Hello, are you listening?

[OTTOL]

........just finished commenting on the many faults of the Standard ATP checkride in 2002 in F$-02' Forum. .........got me thinking(scarry thought).   Does anyone know of a site or link, for constructive critism for the M$ design team?

[Katahu]

MICROSOFT + Bill Gates = Corporate Greed

[Travis]

Well, if they didn't, we wouldn't have really nice FS stuff anymore.  We'd still be playing with a mouse and keyboard, and all the aircraft would look like cessnas.  Don't underestimate the power of a single voice.

[Paz]

Yah but I'm afraid it won't make a blind bit of difference because m$ are rich enough not to listen their loyal public :-/

 I'm gonna have to agree with this to a certain extent, I remember having some problems a while back, it wasn't with flight sim but some other Microsoft product, anyway, I e-mailed the support guys about whatever problem it was I was having and the response I got was basically saying "That's not our problem." No further suggestions or explainations either, since then I don't bother asking M$ anything, I look elsewhere for answers.
 If you send them an idea or suggestion, you will get a response telling you that "Microsoft does not take suggestions from the general public."

[Poseidon]

Well, if they didn't, we wouldn't have really nice FS stuff anymore.

However try to imagine what the quality would be if it was not a monopoly.

P.S. ... and then what machines we would need to run those products (lol).

[Politically Incorrect]

Yah but I'm afraid it won't make a blind bit of difference because m$ are rich enough not to listen their loyal public :-/

Me too, I agree!!
When I first got FS9 i couldn't get the real world weather to download (many postings here) so I contacted M$.
They replied quite often but trying to blame everything else except themselves (my ISP, settings, modem, graphics card (?) etc) and when nothing worked they finally said that I must not be connected to the internet! Well how the hell am I communicating with you? I said, this was while I was doing one of those "live" chat things with a M$ developer.
I finally fixed it on my own (clean install) but M$'s and many other companies "customer support" is bull!! To many companies are out for the buck and don't care after they get it!! Some of the best customer support I have ever got was from "freeware" makers!!! They have the right idea of dealing with people and don't get paid for it!!
Doesn't make any sense does it?

[Nexus]

I am behind MS. (kinda like playing devils advocat  ;D )
They are a big company, and lots of people contact them every, and quite frankly 8/10 cases could be solved if the END USER had read the manuals a bit better.

Tell me Fretnstuff, how was it MS fault that your real world weather did not work the first time? I think it's your computer that should be blamed not Microsoft. Real world weather works for everybody else? I've never had issues with it? It worked after you re-installed the game again, with the same game discs and all...which proves it's not a malfunction of the Sim, correct?

Think of all the many platforms, hardware, software that the game must be compatibel with. It's ALOT. Of course some systems will run the sim better than others.

[Craig.]

can i just say something in defence of microsoft.
Everytime you pay for a product of theirs, you are NOT buying that game os program and so on. You are buying a license to legally use the program game os. You dont own it and should microsoft decide to recall the program, then they could and there is nothing anyone could do about it. OK realistically it would be impossible to get every single disc back. But thats why you sign the End User license agreement. And they do this deliberatly so they dont hve to provide updates for every single program they make.

Of coarse on the other side of that. Its pretty crappy that they are like this considering how big and rich a company it is, but sometimes there is just nothing us mortals can do about it

[Delta_]

er... you don't actually sign the end-user agreement, hence the word agreement... you agree.  It would say end-user contract if it was to be signed.

[Craig.]

mistype on my part:) i meant to say, "thats why you agree to the EULA".
lol thanks for noticing

[Delta_]

no probs

[Katahu]

They make the End-User Liscense Agreement sooooooooooooooo looooooooong that it will bore you to death.

For sure, they did that on purpose so that you can be the unsuspecting victim of their corporate power and authority.

Not only that, you can't read the EULA before buying the product. In order to read it, you have to BUY their product and then open the package and then install the program and then you have to AGREE with it in order to fly the simulator.

Basically, it's a trap that we all know about.

However, we consumers [me included] don't wish to bother reading a LONG-@55 EULA that takes about 15-30 minutes to read just so that we can the sim. Thus, we consciencely let ourselves into their traps.

But at least we have better alternatives other than MSFS.

Look at X-Plane for example.

The guy now has a small team helping him with the program. And unlike M$, these guys LISTEN to their customers.

When the very first X-Plane program was released, many people contacted him with so many requests and suggestions for each new release. And he did put in all those new suggestions [made by his customers] in all the new releases. As a result, he is a BIG and TOUGH competitor to M$. But's that's only a small factor that contributed to his success.

[ATI_7500]

the day microsoft listens to it's customers should become a national celebration day...

[Katahu]

I think M$ should consider some advice from UBI about handling their business.

It's too bad we cannot get a refund for buying a cd-rom-based PC game.

If we did, then it would have saved us so much money.

I hate the fact that M$ never tells anyone what hardware configurations they use for testing every FS product.

In the Read-Me file of every FS release, they tell you which video cards and sounds are not supported. However, you have to BUY and INSTALL the sim in order to view the Read-Me file.

And when you read the file, you probably find out that your video card has compatibility issues with the FS or it can't be supported. And that's AFTER you wasted your hard-earned cash.

My video card can support the Aircraft Reflections, but it does not support the Water Reflections.

Look at my specs.