Review FTX: KAVX Catalina Airport

[mutley 4,487]

 

Just published is Brian Buckley's review of Orbx's recent release FTX: KAVX Catalina Airport.

This is our second whole island scenery in a row, how did this one get on? Read on...

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Great write up of the product. It IS a gem, very worth the money.

 

I have a question though. It was awarded a silver medal, apparently because the Documentation score of 7.5 ganked it's Overall score. I was wondering what about the 14 page pdf earned the low score? There wasn't any comment about it being inadequate in the review...just that it had everything to get you up and running, which sounds kind of positive.

Other than that 7.5 everything got a 9.5+, and IMO the overall product is a Gold Star and one of ORBx's gems...(but then, I never even glanced at the documentation myself...it had no effect on my Catalina Experience).

 

Cheers.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Captain Coffee

[mutley 4,487]

I would like to respond to this. 

As documents go, the User Guide is padded out with pages of screenshots and other meaningless content, which after conversations with another developer on this very subject, lowers the value of the document. Of the 14 pages, only one is really useful, the quick reference for sim settings, and for me I do like the background info about the island. So I think the score is spot on and was given some consideration before arriving at the published score.

 

Your comment about never even glancing at the document before negates the documents score in your view but not to prospective buyers.

 

 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Thanks for the clarification Joe. Yeah. I'm one of those who rarely read the manual But I know lots post about how they are reading up on procedures for the aircraft they buy for example, and definitely agree that good documentation is a Big Bonus to a package for many users...and poor documentation is going to frustrate those expecting "14 pages" to have useful information if it isn't there.

 

My only suggestion is  to Mention the low quality documentation in the text of the review...rather than just down-scoring it without a reason why...it wasn't at all clear why it was down scored from the review.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Captain Coffee

[brett 2,284]

Thanks for taking out the time to create this fine review Brian, enjoyed the look. 

 

My question after reading Matt and Joe's replies about the documentation. Beside the superfluous part, was the required information needed to run the scenery included and was there anything else that could have been included. If in fact the required info was included, not much is needed for scenery usually, it seems odd to drop the score for having too many pictures.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

 

Wow Brett...minds ('Great' seems to be a devalued term these days, I'm avoiding it...) think alike. I was wondering how to state the same thing, and came on the board to add that same point...or similar:

 

What if a developer made a one-page "How to" and then thought..."wow...this is a pretty skinny unattractive brochure, how can I add some value to it? Hmmm.... hey, maybe add some historic pictures of the area, and some history of the field and region, I did a lot of research on the area to create the product so lets offer that research to the customer and add some value to the product, getting some more value out of the research I already did by giving the customer the benefit of it too...".

And if a highly regarded review down-rates what the dev thought was "extra value" without an explanation of why...the dev might just release a skinny unattractive one-page How To next time and give less value...because it wasn't appreciated the previous time (and if the next reviewer, a different reviewer, actually liked the previous brochure for the previous product, they might Negative the Dev again for the same issue in reverse...for Not giving as much value in the brochure as his last product...sigh.)

 

So, sorry if I tend to be wordy, but I guess my point is More Information is generally better than Less Information, especially if it can benefit a Developer and help them make better products next time, or avoid wasting time on Fluff that isn't wanted, if that is the case.

 

Cheers.
Matt.

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Captain Coffee

[mutley 4,487]

I'll leave you guys to debate it, our scoring system is not up for discussion and I really don't have the time to argue the toss.

 

EDIT: Also, please take note of our disclaimer which is linked from each review page. Disclaimer