How to tell the (add-on) sheep from the goats?

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Continuing the discussion from Low and slow - Best aircraft for VFR sightseeing?:

My off-topic rant in my other thread raises an important topic:

How do you REALLY know what you’re buying untill AFTER you’ve dropped the serious coin needed to buy the beastie.

Note this includes anything you buy, be it aircraft, scenery, upgrades to either, etc.

For example, as I said in the previous thread:

So, how does an innocent simmer know the difference between what’s wizard and what’s lizard?

And what happens when you’ve dropped $$$ on “X” and discover it’s not worth the effort required to click your mouse on it?

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That’s very simple: educate yourself about the addon prior buying it. This means watch review videos and read reviews - multiple ones from different people. This usually gives a great overview and you can make an informed decision if you‘d like to buy it or not.

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One thing I look for is what kind of pictures the developers put on the marketplace or their website. If you mostly see pictures of the external model it’s a red flag. Most likely the systems depth is low and they copied avionics from other aircraft. I find this strategy to be very accurate. The worse the product the more external shots they upload.

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What I wish for are reviews, (especially within the Marketplace), that provide commentary on the reasons for a particular review.

Example:
User “X” gives an aircraft a low review because it doesn’t have a Cray Supercomputer running a solid-glass cockpit with world class AI running the show.
(In a Piper Cub?  Who are YOU kidding?!)

User “Y” gives a scenery package a phenomenal review because he’s best buddies with the dev.

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I have learned, (by the bitter reapings of experience), that anything on YouTube is to be taken with a very large freight-car of salt. :wink:

Some things, (like the PMDG training videos for the DC-6), show such a degree of care taken in the modelling that they’re not afraid to admit that “the modelling of this small section isn’t quite right yet”, or that “something else needs additional work”, or “this issue is a limitation of the sim”, (with details), which shows that these people mean business.

Other modellers have impressive trailers that, unfortunately, seem to be their aspirations for what they want it to be, rather than what it actually is.

In other words, it’s confusing and there seems to be little recourse.

I can also understand the possible legal issues of such a list, but a “wizard”/“lizard” list where people could vote for or against particular items or developers, with rankings that vary depending on the wizard/lizard ratio, would be helpful.

A particular site that has such a ranking, or has a high confidence rating on it’s reviews, would also be very useful to the sim community at large.

Clearer documentation within the marketplace would also help.

A classic example is the flying “eye and ear” hospital plane that is not really useful, being a non-flying mock-up.  Even if free, like this was, I am now burdened with an unacceptable aircraft in my “content manager” which is distracting.

Lastly, a way to “return for refund” unacceptable 3rd party merchandise would rapidly drive the lesser quality vendors out of business.

A way to indicate, (via refund, for example), that a marketplace purchase is sub-standard would help MS clear all the cruft out of the marketplace.

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I rarely buy anything upon release, unless it’s by one of the handful of devs whose products I have enough of to make a determination re quality.

I watch/read as many reviews as possible, including those made by customers on Simmarket. MP ratings are, as you say, ambiguous at best, and it only takes a disgruntled customer with a very minor issue to give the illusion that a good product is bad.

I tend to stick to the same handful of devs — Flightbeam, NZA, AUScene, Impulse, Pyreegue, Drzewiecki, FlyTampa, Ini, Orbx, PMDG, Just Flight, Pilot’s — however I’m willing to try new ones if reviews are positive. I don’t own any UK2000 sceneries but I doubt I’d hesitate much in buying one. Same goes for Aerosoft, MK, M’M, Terrainy, Burning Blue, Northern Sky and a few others — they’ve just up to now had nothing I want.

I tend to find that even the largest, most demanding airports work pretty well if you largely stick to a default aircraft with a single view. FlyTampa’s Corfu is superb but I cannot under any circumstances use the PMDG 737 there. Instant crash, without fail. So I just use the default 320 instead.

There are ways and means of getting add-ons to work. I often think some people can be a bit hyperbolic when it comes to add-ons, and once they’ve decided they don’t like a product — or it doesn’t meet their unrealistically high criteria set — they’ll do their best to tarnish the dev’s reputation. Small issues are blown way out of all proportion.

I own about 30 third-party add-ons. Some work better than others, but I can use each and every one relatively trouble-free if I make a few small sacrifices. I get that, on principle, we shouldn’t have to make such sacrifices but that’s just the nature of the sim right now.

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I use a bit of “crowd sourcing” to get a sense of the popularity of an add-on. If there are lots of downloads, YT videos and posts on the forum, it’s probably okay.

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If it is a plane then you can check here in the forums, there is usually a thread about the add-on with plenty of opinions and sometimes even the dev is chiming in to answer questions or post updates. I think you can make quite an informed decision after reading the posts here about the planes you are considering.

You can also watch youtube videos but I think those are better for learning how to operate the planes, for reviews most, if not all, youtube videos have a strong biads because the reviewer probably got the add-on from the dev directly for free so it is difficult for them to highlight all the bugs and details in the product.

If the dev has a Discord server and you use discord you can join and see what the users are saying about the product, reported bugs, etc.

Disclaimer: If it is from Mscenery you can avoid the research and just not buy it.

About scenery: I think the Marketplace ratings, even if not perfect, plus the published photos are quite enough to decide, in scenery it is all about how it looks so if you like the pictures you will probably like the scenery.

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I wasn’t brave enough to name devs but they’d be on my list of ‘don’t buy’ products!

I’ve looked at a couple of airports by The Secret Studio but their website looks amateurish and their products don’t get many reviews. But is that because they’re unpopular? Or just in parts of the world simmers tend to largely avoid? Some devs don’t even have websites but their stuff is very highly regarded by the community, so there are caveats to making assumptions.

Speaking of The Secret Studio, these guys were the first to implement VDGS on Xbox, yet none of the regular MSFS sources have covered it. So it’s either near-useless, or people aren’t paying attention. It’s pretty ground-breaking if you ask me, and demonstrates that more realism/accuracy is possible on Xbox. If a small dev based in (presumably) Malaysia can craft a fully functional VDGS, why can’t the others?

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There is an important piece of advice I have always adhered to with anything to do with computers be it upgrades to operating systems or bying new software or add ons or updates.
WAIT
Dont be the first to adopt, buy, upgrade etc.
I know that it is tempting to do so but it is risky to be an early adopter unless part of a properly run Beta trial.
So you wait and monitor forums and other feedback channels.
Well, thats my own rule anyway based on many years in the IT business.

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I wish there were demos of these products.

For example it would be ideal if we could download a demo of a plane. It would be time-restricted. After 15 minutes the controls are disabled, the visual model vanishes (no panel, no fuselage, no wings), the sounds vanish, the controls are disabled and the flight model stops. You’d have to restart the flight to try the plane again another 15 minutes. They could have a countdown showing.

I remember watching a video years ago on an FSX add-on airport that had a demo version. After a short time all the buildings became giant black cubes.

This would address the OPs concern about not knowing first hand what the add on was like before dropping $ on it.

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Sounds like that would be even easier to crack and pirate than things currently are (which is already far too easy) :cry:

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Yes thats a good point, didn’t consider that. I guess thats why they avoid making plane demos.

I was thinking of Laminar and X-Plane series when I typed that. They have always offered (and still do) a demo of their product.

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Maybe its time to raise the Baaa

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st,small,845x845-pad,1000x1000,f8f8f811000×1000 84.8 KB

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Regarding the demos, I’m guessing that some developers don’t want that because it may deter potential purchases. I realize that’s a pessimistic view, but I’m sure there are a few that believe that way.

I rarely purchase anything that costs over $20 because I haven’t really had the need. I’m replying here because I bought the HondaJet yesterday. When I first downloaded it, my mouse wouldn’t click on most of the items in the cockpit, my nose wheel wouldn’t turn, and the engine sounded very high-pitched, almost like one of their lawn mowers. :flushed: After searching online for hours and finding that no one else was complaining about these issues, I deleted and downloaded the plane again and it’s working fine.

My point is that even with everyone’s input, you may not get exactly what YOU want, so you have to make the call to pull the trigger and do it with the knowledge that you might be disappointed. Also, opinions are very subjective here. This makes sense with the varying levels of experience, but as someone above mentioned, some will rate a plane as a 1 because it climbs 2% slower than its IRL counterpart, some will notice rivets in the wrong place, etc. I’m a huge sound guy, but you may not care about that as much - I also agree that we desperately need comments with the reviews.

I look at purchases here like gambling - I may end up losing, but I’m not gonna go hungry so I’m alright.

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AKA someone has to take one for the team.

All this does is push the problem on to someone else, with someone else having to buy it to write that review.

Though to be fair there are plenty of channels out there that need this content, so all the power to them.

What you have to do then is show some restraint, don’t impulse purchase, and wait for those videos to come online, which might take a day or three after the release date.

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Someone needs to be the first - unfortunately.
Although there are for sure sponsored reviews where the content creators get the addons for free. But I am aware that they are sometimes biased.

Yes you are right - best is always to wait.

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The advice to wait is good. And not just in the sense of reviews from trustworthy sources to come in on a given product, but also in terms of matching your own piloting knowledge and abilities to the products you buy.

The flip side to the over-sold products are the ones from users/reviewers who don’t really know of what they speak. I’ve lost count of the number of posts (and some reviews) I’ve seen where a ‘flight model’ is blamed for poor performance by an unhappy user, but when you probe you find out that their piloting skills are really quite deficient in some essential manner or they haven’t taken the time to optimise their controllers for the given aircraft. Or the reviewer is flying a really complex aircraft for the first time without having the knowledge or hours to say. (There are some notable exceptions to this and fortunately, they tend to be some of the biggest and most trusted reviewers).

Waiting is worth it. There is huge reward to be had from mastering a well-modelled GA aircraft without the need to drop much (if any) extra coin. And that journey gives you the basis for moving onto more complex aircraft and then you can start to arrive at your own judgments without the frustration that comes with too much, too soon.

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First:
Lions in the street, roaming dogs in heat, rabid, foaming. A beast caged in the heart of the city. The body of his mother rotting in the summer ground, he fled the town. Went down south and crossed the border, left the chaos and disorder, back there, over his shoulder.
you mentioned ‘lizard’…sorry.

but second: you really have to learn which developers provide things that you like. We have asked for a refund system and one time I thought we were almost there as it was even touched on by Jorg during one of the Q and A’s…but since then nothing. So Ive got developers I avoid and devs I buy as much as possible from as even things like DDs KEWR run fine for the way I fly on XboxX.

but I also wonder if 2024 will put a crimp in piracy by never actually downloading a complete working package of anything. Even aircraft will get electronic keys downloaded at runtime. maybe then they would be more willing and able to implement a refund policy.

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Without actual reviews I’ll avoid anything under 4.5 stars.

Reviews and screen shots you can actually see in full resolution are one of the reasons I prefer to get stuff from 3rd party sources.

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Being on Xbox I can only use the in-sim MP but I always go to the dev’s site, or that of a distributor like Orbx, to view images and videos. I also look at the product at Simmarket (if they’re licensed to sell it) and watch the promo vids on YouTube. The MP ‘reviews’ are just too ambiguous and don’t tell me what platform is being used, or whether a score takes performance into account.

Even with many of my favourite devs I’ll wait a week or so, to see what the online reviews say.

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