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Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#171

Post by wayoutthere »

grawprog wrote: post #161
wayoutthere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I find Elite: Dangerous to be the best, most immersive VR game I've played. It's a 6DOF space sim set in a 1:1 scale version of the Milky Way that puts you in the pilot's seat, with a few dozen ships to choose from. The insides of the cockpit (or bridge on the larger ships) are fully modeled. Paired with a decent HOTAS or dual-stick setup, it's about as close as you're going to get to flying a futuristic…

I have to admit, a vr space sim could be pretty awesome. I've played a lot of oolite and I used to play another space Sim pretty heavily the name which escapes me right now. >surface exploration and you can have friends join you on your ship as either a gunner or ship-launched fighter pilot. This seems like it would be pretty fun. I find space Sims get boring though, they tend to get really repetitive. How does elite…

System variety is great; you can fly between the various stars / planets in a system, you can land on any rocky / ice planets without an atmosphere. They're all randomly generated when you get outside the "bubble" (a few hundred LY around Sol), but bound by the currently-understood laws of physics. I can't tell you how cool it feels to zoom around various star types in hyperspace or supercharge your jump drive in the jet cone of a neutron star. Asteroid mining is also really cool and engaging, especially in VR.

Mission variety is not-so-great, but I haven't taken an official mission in over a year. There is plenty to do if you're self-directed or you participate in community-driven content.

But yeah, ultimately it is a space sim and it can be played without VR (though a significant percentage of players do use VR). It's still by far the most immersive VR game I've ever played. It's also really pretty, especially with some of the shader mods applied (look up some screenshots for an idea).

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#172

Post by cybwraith »

capableweb wrote: post #151
tentboy wrote: post #150

Sim racing, or for those unaware of it: basically racing games with realistic physics and usually a competitive online racing field, is incredible in VR. The sense of speed and immersion with a good wheel and pedal setup in VR is unmatched by a monitor based setup. I tried it at a VR arcade and kept adding time to my session to keep playing. I have a fairly nice and expensive sim racing setup at home right now, but m…

Same for flight simulations (I'm using X-Plane and DCS World [DCS World has much better VR, better overall X-Plane is more fun]) with VR headset. With VR headset, it crushes any other simulators I've used, as the immersion increases and it becomes much more natural.

And we're "weeks/days" from the much-anticipated Xplane Vulkan update!

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#173

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

ekianjo wrote: post #113
Ajedi32 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the evidence they cite for VR declining seems to be entirely within the space of 3DoF VR, like Google's Daydream and VR video: > Many big name adopters have abandoned their VR projects. Google recently halted sales of Daydream, its VR headset, admitting that "there just hasn't been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped". > Meanwhile, the BBC has announced it is ending the funding for its VR hub,…

> Yeah, the evidence they cite for VR declining seems to be entirely within the space of 3DoF VR, like Google's Daydream and VR video: If VR were such a hot market surely you would not see the Google Daydream news and Samsung killing off GearVR. You have to take in account all news, positive and negative, to get an actual view of how the market is doing. And also the investment. And investment in VR has been in the d…

To me, Google killing off Daydream and Samsung killing off GearVR is akin to TV manufacturers killing off their black-and-white TV models because everyone has moved on to colour.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#174

Post by skizm »

kipchak wrote: post #78
skizm wrote: post #61

VR won’t ever be more than niche because there is no way to fake tactile feedback or motion. Games need to design around this. Beat Sanger is the best selling VR game because your character doesn’t move and there is nothing to touch. God games, like black and white or the sims, and 4x games might work well too. Also if graphics get better people can set up virtual desk spaces and get rid of screens. Ultimately though…

The haptic feedback on some VR controllers (think Iphone 7 home button or switch joycons) is surprisingly good at imitating resistance or passing through something. Games with dedicated peripherals (racing wheels, flight/mech sticks) work really well too.

Haptic feedback might have been the wrong phrase. I meant that there is a lack of literally anything physical to interact with despite your eyes constantly telling you otherwise. You can’t rest your arm on a table, put your hand on a wall, lock swords with an enemy, etc. You have to constantly remind yourself that what you see isn’t real so that you can stop your hand from swinging wildly in real life while your in game hand just locks in place.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#175

Post by cybwraith »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #157

I put a PS4 VR set on my head at my relatives over the holidays and I could not have been more disappointed. They had just been gifted it for Christmas and were trying out all of the demos. I put it on and while I could rotate my head in any direction like I was living inside some google maps experiment almost... The picture was extremely blurry and the entire experience gave me a headache... after probably only 10 m…

The PSVR is the lowest-resolution "high end" VR headset out there, and is on the underpowered PS4 hardware, with poor controller tracking and lots of motion blur and downsampling to make the games even run.

You really ought to try an Oculus Quest or Rift S/Vive Pro. PSVR has 1080 vertical pixels, Quest has 1600 vertical pixels, much better lenses, and much better controllers. Not to mention the games run much more smoothly

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#176

Post by gfodor »

ekianjo wrote: post #112
imtringued wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A first gen product has more than 10% of the sales of a eight gen product? That's absolutely amazing. I expected it to be a failure because it has limited performance.

How is the quest 1st gen? There have been headsets for VR for quite a while already, including phone-based VR prior to that, so it's hardly a "first gen" product at all unless you narrow down the definition to mean exactly what you want it to mean.

Most people in the VR industry would strongly argue (myself included) that the Quest is the first legit attempt at a consumer VR headset. Before the Quest I never told anyone to go out and buy a VR headset. Now, if they ask, I recommend buying it. The one rough edge with the Quest is the weight. If they knock it down a few ounces I'd argue the Quest is basically the MVP for some startup to create a breakout killer app for VR.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#177

Post by cybwraith »

grawprog wrote: post #161
wayoutthere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I find Elite: Dangerous to be the best, most immersive VR game I've played. It's a 6DOF space sim set in a 1:1 scale version of the Milky Way that puts you in the pilot's seat, with a few dozen ships to choose from. The insides of the cockpit (or bridge on the larger ships) are fully modeled. Paired with a decent HOTAS or dual-stick setup, it's about as close as you're going to get to flying a futuristic…

I have to admit, a vr space sim could be pretty awesome. I've played a lot of oolite and I used to play another space Sim pretty heavily the name which escapes me right now. >surface exploration and you can have friends join you on your ship as either a gunner or ship-launched fighter pilot. This seems like it would be pretty fun. I find space Sims get boring though, they tend to get really repetitive. How does elite…

E:D is more realistic in the sense that space is "boring". Missions are shoot things, deliver this, patrol that. Systems are far apart (to scale, actually) and travel and navigation is important and takes time. The game has nearly no actual goals/story to speak of, but as a space nerd man it is awesome in VR. I love it!

If you want a game in VR thats more like the old-school Wing Commander Privateer where its less realistic but more focused on the fun/hollywood version of space sci-fi, check out X-Rebirth VR.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#178

Post by kevinmgranger »

These comments (and inevitably, anywhere else there's discussions of VR) always find themselves with a 50/50 split on:

"Most people I know (love it / hate it / don't get motion sick / get motion sick), those who (hate it / love it / get motion sick / don't get motion sick) are the minority."

Does anyone have real data on this, or just anecdata?

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#179

Post by GuB-42 »

kstenerud wrote: post #52
aepiepaey wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can reportedly get used to the discrepancy between the vision and balance senses and be rid of the motion sickness (with some training: keep playing until you start feeling uncomfortable, wait until the next day, go again). Ginger can also help delay onset. It can also be noted that motion sickness really only is a problem where the game character moves while you stand still physically (e.g. using a joyst…

These are, unfortunately, falsehoods that keep getting perpetuated despite efforts to the contrary. While you can become slightly more tolerant with repeated exposure (as you can with anything noxious), the the discomfort never goes away. And it's not just game character motion. Any camera movement can trigger it, at different levels for different people. If you don't get triggered, count yourself lucky, and don't te…

> I still remember Valve responding to complaints of motion sickness in Half Life 2 with the lame excuse "It's because our technology is so amazingly lifelike."

That's interesting you bring adaptation and immersion together. I do feel motion sickness in VR in extreme cases. Interestingly I managed to become more tolerant of it but it came with a significant loss of immersion.

Oh and the "amazingly lifelike" argument for justifying motion sickness is indeed complete bullshit. If you experience motion sickness, it is because it is not lifelike. Bad framerates, high latency, unnatural camera movement, etc... all contribute to motion sickness.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#180

Post by scotty79 »

marliechiller wrote: post #115
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We've never fallen in love"? Really? Yes, really, You are the exception. By now there is quite a few people who have tried VR in some place or another and the market has clearly shown sales are not skyrocketing at all. It's a very slow growth, we are talking about a few millions headsets per year, which is just pocket money market wise compared to smartphones or even PCs at large. Also, most of the software is utt…

there is no space for gaming to evolve at the moment without VR. The only thing that next generation consoles are bringing to the table is more advanced graphics. VR offers a truly innovative space for gaming to move into and whilst its not there yet in terms of hardware and software, I can see it being 'the future' as it were.

I'd prefer physically accurate skeletal animation because even with all the mocap, animations still look sooo fake. Maybe neural network post processing step would do some good? Maybe some life-like flexibility in interactions instead of everything being little finite state machines? Maybe some neural network game optimisation to be more fun for given player?
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