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I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

wired.com

181–190 of 314 posts

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#181

This sounds awful. I already feel disconnected from the world around me, my community, nature, fresh air. Why would anyone want this for themselves? To be productive? If this is the next step in productivity, we need to start looking at how to be less productive.

> I already feel disconnected from the world around me, my community By all means, I see your point and agree in general. But VR is not different from sitting at a desk. I think we already live in some, not so healthy, virtual realities: online echo chambers, search engine/filter bubbles, ideologies perceived as normality. In more extreme cases, anti-science and anti-intellectualist movements and so on. But this is n…

It seems different to me. To be completely visually (and maybe auditorally) detached from your physical surroundings for hours each day? That's a step beyond working at a desk, even one in a drab office building. Though point taken, being stuck at a cubicle isn't much better than being strapped into a headset.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#182
People don't seem to understand that VR was always an element of dystopian fiction. It's one of the things we do when we are confined to Earth. The others are gambling (with apes?), drugs, mindless hedonism (there's an app for that), following cults and crazy ideologies (Qanon? flat Earth?), pointless political intrigue, and war both physical and cultural. There will be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Starship is the most important project at this point in human history. Without a frontier there is nothing but meaningless conflict, repetition, and stagnation. We will sit here on Earth and basically masturbate until some black swan event destroys our civilization or even our entire biosphere. That event could be something stupid we do, an asteroid, a gamma ray burst, who knows... but it doesn't matter. If we stay here intelligent life dies.

I think Starship is even more important than fighting climate change, since winning that battle still leaves us trapped in a cyberpunk dystopia that just happens to be a little more sustainable. That means instead of global warming trashing our civilization we might get a few more centuries of pointless masturbation before something else kills us.

Edit:

Keep in mind too how frontiers work. Novelty is imported from the frontier back to the old culture. The frontier revives everything. It's like going for a hike in the woods or a trip to a new city, but at civilization scale. Even if only 0.001% of humanity ever goes to space, I predict a civilization-wide effect.

As an added bonus as far as we know there are no natives in our immediate region of space. The "new world" of Europe's great age of frontier exploration was not a pure frontier, and it came with the moral baggage of war and displacement. The new frontier is pure. It's all exploration, no conquest. It's going to be more like the settling of the Polynesian archipelago (by the original Polynesians) than the European age of colonialism.

Anyway what a crazy rant from an article about VR... but I think it's relevant. Every time I hear about the metaverse or NFTs or some other bit of wank this is the thought that runs through my head.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#183
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cable thing is pretty solved with the Quest 2. Zero cables there.

Yeah, if you want to play a subset of games that Facebook has deemed you can play. Still salty that Pavlov isn’t native to quest. Air Link solves this, but boy is it annoying in practice. Setting down the headset always pushes the floor just out of reach when you come back to it. Which is frustrating in a game that makes you pick things up, like shooters.

Not sure if you are aware but you can get Pavlov Shack for free through the AppLab for quest2: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3649611198468269

I've had some good fun playing it.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#184

I wanted to love VR. I dreamed of having a headset when I was younger and kickedstarted the oculus rift. I imagined a million worlds that would be within virtual reach. It would be the coolest! VR has been nothing but a complete disappointment to me. Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment. Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies. I have my doubts this will eve…

Things I like: Immersed.com (second computer screen): I wish the Quest 2 had 4000x4000 per eye to make this work beautifully but I suppose that will be the future. Eleven Table Tennis: I practice smashing in this game, the skill transferred. Now I am beating all my friends with real actual table tennis (at an amateur level). Thrill of the Fight: awesome shadowboxing on steroids workout. Walkabout minigolf: feels like…

I used Eleven to learn how to play table tennis during the pandemic and have also become fairly competitive with my friends and family that already played. I now have a real table in my home and my wife and I play regularly. Certainly got my money worth out of that used Oculus.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#185

I wanted to love VR. I dreamed of having a headset when I was younger and kickedstarted the oculus rift. I imagined a million worlds that would be within virtual reach. It would be the coolest! VR has been nothing but a complete disappointment to me. Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment. Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies. I have my doubts this will eve…

You've not played the right games, then. I mean, take Robo Recall, which is one of the first things that came out. Sure, you can do a shooting game without VR, but then you don't get the experience of tearing a robot apart with your own hands and punching another's head off with a torn off arm. Or Elite Dangerous is quite the experience in VR too. Less so than Robo Recall, but it works out extremely well if you have…

Subnautica in VR is broken beyond playability without mods. I've tried it and I would disagree with any suggestion that VR enhances the experience of the game.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware bruh, have you ever played a Nintendo Switch? It's essentially the culmination of Wii-era motion controls + the WiiU's console/handheld split. Every fucking shooting game on the Switch is nowadays released with motion controls (for gyro aiming). The joycons are basically sleeker Wiimotes with better motion sensors. Saying that the Wii's revolution was just a passing…

I own a switch. It’s not the same as the wiimotes or the physical game gimmick ala wii sports. The physical movement was a big part, similar to what VR is trying to do now. I think in generally the switch is awesome but it’s closer to a traditional console GBA or DS. Nintendo threw away what was a gimmick and what parts were making good gaming experiences.

Ring Fit Adventure or Just Dance is a very Wii-like experience.

Other games use Switch controllers in a very similar way to wiimotes.

I think what has happened is the platform has opened up to more non-Nintendo games and diluted the focus on movement that was in a lot of games for Wii/WiiU. Motion control has gone mainstream too, all controllers have tilt sensitivity, so that doesn't seem as big a thing. Maybe your right that people choose to use stick controls in preference to macro-movements of controllers.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware bruh, have you ever played a Nintendo Switch? It's essentially the culmination of Wii-era motion controls + the WiiU's console/handheld split. Every fucking shooting game on the Switch is nowadays released with motion controls (for gyro aiming). The joycons are basically sleeker Wiimotes with better motion sensors. Saying that the Wii's revolution was just a passing…

I own a switch. It’s not the same as the wiimotes or the physical game gimmick ala wii sports. The physical movement was a big part, similar to what VR is trying to do now. I think in generally the switch is awesome but it’s closer to a traditional console GBA or DS. Nintendo threw away what was a gimmick and what parts were making good gaming experiences.

That's because the motion controls largely didn't work for that kind of thing outside of a few gimmicky titles. Their use in the Switch is far more natural and integrated, so of course it doesn't feel like a gimmick.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#188

I wanted to love VR. I dreamed of having a headset when I was younger and kickedstarted the oculus rift. I imagined a million worlds that would be within virtual reach. It would be the coolest! VR has been nothing but a complete disappointment to me. Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment. Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies. I have my doubts this will eve…

I like the PSVR headset design because the screen is not glued to your face it is suspended before your face and the whole thing is supported by your head.

Re: I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

#189

I wanted to love VR. I dreamed of having a headset when I was younger and kickedstarted the oculus rift. I imagined a million worlds that would be within virtual reach. It would be the coolest! VR has been nothing but a complete disappointment to me. Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment. Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies. I have my doubts this will eve…

Have you played Lone Echo and “Blade & Sorcery”?

Really think those are the benchmarks for me, vr isn’t about the headset or 3d it’s about rich hand tracking/interactions.

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