3534

Nah that’s not it. I tried switching back and forth in the exact same lighting conditions last night.

3535

That’s even in Oculus Home, not in a game?

I will try to pay attention tomorrow, to see if I notice the same.

To be honest, since I got the Link I’ve been playing mostly pc games, not Quest games, with my Quest. I wonder if I should have bought a Rift S, then, with better comfort, better visual clarity on the screen, and better latency/visuals than using Link.

3537

Yesterday night I lost my Internet connection on home, so I decided to play some VR games I had installed already on the pc.
I couldn’t. The Oculus Home showed a nice grey box in the middle of my fov, without any message (I supect it should have shown an error message complaining of no internet but the message itself also failed? lol). There was no way close it and it was permanent, it wouldn’t mind what I launched on my system, the box would be ‘always on top’. GG Facebook.

Oh, by the way, the other day I tried a hockey game, Pick-up League Hockey, and I was impressed with the good work on the intuitive handling of the stick and the feeling of skating. Pity it’s clearly an indie thing done by 2 guys and it’s not feature complete. There was a dead mp lobby, and a practice mode where there was no AI to play against.

3538

We have several teams developing in VR in our senior production class, and other teams at different levels working with it as well. An interesting issue that is becoming more important for us is sterilizing headsets. There are precious few methods apparently that actually work against stuff like COVID-19 or related coronaviruses. The best we found? A $14,000 UV sterilization box that does the job on a headset in like a minute or so. But at that price, uh, probably not. There are wipes and stuff which we use, but I’ve been told they don’t do much in the current situation.

3539

I’ve been told alcohol acts against coronavirus type of viruses, including covid-19.

3540

Supposedly, yeah, but I’m not sure whether the amount/type that can be effectively applied to a headseat via wipes for instance is enough. MInd you, my info is definitely second hand as I am not an epidemiologist.

3541

I work in higher ed. We circulate vr headsets for coursework and research. The guidance we’ve gotten from our health center is 60%+ alcohol concentrations as effective for sterilization. Wipes are less effective than solutions like purell. We’ve been wiping ours down with a liquid 62% alcohol spray our procurement folks found us. Fwiw,

3542

Good to know, thanks!

3543

What about the cloth and foam fittings? You can’t wipe them effectively.

3544

I have replaced the foam and cloth fittings on my Quest with pleather / vinyl parts. Helps with the sweat when I workout in VR.

3545

We’ve done the same - we got pleather fittings to replace the porous foam. There’s still lots of nooks and crannies in these devices so how clean we can get them remains a worry . We’ve actually been looking at UV C sanitizing solutions but they’re expensive and will struggle to reach those same nooks and crannies. Jury’s still out on whether we’ll pursue that.

3546

Table Tennis is cool

3547

I will get to try VR for first time tomorrow if things go well earlier in the day. It’s part of the intensive in-patient rehab program here at University of Michigan. No idea what to expect, so will be interesting.

3548

Ask them for DCS :)

3549

Hopefully insurance covers a HOTAS

3550

I finished up Boneworks. I was surprised when you appear in the medieval dungeon lol In the end I warmed up a bit to the game on the second half, but I think it was because by that point your mind unconsciously deal with all the little physics and control issues the game have, adjusting the way I played and interacted with stuff, thanks to the ‘training’ from the previous hours. Still, all the flaws mentioned before didn’t magically disapepar, it’s that you learn to go around them or ignore them.
Speaking of control issues, I discovered why the character gets stuck and have problem climbing so much, just look totally down when walking and running, he does it in a super comical way, with barely raising the feet/legs.

Coming back to the Quest, I’m playing Angry Birds, and well, it’s pretty casual of course but it’s enjoyable to fire the birds and watch how all collapse beautifully. I wish that as a puzzle game it’d be more thoughtful, there is something wrong when in the latter half of the game I fire a bird just in the middle of everything, without thinking a lot, and that not only completes the level but gives me 3 stars.

3551

It perhaps hardly needs it but I am adding another enthusiastic recommendation for Asgard’s Wrath. It has added to my top three most awesome VR experiences . . .

#1. First time ever in VR, Oculus DK1, playing a run & gun mech cockpit game (like Mechwarrior, but not that, forget the name). I used jump jets to go high and then began plummeting towards the roofs of some buildings. I watched the decent and upon landing was totally confused, for a few fractions of a second, as to why I did not feel any impact. Oh yeah, I am in VR, cool!

#2. Reality dissociation. Another early VR experience. Spent an hour or so and afterwards spent several more hours doubting that the real world was in fact real. Think eXistenz or Matrix. In practice I knew I was in reality, but the reality felt like a virtual construction. Of course, maybe this is always true (simulation theory)

#3. Asgards’ Wrath. In God mode found myself stretching, reaching . . . trying to grab hold of a deer’s head that was just out of reach past a platform that prevented my god form from moving further forward. Imagine being blocked at waist level by a desk and you are trying to reach something at the end of it. I was doing this but with no physical blocker and very, very nearly fell over. Realising this was happening was fantastic - total immersion!

Also loving -

Combat. On normal difficulty this just feels so right to me. I can block by watching the opponents and after x hours play am finally picking up the skill to parry their super attacks. Initial hours were spent failing to do this over and over because my natural inclination is to back off from them. Comparing it to the best other visceral, satisfying combat I have from GORN, Gladius and The Morrigan.

Puzzles I have limited patience for puzzles in most games but so far, still fairly early in, feels like they have a decent logic that enables me to figure them out from growing understanding of mechanics. The pace at which new companions are introduced seems to be goldilocks for the learning curve too.

Throwing stuff With aim-assist on I feel like an axe-throwing prodigy and gosh dang that feels so satisfying and right. In-game I think I could have a career as an axe-throwing bar game champion.

Content, content, content Having played maybe 8 or so hours it looks like I have experienced a tiny % of the content . . . at which point I would have completed many other VR “games”.

For me, a candidate to rival Lone Echo and Elite Dangerous for best so far.

3552

I’m so bad at the axe throwing.

3553

As awesome as I am at axe-throwing I am even better at the coin bounce into a mug game. I have not been this good at a bar game since university.

3554

I was trying an older VR game, and well, it’s incredible how some have aged in just two or three years. People were really discovering how to use the new medium. Like Wilson’s Heart.
Having to teleport to a few predetermined spots is so clunky and limiting. No free locomotion, no free teleport, much less ‘arm swinger’ or other experimental control schemes. In fact, you can see something rare in the options menu… but in the bad sense: there isn’t anything beyond the volume controls! One of the trends of current VR games is to try to accommodate everytone offering a good amount of control for the player, in terms of comfort and ways of playing: seated/standing, vignette/tunnel system, free or snap turning, teleport/dash/joystick, move with head/controller, etc. Here, nothing.
Not only that, but the specifics of how their system of hotspots is pretty bad, as I discovered in just the first 3 minutes. The hotspots are linked between them like A–>B–>C–>D, so you have to traverse all of them to got from A to D, DESPITE sometimes you are in a spot like B where you should be able to see (and therefore, use) point D, it’s only 10 or 12 mts away!, but until you move first to C, it will be invisible. /facepalm