"Review: Flight 1 Messerschmitt Bf 109"

[kiwikat]

Normally I wouldn't bother commenting on Andrew Herd's reviews as I usually find them to be terribly biased and too positive but I've got to make an exception for this.

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/review/bf109/bf109.htm

How does a FSX product get a GOLD AAA when it isn't even a true FSX model? It doesn't even have prop disc textures!? Come on guys... it isn't rocket science to make a fair review. There are plenty of products that are better than this one that haven't gotten awards. I just find it stupid that a FS9 portover gets an AAA in FSX...

It's time to raise the bar a bit Mr. Herd. All the main developers are creating true FSX models these days. It is EXPECTED of products to be FSX native a year and a half after its release.

[Kurtvw]

I disagree with your remarks about 'FSX Native' which is fairly ambiguous standard all by itself...

But I CERTAINLY agree that a product that isn't even FSX SP2 compatible has no business getting a golden chair... thats just pure weapons grade bolognium...

A year after FSX SP2 if a developer wants to release incompatible models, I'm not even sure they should be getting serious discussion, much less gold medals.

So, I guess in spirit I agree with your post, but in the details I disagree.

[tigisfat]

The reviews here used to be utter trash suitable only for hobbiest magazines; they were never negative even when faced with the worst possible problems. It seems that they've turned around a little bit in the last handful of months or so.

[kiwikat]

The reviews here used to be utter trash suitable only for hobbiest magazines; they were never negative even when faced with the worst possible problems. It seems that they've turned around a little bit in the last handful of months or so.

Mr. Herd certainly proves your statement incorrect. He ended this review with "There is very little to criticize about this addon and if you are into FS warbirds, it is a compulsory purchase."

I DO love warbirds. Very little to criticize? Right... just that it ISN'T a FSX plane as he advertises. If this were just a review for the FS9 version I wouldn't complain a bit. WAY too many companies misadvertise and misinformed people waste their money on portovers that give them 5 FPS and end up getting angry and screwed out of what can sometimes be quite a bit of money.

It is time developers, both freeware and payware, stop the misleading advertising. I think Andrew should reevaluate the gold AAA he gave out OR turn it into a FS9 review. Lazy portovers don't deserve the recognition of being the best of the best (especially not anymore)!!!

[tigisfat]

[QUOTE=kiwikat;1215082]It is time developers, both freeware and payware, stop the misleading advertising.QUOTE]

I've been saying that everywhere as long as I've been around, but the developer brigade always shouts me down. Consumers aren't the reason developers are closing doors; pricing, quality and customer service are.

I don't know what your afilliation is with Alphasim these days, but they are among the worst, or at least they used to be. Most Alphasim .AIR files have the same quirks, and most of their jets used to carry about half the same sounds from the last few projects before it. Oh well, at least their quality has gotten better in the last year. It used to be garbage, but you bought it anyway because they had a strangehold on the market.

[kiwikat]

This thread is getting little OT but still worth mentioning...

Currently I'm just a beta tester for AlphaSim. The quality has increased considerably in the last year, especially the last few months. I'm thinking by the end of the year you will be asking yourself if its even the same company ;) Stuff is a changin'...

You'd be surprised to hear that pricing really has no effect on sales. Quality, only a bit. Subject material and customer service seem to be the big ones from what I've seen. If someone makes a plane you like and they treat you right, you're going to buy from them again.

I do agree with you though, despite the negative impacts of piracy, the customer base isn't the reason places close down.

[munnst]

"Normally I wouldn't bother commenting on Andrew Herd's reviews as I usually find them to be terribly biased and too positive but I've got to make an exception for this.

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=m...f109/bf109.htm

How does a FSX product get a GOLD AAA when it isn't even a true FSX model? It doesn't even have prop disc textures!? Come on guys... it isn't rocket science to make a fair review. There are plenty of products that are better than this one that haven't gotten awards. I just find it stupid that a FS9 portover gets an AAA in FSX...

It's time to raise the bar a bit Mr. Herd. All the main developers are creating true FSX models these days. It is EXPECTED of products to be FSX native a year and a half after its release. "

I have to agree. As soon as I see FSX and FS2004 I read that as a portover which normally means flawed aircraft. But then I see great reviews for sub standard aircraft all the time. You'll see three or four reviews marked "Superb, Excellent, Best Add-on" and then some poor punter pointing out that the prop textures don't work and some of the gauges are missing. But then I guess the developers have to make money some how.

[azur]

Geez, that's not a review, it's practically an advertisement.

The first 3 paragraphs are "look where you can buy this, hardware reqs, CD's or download and for how much"

The next was a brief brief history and practically just a list of some of the included models.

After the next set of images, the review starts... and there's not much really said. Nothing critical or even worth printing.

Really, there's nothing in that "review" that couldn't be found on the Flight1 website.

[jwenting]

Do keep in mind that F1 is not the developer of the aircraft. F1 only provides distribution and payment processing services for Flight Replicas.

Also note that the product page specifically states that it's an FS2004 model, not an FSX model (and of course the screenshots on the product page confirm that as they're all from FS2004).

[kiwikat]

Also note that the product page specifically states that it's an FS2004 model, not an FSX model (and of course the screenshots on the product page confirm that as they're all from FS2004).

Yeah, why doesn't Andrew remove FSX from his review then? Does he even read these forums? Does any of this get to him at all?

The Flight1 site still mis-advertises the product. It ISN'T for FSX. It even has FSX on the box!? That is the kind of advertising most of us want to see gone. That is the kind of advertising that is unfair to the consumer. To be fair SkyUnlimited has it mis-advertised on their own site too.

FS9 portover != (not equals) FSX compatible

EDIT: Now that this has been moved to the Comments section it looks like the thread is pretty much dead. Gotta love being at the bottom of the forum :D

[kiwikat]

Ummm I'm slightly irritated that this got moved to the bottom of the forum. I believe it to be "user feedback" and it should be in the Outer Marker forum. Why are the criticisms of flightsim.com articles hidden away at the bottom?

If a moderator sees this, could you please move this thread back up. I think there are important things to discuss on this subject.

[tigisfat]

But at least the team running this website doesn't ban people for voicing constructive criticism and bringing up hot topics and claim it's because they are pirates!! ;):rolleyes:

[kiwikat]

But at least the team running this website doesn't ban people for voicing constructive criticism and bringing up hot topics and claim it's because they are pirates!! ;):rolleyes:

All you would have had to do was provide an email address and/or order number to the admins to prove your legitimacy... not too hard... other people manage to do it.

Why are you destroying my topic btw? Just curious... this was on topic until you killed it. I guess you can't trust a moderator to follow the rules...

[tigisfat]

okay, back on topic then. If an aircraft functions well in FSX/SP2 as a modded portover and has good framerates, what is wrong with advertising it as an FSX aircraft? After all, the example I've given is capable in FSX.

How did I destroy your topic? You said yourself several times it was about developers misleading people.

[kiwikat]

okay, back on topic. If an aircraft functions well in FSX/SP2 as a modded portover and has good framerates, what is wrong with advertising it as an FSX aircraft? After all, the example I've given is capable in FSX.

How did I destroy your topic? You said yourself several times it was about developers misleading people.

You answered your own question. What's wrong with advertising it as a FSX aircraft? It's a "modded portover". I do not have one "modded portover" in my hangar that doesn't have some adverse effect on performance or visual appearance. Real FSX models and high res textures, as demonstrated by many companies, are far superior to these "modded portover"s, as they don't have any issues.

Final statement on the OTHER issue you've raised... what does AlphaSim asking you to prove you didn't steal product have to do with misleading people? AlphaSim is one of the leading companies in the production of non-"modded portover"s. Your statement has nothing to do with this thread nor the spirit of it.

Glad we've cleared that up... now to get this back so people can discuss the true subject at hand as well as getting Mr. Herd to edit his review. I guess I will start a new thread sometime later today so people don't have to wade through the last few garbage off-topic posts from both of us ;)

[loki]

If you read the forum description for this Comments forum, this is the appropriate place for discussing FlightSim.com articles and news. Opening up another thread in the Outer Marker will probably just result in it ending up back here.

Maybe it this forum be moved up so it isn't hidden though.

[xxmikexx]

Folks,

I'm going to stick up for FlightSim.com here. You deserve to know in advance, if you didn't know it already, that I'm involved in a joint venture with FlightSim.com. However, if I didn't believe that these folks are of the highest integrity then trust me, I'd be out of here in a flash. So ... Now you know where I sit, and now you know why I'm leaping to their defense.

Those things said, let me begin by observing that the most buried thread in this most buried forum is the first thread opened here, which is my own thread praising the new FlightSim.com appearance to the skies, a thread written in reaction to the new appearance and features of the site. If there were any dark conspiracy to hide only negative stuff here MY thread -- my POSITIVE thread -- would have been moved to Outer Marker where a large number of people would have seen it immediately.

But this didn't happen because Outer Marker is not directly about FlightSim.com, nor are any of the other forums. I posted here, and the thread remains here, and other folks's threads on similar "off topic" subjects may get moved here, because this new forum is the most appropriate place of all to discuss such things.

Now ... If a thread gets moved here it will be because some moderator felt that this would be a better place for it, and the management of this site does not interfere with moderator decisions. Sometimes supermoderator Darrell Robson will override an ordinary moderator like me, but even Darrell has no business relationship with FlightSim.com.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I've explained things before but apparently it's time to do so again. (And I will be speaking as a former paid product reviewer for Computers & Electronics magazine, just so that once again you will know where I'm coming from.) ...

I doubt very much that Andrew Herd is paid for his reviews. I know for a fact that as of a year and a half ago he was not paid. I also know that at least as of that time Herd picks for himself the products he reviews. His opinions of those products are his own, uncolored by any considerations of FlightSim.com business relationships with the vendors of those product. In other words, folks, the management of FlightSim.com has nothing to do with those reviews other than to run them. I doubt very much that as much as a single word of them is ever edited by anybody other than Herd himself. And I'm very confident that ALL of his reviews get run, in the order in which he submits them.

There was an exception of sorts during the winter of 07/08 and that was when Phil Taylor of Microsoft felt that Herd had, without foundation, misrepresented a certain FSX issue in a way that reflected negatively on the product. Have you got that? Herd's review was biased AGAINST the sim, not in favor of it. Microsoft asked that Herd correct the record, which he did, see the lengthy public discussions involving Phil Taylor, easily retrived from the FSX forum via the Advanced Search capability. (Did I say that the requests for retraction were public? No? Let me repeat that: There was no conspiracy. Everything was out in the open. Microsoft publicly asked for a retraction, and they got it, based on overriding factual information supplied by Taylor, again in public.)

So if Herd feels that thus-and-such product deserves thus-and-such rating, that's his personal assessment, honestly arrived at. You might disagree with Herd's analysis, as Phil Taylor did and as Kiwikat does, but there are strong hints of conspiracy in this thread and I find that outrageous. I will further point out that those hints are coming from someone who works for a competitor of the company that produced the product being reviewed, so if there is any conflict of interest having to do with this review it is Kiwikat who has the conflict.

Furthermore, I doubt very very much that FlightSim.com has anything to do with deciding which products Herd will review. If my own past experience at both Computers & Electronics and FlightSim.com is of value as a guide, Herd most likely is drowning in unsolicited product -- retail packages, offers of zero-cost reviewer downloads of things, blah blah blah. With very high likelihood he simply picks products he would like to try/own and reviews some repeat some of those. (If I'm right he can't possibly review everything that's sent to him. I'll bet that he gets rid of 95% of what he receives. I'll bet that the 5% he doesn't get rid of are things that he HOPES will be of interest to him and work well for him. I'll bet that only some of those get reviewed.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Now let's talk about journalistic integrity in reviews of products ...

FlightSim.com will not run negative reviews of anything -- not payware, not freeware. NObody who accepts paid advertising will run negative reviews. Nobody. No website. No print magazine. Nobody. Not Avsim. Not SimMarket. (Did I say that nobody does this? No? Let me say it then: Nobody runs negative reviews if they're in the business of running paid advertising.)

So if Herd wants to warn people about a certain product (and he does this all the time) he will write a review that d**ns the product with faint praise. That is how these things are done.

You have to learn how to read product reviews because what isn't said in a review is just as important as what is said. You have to be familiar enough with the class of product to know how to read the review of a particular example. How do you become familiar with the important features or characteristics of a class of product? By reading other reviews. If your read enough of them you will soon learn what the important issues are, and when you encounter a review that doesn't mention a given issue, you can be confident that the reviewer found the product to be lacking in that department.

So ... Once you understand the ground rules it becomes very easy to tell which reviews are recommending purchase, as with brokerage firm recommendations, which are also product reviews, but biased ones. There the reviews say "buy" or "hold". They almost never say "sell" because they don't have to. A "hold" rating is a euphemism for "don't buy". Once you realize that you see that the actual reviews are "buy" versus "don't buy", there is no doubt whatsoever about what a particular recommendation means, and if you already own the stock in question there is no doubt what the brokerage firm is telling you to do with it. (After all, if there's no reason to buy the stock, there's no reason to keep it.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Those things said, with one exception I don't accept freebies. If I review something, or if I give it a favorable mention in PC Software Tech or some other forum, then you can be sure that I laid out my own good money for that product. (The exception is PerfectDisk 8, the only time during my stay at FlightSim.com that I have not paid for a product that I use or have tried.)

Yet even with respect to system utilities I will, with one exception, not mention a product if my feelings are negative. So, for example, I have perhaps a half dozen registry maintenance utilities parked on the sidelines, products that I bought, tried and found to be either seriously lacking in features or outright hazardous to system health. I simply don't discuss them, though I encourage others to do so based on research that they do themselves. After all, my negative experiences might simply be anecdotal.

The exception here is for the disk defragmentation product Ultimate Defrag, also a product that I had bought and tried. In a feature article I praised it to the skies but later, as the product's installation degraded and it began to fail, and as experiments showed that its unique features were of little value in practice, I had to retract my positive statements. Had I never made them I would not have commented on the product at all. I have no information about later versions of the product, but I have also found that a product called O&O defrag proved to contain the one redeeming feature of Ultimate Defrag that I found useful regardless of its other problems.

[kiwikat]

Nowhere did I suggest he got paid for what he wrote...

Regardless of how anyone reads it, he still gave a FS9 portover a gold AAA. I believe he should omit any mention of FSX from it, or take the gold AAA away. In this day and age, portovers don't deserve top ratings. That is the point I tried to make.

I've read plenty of good reviews from this site. I've read plenty of poor ones. As I stated before, I don't mind this review EXCEPT for the fact he gives a FS9 portover a gold AAA. NO portover deserves an AAA, whether it be from sky unlimited, flight1, aerosoft, alphasim, eaglesoft, etc etc etc ANYONE.

Though I might be part of the AlphaSim team, I am still a customer like all of you. I spend money (sometimes quite a bit too) on products. I don't want to see people misled into buying portovers they will be disappointed with from any company. Sky Unlimited and Flight1 both have true FS9 and FSX models these days, I don't see it as unreasonable to ask them to advertise them correctly.

P.S. Mods... There's a thread in the Outer Marker that comments some article on the main page. Why hasn't it been moved down here too alongside mine? Oh its positive, that's why!

btw... 1422 words and counting... yes, I'm counting...

[kiwikat]

Mike, since you won't respond to my PM or my thread post, I guess I am forced to talk again. This thread is about NOTHING you talked about in your 1422 word post. NOTHING.

I'll break your post down by section...

Section 1: My post isn't about your qualifications nor YOUR involvement with Mr Herd or flightsim.com

Section 2: My post isn't about you and your qualifications as a paid reviewer. My post has nothing to do with Phil Taylor and his conversations with Mr. Herd and flightsim.com. My post REALLY has nothing to do with YOUR conspiracy theories that violate flightsim.com forum policy. My post isn't about your incorrect assumptions about flightsim.com's reviewing policies.

Section 3: My post isn't about journalistic integrity. My post isn't about flightsim.com's reviewing policy concerning negativity. My post isn't about a brokerage firm.

Section 4: MY POST ISN'T ABOUT YOU!

As I said to yet another moderator, PLEASE keep my thread on topic. Please remove your comments regarding your personal conspiracies. Finally, please read THIS (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/rules.htm)!!!

I'm done here... got nothing more to say. Do what you like with this space because you seem to anyways.

[xxmikexx]

Kiwikat,

I did in fact respond to your PM, a few minutes ago. But I'm not obliged to keep checking PM while I write and edit a lengthy post, not then and not at any other time.

If you like I'll be happy to post your PM to me and my reply to you. My reply goes to certain issues you raised earlier in this thread, causing me to make the points in my post, and my reply PM, that I did make.

If it takes me 1500 words to say what I need to say, so be it. I often write at great length in hopes of helping forum readerships to learn about a variety of issues. (You will note that I headed my post "Folks".)

And now I'm going to go do a few other things. I'll be back later to see what, if anything, you have further to say to me. But give me some number of hours, okay?

[kiwikat]

I've not got anything to say, as I just said in my post. You've ruined the spirit of this forum for me. I won't be returning. For my final remark I'll post what most forums need to hear/comply to/understand.

If this is a public forum, why can't people have opinions? You created this thread to discuss... yet you don't want to. Hide the negative, show the positive. Why talk at all?

Ciao

[xxmikexx]

kiwikat,

Okay, I'm back briefly ...

People most certainly are entitled to their opinions, including Andrew Herd. Other people are allowed to state why they disagree with those opinions, including you regarding what Herd writes and me regarding what you wrote and what others wrote. That's what this forum is for -- discussions.

So when I see information presented that I believe reflects negatively and unfairly so against FlightSim.com, I feel free to explain certain things to the readership, something that FlightSim.com management may not feel free to do. Incidentally, several of the things I was reacting to were written by other people. At no time did I mention you or them by name, but if you believe that everything I wrote was in response only to things that you wrote, you are mistaken.

I was not attacking you, I was explaining to the readership at large how the world of reviews and advertisers works, again to counterbalance some of the things written in this thread.

[JSkorna]

"You've ruined the spirit of this forum for me. I won't be returning."

You are not the first and you won't be the last. :o

[xxmikexx]

Let me explain something to the readers of this thread ...

I'm a prolific writer of articles. Some are short. Some are long. Most are emailed to friends and never see the light of day on FlightSim.com even though they overwhelmingly are about FS and aviation.

A much smaller number, but still a significant one, get published as feature articles on the front page of FlightSim.com, like the one published about two weeks ago, and like the one I was told to expect to run later today.

In the past I used to post many of my articles to Outer Marker, but with the advent of blogs I prefer to post to my own blog instead. However, I still write many long articles for the PC Software Tech forum, and I write the occasional article for other forums, as I did in this case.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When an issue comes up that provides an opportunity to write an article that will educate the readership, I take it. In this case the subjects were a) remarks about a specific Andrew Herd review, b) remarks about FlightSim.com reviews in general, c) a vague suggestion that a thread had been moved down to this forum because it was critical of the review mentioned in a), and so on.

So I decided to write about a) the review process throughout the paid advertising communicactions media, b) my perception of the review process at FlightSim.com, c) my perception of how Andrew Herd decides what and how to review, d) site policies, and e) my own policies in deciding which products to comment on and what kinds of comments I will/won't make.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In articles like the one I wrote above, in part I was respond to what I take to be inflammatory remarks. Yet I don't reply with flames of my own. Rather, I reply with facts albeit forcefully presented facts. So I was playing the role of firefighter putting out flames, not fanning them. I am not responsible for the resulting reactions of the authors of the inflammatory remarks.

I hope that they'll engage in meaningful debate, but I also hope that they'll shout to the sky their vested and possibly conflicting interests, as I did. Doing so is an important part of readers being able to reasonably assess the information presented to them.

If someone choose not to write a sur-rebuttal to a rebuttal of mine that is not my fault. If someone decides to go even further and depart a forum or a site that is not my fault. I am not responsible if the cook is unable to stand the heat of the fire he started.

It WOULD be my fault here if I had engaged in a personal attack, but I think any objective reader will agree that I didn't do that. Readers may disagree with my positions, perhaps even disagree strongly with them, but I don't think that I can reasonably be accused of mounting personal attacks or any other kind of attack.

In the immortal rapidly-spoken words of Elvis Presley, Thankyouverymuch.

[tigisfat]

.......If this is a public forum, why can't people have opinions? ......

First off, I hope you do continue to enjoy this forum, and I hope you want to return here and contribute. I know you took offense to my jabs at Alphasim, but they were honestly just cheap jabs for humor. Please don't let anyone here make up your mind to not return. (Also, Mike is notorious for not checking his PMs; email him)

That being said; no forum is truly public. Someone has to foot the bills, and that person usually posts WIKIs about rules and asks that you politely agree with them before you are allowed to participate. That means that there is no freedom of speech and there is no such thing as unfair censorship. This website is a lot more open than any other I've been too. The real mods here (not the newcomers forum help guys) let people get away with openly bashing their website, and they allow the occasional altercation.

If you'll take note, Flightsim.com has run several reviews that have flat out BASHED products lately. I don't know if this is in response to complaints about prior 'sunny' reviews, but those negative articles recieved as much ridicule as the positive ones. You can't please everyone, and everyone has different standards on what they deem fair reviewing. If you doubt me, look up the recent Typhoon review and the fallout that occured in the forums based on it.

[fsblibli]

Amazing how much energy goes into such a topic! If Andrew writes positive reviews it might be because he loves flightsimming and has a positive and curious way of trying out the new stuff. Why not?

We all know that flightsim.com makes money with selling flightsim-products. No wonder that the product reviews are mainly positive and that criticism is offered in a decent way. Do you expect Andrew telling everybody that they are selling worthless stuff? Everybody here should be grown up enough to know that. Apart from that I don't think he is fooling his readers.

If you want all the pros and cons go to the forums. You might find a more balanced view. But it also might happen that you get 100 contrary opinions and are more puzzled than before.

That's because some people just enjoy their hobby and others take it a little too seriously. Hey everyone, this is just about flightsimming and spending your time in front of your PC. This is not politics, it's not World War III.

Calm down, enjoy a good flight and let Andrew have his reviews the way he likes them. I like them too. If you don't, you are always free to write something interesting yourself and offer it for publication.

Bastian

[xxmikexx]

fsblibli,

I usually read Andrew Herd reviews even when I'm not interested in the subject matter. He writes very well and I learn from that that aspect of his reviews alone.