Post Virtual Reality Sadness • Hacker News Board

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#41

Post by digi_owl » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

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…

As long as the developers didn't chunks up the ending with silly mechanics to draw out the experience, games can also have this effect.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#42

Post by Lich » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

Hm, never had a feeling like this at all. Been using VR since DK1, DK2, and CV1. At its current state, I think VR is really cool, and at times immersive, but it's just not immersive enough for me yet. I don't know about others, but the fact that I can see the peripheral edges of the lens breaks immersion for me most of the time. There are moments of immersion, but those are very rare. I tend to experience it in moments where I'm moving from an enclosed space to a very large open space (i.e. a tunnel in Half-Life 2 out to a city view). I think I will find VR very immersive when the lens are somehow able to wrap around your vision completely so that I can't see that I'm looking through goggles. Don't misunderstand me though, I think what we have now is incredibly cool and immersive. I did try the Vive controllers, and that really kicks up the immersion a whole lot. I'm waiting to buy the Oculus touch controllers.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#43

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

careersuicide wrote: post #35

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…

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…

>> but I just couldn't bear the thought of there being nothing left.

As I exited my 20's and entered my 30's, I had to deal with several deaths in the family and having to finally deal with my own mortality, this has affected me in profound ways.

I've done the same thing you have, albeit with several movie trilogies. I skipped the last Matrix movie, I refused to go see the last LOTR movie (even though I read the books when I was in my teens and knew what was going to happen), and the same thing in the Divergent series.

It's practically become a common theme in my life - some sort of psychological avoidance to have to deal with the ending of a story, the emotions and the emptiness of something I pursued for so long, now at an end.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#44

Post by _puk » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

careersuicide wrote: post #35

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…

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…

Have to agree on the wheel of time. It's a shame it had to finish. That level of escapism over so many books is hard to match. Finish it and you're lost for weeks.

Dark tower was another guilty pleasure of mine.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#45

Post by jtreminio » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

careersuicide wrote: post #35

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…

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'm on book six. Thank you so much for not adding spoilers.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#46

Post by abakker » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #38

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…

Finishing "A Memory of Light" and the The Wheel of Time series left me in a funk that lasted a whole week. I sometimes regret finishing the series, I now know how it ends, so I can not go back and re-read the series for a 4th time.

Audiobook the whole thing! Re-reading is hard, but taking the slow path with audiobooks is great. Personally, I've had some of the best memories of the books while listening to them while hiking. Especially for fantasy books, walking/adventuring while listening is great fun.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#47

Post by Razengan » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

careersuicide wrote: post #35

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…

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'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same.

That is how I felt about Planescape: Torment, widely regarded to have one of the best tales of all RPGs, and all other great stories in other mediums.

It makes me wish there was some way to get selective voluntary amnesia, where you wipe all memories of the specific content of something, just keep the feeling that it's something you have to experience [again].

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#48

Post by tzakrajs » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

People can find ways to be sad about anything. Our brains are most ideally suited for this.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#49

Post by foota » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

careersuicide wrote: post #35

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…

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…

You might enjoy the stormlight archive by Brandon Sanderson, who finished the last novel in the wheel of time.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#50

Post by jly » Tue, Nov 15, 2016, 9:21 PM UTC

manachar wrote: post #13

Sometimes I wonder if VR is building Plato's Cave or revealing more of the way out of it. The more we learn about humans the more its clear our narratives and "real world" are at least partial figments of our imagination. We remember narratives that we choose to and ignore evidence to the contrary. VR could help reveal this for people (somewhat the same as is claimed for hallucinogens). It could also allow us to incr…

> This means people get to amazing places but are disappointed when reality doesn't match the photo

Photographs with modern digital technology have many advantages over what our eyes can do, but I find it's typical the opposite problem of trying to make an image that adequately captures reality.

The advantage is that our brain can interpret the information from our eyes in real-time, meaning we can extract much more from a scene in real life. A photograph is just a snapshot with a pre-selected focal point, exposure, and view angle, and it can never reproduce the sensation of viewing something for real.