Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Post Virtual Reality Sadness

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 163 posts

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#121

Post by schoen »

794CD01 wrote: post #67
greggman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting 3d models of people in VR is easy. Getting them to do anything interesting and not just be a few scripted things is much harder and very far from a solved problem. Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe all you need is the character to look you in the eyes. But I suspect most people would need more. Someone you can actually talk to. Not just pick multiple choice responses

So part of the product can involve hiring a random human to play the part of the love interest, with the VR putting an attractive face and voice on their actions. Heck, that person can even be another customer getting the exact same thing out of you, chosen because your google/facebook profile suggests your personalities are sufficiently compatible.

This idea is related to the plot of The Diamond Age.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#122

Post by tajen »

relyio wrote: post #103
careersuicide wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment t…

I felt the same way the day I went to check the results of the french baccalaureate at my high-school. A warm summer day surrounded with friends, acquaintances, and other people I went to school with every day for years. There was joy, sadness sometimes and an overwhelming feeling of excitement about what the future holds. We were laughing together, drinking already, lots of discussions. Everyone was here. I remember…

It's incredible that we haven't found a way to reproduce the social warmth of a school class. After that period where you're constantly surrounded with a group of 30+ potential friends with a 1-year cycle, everyone goes their way and never socializes that much again. They may build families, assume CEO positions or head for humanitarian causes, I personally flatshared for 14 years after high school, but we tend to surround ourselves with likeminded people (due to the network in which we meet those people) and we barely ever meet the variety and intensity of high school relationships. And society has never built anything similar to high schools for grown-ups.

That said, high school also had its social games. Most people recall having been bullied or excluded at one point or another during scolarity.

And yes, you're an excellent writer ;)

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#124

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

api wrote: post #6

I've always been a bit concerned about VR being highly addictive, especially for people who want something to 'escape'. This seems to bolster this concern. Of course people can and will get addicted to almost anything. VR may be healthier than heavy drinking, heroin, meth, etc.

> VR may be healthier than heavy drinking, heroin, meth, etc.

Honestly, I don't see why these activities are mutually exclusive.

I am much more concerned about the kinds of destructive power that people who are heavily-drunk, on heroin, or tweaking on meth, can now have inside of these head-mounted displays.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#125

Post by rubicon33 »

eof wrote: post #112
rubicon33 wrote: post #109

I struggle to believe that this is a serious post, from someone who has seriously used VR. At the very least, I imagine their experience is very subjective. I have the Oculus Rift, but have experienced nothing like what he's describing. Maybe its the lack of room scale, the lack of hand/arm interaction (Oculus Touch isn't out yet), or maybe I'm just playing different games? Oculus never felt magical to me. In fact, i…

Have you used a vive? The resolution I don't think is any better, but the vive does feel magical to me. Everyone I put in it seems to feel similarly; but the tracked controllers are probably a big part of that immediately immersive experience

I haven't used a vive no. My guess is that the "magical" feel does indeed rely on your hands showing up in the game ("tracked controllers" as you put it).

Without that hand tracking, it's difficult to feel truly immersed in the world.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#126

Post by jpindar »

794CD01 wrote: post #67
greggman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting 3d models of people in VR is easy. Getting them to do anything interesting and not just be a few scripted things is much harder and very far from a solved problem. Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe all you need is the character to look you in the eyes. But I suspect most people would need more. Someone you can actually talk to. Not just pick multiple choice responses

So part of the product can involve hiring a random human to play the part of the love interest, with the VR putting an attractive face and voice on their actions. Heck, that person can even be another customer getting the exact same thing out of you, chosen because your google/facebook profile suggests your personalities are sufficiently compatible.

People do this already in Virtual Worlds. Although they typically meet in a social setting, there may well be matchmaking services that I just haven't heard of.

It's not "stereoscopic HMD" type VR - yet. There are projects (CtrlAltStudio, for one) working on that.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#127

Post by 75j »

nugget wrote: post #18

People talk a lot about futuristic sex robots but what about VR experiences that are not only physical but deeply emotional - wherein you experience seduction and actually fall in love? Think about riding in a weeks long 18 hour a day RPG crusade with a Milla Jovovich lookalike Joan of Arc who, in between battles, is irreparably infatuated with you. The tech needed to achieve this level of total immersion may yet be…

I would still rather have sex with real women, 18 hours a day. I'm sure VR porn will be big, but I don't think it will be possible to perfectly replicate sex without somehow directly intercepting signals to the brain. Standing there with a VR headset and some vibrating thing wrapped around my genitals will never compare to the real thing.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#128

Post by 6d6b73 »

atemerev wrote: post #62

Back in 1993, I used to hang out in an advanced VR lab of the time, with many options to try. Once I played Descent for 3 hours, with a shitty VFX-1 headgear. Even then, returning back to reality was painful.

It was hard to return back to reality after playing that game on a regular monitor, I can't imagine what it must been to play it with any type of vr headgear.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#129

Post by mark_kalvelage »

Afforess wrote: post #23

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. The realm of fictional worlds are often more engaging, and seem superior to the world you live your day-to-day life in. The actions and experiences in those stories were more ful…

"That’s what I love about this place, all the secrets, all the little things I never noticed even after all these years. You know why this beats the real world, Lawrence? Real world is just chaos. It’s an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something."

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#130

Post by foobarian »

relyio wrote: post #103
careersuicide wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment t…

I felt the same way the day I went to check the results of the french baccalaureate at my high-school. A warm summer day surrounded with friends, acquaintances, and other people I went to school with every day for years. There was joy, sadness sometimes and an overwhelming feeling of excitement about what the future holds. We were laughing together, drinking already, lots of discussions. Everyone was here. I remember…

It could be that this is not a coincidence but just the chemistry of the imperfect goop inside our heads tricking you into these thoughts... [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscence_bump

Post reply on HN