Poll: Your civilian simulator of choice and the future

[Christopher Low 5,352]

You don't need to avoid poll threads. You just need to stop assuming that they are started for reasons other than simple curiosity.

[GHarrall 494]

21 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Just like DTG FSW, which set the extremely low bar for early access, the DCS version is still missing  a lot of pieces. I suspect the F/A-18 will eventually get to a final release,

Bar really low in DCS with the F18? Wow. To me its already setting the bar pretty high even in its early access state. Sure, there are features missing still but what is there is very good and the updates come at a regular pace. 

Edited October 18, 2018 by GHarrall

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

14 minutes ago, GHarrall said:

Bar really low in DCS with the F18? 

I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. It was DTG that set the bar really low for the early access concept and that has made everyone wary of such releases. The real world F/A-18's systems are so complex that it was inevitable that anyone trying to replicate the VRS version would need a long closed beta period in order to produce a comparable product. ED opted not to do so. I'm a fan of DCS but they didn't get me to buy in to an unfinished product. 

[dal330200 216]

On 10/16/2018 at 1:07 PM, J van E said:

I have to say I am really seriously amazed at how much more popular P3D is here on AVSIM...! At this moment there are 10 times (!) as much users that call P3D their definitive favorite sim compared to XP! Even when looking at users of both sims but prefering one there are 3 times as much P3D users than XP users! Funny detail is that there are 5 times as much users who consider a change although 5 to 1 is hardly worth mentioning. Then again... 5 users who are considering a change while XP only has 6 users... the amount of XP users may double sometime soon. (Or they must be switching to AFS2, which I doubt.)

Almost forgot another funny detail: FSX has twice as much dedicated users than XP has...! Wow...!

Of course this is just one (limited) poll but it's fun seeing those results. 😉

If you simplify the results by adding up the favorite and 'more time' users and subtracting the upcoming 'switchers' (presuming they will switch to 'the other main sim' and dividing the leaving FSX users over P3D and XP) you get something like this:

P3D users: 74
XP users: 17
FSX users: 9
AFS2 users: 2

Quite a surprising list! 🙂 Whatever these numbers may mean, one thing is clear: P3D seems to be the most loved sim on AVSIM.

 

I also think that AVSIM is very P3D-friendly, but it has a legacy built on MSFS so it really doesn't come as a surprise to me.  I have a suspicion that the X-Plane community as a whole is larger than P3D however.  Would be interesting to create a combination FB page for users of both platforms and see where the chips fall, and sparks fly, once users start comparing apples to apples in the "same room" lol. 

Edited October 27, 2018 by dal330200

[Mace 1,909]

On 10/27/2018 at 12:17 PM, dal330200 said:

I also think that AVSIM is very P3D-friendly, but it has a legacy built on MSFS so it really doesn't come as a surprise to me.  I have a suspicion that the X-Plane community as a whole is larger than P3D however.  

I read that P3D addons outsell XPlane addons by a wide margin, on a vendor forum that sells products for both platforms.  And yet, that too, is probably not an accurate representation either, as there are simply more P3D add-ons available.

You mentioned a Facebook poll -- but even that may be inaccurate, if FB is more of a haven for XPlane or P3D users.  It's just so difficult to get really good polls on something like this.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Quote

You mentioned a Facebook poll -- but even that may be inaccurate, if FB is more of a haven for XPlane or P3D users.  It's just so difficult to get really good polls on something like this.

A classic example of skewed voting would be the Assetto Corsa Ferrari Pack. Most of the Assetto Corsa forum members wanted a classic Ferrari race or road car, but someone had the bright idea to post a link to the poll on Reddit......and we got the 2017 F1 car Most of the people who voted for that car probably didn't even use Assetto Corsa!!

Edited October 29, 2018 by Christopher Low

[pmb 5,137]

I would suggest keeping an eye onto the Aerosoft fall poll. While this is clearly biased, too, you can compare relative percentages over the years, as they did these over several years now.

Kind regards, Michael

[HiFlyer 9,358]

8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

A classic example of skewed voting would be the Assetto Corsa Ferrari Pack. Most of the Assetto Corsa forum members wanted a classic Ferrari race or road car, but someone had the bright idea to post a link to the poll on Reddit......and we got the 2017 F1 car Most of the people who voted for that car probably didn't even use Assetto Corsa!!

Exactly.

[Leen3131cs 107]

Maybe its time to start a new poll.
 

Question:

How reliable and representative do you think a poll is? 

0 - 10 

Its a big 0 for me.

[HiFlyer 9,358]

On 10/29/2018 at 1:41 PM, Christopher Low said:

A classic example of skewed voting would be the Assetto Corsa Ferrari Pack. Most of the Assetto Corsa forum members wanted a classic Ferrari race or road car, but someone had the bright idea to post a link to the poll on Reddit......and we got the 2017 F1 car Most of the people who voted for that car probably didn't even use Assetto Corsa!!

Though I would add that at base I actually have nothing against such polls when done for fun. It's only when the results are taken without the large grains of salt due to polls taken with no attempt or possibility of unscientific methodology that I have qualms.

[spilok 1,133]

It's just sooooo refreshing and less stressful to have no crashes or memory exhaustions.  P3d has made flight simulation extremely rewarding.  FSX  (32bit) gave me so many OOM's in the last days that I used it, that I simply concluded that this program DEMANDS 64 bit.  

I've never looked back.  The vote of the OP confirms this.

Stan

[Paraffin 2,197]

On 10/30/2018 at 3:32 AM, Leen3131cs said:

Maybe its time to start a new poll.
 

Question:

How reliable and representative do you think a poll is? 

0 - 10 

Its a big 0 for me.

The wording there is tricky (a problem for most polls, granted). I think a forum poll is reliable and representative of those who happen to be online during that brief window of opportunity and aren't busy doing something else (like flying), and of those who bother to post at all, rather than the silent reading majority, and of those who actually know about the forum in question, and aren't active on other forums instead.

With all those qualifiers I'd make it a 10. 🙂 

The problems are in extrapolating one forum poll to the rest of the world, and to everyone else who might be interested in the subject. That's a big zero for me too.

The only truly "accurate" poll I've seen, and it's more an automated user survey than a poll, is something like what Laminar does with its yearly breakdown of user systems and settings in X-Plane. You can see how many are on Windows, Mac, or Linux, which OS is used, how many use joysticks or yokes vs. mouse and keyboard, and the breakdown of types of planes being flown. It's all anonymous user data pulled directly from the sim, so it's about as accurate as you can get.

But it's only interesting as far as it relates to this one sim, and of course they don't release number of sales or active users.

[ErichB 3,642]

On 10/30/2018 at 10:32 AM, Leen3131cs said:

Maybe its time to start a new poll.
 

Question:

How reliable and representative do you think a poll is? 

0 - 10 

Its a big 0 for me.

That is why you have to consider the context  within which the poll is taken.  Anyone knows that if you poll the same questions here, on Aerosoft or on Facebook you are likely to get vastly different results.  It was already assumed before the poll was taken that there is a P3D bias here.  But it is interesting to see how the numbers do stack up in any particular sandbox - which was the only point of doing one here.

[Delta111 29]

Not to mention the very first poll question is skewered...Cannot have an AND/OR in a polling question...

                                        "Xplane is definitely my favourtie sim and/or i'm too heavily invested to change"

 

Paleeeseee....

[ErichB 3,642]

11 minutes ago, Delta111 said:

Cannot have an AND/OR in a polling question...

As it comes down to which is your primary sim of choice, the reason is largely irrelevant. And/or in this case qualifies.  Paleeesee keep up