A Plea to the Community

[DetCord 1539]

This is something that has irked me for some time as of late, so I'm going to go ahead and get it off my chest.

 

A lot of time and effort goes into creating these liveries that all of you download. Without people like us, you wouldn't have much of anything to fly. We spend our time doing this, creating textures for you guys, not just because you requested them, but because we're happy to oblige. I think it says a great deal concerning this community that as many liveries exist to begin with. I mean you won't find any other addon in the FS world that has as many livery additions as the Aerosoft Buses, period.

 

It's really not asking a lot in the least here, and the fact that this is a continuing trend is something I find rather disconcerting. People like John, Holgi, Airmax, ariag, myself and many others have poured countless thousands of hours into this. Again, not for us, but for you. Feedback helps us. It helps us improve. It helps us fix errors. It helps us see that the time and effort involved in a texture project wasn't in vain. If the vote and review is one star then so be it. I'd rather have that than nothing at all.

 

What I'm asking is that those of you that download liveries (which is everyone) take two minutes out of your busy schedule to leave a rating and a review. That's it.

 

Please login to display this image.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

A very good idea...

 

[Poe Dameron 95]

Why not prevent the user from downloading until they've rated it. hehe

[Jude 190]

 

30 minutes ago, TroopaKoopa_ said:

Why not prevent the user from downloading until they've rated it. hehe

Well, that doesn't make sense, does it? You'd have to try it first to have an honest review.

 

[Poe Dameron 95]

15 minutes ago, Jude said:

 

Well, that doesn't make sense, does it? You'd have to try it first to have an honest review.

 

But once you got the texture I doubt anyone would come back to rate since they got what they wanted.

[Jude 190]

How could you rate what you haven't tried yet?

 

[Herman 1591]

Let's get back to detcord's point

[John Glanville 821]

The thread was made as a request just like all the requests that painters have fulfilled for the members here for the past 6 years , nothing more , nothing less .

It's abundantly clear due to the ( lack of ) reactions that most do not care one way or the other for whatever reason . I have been in contact with DetCord about this thread and to be honest it tells ( me at least ) what we are worth to the " community " here . Just now I went through all 43 pages of liveries for the latest version(s) and even though some have several hundred downloads , no-one has bothered to place a review or comment . The reason behind the amount of downloads can be due to several factors , the first being the length of time it's been available , popularity of the airline etc. etc. Without seeing any reviews or comments we ( the painters ) can only guess . Maybe that people do not consider how much time can go into a " simple " livery request , ranging from a " few " hours to weeks or months and unfortunately for some , just never get finished .

Giving a review is also giving the painter recognition for the " work " they produce and is a small " price " to pay , especially if you enjoy using that paint .

 

DetCord wasn't saying that everyone must leave a review ( a minority already do ) , just that it would be nice to do so . If someone does you a favour you normally say thank you afterwards , so surely the same can be done here .

 

[DaveCT2003 2553]

Well, I certainly see the point, and having the community appreciate one's devotion and effort is certainly warranted, absolutely.  I thank you all for your work.

 

Our community is primarily made up of those whose flight simulation experience is between them and their computer. Man, I tell you, I wish I could impress upon everyone the incredible experience of flying shared cockpit in a high end simulator during a VATSIM event... it can be exciting, challenging, fun, funny, and it's the most incredible experience than any of us will ever have in our hobby and Lord knows I've tried to light the way!  But again, their flight simulation is between them and their computer and they are not willing to move forward - even if for an incredible experience!  Like it or not, the core of our user base is just not that involved in the community and as such they find what they want or need, download it, and move on.

 

I have devoted a rather large amount of time to the flight simulation community for over 30 years, and for the past 12 years it's been 30+ hours a week of my time devoted purely to flight simulation - much to the chagrin of family (I've down scaled a bit over the past few months for personal and medical reasons but I'm working my way back!).  Forum based Technical Support; Desktop Technical Support; educating sim pilots; research, development; testing and for many developers, and for roughly a year now working with Aerosoft (best distributor and customers I've experienced in the past 10 years). 

 

My efforts have been for the community I love, a community which has given me countless hours of incredible experiences thanks to the selfless effort of countless people. I'm thankful and blessed to have been able to give back to our community, and proud to have worked with developers such as Aerosoft, Majestic, REX Studios, Airline2Sim, FSFX and many others. 

 

I've worked around DetCord for a few years and know enough about him to respect him both personally and professionally.  I recognize and understand his talent and efforts Holgi, John and other other re-painters - we're all blessed to have them!  My humble and heartfelt advice is to consider putting the effort forth in the spirit of the old ISD team and many other scenery developers who made enormous contributions to our community without asking anything in return - and let the number of downloads be your praise!  With that said, I thank you re-painters so very much and I'm very grateful for your long and hard work.

 

Thanks for allowing me to give my input.

 

Best wishes to everyone for a terrific flight sim experience!

 

Happy Flights!

.

[brickviking 0]

Having only newly come into the Flight Simulator community, I don't have the sense of perspective that some of the rest of you do. As a result, I've come at this with "fresh eyes" as such, though I've been knocking around computers for quite some time. My immediate reaction about some of the skins (you call them liveries here) is that they've clearly had a lot of time put into making sure that they're as crisp as can reasonably be expected from a ten year old simulation engine, where resolution limits are a lot lower than we're accustomed to expecting in 2016.

 

Some other skins I've seen ... well, put it this way, I'm disappointed with one particular rendition of an Air New Zealand Link livery for a payware SAAB 340. The tail textures and body textures are all low res looking, even though they're 1024x1024x32. And that's from a payware example. My freeware

examples for the same plane have a far better livery, the textures are crisper, even though the resolution's the same.

 

In the Aerosoft skins (I recently bought the combo pack of A318/19/20/21), I'm considerably surprised how much better the skins look than on the aforementioned SAAB 340. The same goes for the freeware equivalents from Project Airbus. I suspect that part of the reason lies in the plane's fuselage being broken down into smaller pieces, yet the resolution has been retained, for a net increase in clarity. I'd appreciate a correction on this, as I don't know whether it's just me noticing that. Clearly the authors have done a lot of work in making sure that at least the fuselage (which is what people see from the outside) is crisp enough to recognise from 300 feet.

 

Now, onto the OP's topic. Yes, I feel that far more people should be leaving a review, as this does multiple things (probably already hashed out in other topics here, but I'll reiterate anyhow) such as encouraging authors to continue, perhaps improving as their own technology and understanding matures.

 

It can also be a useful self-correction mechanism where perhaps an author has "missed" something that everyone else considers necessary, so reviews let the author know this. I'm only sorry that I have never really thought to leave a review yet. I have also been guilty of taking these great skins for granted and not acknowledging the work and time put into them. I took a look at the workload required, and it's well beyond my current level of expertise, even if I went out and got my own pictures. I only hope I do better, and make sure I leave at least a few reviews for the liveries and planes I love to fly.

 

(Post 3)

 

Regards, BrickViking (a.k.a. DrSmokey)