easing in… feh
Yeah, I put in about half of the required evening before deciding it could fuck off. Same with the map management in Elite VR. I know it can be made to work, but that’s not a part of the game designer’s job I’m interested in doing. Bah, humbug, etc.
Oh god, no. Just no! No no no no no! I cannot abide using a ghost controller floating in midair. It’s exhausting having to hover your hand in midair to pretend it’s on a stick and throttle. I play Ultrawings with a gamepad.
I was just about to bring this up. The ghost-hand controls killed it for me. I like what VTOL is doing, but until it supports playing with a gamepad, I’m out. Actually, maybe it does support a gamepad. I should check. Or I should just set up my HOTAS. Surely it supports that.
-Tom
By the way, is tha bushpilot sim coming out next year going to have VR support? Because that would be so awesome.
Oh really? I didn’t mean the ‘ghost stick’ thing so much, I meant using your fingers to push buttons and flip switches in the cockpit, and fiddle with the MFDs.
The actual flight control surfaces would be controlled with the sticks on the touch controllers, like a gamepad. I guess that’s not so practical with the Vive as it has those touch things rather than dual anaogue sticks? I was hoping VTOL would support such a mechanism.
The Oculus has control sticks? Oh man, I really backed the wrong horse. There’s just a sort of flat d-pad disc on the Vive.
The way VTOL works is that you have to hover your hand with the VR controller in the position where a control stick would be. Your other hand with its VR controller hovers where the collective would be, down by your left hip. You can toggle your phantom grips off to push buttons and whatnot, which is a pretty cool feature. For instance, all the buttons around the MFDs are functional, and that’s awesome. But actually interacting with the ghost-hand flight controls is terrible.
I assume Utlrawings would let you fly this way as well, but I just use a gamepad.
-Tom
Here are my favorites from the past year (with PSVR) and the past couple of weeks (with a Rift.)
PSVR
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - fun game for a group, definitely need to play this some more. I really like games that let you play with non-VR folks too.
Job Simulator - mainly because my daughter absolutely loves this thing. It’s so much fun watching her mess around with the different roles.
Diner Duo - again because of our older girl. A lot of fun to cook burgers while she gives me the orders and plays as the waiter.
Headmaster - getting close to finishing the storyline and it’s been a fun ride.
RIFT
Gorn - something incredibly satisfying about destroying gladiators in this arena. Still have some things to unlock so I’ll keep at it and hope they come up with a sequel eventually.
Soundboxing - just found this a few days ago but it’s been great so far. Definitely the most active VR experience I’ve had as it’s left me sore every day.
VR Sports Challenge - an older game now but one of my favorites already, especially the hockey & football. They’re a bit exaggerated but the goalie play in hockey gives me a little feel of being in the crease again.
Google Earth VR - I love being able to check out basically anywhere in the world and feel like you’re right above it. Spent some time flying around my old hometown, then different places I’ve lived since then. Even took a little trip to where our wedding was down in Jamaica. Great stuff.
Racket Fury - haven’t had a chance to play much of this yet but it feels great. Need to clear a little more space in our gameroom so I can get the full experience.
Haven’t tried Robo Recall yet or Lone Echo, but will pick the latter up if it ever gets cheaper than the Christmas sale.
So what’s the easiest way to get into this VR thing? I’ll give it a spin.
$400 and a solid gaming PC and you are in. :)
I know this is kinda cheating but my AWESOME COOL WANT MORE VR experience of 2017 was this thing
This is currently in London until March, several US locations and appears as a temporary pop-up in other places. I have a Rift and love some of the experiences on it, including Karnage Chronicles, Raw Data & From Other Suns but this is in another class. I dare to hope that the near future will see this kind of VR experience being integrated into cinema complexes and become something to ‘go to’ just like movies used to be.
The really short taster is that you don a kit that lets you move around freely together with 3 buddies or randoms. You maneuver through a really clever physical space whilst being fully immersed in VR in your role as a Stormtrooper. It is more interactive movie than game and hat is no criticism, it is a ground breaking experience.
You never actually see the physical space outside of VR once the experience begins but you do feel it e.g. it gets hot when you are hovering above lava :-)
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Also agreeing with @GingerYellow The developers I know who had decent budgets for developing VR titles in 2017 were frustrated with how small the market remains. As one told me, they sold very well into the VR community - which is paltry by the standards they are used to.
I kept thinking that it would just take one killer game to significantly grow the market. While there were a number of good games, I guess that hope was wrong. The hardware prices seem to remain the obstacle.
But does that surprise anyone? I can’t see how it could. The industry needs to bootstrap itself through steadily better hardware and steadily better software. What else could happen?
Agreed, but I do think maybe “we” (ie games makers) are missing a trick here somewhere. I dont know what the answer is but I just have this hunch we are trying trying to force a solution on the wrong kind of problem. Maybe the best VR experiences will not look anything like our current play patterns or game mechanics methodologies, maybe there is a new genre that can define the space.
I dunno I am not working in VR but I would try and innovate my way out of trouble. Because outside of cockpit games I am really not sure most current design patterns are ever going to work in the VR space.
… Or maybe an old genre. If people would graft RPG and RTS systems onto cockpit experiences like they used to do back in the Good Old (microprose) days, that would mean all kinds of wonderful for VR.
Good shout! Agreed!
I think movement is the main design issue. Cockpits solve it one way, teleports another. I expect there are other ways out there. Then all the other stuff can be invented alongside :)
Sure, imagine playing a Syndicate game like the first one, where the conceit was that the player was a corporate muckety muck in a high tech blimp, overseeing their cyber agents wreak mayhem in the city below. VR that up so you are issuing orders from a dirigible gondola. Basically a cockpit view except you’re looking down instead of looking up.