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Looking back on the first 32 hours....


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  • Aerosoft

As some of the more seasoned forum visitors will know, I sometimes try to sort out the many things in my head by writing about them with a glass of wine in my hand and some jazz in the background. Art Blakey in this instance. My wife asked me to put on my headphones.   And in case you think I am snotty and pretentious, this is what I am drinking my wine from right now.

 

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Yes Mulan. Sue me....

 

Simple Traffic was special. From the moment Jeff showed it to me I knew it had everything one of those rare super selling products need. It just needed to be 'packaged'. We needed to make sure people understood it does not make AI traffic in MSFS better, it just makes it look better. Sounds simply but it is not. Forum comments show that some customers expect the product to more then we know it could do. That is why we spend many weeks introducing it. Sharing the strengths and limitations. Simple Traffic adds paint to the AI aircraft, as geographically correct as possible. Nothing more. That is why it is called Simple Traffic and that is why it costs just €12.50. That is what it is worth. Asking double would be incorrect.  Skipping over SU5, months of problems, we come to Nov 15. Release day. All the previewers (expect two that seem to preview AI traffic and not Simple Traffic) were positive, the shop was ready, the files were ready. So we set the product free. 

 

For the developer(s) and project manager this is always a hugely stressful moment. What you worked on for months is now in the hands of the customers.  It is my experience you know in the first 30 minutes how a product will do. If you sell a lot you have momentum and resources to solve issues. If sales are slow everybody (devs, our staff, customers, reviewers) look for the next high. Note the word 'high'. Because believe me, when you got a winner, it is a high. Everybody involved feeds of the energy, we share sales data shout at each other at the first 500, 1000. 1500 sales. For Aerosoft it means we make solid money, for the developer it can mean very serious money. So everybody is hyped and working flat out helping customers, solving issues.

 

And Simple Traffic was a winner. Still is. Sells like hot buns on cold morning.  Will be in the top three of our best selling products this year. Even it was released in week 46 (thanks Jonas).

 

But with selling large numbers you get a large amount of problems. Very soon we noticed there was an issue with serials send to external shops. we worked on that and around 20:00 we though we had it licked. Wrong, took till 09:00 this morning. A major issue of poop happening. An embarrassment to our partners and their customers.  Solved. 

 

We also had customers (84 people we are in contact with but we know it is a lot more) who could not load the sim with Simple Traffic loaded. Now skipping over many hours of experimenting, customers calling us very nasty words, many emails and calls to people who know about this stuff, we have a solid idea on what happens.  We also have a plan to solve it.  That plan could mean we do nothing and wait 48 hours.  Hint hint.  A very good question is why did was not detected in the tests. I honestly do not know. It is something Jouka (my test lead) and I will look at next week.  What I can say is that have been using Simple Traffic for a few months and simply never had ANY problem. That might have lured me into feeling secure. And in software development that is a mistake.

 

I (we) also had the 'deal' with the very nasty comments from AIG users. I honestly do not understand that. We have been saying along we like that product, we have no problems with it and think many people should use it and not buy Simple Traffic.  

 

By now now my Blake playlist is out and I am on Thelonious Monk. Trading up according many jazz lovers.

 

So where are we now?

 

Well, both Jeff and Aerosoft are  very happy to have one of those rare super sellers. With the CRJ you simply knew we would sell a lot, with this one all stars had to be aligned. They did. The plan is to sort out the not loading issue first of all, of course. If that is by us fixing the add-on or the sim fixing the add-on, same thing. Same result. Of course that will not solve every issue, but we will be able to proof that on a clean OS, clean MSFS the add-on will work.  After a release the first thing you want to do is stabilize. When that is done Jeff got some files that adds coverage to more airports ready. At the same time we will send the product to Microsoft to be included in the Marketplace. Because that is where this product will REALLY take-off.

 

Miles, take if away... I need some Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Did you know he recorded that fully improvised while looking at the movie? He literally was on a recording stage without any score, watching the movie and 'invented' the music? 

 

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  • Aerosoft
1 minute ago, Thijs010 said:

Really have so much respect for Mathijs handling these processes. Thumbs up! Thanks for your wonderful products. Enjoy your wine Mathijs!

 

Thijs, when I am still working at 23:07 local I tend to agree. But honestly? We are all still riding the high. And trying to sort the issues.

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Thanks for the insights. Honestly, I asked myself why this has not been detected in the tests...but sometimes it's just bad luck. The long loading times suck, no question about it. But Aerosoft would not be Aerosoft if They would not be able to fix this. In the meantime, we have to be patient.

 

Thanks for the hard work and greetings from KATL (yes, it sucks that ST does not work at my home airport)

 

 

 

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Interesting read.

 

Nothing surprises me with this simulator to be honest including unexpected issues.

 

I spent several months working on something that transformed The Lake District in the UK, it looked amazing. Asobo did an update and broke it unfortunately and I just lost interest in doing anything after that so I have a great deal of admiration for people who do add ons of any kind for the sim. 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Deputy Sheriffs
2 hours ago, Aerologic said:

I asked myself why this has not been detected in the tests...but sometimes it's just bad luck.

And sometimes it is nearly impossible. E.g. we had a product which didnt load for some users. So I decided to buy it and experienced the same issue. One of the team bought it also and had no issues. Strange at all. Then we found out that my version bought from the dev/publisher directly had files which were not included in the version sold on the marketplace and this was the version loading without a problem.

And we had several other products which loaded for one person but not the other. And with over 20.000 airports in the sim plus their replacements through 3rd party (payware/freeware), ou have so many combinations it is more good luck to find out those which are not working.

But mean while an update is availabe which adresses also the upcoming ... you guess what ;) , and the problems should be solved.

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Just tried the update, seems to be working well on my system. We just need Asobo to sort out the ludicrous behaviour of the models now, pirouetting aircraft at a hold short line being an obvious issue.

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  • Deputy Sheriffs
4 minutes ago, cbc said:

pirouetting aircraft at a hold short line being an obvious issue.

Like this:
 

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  • Developer
6 minutes ago, cbc said:

Just tried the update, seems to be working well on my system. We just need Asobo to sort out the ludicrous behaviour of the models now, pirouetting aircraft at a hold short line being an obvious issue.

 

Hi cbc

 

Glad to hear it's working. Thanks for reporting back, and thanks for your patience while we got it sorted.

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