FSX-MS Angle of Attack "Trial"

[nathanpinard 0]

A pop-up comes up saying your card will be charged $0.00. It's rather confusing. I wasn't even sure how to buy the real product honestly.

[Guest Calvin39h]

A pop-up comes up saying your card will be charged $0.00. It's rather confusing. I wasn't even sure how to buy the real product honestly.

 

yup im just passing up on it

[nathanpinard 0]

I will say this. The videos are worth it. Just to watch, not even to use with PDMG. It's fairly detailed.

 

However, the fact they want to charge for downloads is iffy. They serve those files on a different server with what they stream. They could've offered some kind of premium service to pay for downloads, but also give a free slower download option.

 

But streaming vs. download services are kind of iffy on whether you have to right to download something you are streamed or not.

[Guest Tushka]

I will say this. The videos are worth it. Just to watch, not even to use with PDMG. It's fairly detailed.

 

However, the fact they want to charge for downloads is iffy. They serve those files on a different server with what they stream. They could've offered some kind of premium service to pay for downloads, but also give a free slower download option.

 

But streaming vs. download services are kind of iffy on whether you have to right to download something you are streamed or not.

You can install plugins to firefox that let's you download any kind of flash videos off the net. It worked for aviator90 since they charged for downloads. Streaming/downloads is the same thing, when you stream videos it's the same as paying for the bandwidth of a download. Hence the charge for downloads is just a greedy practice but unfortunately not rare. I avoid this kind of companies.

 

However, I applaud to them having made aviator 90 completely for free. This came to me as a surprise.

[nathanpinard 0]

Streaming/downloads is the same thing, when you stream videos it's the same as paying for the bandwidth of a download.

 

Well, no it isn't. The files they serve are from a different structure of servers that are sync'd worldwide, and download faster than any stream. Streaming is not the same as downloading. Not by a long shot. For one, streaming downloads at the rate the video plays. Also some streaming services charge per stream, as opposed to file sharing services that charge per MB/GB etc.

 

That beings said I feel they could've used Vimeo's service (as they do on some videos) but I'm unsure what limitations Vimeo has. Afterall, there is a LOT of video.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 441]

When it comes to AOA, they don't even provide sample videos  :huh: so your buying into blindness

 

I seriously don't understand this comment. :huh: That's exactly what trail period is for.

 

You can cancel it and you won't be charged, so nobody is forcing you to do anything.

This is a common practice all over the world. Just one of the models, that's all.

Maybe you are too young to have a credit card and that's why you are so upset about all this? Maybe not.

[pete_auau 1,177]

However, the fact they want to charge for downloads is iffy. They serve those files on a different server with what they stream. They could've offered some kind of premium service to pay for downloads, but also give a free slower download option.

 

Guess this is  the same reasoning behind pmdg decision on the extended download service on where you have to pay  to re download your expired link.

[ThrustAsymComp 5]

So to give my experience.

 

I originally purchased the AOA 737 PMDG NGX "Captain's Package" way back in early 2013. At the time, they were still wrapping up ground work, had some flight work videos already out, and basically didn't even start on line work. Several months go by, Ground work was finally completely finished,  flight work was progressing alone, but for the most part, they did not have much line work videos out yet. Mind you, the "Captain's Package" at the time promised up to 3 months of "line work", and I specifically recall an official from AOA state that due to delays, they would "start the timer" of when the "3 months" started counting when they FINISHED line work for earlier purchasers of line work such as myself.

 

By May of 2013, they had completely scrapped their old forum and started a brand new forum from scratch, essentially and effectively deleting all the posts/comments that had amassed on the blogs and forums of AOA at that time. Around the same time, line work finally started coming out with videos. A lot of users, including myself noticed that in contrast to Ground Work and Flight Work, Line work was 'streaming only' and did not allow us to have the option to download the videos for offline viewing. There was forum speculating amongst several users that Chris intended to withhold the 1080p version for download and that it was streaming only because perhaps one day AOA wanted to package all the videos into a blu-ray format and sell it that way.

 

We had assurances that once they got everything settled that they would allow us to download the line work videos, and that for future /new customers that came in afterwards, that that might not be an option. Essentially, those who had already paid for the packaged would be grandfathered in.

 

Shortly after summer of 2013, I completely forgotten about AOA and got out of simming entirely for a while.

 

That was then, this is now.

 

Fast forward to Winter 2014. I am back toflight simulator and signed back into my old AOA account. First thing I noticed was that in the "dashboard" my Captain's package that I purchased was gone. I checked my order history and was shocked to see that : "No orders placed", then saw that "Orders prior to September 8, 2013 will not show. Your training should still be accessible from the dashboard."...

 

 

I thought no big deal, I'm here to look into the PMDG 777 videos, as I'm not really getting into 737 this time around. Then when I go to view all the offerings, I see that for all the other packages (777, Aviator Pro, etc) it says "Enroll", but for the PMDG 737NGX package it said something different (I didn't note exactly what it said) so I clicked on it, thinking maybe it did remember me and I do still have access to all my 737 videos after all...

 

Then it had the audacity to proceed to attempt to charge myself credit card again! Luckily, that was a year ago, and the credit card that was on file was expired and no longer active.

 

I recieved then an email in my inbox stating that : "A training packages is past due" ... "Your recent payment was declined. We'd had to see you miss out on the training as a result of this. Please update your billing information to reactivate your account."... and that I OWED AoA, "1 payment of $79.99 USD" and insulted me with : "Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter."

 

So between all my AOA blog/forum comments /posts that were deleted due to Chris deciding to start over from scratch and purge the old system, my promised Captain's package that I had paid for taken away from me (ground, flight and line work) and AOA attempting to re-charge my card for another Captain's package for the same 737 Captain's package that I had already paid them upfront for.... I think I'm done. Thanks but no thanks. I was interested in the 777 videos, but their so-called "trial" not only requires all credit and billing info up front, but only has a few select videos (even teasers/trailers/demos give more content) and by the looks of it, I don't want to take the risk of somehow some glitch not allowing me to effectively cancel in time, and then me getting billed the full price again and still not being able to access the content that I paid for...