users want to play it early.  This is not true of all users, nor even all Alpha testers.  I am not in the Alpha to play it early.  I signed up because I wanted to give feedback.  I wanted to help make sure that it was a great sim in the end.   So giving feedback was my primary reason for signing up.  

Next, you say they should have not done any external testing.  Which is the idea that since you can't test that nobody should be able to, as you made it clear you wanted to test.  But that aside, doing that limits your testing severely.  They have said that one of the big reasons they are doing this, is for the dedicated flight sim community and pilots.  You won't find many game testers that are dedicated flight simmers, and pilots.  So if they do in house testing, they aren't testing for the final demographic.  You would be asking non-pilots if they thought the 172 was doing a spin when it should.

Bottom line, this is the way you test a product if you want testing unbiased by money, and you want feedback from your actual target audience world wide.

20 minutes ago, goates said:

Nope, they have never said it would be a launch title for the Xbox, only that the Xbox version is coming after the PC one. I think some people in different forums have been getting confused with Xbox Studios (the umbrella division in Microsoft for all Xbox and PC game studios) vs Xbox console.

No, that was not what I meant. I wasn't talking about the console, but about the XBox Studios gaming platform (Game Pass?) that handles/will handle PC and console alike. I thought there was something about a (re?)launch of the PC part later this year, and that the latest Halo, MSFS and others were meant to be available as launch titles. 

Best regards

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by Lorby_SI

6 hours ago, b737800 said:

I think I fell from the same branch. First wife 10 years younger, current wife 26 years younger. Third wife not born yet. Will update when data available (and homework done).

Don’t think I could ever be with someone that much younger than myself. I’ve only ever dated within a couple of years and my wife is 2 months younger lol

1 hour ago, GlideBy said:

Yes, many other games do a early access.  They do it to raise money.

And to get feedback and improve the game.

Lots of replies seem to be along the lines of "they couldn't do early access, they need proper structured testing".
If your plan for formal, structured testing is recruiting randoms off the interwebs, you're crazy.

This is early access, but only for the chosen few

1 hour ago, GlideBy said:

I am not in the Alpha to play it early.  I signed up because I wanted to give feedback.

By playing it early, or you would have waited to give feedback when it launched.

1 hour ago, GlideBy said:

Next, you say they should have not done any external testing.

No, I said I would have preferred them either to have let everyone test, no one test, or been totally up front about entry requirements and made it first come, first served.

People have made some good counter arguments on here, and I agreed with some of them, but overall I still prefer the way the vast majority of games handle their pre-release launch.

9 hours ago, nickhod said:

Possibly unpopular opinion, and of course completely biased by me not being an alpha tester...

 

You will get your early access for MSFS 2020 as early as October this year. Relax and enjoy your wait time!