Is this true about the PSS Concord???

[Guest Daniel Pimentel]

I agree that certain criteria needs to be taken into consideration when making reviews, since people DO look at reviews to make decisions. If they see the PSS review and see 5 stars, they might spend money on PSS instead of Altitude, when maybe the Altitude is a better product (wouldn't know, don't fly Concordes). While I concur that everyone has an opinion, reviews are made based on fixed, objective criteria. If a product is ALL it could be, it gets a 5. If not, start counting downwards. If the feature missing is widespread as is the case with clickable VC's (overhead), then it's flat-out misleading for a product to get a perfect rating. The reviewer's allowed to express his tastes, but reviews aren't made to cater to the reviewer's likes, but to those of the prospective buyers looking for an objective insight. If I see a 5, I expect a product that's not only complex, but visually and technically pushing the envelope beyond belief. From what I gather, PSS did not do this with the Concorde (and hasn't done so with anything after the 747, unfortunately).Just my 2 cents. :)Daniel P.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpgMember of SJU Photography. [A HREF=http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=9004]Click Here[/A] to view my aircraft photos at JetPhotos.Net!The official psychotic AA painter. :)

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

I have held off responding to this thread and others that have cropped up as a result of our review, but now I am sufficiently fired up to do so. It is one thing to question our reviews, but an entirely different thing to see the "obvious"; that is that there are many who can and do take "shots" at us for our reviews, but given the opportunity to help and put their "expertise" and suggestions to work for the benefit of the community are lost on them. I have suggested that if you are really concerned about the quality of our reviews, then step up and help us out. Do a review that meets YOUR needs. Do a review that incorporates all your suggestions and addresses the shortcomings that you found in Tom's review. Do a review that balances your assessment versus that of a "rating". Until you belly up to the bar and volunteer YOUR FREE TIME to write a comprehensive review that answers all the questions, addresses every nuance of the product, and stands up to the scrutiny of your fellow simmers, then I consider all of this to be grousing. Write a review that passes our scrutiny and we'll happily post it. In other words, "put up or shut up". Unless you are willing to write a review and demonstrate your dedication to the hobby, then your criticisms are going to fall on deaf ears. Simple as that.

[Dillon 2,197]

So what your saying is if I wrote another review on the PSS Concord and it was a well written (factual) review, you guys would omit the current version and use mine instead???

[Dillon 2,197]

Your right to each his own Ray... The way your defending this product has me wanting to buy the aircraft just for the sake of seeing why some of you feel so strongly about this it... I might have to get it anyway if Tom allows me to do a more objective review to challenge/replace the one that's already out there.I could most likely see your point about the engineer panel as Dreamfleet also elected not to model it in the VC... But there is no excuse for not touching the overhead panel, no excuse at all. I have the Altitude Concord and their engineer panel is understandably toned down meaning it's mostly an unrealistic bitmap with a few key switches usable. They went above and beyond with their Main and Overhead panels though. So I'll say at least PSS should have done the two panels and left the engineer panel to the 2D view. I realize with this as an example, this is the very reason that we're not quite ready to move away from the 2D panel altogether....Now as far as PSS being a top developer is another issue. In the days of FS2000 and FS2k2, PSS was next to gods in the FS world... They had awesome products, awesome support, and most of all an unmediated forum. You could actually get your questions answered back then. All that has changed now. PSS was a development house that would update their products to a reasonable standard and if they couldn't they'd make a new version of the add-on... Once again all that has changed. What blew my mind was seeing the Dash8 and Vulcan released 2 or 3 months before FS2k4 and PSS's unwillingness to fully update those add-ons to FS2k4's standard (let alone the Airbus series). PSS now holds the record as the main development house to have the least effort in patching their add-ons to FS2k4's standard. Everyone else in our community (payware and freeware) has went above and beyond to give us all the new features of FS2k4. PSS just produced the bare minimum (I still can

[oqvist 11]

Perhaps not good you make the review then if you have personal bad experience from before ;)If you go for making a review and are trying to take every shot at it even if it

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

"factual" is in the eyes of the beholder and all of these products are subject to the experience, bias, subjective, and personal views of the reviewers. If you write a review, we'll look it over and if it meets our guidelines, we'll post it. We are not going to replace our existing review with it, but we will put yours up as another point of view, which is all that it would be. In short, go for it.

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

"I have a bitter taste in my mouth seeing we don't have a decent A320 in FS2k4 when we could have had an evolution of an already great add-on... So no, PSS is not one of the premier developers at this time, their far from it...."Oh yeah... Your review would be unbiased. Sure it would. Yeah, right.

[Dillon 2,197]

Tom I'd based my review solely on this package alone not the developer. Is it any better you have a review by a person that feels totally opposite about PSS than I do??? Your guy is no more in the middle of the road with PSS than I am. I would write my review based on my findings, I would rate the whole package based on how it stands up to the current top of the line products out there. For me the top of the line is products like PMDG's 737NG series, DreamFleet's 727, etc... I actually believe that this is a great add-on minus the external textures and the shortcomings in the VC... You guys here have actually convinced me that the engineers panel may have been a little over the top to incorporate in the VC depending on how they did the 2D panel (There's still no excuse here when the fact is PSS developing for FS2k4 not FS2k2. This is not an upgrade to an FS2k2 product therefore the VC should have been concidered in the first place). The look of the PSS VC is second to none and it's a shame it's not fully interactive. My hat it off to the designer of the PSS Concord VC, the look of it is awesome.... I really feel the overhead panel should have been interactive in the VC, I see no excuse for that especially when I see all the effort that was put in on the look of the VC.All in all I'd look at this package for what it is and base my findings soley on that. We all know concidering the competition out there it can not recieve a '5' if issues like external textures and VC shortcomings are present. If you can't give 'Aeroworx/Flight Factory Simulation's Beechcraft KingAir200' a '5' star rating surely I can't give PSS a '5' with issues like I mentioned above. Now this is just keeping in standard with Avsim's own review criteria....:-roll

[Ray Proudfoot 8,925]

Hi Dillon,I'm pleased you see my point on the VC modelling the FE panel. I would agree with you that it should have been possible to make the overhead panels clickable in the VC mode. I'm sure that if you posted the question on PSS's Concorde forum they would respond. Having a bitmap just for "eye candy" with no purposeful use is an unnecessary overhead.Your views on this subject have already convinced me you're a hard-core VC fan. OTOH, I remain a devotee of 2D panels and now that I have a TFT screen the extra clarity that brings makes using a 2D panel a delight.I'm curious as to what percentage of serious simmers use a VC where it is available. I'll post a request for a survey to be held I think. The results should be interesting. Because I use GoFlight modules and Project Magenta software I rarely use the mouse when flying the PMDG737 but it's necessary for Concorde as the commands cannot be replicated on my hardware. Shame really :-(<>You have to recognise that the release of Concorde was historically important - far more so than any other aircraft I would argue. The last commercial flights by Air France and British Airways took place in May and October 2003 respectively. As a Brit I felt very angry that this superb aircraft had been withdrawn from service far before its use by date and desperately wanted (along with thousands of others probably) to see it modelled in FS. I believe PSS did the right thing in making it their top priority. I suppose Airbus fans may feel differently but they're going to be around for a long time and let's face it - one Airbus looks pretty much like any other Airbus with the exception of the monster A380 ;-)I'm sure PSS considered very carefully what aircraft they would work on next. After all, if they get that decision wrong they stand to lose a lot of money. The time was right for Concorde.If you do decide to buy the Koch Concorde I'll be very interested in hearing how you get on with flying the aircraft whilst moving the fuel around to maintain the CoG. You're going to have your hands full I think.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 8,925]

Tom,Do you have any links to the guidelines for review writers?Thanks,

[Ray Proudfoot 8,925]

Dillon,Curious about any other reviews of the PSS Concorde I visited their website. There are a total of three reviews. We know the AvSim review awarded them 100% or 5 stars. The other two reviews scored it 84% and 94% although the second of those was based on just 13 hours of testing.The average of these scores is 93% thus confirming the excellence of the aircraft.Here are the links to the other two reviews: -www.wspilots.com/reviews/PhoenixSimulations.Concorde.htmlwww.ic-games.co.uk/index.php?location=1&&articleid=2470Cheers,

[Dillon 2,197]

Hey Ray I already own the Altitude (Koch) Concord... ;-) Your right, the fuel management is a problem. I hardly fly it now until I have the time to really learn how to do it correctly. I'm really on the fence about buying the PSS Concord because looking up at a dead overhead when I need to turn on the landing lights is really going to

[Dillon 2,197]

Thanks Ray...Tom what's the use in writing another review if your so convinced this aircraft is one of the best aircraft ever released and the rating still stands right up there with PMDG... I may have to pick this thing up just for the simple fact you guys stand behind this thing so tough. My interest is really up there now.Ray has just supplied two new reviews that give this bird high scores as well (although their not the highest marks possible), so I may just have to see what all the fuss is about. I'll let you guys know when I purchase this add-on what I find. What's great about this is I'm going in on this thing knowing full well support sucks. If I post a concern on the PSS forum it won't get posted, there most likely won't be a decent update for the next version of Flight Simulator (although something tells me Microsoft won't kill the standard GMAX model they put in effect during FS2k2's run. Minor FDE updates might be the only issue we all will need to address). So in the end it's a better deal knowing exactly what I

[oqvist 11]

As for vc fliers among the bush flyers it

[Bluescaster 21]

Dillon........ was that a "Yes, I'll do a review" (Put up) - Or "What's the use ....etc" (Shut up)..... In answer to Tom's well put intervention?Regards, Blue:-)