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The Big VR Thread

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Someone, somewhere please just release a consumer product! There are way too many companies in this space for none of them to be selling an actual freaking product!

 

/rant

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I proposed something earlier this morning in the Idle Thumbs IRC channel (where everyone should be because it's the coolest place on the internet), but here it is again:

 

I wonder how viable it'd be to have a VR HMD in a sensory deprivation tank. With little sensors/vibration pads at various points on your body. So every movement you make can be interpreted by the game, and also you get some feedback (however minor, although in a sensory deprivation tank I imagine even minor feedback is going to feel More Than Usual). I'm imagining like an ocean diving simulator or a floating-in-space simulator. Ohhh it'd be rad. Yes, yes.

 

Disclaimer: I have no idea what a sensory deprivation tank actually consists of, or if you'd even have that freedom of movement, but it seems like a good idea to me. Had I the money I'd probably try to figure something out. U:

 

Hmm. Now that you mention it, players would probably be giving off body-heat that could be used to subsidize the electricity required to power these devices. Maybe the sensory-deprevation tank/VR system could harness that power to eventually reproduce and create robotic entities that can forcibily reintroduce VR to those who accidentally fall out of the experience.

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Someone, somewhere please just release a consumer product! There are way too many companies in this space for none of them to be selling an actual freaking product!

 

/rant

 

Jesus, tell me about it. After being skeptical for awhile I think I'm sold on this technology now and would totally buy one of these devices. But no release dates and no places I'm aware of to go try one out. I just have to sit here and continue to watch people talk about how great it is while I'm stuck in this lame ass real world.

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HTC announced a release date of Q4 2015, though.

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I'm not that clever.

 

This is so obscure. It's hilarious you had this song somewhere in your head. Now I remember it all over again. God this show, no one wanted that Power Rangers knock off!

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I'm not sure 'bandwagon' is the right assessment. It is of course, impossible to tell at this point, but I think it's plausible that rather than VR turning into a "console wars" thing, it could be more of a format war like HD vs Blu-ray, where eventually a winner will be declared and everyone else falls away.

 

Assuming VR takes off anyway. I'm still cynical because of the catch 22 of "No one makes games for VR, because so few people own VR hardware, because there aren't enough games to justify the purchase".

Ah yeah, the curse of the hardware peripheral. I think it's similar to a console launch, there needs to be several top-tier games with the promise of more to come. Valve is one of the few who I think could pull it off -- something like a "VR Orange Box" could be an attractive selling point.

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Ah yeah, the curse of the hardware peripheral. I think it's similar to a console launch, there needs to be several top-tier games with the promise of more to come. Valve is one of the few who I think could pull it off -- something like a "VR Orange Box" could be an attractive selling point.

 

That would provide a nice answer to the increasingly perplexing question of "What has Valve been doing with all their programmer-hours for the last few years?" It doesn't seem logistically feasible for any of the VR companies to assemble a large number of games for the fractured-looking VR market, but if there's one flagship title that could move a system, it's Half Life 3 (bundled with Portal 3).

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What if somebody started a company that works like arcades used to?

That would solve the problem of being physically unfeasible. Its also seems like it might suit the slightly gimmicky nature of current VR.

I think people are more likely to go to the VRcade(?) for some quick paced VR with buddies than invest a whole room to it. 


I reckon in the long term VR could become feasible in everyone's homes but for the next ten years or so somebody could provide a venue. 
 

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What if somebody started a company that works like arcades used to?

That would solve the problem of being physically unfeasible. Its also seems like it might suit the slightly gimmicky nature of current VR.

I think people are more likely to go to the VRcade(?) for some quick paced VR with buddies than invest a whole room to it. 

I reckon in the long term VR could become feasible in everyone's homes but for the next ten years or so somebody could provide a venue. 

 

Ahem.

 

I'd probably say PC Baang is a better business model: pay by the hour.

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What if somebody started a company that works like arcades used to?

That would solve the problem of being physically unfeasible. Its also seems like it might suit the slightly gimmicky nature of current VR.

I think people are more likely to go to the VRcade(?) for some quick paced VR with buddies than invest a whole room to it. 

I reckon in the long term VR could become feasible in everyone's homes but for the next ten years or so somebody could provide a venue. 

 

 

I expect that my first VR experience will be paying $10 for 15 minutes to some dude in the middle of the shopping-mall.

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Doesn't VR only ideal for first person view anyway?  I mean it would be weird to play, say, Gears of War with VR.

 

"Hey dude it really feels like I'm creeping right behind Marcus ooooo"

 

But it could give a whole new meaning to more visceral experience.  Like imagine simple but high fidelity bird simulator with VR.  The feels man.  The feels (yes, I recently had dream about flight and it was awesome).

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I finally got to play an Oculus Rift last night! It was only a Dev Kit 1, and I only played a walking simulator and some mine-cart rides, but it was bloody fantastic. It really needs motion controllers rather than kb/m which is what I was using, but otherwise I'm completely sold. Would love to write an adventure game for one of these things!

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I finally got to play an Oculus Rift last night! It was only a Dev Kit 1, and I only played a walking simulator and some mine-cart rides, but it was bloody fantastic. It really needs motion controllers rather than kb/m which is what I was using, but otherwise I'm completely sold. Would love to write an adventure game for one of these things!

 

Would you try doing it first person or would you be more interested in setting it up as a kind of theatre experience, like how Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door's battles went?

 

Paper-mario-thousand-year-door-1.jpg

 

EDIT: Ok if they were given the necessary resources I'd love Kentucky Route Zero adding VR back into that game. I think there's a lot to be said for adding the subtlety of 3D to games too, as long as the bombastic immersive stuff can sell the actual device to enough people. I don't like 3D in cinemas very much, but occasional movies can use it for really nice touches that just add a dimension (pun unintended) to the experience of watching it that's nice. It's actually what I liked about the 3DS, it does just feel like a nice thing in some games when it works. But so few games take a blatant advantage of it, everyone feels like it's a redundant gimmick in the device and if it was optional from the start, loads of people probably wouldn't have bothered.

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Doesn't VR only ideal for first person view anyway?  I mean it would be weird to play, say, Gears of War with VR.

Heehee. It's funny to think that any 3rd person game becomes a voyeurism simulator.

 

More seriously though, the first films wereinitially just a camera pointed at a theater stage, but eventually evolved into something else with a rich language of close-ups, angles, etc. I think something similar may happen for VR. First person insertion is the most obvious application, but who knows what will come out of it after years of development.

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The Vive feels like an events thing more than a home thing at the moment - but I can see a situation where HTC turns out much cheaper, less sophisticated but good-enough VR headsets for the home, optimised for Steam/SteamOS gaming.

 

HTC is a really smart partner in that sense, because most of what they are already making involves the same components, and they can leverage a lot of efficiencies that way. Also, they are really good at making good-looking devices, whereas, with the best will in the world, when Valve tries to make hardware it looks kinda goofy.

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Disclaimer: I have no idea what a sensory deprivation tank actually consists of, or if you'd even have that freedom of movement, but it seems like a good idea to me. Had I the money I'd probably try to figure something out. U:

I thought they generally had you floating in water, but I could be wrong about that.

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Ahem.

 

I'd probably say PC Baang is a better business model: pay by the hour.

 

Oh man, I remember playing Dactyl Nightmare and Flying Aces in a mall arcade on a band trip to St. Louis back in...probably '92 or '93.

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Disclaimer: I have no idea what a sensory deprivation tank actually consists of, or if you'd even have that freedom of movement, but it seems like a good idea to me. Had I the money I'd probably try to figure something out. U:

 

NxA2KfD.jpg

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There are a million sensory deprivation places popping up around here. My understanding of it is that you are set to float in salty (for the buoyancy) body temperature water that is in a sort of weird light and sound proof egg thing. So you kind of just float there without feeling, seeing, or hearing anything for 45 minutes or so and your skin gets really dry afterwards.

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Heehee. It's funny to think that any 3rd person game becomes a voyeurism simulator.

 

Would love to play RE6 with VR.  Leon is so hot.  I would love it.

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I wonder if the interfaces for each of these VR headsets are unified enough to make a cross-device API for developers. If so, something like that would make me feel a lot more at ease with competition allowing VR to be a thing in the mainstream market if you have lots of devs independently developing for all devices rather than having a bunch of Vive or Oculus exclusives. It feels like a big reason why motion control failed was the platform lock.

 

EDIT: wow ok so I should've just watched valve's thing from like a year ago:

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Would you try doing it first person or would you be more interested in setting it up as a kind of theatre experience, like how Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door's battles went?

 

Oh, definitely first-person.

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My Nvidia 460se is crashing lately and informing me that a kernel mode crashed (whatever that is). I'm assuming that it's on its way out and the lack of an announcement of required specs for the oculus rift has got me nervous that I may end up in videocard limbo.

I'll keep treating it as a software problem that I can't seem to solve and hopefully that denial will hold me off until a possible e3 announcement.

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