VR is only going to become an obsession when we're jacked into it like the Matrix or The Beam. Otherwise it's just you wearing a screen on your face.
Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
181–190 of 285 posts
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#182I find that playing a game in VR is like listing to music in 5.1: It requires a lot of physical space and setup, which then limits the audience to a dedicated niche. The limitation, in this case, is being affluent enough to have a large empty indoor space to dedicate to VR so you don't bump into things as you walk around; and the desire to calibrate the thing correctly. It's like setting up a really good sound system…
My tiny studio's open area is more or less the minimum size SteamVR will allow for standing play, and it's still a wonderfully immersive experience.
Heck, even the most physically immersive VR game out right now (Boneworks) encourages sitting play-- so maybe the huge open area isn't that necessary.
However, my definition of "tiny" might not compare against your definition of "tiny" well.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#183As a pilot, I use VR with the XPlane flight simulator and it seriously feels like I'm in a real Cessna. True, the flight controls are a little off (for example, stalls and landings don't feel like a real plane), but other than that, everything is absolutely spot on.
It's a great way to scratch my aviation itch and is also great for practicing procedures, especially when paired with a live air traffic control network like PilotEdge. My brain seriously forgets that it's a simulation when I'm in it.
This could be a way to revolutionize flight training, and make it more accessible. The entire cost of my PC build including VR gear and software is a fraction of what real-life flight training costs.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#184If I could pay $200 to get the full experience, I'd already have paid. I can't, so I haven't. Unless they can get the price for the whole package including a game to below $500, it won't reach the masses and unless they get below $200 they won't reach me, because I'm a cheapskate that is satisfied with playing 30 year old games.
It'll get there. Oculus Quest is $400 and games can be had for pretty reasonable prices. In a few years I wouldn't be surprised to see an even more streamlined Quest reintroduced at $200.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#185Something about vr systems makes it not feel real to me. I’m thinking it’s that I can’t change the focus of my eyes. Everything is in the same focus. I forget what that’s called but it makes it feel fake to me.
Varifocal VR headsets are in the R&D stage. A year or two ago Oculus showed off a headset called Half-dome that had varifocal displays. It'll get there.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Borrowed a PSVR, no one in my family could play for more than 15-30 min. We had a stack of different games to try so it's not just one particular title.
What I find surprising is how many people downvote anyone who says they suffer from this...
VR is a cool toy and techies want to see it succeed :-)
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#187Earlier 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.
Quest may as well be the first VR headset ever, PC VR was never ever going to take off. Normal people don't want tower PCs in their homes in 2020 and VR needs 6DOF headset and controller tracking to actually be good anyway.
Silly to compare it to literally the most prolific games console manufacturer ever.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#188I 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…
Practice does help. Many short sessions help more than trying to tough out one longer session. http://elevr.com/yoga-for-building-vr-tolerance/
I know it's natural to pick on the resolution as the reason it doesn't feel right, but our brains are more sensitive to other things when it comes to the feeling of "being there". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_sickness#Techn... I don't think it's going to take 20 years to address these, not with the amount of R&D being thrown at it.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
FPS is actually the one amazing genre in VR... when it works right. Maybe someone will finally revive the First/Third Person RPG/RTS niche (not top down), which I really loved in BattleZone 1/2. I think it will work great in VR. But yeah, really resource intensive, Pimax says you'll need 2 GPUs (one per eye) to get the most performance out of their 8K headset.
What are the normal controls for player movement in a VR FPS? The WASD equivalent, I mean.
Since we're in the early days theres quite a bit of experimentation. While there is usually traditional move/strafe on the left joystick, some games have options like:
Point-to-teleport (worst option, IMO, but good for people really sensitive to motion sickness)
Arm waving - Basically move your arms back and forth like you would when running.
Head-directed, or hand-directed movement direction.
Physical movement in your room with no artificial movement option. This is typically in genres like wave shooters where you can move to dodge and such but not really expected to navigate a whole level.
Some games combine multiples of the above. From a game design perspective, still very much the wild west in VR.
Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we do have personal communicators, which are way better than sci fi ever depicted.
I never saw captain Kirk recharging his, nor fiddling with it when he was bored. Space1999 commlocks were also way better than an ipotato. http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/umcomlock.html
You don't see that with smartphones in fiction set contemporarily either (or for that matter, fiction set during the dumbphone Era)