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Half-Life: Alyx

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Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#401

Post by mffnbs »

chroma wrote: post #393
mffnbs wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a trans person, I welcome this cis introduction to gender dysphoria.

I've played a few VR games that allow you to customize your avatar. I've tried male bodies, female bodies, robot bodies, ridiculous carton bodies... everything. At no point did I feel that anything was wrong or out of place. This is true for everyone who I've loaned my headset to. I think trans people are overgeneralizing from their own psyches. They feel like they are in the wrong body, and they assume that everyone…

It seems like you're admitting to critiquing something you've no experience or understanding of in an effort to diminish the experiences of those of us who claim to experience the world differently. It's entirely possible and even probable that your VR experience simply comes nowhere close to mimicking gender dysphoria.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#402

Post by solipsism »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #329
ben7799 wrote: post #38

This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever. I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2. I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games b…

> Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original Why oh why would you need to play prequels to enjoy a game? Half-Life is a series where you have guns and you kill shit in an inherently interesting setting: earth invasion. Getting dropped in medias res without knowing 100% of what is going on is just an ancient trope of story-telling. Look how much people enjoy the latest…

Getting dropped in medias res without knowing 100% of what is going on is just an ancient trope of story-telling.

It's certainly a trope. But is it ancient? I'm trying to think of ancient examples of this but I can't. Are you sure it's not a modern trope?

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#404

Post by Stevvo »

outworlder wrote: post #278
capableweb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're a pilot, try using good a VR airplane simulator for a while (DCS World for example), getting a feel for the airplane and then push it until you crash into the ground. The moment you loose control and start falling towards the ground, you start panicking, even though you know it's a game. While not PTSD, I can totally imagine you can find ways of using VR to cause PTSD or similar. Like forcing someone to…

X-Plane also works with VR (and arguably better, as with VR enabled aircraft you can actually use the controllers to pilot). VR definitely triggers more areas in the brain than just a monitor as I can empathize very well with the feeling you describe. Supposedly fans modified Alien: Isolation to work with VR. THERE'S NO WAY I'M TOUCHING THAT. Subnautica VR is "bad" enough :)

Sure X-Plane "supports" VR but it's so badly implemented that you don't get any immersion at all. The brain is not tricked when it's running at 30 to 45 fps.

The controllers are pretty much useless. Your hand shakes a little and suddenly the yoke is at 90 degrees deflection because there is no resistance.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#405

Post by Stevvo »

mikl wrote: post #159

Hope they’ll make a non-VR version at some point. Much as I enjoyed previous Half-Life games, I don’t want to buy a VR-rig. They’re obviously hoping that a Half-Life game will be enough to get gamers to adopt VR, but I don’t see a lot of people willing to remodel their living room to make space for a VR setup, at least over here in Europe, where people have fairly small homes in comparison to the U.S.

Strip away the VR part of a VR shooter and there isn't much game left after that, they are pretty much 90s gallery shooters where you stand in place and shoot at the enemies that spawn and come at you.

I didn't see any indication in the trailer that this will be anything other than the best iteration on this formula yet.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#406

Post by rambojazz »

parliament32 wrote: post #349
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many people are going to spend $2000+ to play this? You're building a new gaming PC and possibly buying a new VR headset just for this game?

Absolutely. I don't think you understand how important this game is.

I don't either.

There are games that I also really like, so I think I understand the drive, but I won't put myself into debt for entertainment. I'd rather wait a year or two for prices to fall.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#407

Post by taurath »

erk__ wrote: post #326
taurath wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dota 2 is its own engine, and has nothing to do with dota 1 which was a warcraft 3 map. How they even got the IP in the first place is... a pretty bad look for Valve.

What are you talking about? Firstly Dota 2 started in source 1 and was the first game ported to source 2. It has nothing to do with dota 1? It is made by multiple of the original developers of the warcraft 3 mod, your whole comment does not make a whole lot of sense.

It was made by the third (3rd) maintainer of Dota Allstars, the warcraft 3 mod. Eul was first, Guinsoo was #2. It had quite a large community attached. Valve hired Icefrog. Icefrog did not invent MOST of the characters, IP, nor mechanics, nor design the map. He DID balance a lot of the characters and interactions. I was an admin for Team Dota Allstars at the time and helped run the semiprivate leagues on battlenet and the dota-allstars forums.

So Valve hires Icefrog, makes an IP claim for the dota name, all the characters, and starts creating dota 2. It felt like a "oh, I'll have this". It didn't feel right at all at the time. Still doesn't. Nothing was ever said for the community that formed around creating and enjoying the game in the first place.

https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Defense_of_the_Ancients

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#408

Post by s9w »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #382
s9w wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was not the goalpost here. The goalpost was that a "great" VR hardware costs $400, which is not true. Same for a $600 PC for high-end VR and as a bonus: the claim that a 3yo GPU is "kicking butt". All of these are false

> the claim that a 3yo GPU is "kicking butt" The GeForce 1080 Ti came out 3 years ago, and I would definitely argue that it's still a card that's kicking butt. Granted, the poster that said his 3 yo GPU is kicking butt also said he paid $300 for it, which could mean he has a GTX 1060 or equivalent AMD GPU. A 1060 is definitely powerful enough for VR, as it's performance is only slightly lower than the GTX 1070 that I…

A 1060 is not going to be able to run HLA on dual 1440 x 1600 res @144fps

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#409

Post by chroma »

mffnbs wrote: post #401
chroma wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played a few VR games that allow you to customize your avatar. I've tried male bodies, female bodies, robot bodies, ridiculous carton bodies... everything. At no point did I feel that anything was wrong or out of place. This is true for everyone who I've loaned my headset to. I think trans people are overgeneralizing from their own psyches. They feel like they are in the wrong body, and they assume that everyone…

It seems like you're admitting to critiquing something you've no experience or understanding of in an effort to diminish the experiences of those of us who claim to experience the world differently. It's entirely possible and even probable that your VR experience simply comes nowhere close to mimicking gender dysphoria.

I'm not diminishing anything. I'm just pointing out that people tend to imagine all minds behave like their own, hence why you believed that cis people would experience gender dysphoria in VR avatars of the opposite sex. I've accumulated enough experience to indicate that isn't true.

Another piece of the puzzle: Pretty much every trans person I've talked to who has used VR has enjoyed choosing an avatar of the opposite sex. Afterwards when they're back in the real world, they tend to miss it.

This maps to my model of reality that says that the vast majority of people cannot experience gender dysphoria. They prefer their current sex mostly out of habit. Other people such as Scott Alexander[1] and Ozy[2] have said the same thing, though they arrived at that conclusion by posing thought experiments to their friends, not using VR.

1. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gende...

2. https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/cis-by-defaul...

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#410

Post by on_and_off »

leetcrew wrote: post #374
on_and_off wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does she like ? Why does she fall in love with the mute player character at first sight ? Don't she already have relationships ? What exactly does she find attractive in that mute guy that appears and disappear ? She is here to as a reward/carrot for teenage boys, not as a full fledged character with her own wants and needs :/

to be fair, I haven't actually played the game in a while, but I think you are reading a lot into alyx that isn't really there. I don't remember having the impression that alyx was in love with Gordon or really picking up on any sexual tension at all.

It must have been a while :-) , because it was there.

one quote I do remember is her dad telling Gordon and Alyx to start working on giving him grandchildren now that the neuteuring field is off.

here are 2 articles with more details on Alyx in case you are curious.

https://electriccartilage.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/alyx-vanc...

https://onemorecontinue.com/alyx-vance-half-life-2/

(tbh I only skimmed them right now .. and I unhearthed them with the totally biased "alyx bad character" web search, although I remember reading the second link when it came out)

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