Any sources for objective information?

[Badger]

Unless you are independently wealthy, making an informed decision about where to spend a limited budget for on-line flight sim entertainment is getting tougher. We have our traditional iEN WB, which up till now, has enjoyed a virtual monopoly in this market arena. Some would argue they've squandered that lead, but that's not the topic of this conversation.
HTC's Aces High has come on strong with an actual playable product, shortly in v1.03 with improvements happening every 4-6 weeks.

WWII On-line has perhaps the best and most well fed marketing budget from a monetary point of view, but is limited to classic propaganda screen shots, selectively seeded and timed interviews, a third party infomercial web site following and finally, a veracious fan club they've carefully cultivated and developed on their own BBS. They have no product accessible by the public or any reviewers I know of as yet, with a closed beta possible commencing soon.

My question is simple. I have seen a lot of subjective, as well as a few thinly veiled, but biased attempts at objective comparisons between the only two operating products available, that fall into the class of serious on-line flight simulations. The magazine reviews, electronic or otherwise, go to great lengths not to compare directly, but rather review any product within an envelope of its own merits and the reviewer's taste.

I was personally looking for something more empirically data oriented, that compared side by side various features and functions of each. Completeness and no preference conclusions by the writer are the key to permitting the reader to make up his own mind. Are there any web sites or independent documents that handle WB's and Aces High in that manner?

If not, since I fly and enjoy both equally, perhaps it's something I might take a crack at putting together. That should scare a lot of people.  

Regards,
Badger



[This message has been edited by Badger (edited 05-26-2000).]

[NineZ]

Man what a challenge, good luck!  

The only empirical data I personally need is the price per hour.  

JagdNine

[Toad]

Badger,

I doubt you'll find that in a magazine for two reasons.

First, the writer will never get enough space to really do an in-depth comparison. Most print articles are around 1000-1500 words which equates to 2-3 pages with screenshots. That simply isn't enough space to do much more than an overview of the game and some detail on a few of the major aspects.

Magazine articles also have to appeal to the entire spectrum of gamers, not just flight sim enthusiasts. The Editor wants all his subscribers to read each article and enjoy the magazine. So, most articles don't get too esoteric.

Second, if you did have the space, it's almost impossible to do an empirical comparison of many of the features.

If one were to compare flight models, which plane would one choose to compare? You certainly couldn't compare them all and your results probably would vary depending on which planes you chose. One game might have a really nice P-51 model but a terrible Zero model.

Further, flight model evaluation is inevitably subjective. Would a writer who has never flown anything evaluate it the same way as someone who has flown high performance aircraft extensively?

Or take another aspect, gunnery: ballistics are easy to program but damage isn't. Beyond that, how do you decide which is "best" or "most realistic"? What if one sim playbalances damage so that you can fight longer while another sim allows significant damage? Just look at the discussions here on guns. There are some pretty learned people posting on this board yet there's certainly no agreement.

I doubt you'll ever find a side-by-side comparison of two flight sims. If there was one, 10% of the readers would agree with it and 90% would claim "it's AFU!" based on their own extensive experience and historical research!  

 

[Badger]

Thanks toad....

I always wondered why the magazine reviewers never did a side by side type thing.  Perhaps it is something vaulable that we could get put together, to reduce the amount of collateral noise in these type  discussions.