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David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

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Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#51

Post by chaostheory »

zmmmmm wrote: post #48
chaostheory wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta’s Quest 2 doesn’t require either “skill acquisition or semi-non-trivial setup” which was why I found the results of my adhoc experiment interesting.

Yes most gaming doesn't require much, but I think the more sustainable valuable applications do. For example there are table tennis apps so realistic that pros use them to train. I will never ever be able to own a table tennis / ping pong table due to lack of space in my house but I can have it with VR. Not only that I don't need to find a comparably skilled player and line up schedules every time I want to play. And…

The cost of learning these apps is minimal because the UI relies on UX that’s very well established. Putting them in 3D doesn’t drastically change them. Even people from the boomer generation have little issues with navigation. The only exception would be the G2 and other WMR headsets with terrible tracking. That’s less of an issue with people and more to do with MS’s poor WMR specification.

Imo the main friction is still mainly the social perception of VR.

Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#52

Post by chaostheory »

telxosser wrote: post #45
oneoff786 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming VR is a paradigm shift and not just a gimmicky console like the Wii. There’s nothing particularly interesting in VR, at least not yet. Most games suck. The ones that don’t are largely stationary with little rotation if at all. There’s a fundamental problem that humans, even when not constrained by space, aren’t very agile, and much less so wearing a vr headset. It still sucks. I have an index.

The fitness apps are the most absurd thing. No one that is serious about fitness is working out for any length of time with a headset on. If you could go to a real virtual gym and lift virtual weights that was no different than lifting real weights, that would be amazing. That would be revolutionary because so many problems would have to be solved. Instead, the headset has literally solved nothing in the last 30 year…

I feel that you need to actually try it before dismissing it. I’ve been using VR for HIIT for almost two years now. It can also integrate with your stationary bike or rower. I’ve lost 20 lbs and it helped dropped my cholesterol by 100 point playing VR games.

The only thing absent would be weight lifting. That probably will be integrated with AR and not VR due to safety issues.

Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#53

Post by oneoff786 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #50
oneoff786 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alyx is cool but it also sucks. The little interactions with items feel novel. The combat is bad. It’s a thin layer of game design tricks to make you think you’re in something intricate but it’s actually dumb as rocks. The lightning dogs are the peak of this. Even on the hardest difficulty they telegraph their attacks for like… 10 seconds. It’s not clear if it’s possible to dodge it by physically walking 5m. The game…

Glad to find someone else unimpressed by Alyx. I cannot work out why people are so impressed with it. It's just a super impressive sandboxed VR demo really. The whole world is highly constrained - you can't go anywhere they don't want you to, you can only pick up and manipulate a subset of objects they have modeled properly and there all these arbitrary restrictions that just frustrate you from creatively solving any…

It was fairly ambitious and achieved a lot of new ground. The magnet gloves did feel like a really good innovation. The physical devices like the healing station were good examples of paradigm shifts that are cooler in vr. I just didn’t feel like the actual gameplay was very good.

It was never sold as an open world game so I’m not sure why you’re referencing that.

Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#54

Post by [deleted] »

oneoff786 wrote: post #43
chaostheory wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually every first person VR game that isn't a driving or flying sim needs turning or it kills immersion: - Alyx - Boneworks - Blades & Sorcery / GORN - Skyrim / Fallout 4 VR - Onward, Zero Caliber, Population One, Contractors - Racket NX - Minecraft - Lone Echo - holopoint There's really too many games to name, and I can name more. A huge pain point for me prior to getting the Quest 2 was tangled wires from too m…

Alyx is cool but it also sucks. The little interactions with items feel novel. The combat is bad. It’s a thin layer of game design tricks to make you think you’re in something intricate but it’s actually dumb as rocks. The lightning dogs are the peak of this. Even on the hardest difficulty they telegraph their attacks for like… 10 seconds. It’s not clear if it’s possible to dodge it by physically walking 5m. The game…

[deleted]

Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#55

Post by chaostheory »

Animats wrote: post #47
chaostheory wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Metaverse will be a niche One big reason for this is some strange social stigma surrounding VR. Yes, there are many other issues like cost (minimum $2000 investment for a VR ready PC and headset) and complexity if you’re not using Oculus / Meta. Then there’s also Facebook’s toxic brand, which drives away many early tech adopters; but what if we were able to take them out of the equation? Anyways, I did an experimen…

One big reason for this is some strange social stigma surrounding VR. Matthew Ball, the venture capitalist, argued last year that the social stigma ended during the pandemic. People are walking around looking at phone screens while wearing iDweebs hanging out of their ears without being laughed at. VR is just the next step. [1] https://www.matthewball.vc/all/userbehaviorsmetaverse

Unless I missed it, I don’t see any data that supports it. He’s writing about investments in tech for web3. I don’t see anything about consumer adoption of XR headsets.

As for “iDweebs”, they look fashionable and have been deemed socially acceptable by fashion house Apple. They’re also not some giant, novel monstrosity that covers your face and head; AirPods are new yet familiar. They’re just a hybrid of earrings and headphones.

From my personal experience, the pushback against VR is both subtle and strong and it’s not limited to cost or tech complexity (setup). I mean how do multiple people with no ties to each other in different geographical areas reject free revolutionary hardware?

In the wild, I’ve also repeatedly seen claims that VR sucks made by people who’ve never tried modern VR, to the point where they start fabricating their experience. It’s a strange phenomena. It would be nice to see a more formal study on this. I’m guess that form factor matters, and that mass adoption won’t happen until the headset transitions into a glasses form factor.

Re: David Chalmers considers the possibilities of VR

#56

Post by jamesrom »

oneoff786 wrote: post #31
jamesrom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing where this number came from, I could imagine that his reasoning is that there's 4 main theories that are well-reasoned and he estimates they are all as equally likely.

That’s not how probability works

Sure it is, there's even a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_indifference
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