"The customer is the key; after all, he votes with his feet."I think in this case, you could say "he votes with his wings",Sorry, couldn't resist.

(( -- self censored, as it put the thread at risk for a lock -- ))

I'm done with buying addon aircrafts. They just dont deliver and the default a/c's do the job + the new and free IFDG MD11 with Alain Capt's panel = what more do you want for a heavy?You want a good and trustworthy FMC? Get FSNav. That's all you need to PLAY pilot.Stephan

Temper Greg, temper...http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=24376&page=-Greg

Hi Wathomas777,You said:"Do you HONESTLY think that this community would accept a Developer saying. "hey guys, no updates for planes or such until MS provides the SDK....Plain and simple"*******************You mean like the Cardinal, and the "Oh we're waiting to fix the rain on the windshield..." Please.....Like that really matters. *******************It is getting kind of old when a A PAYWARE developer says they will release it, and then does not.Pretty simple. release it for current customers from MSFS2002, but don't offer it for sale to new customers based upon MSFS9 Full Compatibility.Then re-release it. Think of the good will that will create.Some developers have gone this path and have been quite successful.And balogney to the "MSFS9 has only been out 4 months."They Had BETA's didn't they?Now, how can a developer promise compatibility prior to release of MSFS9, like some did, unless they had beta's. Or were they lying to us? It is either one, or the other, right? *****************************BECAUSE THEY HAD BETA's of MSFS9, that is why. Now, when did said developer(s) first get their hands on a beta? A year ago, maybe? And would not that give them quite a bit of time?***************************** If you want to defend the payware developers, fine, but let's not pretend thay have not had adequate time.How many people bought those products for MSFS2002, because the developer said it would be compatible with MSFS9? (Can you say Contract)As a consumer, I have the right to have my expectations met, especially when a developer makes a Contract (Promise) of compatibility, and then sits on it for stupid reasons. You also said:"The ultimate responsibility lies with the person who has control of his wallet."Yeppers, that is a fact, and this ill-will by some developers will certainly be a consideration the next time I decide to open my wallet.I have bought ONLY the following products.1) FSD- Commander - Original, and now G-Max upgrade for $7.50 )It still rocks)2) FSD- Porter (Bush Flying Mecca, IMHO. Great Plane. I hacked the old 2000 Versin to MSFS9, and now finally bought the new one. This Plane Rocks.3) DreamFleet Cardinal. Plane no longer meets my expectations, and due to my expectations, I will most likely not buy any other products from that company. SO as one who believes he makes both logical software and hardware choices. (Still using my trusty 1.2ghz Athlon), As a consumer I do have two choices.1) To buy whatever I like.2) To Freely express my opinion of that purchase, support, or performance which I PAID for.These companies need to rethink their strategy. What happens if MS decides this is the version they made the choice NOT to release some of the SDk's. Until they are released, that is possible, Right?There is my Nickel, which I freely give from time to time.Regards,Joehttp://aboutpolitics.net/images/bannerav.gif.About Politics.net - FORUMShttp://pub207.ezboard.com/bpoliticsgivemel...tyorgivemedeath.Contribute to the Richard Harvey Scholarship Fund.http://www.avsim.com/pages/scholarship.shtml

I was slowly joining the payware market and i bought my first item,Ultimate Traffic and i must say that i am really dissapointed.First off ...When it was released it didnt work (yes i read the readme) and a Whole heap of things were wrong with it right out of the box.Planes parked on lawns ,, planes doing circles, phantom planes, planes stuck at the gates, major liveries missing.. and the list goes on. Fine ..fixed the issues (after days of additional fine tuning)... and got a patch which i think had to be released twice. Not to mention the Afcads, which were not labeled properly according to whether they were for default ms Scenery or Addons(Frustrating.. but i lived with it).Additionally i was drawn to buying Ulimate Triffic as Flight One Promised a "free" update in around X time(Partial reason i bought it was because fs9 was approaching and i didnt want to have to buy a new version when it came out). My Cardinal MistakeDevelopers ,,please do not make promises you CANNOT keep or meet. I slightly ephasise with you about not having afcad or the sdk's or needed tools to make the software work properly and as advertised. However, If you promise something, we the consumer expect to recieve the item within the time frame promised and in full working order. If Developers know they cannot deliver in such a time ... please do not misrepresent yourself to your consumers.. it turns them off. Just make sure that you can deliver as advertised and everything would be fine..Im not saying that there wont be hiccups .. every system is different and you cannot beta test on every system. however good software should only have minor problems .. not major ones that "may" render the primary use of the program virtually impossible.Also, I guess i am from the school of thought that payware is supposed to be better than freeware. A posky plane, a good freeware panel and fsnavigator has never let me down. and the new MD11 from IDFG with Capt alains panel is astonishing (will be even better with Bill Grabowski's panel when its released). If im paying for an addon.. and i mostly fly the heavies it had at least be somewhat better than the freeware thats out there now. Its a tall order but money doesnt fall out the sky for me and in some countries its even harder to come by.

I too waited patiently for Ultimate Traffic, but my experience was a bit different from yours.1. I read in all the forums, and learned how to shoehorn the FS2002 into FS2004. Yes, I knew the limitations, but just getting the liveries and flight plans made it worth my investment.2. I also understood that during the upgrade process, Flight one and company gave approxmimately bi-weekly updates (once every two weeks or so), explaining the process. Even though many rabid "consumers" couldn't even provide them adequate time to beta test the update3. I also witnessed the fact that Flight one had to wait on Lee Swordy to develop a new Traffic Tools, and new AFCAD to be able to allow that functionality in the update. 4. The reason for two patches, is because Tom and company immediately responded (within days) to a complaint of lack of incoming traffic. This was due to a switch (inhibit arrival times) that had not been included in the FS2004 version. This seems to have been a design decision, that was later reversed.5. The reason for missing liveries is related to the American Airlines debacle of FS98 era, and if you know that history, you know that legally, no payware developer is allowed to include American Airlines liveries without specific permission from AA. Since these repaints actually started out life as freeware repaints, permission had not been obtained. So as a result, the only way they could be distributed is via freeware. I am currently overjoyed with Ultimate Traffic and it has been well worth the purchase price in my book.I am not in the habit of always defending developers, but I truly think that many times consumer expectation is way out of line with reason. For example. One complaint on the UT forums recently was that all the strobes for the AI all blinked at the same time, and how this was "really" unrealistic. I'm sorry, but I don't care who you are, that is petty.But I still defend my original position. As consumers, we seem to lose all sense of smarts, when it comes to making FS purchases. If we as customers used 10% of the restraint and research on addons, as we made when "spec'ing out our system", we wouldn't fall for every whizbang utility/plane/panel/addon that the pied piper presents us.

I agree with "almost" everything you have said above.. however Id rather not have to shoehorn any payware to make it work. (Freeware fine but payware it should work on installation ,, with minor adjustments) Some of these things were major adjustments.If they knew they were not going to Have Swiss intl and AA ..among others then why did I have to buy the product first to know that those liveries were going to be missing ?? If would have been nice if they had said that those liveries would not be immediately availiable before i bought the product. I would have waited for them to become availiable first. If they knew that they had to wait on afcad then why did they give people the impression that the update would have been released imminently. I think it would have been better PR to have said all these things up front.. the bi weekly updates were ok but giving the impression that the updates were going to be ready "in a few days or so" when it really was not the case didnt go down well.Better they had said that it will be ready when its ready and "fully tested"

This is a very interesting topic so I'll chime in on this one. No hard feelings against anyone and I hope I don't upset anyone with these comments. I personally don't buy any payware. Reason being it is too expensive. If you want to add up all of the costs of making your FS " As real as it gets " you'll have to spend a good $1000 US for payware add-ons alone. I'm fed up with the payware industry charging these ridiculous prices for their products. MSFS only costs 50 bucks folks, it doesn't justify paying 30 bucks for a plane, 30 bucks for an extra city, 20 bucks for this module, 50 bucks for this scenery, 120 bucks for that scenery and on and on. Some of the payware is worth the money but some out right is not worth a dime. With some searching you can find QUALITY freeware airplanes and scenery that will satisfy your needs. And if you don't find something you like, take the time and serve your community by making your own scenery and/or airplane. That is what I've been doing for almost 8 years. Hats off to all of the freeware designers out there. You are the true contributors to this hobby. Without you FS would be dead. There are too many names to list here but you guys know who you are. Now some authors may go from freeware to payware which is fine. I just hope they charge a reasonable price for their creations. Sherv

First of all. When I purchased UT, it was clear that the update was not out yet, so I made a conscious decision to purchase it and then "make it work", based on what the forum posts showed to be a relative simple procedure.If you were not ready to do that, you should have held off on your purchase until the upgrade was ready.As far as AA and Swiss goes, just where does it say that they include these liveries? You read into something that didn't exist. The AA liveries were available from the get go using the auto updater. They couldn't be included in the executable you bought due to licensing restrictions with AA. Don't blame Flight One for having to follow licensing procedures set up by an airline. Just be thankful that the liveries were a short download away.Finally, what do you think the response in the forums would have been if simply they stuck to "it will be ready when it's ready". They even tried to say that and came under greater attack for not including 'more detail' in their progress reports.I understand your frustration, but it is also indicative of your ignorance of the software process. UT is and has always been a bunch of licensed freeware tools that have been modified to work under a seamless UI. The repaints are project UI repaints. The Traffic Tools and AFCAD files are based on Lee Swordy freeware. It would not have made any difference if Flight One had a pre-release beta, as it was the freeware tools that they were primarily waiting on, and I know of few "freeware" authors who get beta releases.As a result, UT had to wait for the specific freeware authors to update their programs before Flight One could proceed. Once those programs were complete, UT had to then write the wrapper to incorporate all the tools under a single seamless interface.I don't know about you, but I purchased UT not because of the content, because, that was readily available in freeware, but for the "service" that someone had already done it for me.The thousands of flight plans, liveries, and AFCAD's save hours upon hours of time searching and downloading from a myriad of different locations.If you don't find your time worth a mere $30.00, than that's fine. But I would say a host of the issues with UT were due to absolutely unrealistic expectations, more than any malfeasance on Flight One's part.

Well said Will. :)

Meh, it's all because they haven't learned my technique. It involves the finger next to my index finger.It's very effective at deterring whining from "Space Cadets." ;)And yet another reason why I'm veering away from popular airliners and into the field of obscure and vintage aircraft, and even GA lately. I had more fun making the CV-990 with HJG than I ever did making any 737. The Cessna twins have been a blast to work on. The bottom line for me is, I'd rather appeal to a small bunch of dedicated classic jet jockeys (basically people like me who value anything with 4 low bypass engines above all else) than the newest generation of space cadets...not to offend, it's just true. Also, you'd be amazed how much you learn making an aircraft as rare as the 990...it's a lot of research - you have to dig through old photos, most of which are grainy beyond recognition, and usually that just won't do and you have to go out and find a book or go ask someone who worked around the things. What really helped on the 990 were some scans of some posters and of the parts of an old model kit someone sent. You'd be amazed at how far those things go...and sometimes it's all you have. It's a real challenge. It's why I could make the DC-9 in two weeks and the 990 took me a year...to a degree.-E

I think that it is too bad that Microsoft cannot issue an upgrade everytime a new version of FS comes out. Instead of having to purchase a new version, we could purchase an upgrade. This will never be possible, because each new version of FS makes use of the newest hardware and software available. It is just a dream that would make everything simple. Once we can all afford the newest hardware, then all will run smooth.... Pipe Dream? Most likely....