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Tonight’s show: The Tightrope! – Our Mission Statement
But first, a word from our sponsor!
Well, actually, from us. But more about sponsors in a moment.
We’ve been throwing around the idea of posting some kind of “Mission Statement” here at XP10 World Headquarters (aka Chaos Manor) for a few days. Well. A few weeks maybe, but you know how THAT goes. The issue seems to keep popping up, however, and more often than not because we’re new at this and kind of making things up as we go along. When you’re running a sidewalk lemonade stand this isn’t really a huge problem, but when you start writing about the product of someone’s hard labor the issues become substantially more complicated. When you throw-in the nature of the whole X-Plane vs MsFS debate and shake it up until everything is all good and mixed up, you have the makings of a real mess on your hands.
And so we do.
It’s sometimes called being caught between a rock and a hard place. As I’m often fond of quoting my grandfather, and as he had an old saying for just about any occasion, I’ll quote him now as his wisdom still seems practical, and relevant. He had a little brass plaque on the wall in his office that stated: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators it’s hard to remember your initial objective was to drain the swamp.” And that pretty much sums up where we find ourselves right now. Smack dab in the middle of a swamp. Let me explain.
There is a war being waged in X-Plane-Land. It is a war being waged by the Serious & Talented Designers vs the Let’s Have Fun Designing Airplanes group, or, if you like Ayn Rand, the Real Men vs Everyone Else, and the war is for the very soul of X-Plane. The Talented want us to write unflinching, hard-hitting reviews that point out all the faults in any given SIM we review, even in their own files, because failing to do so will, in their take on things, encourage mediocre developers to produce and market inferior products–and get away with it. Everyone Else wants us lay-off the heavy criticism because, in their worldview, beauty is in the eye of the designer and it’s bad for sales. It’s a classic moral dilemma: deontological vs teleological ethics. Duty vs rules.
Ethics is supposed to be about finding “the Good”, but the argument tends to become further distilled to “the Greatest Good”, and yet it is here that a crucial divide in ethical theory occurs. For you see, the Greatest Good becomes mired in one key point of contention: is the Greatest Good an absolute, or can it be measured by the some yardstick, like “the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number”? Unfortunately, I got dragged kicking and screaming into teaching ethics at the college level during my last few years before retiring, so I tend to look at things of this nature through an academic prism, but hold on, I’ll try to get to the point.
We, Simon and I, met (so to speak) over at the Flight Simulator Network and discovered we had a few things in common. One was a complete love for X-Plane, the other was a shared addiction for newer and better aircraft and scenery files to use in X-Plane. We also saw that there was really no place offering systematic and regular reviews of new aircraft and scenery files, and of even more importance to us, there existed a tremendous gulf between end-users and developers. Developers tended to talk in one language (the language of creation), while end-users talked in “needs and wants”, but there did not exist a forum that spanned this gulf.
Oh, sure, there are forums where ideas are exchanged. X-Pilot admirably serves as one portal for the exchange of ideas among developers, while the ORG serves as a sounding board for consumers and a huge and incoherent array of freeware and pay-ware developers, but there is a gulf between these two factions now, and a sort of Cold War has developed between them. Simon and I saw this development and worried about the implications, then decided the best thing for us to do was step into the fray and offer a way out of the swamp. One thing is already certain: if you want to read the low-down nitty-gritty about a file, check out these forums. There’s a fair measure of mean-spirited one-upsmanship in these postings, and it is just that mean-spiritedness we will not engage in here at XP10 Reviews. We will not lend our voice to this war but will, instead, point out the good we find. If we find a major shortcoming that we can varify you can be sure we WILL report it, but we will NOT pass on rumor and innuendo.
We have, from the beginning, wanted to offer reviews and videos of aircraft and scenery from the perspective of end-users–not developers–and yet at the same time bridge that gulf between developers and end-users by presenting our Developer Interviews. In that way, we hoped, we could serve multiple needs. We could: 1) provide reviews to a market in desperate need of third-party information, a group that would no longer have to rely on developer marketing when trying to decide which file to buy, and; 2) let the developers use their Interviews to educate the consumer–their market–about the products they make.
What is missing so far from this ever-evolving mish-mash of stewing ideas is the “hard-hitting, critical reviewing” standards that the Serious & Talented Designers want to see, and this is a more problematic area for a number of reasons. First, these developers want to see a technical dissection of a file’s strengths and weakness. The second issue is a moral concern.
Simon and I are ill-equipped to make a technical dissection of an aircraft file; we’ve neither one designed an aircraft file before and what right do we have criticizing work we have little understanding of? One of the main reasons for starting this blog WAS to develop an understanding of this stuff, FROM the developers, because in the end Simon and I are consumers, NOT developers. As we learn more we can can bring that knowledge to our reviews, and to date we have and will continue to do so.
The moral dilemma, however, concerns far more delicate issues. Here we begin talking about pain and suffering versus the dictates of a free-market.
Suppose Joe X decides to go from making free-ware to pay-ware designs because he believes he’s ready to make the jump. He quits his job and starts working 24/7 on his new love, and perhaps he works for a year–or more–on his project before it’s finally ready for release. It hits the market, does okay for a few weeks until a rumor starts about bad frame-rates or a weird flight-model, and then sales tank. Joe gets despondent, thinks he’s wasted a year of his life, and returns to his former job.
Or worse still, Joe’s new file is released and does well until a well-intentioned reviewer comes along and mentions a flaw that–no matter how well deserved the criticism is intentioned–causes sales to tank.
Which is a more valid reason for Joe’s fall from grace? Market forces or a critical review?
Putting that much power over the critical process into the hands of a reviewer is to my way of looking at the world at very dangerous thing. If the market votes and Joe gets blown out of the water there is some decent measure of objective validity in the result. If, however, Joe get’s clobbered by one man’s voice, is that fair?
Well, yes and no.
The nature of offering your product for sale in the public market means you ARE explicitly offering your work up to all forms of public scrutiny, and that includes to reviewers like Simon and Kevin and myself. Nature of the beast, it can’t be helped, because even with the best intentions all reviews are the product of bias and experience, both of which are subjective and can not be eliminated. It may not be fair but it’s the way the marketplace of ideas works.
But what if that reviewer’s voice isn’t impartial?
What if he masks himself as independent and impartial, yet isn’t? Then is the review produced a relevant measure of a product’s merits and weaknesses? The question isn’t irrelevant.
Simon and I aren’t millionaires, and we can’t afford to run out and buy every new 30-50 dollar file that comes to market in order to review it and pass the news on to you, and we tend to purchase files that are of interest to us, but perhaps not to you. We don’t have corporate sponsors or rich uncles slipping us an extra thousand a month to feed our airplane addiction, either. Sooner or later, we knew, the issue was going to come up: what do we do when a developer contacts us and wants us to review a product, with the developer offering to provide a review copy.
Well, it’s happened. We’ve been contacted by several developers over the past few weeks to do just that. So, what do we do? Well, the choice is simple. Practically speaking, we have to accept. There are only so many files we can afford, and with familial obligations and a sour economy this isn’t going to change. Refusing this option limits us to reviewing only a few pay-ware products and more and more free-ware offerings, while by accepting review copies we can keep you abreast of the latest new products.
But the ethical dilemma isn’t solved. If a developer “comps” an aircraft for review we’re potentially no longer quite as independent as we were, but isn’t that too in the very nature of the beast. No newspaper reviewer is ever truly independent; his employer relies on advertiser revenue to keep the presses running, and we all know what that means. Pressure can be put on the reviewer to change a bad review, and the reviewer has a family to feed. Yet all kinds of products are provided to reviewers so developers and manufacturers can get word out to their market in as broad and effective a manner as possible. This is simple, and it reflects our reality: if we refuse to take review copies we may continue to review pay-ware products, but these reviews will not be as frequent as we’d like, and only as our respective conditions allow, and we’ll cover free-ware products. Or we accept review copies.
The best we can do is make a promise that when reviewing a file given to us we mention the copy has been provided to us by that developer. This doesn’t mean that we’re not going to criticize that product, but you as a consumer have a right to know these circumstances exist if it applies to any given review. One other facet exists here, however, that needs to be mentioned.
Many files will never see the light of day on this site, and one reason may well be that the file is so bad it isn’t worthy of consideration. How do we communicate that to you? We will not simply come out and say Joe’s new file is a stink bomb, so don’t buy it. And just because we haven’t reviewed a file doesn’t automatically mean it’s bad. It does mean neither Simon nor I think enough about it to buy it in order to review it. Does that mean something? I doubt it means much more than a reflection of the general market for that product, but that in and of itself might tell you something. We’re trying to review the BEST products we can right now, products we feel are worthy of your consideration. When a developer asks us to review a product, we’ll be reviewing a product the developers thinks is worthy of your consideration. We hope this distinction is clear, and we hope the effort of doing so is understood to be as unbiased as can be.
Where developers supply us items for free or discounted, as stated, we will declare this emphatically. We appreciate those devs and distributors who recognise the growing popularity of our blog and its influence, and will be pleased to assist where we can – but we will NOT be falsely making glowing statements if we feel they unjustified.
We are starting to see a fair bit of new traffic from MSFS users, especially from Simon’s videos. We know that MSFS fans have high expectations. As with all products, word of mouth regarding quality is spread quickly. We sincerely intend to make sure that any of our payware reviews do not paint a false picture of what is on offer. Take our recent ERJ-140 review for example. It makes clear that it is a work in progress, that the systems are not completed yet. The screenshots detail the cockpit enough for people to make their own informed decisions.
To that purpose, we’re implementing a new Rating System at the end of each of our latest reviews, but even so this rating system is new and evolving. It might be changing over the next few weeks as we hear from you about what works–and what doesn’t–with this system, so help us help the community be giving us some feedback via the channels referred to previously.
So, welcome to the tightrope. We’re walking a fine line now, the line between between writing independent, unbiased reviews on the one hand and churning out advertising copy with the other. We can’t do both, and won’t.
We’ve come down solidly in favor of providing our own unique brand of off-beat, cliche-ridden reviews in favor of a “consumer advocate” style of reporting, and that’s where you’ll continue to find us. Hopefully helping you make more informed choices about how you spend your hard-earned money on your hobby, bridging the gulf between developers and all us X-Pilots flying in X-Land, but please know we understand our reviews will only truly be helpful to the community if they remain as unbiased as we can humanly make them.
At the same time, we’re going to try to address the Serious & Talented Designers needs when and if conditions warrant. They’ve presented a good case for their argument, and we’ve listened. Nothing less than the future of X-Plane as a serious contender in the Flight Sim marketplace is at stake. We’ll continue do all we can do to help you present your case to our audience, as well.
So, we here at Chaos Manor will now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast. As always, thanks for watching. And…we’ll be back!
Simon and ChipSim… The XP10 Team.
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Hi Chip and Simon,
Just want to say site is awesome. I read all of your reviews and am tracking your scenery tinkering.
I’d like to request a review of the payware Avro Vulcan XH558 available at the .org
I’m an voluntary engineer for XH558 and wouldn’t mind putting together a little something together with the review.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris:
Our partner in crime, Kevin, is working on a Vulcan review. What in particular would you like to contribute to a review? Throw out ideas and I’ll pass them along to Kevin. I know he’s busy and would appreciate some assistance.
Cw
With the increasing standards within aircraft development for X-plane their have been an extremely wide range of aircraft made available for purchase. Aircraft ranging from russian giants to warbirds and helicopters, all of them using all of the features that are built into X-plane itself and others using plugin programming which allows developers to do things that X-plane doesn’t currently simulate. With all of these weird and wonderful features being developed, everyone has come to expect perfection form all payware aircraft developers.
The creator of the new X-plane Vulcan XH558 model has many previous creations all of them are freeware available from x-plane.org. These creations vary from livery work for to real world drawing board aircraft and even some sceneries. Many of you may have flown his previous work and seen the standard of his aircraft. Daniel is the author of the Hawker Harrier series that are so special they have their own page at x-plane.org/hawkers.
Daniel is currently working on creating TSR2, Victor, Valiant and upgrade to Vulcan. If / When this is all completed that will be the entire V-Force available for X-plane.
Most of the time when a new payware aircraft is released for X-plane I never think about why the developer had chosen to model that particular aircraft, but when I found out that Daniel was developing a Vulcan for X-plane I was ecstatic. Daniel wasn’t just modelling any Avro Vulcan he was creating a specific aircraft, XH558, the world only flying Vulcan. XH558 was the first BMk2 into RAF service and retired in 1993. In 1997 the plans began to return her to flight and with several million british pounds going into the project she returned to flight on Thursday 18th October 2007.
When volunteering as a Vulcan Aircraft Assistant I was approached by a small child at an airshow where he asked me “Is this our new bomber plane”. This shows that her delta design and overall presence is still competitive even today. This year (2010) is XH558′s 50th Birthday, thats just this aircraft, the Vulcan design goes back to 1946. XH558 is still a massive crowd puller at any airshow.
When climbing the stairs into any Vulcan its like climbing into the cupboard under the stairs with the darkness and cramped space instantly noticeable. This is one thing that I rather like, that may sound strange. Every time I enter ‘the office’ I always stop to think about the aircrafts time in service and when the vulcans bombed Port Stanley in the Falklands, 5 crew members stayed in that hot and sweaty cockpit for 8,000-nautical-mile round trip with 16hours in that confined space. Depending on your FOV (Field Of View) setting in x-plane this claustrophobic feeling is rather well recreated.
Daniel’s main problem with modelling the Vulcan as a particular aircraft is that a large amount of the aircraft’s systems cannot be modelled in X-plane. Taking this into consideration with all my knowledge of the Vulcan complexities, Daniel has made a very easy to use cockpit that allows novice users a chance to fly one of the world most iconic bombers. If you do find that the cockpit is a bit easy to handle, stop using Daniel’s pop-up display menus and start moving around the cockpit more in flight. You will end up crashing at some point, even I have. When looking backwards towards the AEO (Air Electronic Officer) station, Navigation Radar and Navigation plotter’s stations you may think that they really don’t do very much. Daniel has modelled the aircraft without the military paraphernalia which is XH558′s current status. Although a lot of the AEO’s controls have not been modelled, the parts not included are not necessary for flying.
Well. That was a heck of a manifesto.
As I’ve just been made aware of the blog, I have some catching-up to do.
In that the ability to form complete, accurately spelled sentences is a rarity in the X-Plane world, I very much look forward to the reading ahead, albeit with hopes that past entries were (and those to come are) a tad more succinct.
Echoing a previous reader, I’d also advocate no-holds-barred reviews. There is otherwise little point to the exercise, either in the writing or in the reading.
Dave, I hope you’ll drop in and keep us one our toes. Writing the ERJ review was tough, and I think I mentioned that to a number of people while working on that one. So much remains to be done, yet so much that IS complete is really nicely done. Where do you draw the line? Hard hitting can hurt developers badly, literally, in this fragile economy, yet consumers need good information more than ever. Many people miss your insights, as well. I understand how tough this can be. And thankless. So, thanks for reading and taking the time to get back to us.
I had an idea about how that rating system could be made. When reviewing a plane, you could break it down into basic “components” and assign each of these components a note. The “value” of a plane would be determined by adding up all of the notes. The more points – the better plane. And in order to make the system as much objective as possible and to make it independent of personal tastes, I’ve thought of the following way to assign notes:
A) External model:
5 – complete 3rd party (f.e. Blender) body, lots of animations like doors and panels, additional details like “remove before flight” ribbons etc.
4 – complete 3rd party body, with only a small amount of additional animations and details
3 – complete 3rd party body, with only control surfaces and gear being animated OR Plane Maker body of similar (very high) quality, with lots of additional details like antennas, air scoops, exhaust pipes
2 – Plane Maker body of average quality, there are few additional details, the main parts (like fuselage, wings, gear) of the plane are true to the real one and well crafted
1 – Plane Maker body of low quality, only main parts of the plane are modelled with slight differences from the original, no additional details at all
0 – anything below 1)
B) 2D panel:
5 – every panel found on a real aircraft was reproduced with photorealistic quality (which doesn’t necessary mean: made from a photo of a real one!), custom gauges
4 – most of the panels found on a real aircraft were reproduced with photorealistic quality OR every panel found on a real aircraft was reproduced with very high quality, custom gauges
3 – most of the panels found on a real aircraft were reproduced with very high quality OR only the most important panels were reproduced with photorealistic quality, custom or well made and detailed default gauges
2 – only the most important panels were reproduced with high quality OR single basic panel that resembles the real plane’s panel, default gauges
1 – basic panel with only the most important gauges, a panel that doesn’t resemble original
0 – no 2D panel at all
C) 3D cockpit:
5 – everything was recreated like in a real plane, every knob and switch is where it should be and looks like it should, 3D switches and 3D custom gauges, lots of manipulators used, additional animations like air conditioning fans or wipers, additional details like “worn off” textures, warning placards, reflections on cockpit glass
4 – almost everything was recreated like in a real plane, knobs and switches are placed correctly and they look believable, 3D switches and 3D custom gauges, manipulators used; but without additional animations and details
3 – cockpit resembles that of a real plane but without too much details, most of the switches are reproduced, 2D gauges placed over 3D panel, very few or no manipulators
2 – cockpit resembles that of a real plane but without any details, flat gauges on flat panel, no manipulators
1 – very basic cockpit, good for visual flying with TrackIR and nothing more, very few default gauges and 2D switches
0 – no 3D cockpit at all
D) Sounds:
5 – highly sophisticated custom sound system, 3D sound, lots of different sounds played during a flight, true engine startup and shutdown sequences, lifelike sound quality (very comparable to the real thing), additional sound effects
4 – lifelike sounds used, very high playback quality, additional sounds, basic startup and shutdown
3 – believable custom engine sounds, high playback quality, some additional sounds
2 – custom engine sound, the rest are X-Plane default sounds
1 – only default X-Plane sounds used
E) Flight model:
5 – almost the same performance like the real plane, all the numbers almost spot-on, the majority of flight model values are customised
4 – performance is very close to the original, with some minor differences in some areas, most of the flight model is custom work
3 – performance is close to the original, with some notable differences in some areas, the most important values in flight model are custom
2 – performance only in general resembles the real aircraft, lots of differences and lots of default values used
1 – performance barely resembles the real aircraft, paper plane syndrome
0 – performance and handling doesn’t resemble the real aircraft
F) Systems modelling:
5 – every or almost every system found on a real plane is modelled and it works like it should, with only minor differences allowed to take into account for X-Plane limitations
4 – the majority of the real systems were well reproduced, with only the additional ones being omitted
3 – the most important systems were reproduced, as well as some of the secondary ones
2 – only the most important systems were reproduced
1 – some of the most important systems work like they should
0 – no system modelling – only X-Plane’s defaults used
G) Plugin enchancements:
5 – every or almost every aspect of an aircraft is plugin driven, lots of major as well as additional features and enchancements
4 – many major and notable features, also some secondary goodies
3 – a number of primary features are controlled by a plugin
2 – plugin controls secondary enchancements only
1 – single and secondary feature being controlled by a plugin (think: a cherry on a cake)
0 – no plugin at all
H) Documentation:
5 – complete lifelike POH or flight manual, with lots of additional info and insight into the aircraft’s construction and history, detailed checklists (preferably in separate files)
4 – very detailed manual, with additional info and performance figures, contains checklists and charts
3 – well written manual with some additional info and performance figures, basic checklists
2 – short manual covering only the most important features and operation tips for an aircraft
1 – very basic “redme”, with very few flight informations and/or notes
0 – no documentation at all or nothing valuable from pilot’s point of view
I) Anything else:
5 – top of the shelf
4 – very good
3 – good and enjoyable
2 – somewhat lacking but still “flyable”
1 – marginal, only some “hardcores” might like it
0 – unbearable or nonexistent
Note 1: Any time I mention quality, it should be taken as a comparison to other products on the market and current state of the art. For example “very high quality” means planes comparable with the best ones on the market.
Note2: By “manipulator” I mean true manipulators as well as animated 3D switches with click areas.
I imagine that this is not a perfect solution but it could serve as a framework for a better and more complete rating system. I’ve tried to make it in such way, that almost every aircraft could get some points. For example lack of 3D cockpit doesn’t automatically make it low quality – such a plane could still get it’s high overall note from well done 2D cockpit and well thought plugin or else.
I really like the structure of this, in particular I like the very specific, objective nature of the categorization. It seems quite workable to me. Now all I need is a new acf to test it out on!
Do you have an a/c you’d like to review?
After some thinking, I could do DreamFoil’s Jetranger III. X-Plane world really needs more high quality helicopters like this one. Apart from that, I think that the B206 got somehow overshadowed by another jewel, in the shape of BK117 (which I also greatly enjoy), so it would be good to spread the word of this, in many ways unique, bird. However the rewiev could take me some time, due to other duties. I fly it a lot, but serious article about it would take a little more. Plus screenshots
If you like this idea, then please drop me info on my email, as to how could I send you text and pictures, when they are done.
Im a recent convert to X-plane from FSX and Just stumbled on this site looking for some new X-plane stuff to buy. Great site. Lots of good info.
Rob
X-plane10.wordpress.com
The window i must open every day.
The very very best. Waiting for it every day.
Thank you very much from Spain.
Hi,
Long time follower, first time annoy-er!!
Great blog, you are great at keeping your ear to the ground on everything X-Plane.
Keep it up!
Just a quick question, moreover a request for info.
What OS/PC/MAC are you operating to get such a great turnout of screen shots?
Your images are creating an evil envy inside me, and I am burning cash to upgrade my system to match.
Please advise?
Continue the good work,
Tedd
those x-plane 10 can be installed with os x lion??? Thanks
I’m running on Lion 10.7.3 no issues rosty
Hello, my name is George, I’d like to know when and how much it will cost the OLBA Beirut International Airport for FSX that I’ve seen you are preparing?
Sorry we are not doing that one
Hi! I am a Marsian soon turning Aprilian. My message to you from myself reads “Fligtradar 24 makes me boil in my own slime! And I like that.” Thank you.