VR - Is it really going to be a success? Or, thanks Time for starting a discussion!

Yeah. I really do want a VR headset and wheel for Gran Turismo (assuming VR support is robust for GTS) but that’s a pretty hefty price tag. Still, maybe at some point.

Given the resolution of today’s sets how do the instrument panels look in IL2? Are the gauges and needles a jagged mess?

I found out that there’s a VR arcade arcade of sorts downtown that has partitioned rooms for players so they can walk about and flail their arms freely. Unfortunately from the pics of their facility it looks like they’re not setup for flight and driving sims which is a shame but I’m still eager to give VR a test drive. They charge $30/hour which is a lot cheaper than a massage + happy ending.

Surprisingly they are very well done. They are 3d modelled and move in real time. The only negative is some of the rivets on some of the canopies look like textures instead of modelled but you have to look to notice that.

Like @schurem said, cockpit games are well-suited for VR because your in-game character barely moves around their enclosure. Normal movement in VR makes too many people sick unless it basically matches what they’re doing in real life 1:1, which means that even room-scale solutions will only allow an in-game playspace the size of your real life room. The most popular work-around is teleportation, although it seems that slow, completely steady movement with zero acceleration and deceleration also mitigates nausea (as seen with the shooter Onward)

Todd Howard has said that locomotion is the hardest part about porting Fallout 4 to VR, and that they will present the user with multiple options including teleportation (which is what all the demos thus far have used). I doubt they will give you the option to use the base game’s locomotion mechanics, as this would cause sickness for many. So the question becomes: would you rather play a full-fledged RPG like Fallout 4 in VR, where you have an unmatched sense of presence visually, or would you rather play it on a standard screen so that your character moves around in a realistic manner. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to immersion (although I personally think teleportation is a complete immersion killer).

[quote=“Ryan_Kelly, post:950, topic:77265”]
I doubt they will give you the option to use the base game’s locomotion mechanics, as this would cause sickness for many. So the question becomes: would you rather play a full-fledged RPG like Fallout 4 in VR, where you have an unmatched sense of presence visually, or would you rather play it on a standard screen so that your character moves around in a realistic manner. [/quote]

It’s not really a valid question, because of course they’ll give you the option to use full locomotion mechanics. Why wouldn’t they? Many people are sick of teleportation already and will complain if they don’t.

Have you tried Serious Sam First Encounter or Minecraft? Both offer full locomotion systems alongside a range of options for nausea reduction. It’d be interesting to see how many HMD veterans still feel regularly motion sick after the initial acclimation period.

Just saw the reveal trailer for Superhot (E3 2016?) and noticed there are some rendered AMiGAs in a pile near the end of the video. So, I guess that makes it an awesome game. (It looked great before also, but, it is the little extra touch that proves that is even more awesome.)

For one, it could generate negative press like this:

Let me be absolutely clear: Nothing I’ve done in VR has made me feel more ill than vanilla Minecraft on the Oculus Rift.

It’s not a sudden sort of sickness, but a feeling deep inside your gut that grows slowly over time. After 15 or 20 minutes my mouth was watering in an uncomfortable way and no amount of powering through the experience was going to make it any better. I just had to get out.

From a VR developer:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-triple-a-studios-getting-vrwhat-hell-do-you-think-john-nagle

Here’s the thing, guys. VR development is not traditional game development. You can’t just throw a VR camera into a game scene, wire up some camera controls to a controller, and hope for the best. The player will experience intense, gut-wrenching nausea. Some will physically vomit. You are not only the designer of a game, you are the custodian of the player’s vestibular system, and that’s a huge responsibility. A well-thought-out, crafted-for-VR experience can be a life-changing experience for new users. That’s why titles like Space Pirate Trainer and Job Simulator have been so well-received. But a cobbled-together, half-assed attempt at doing “something in VR” will leave a very long-lasting (and very negative) scar in the player’s memory. That scar will be a huge barrier to overcome when trying to convince them to risk upturning their lunch on our purpose-built VR games.

According to Howard:

Right now we’re doing the teleport warp thing and that’s fine, but we’re experimenting with a few others.

They’re most likely looking into the method that Onward uses, seeing as how Arizona Sunshine also added a similar mode after release. When he says “Our plan is to ship with as many [modes] as we can, because it’s different for everybody,” that does include the possibility of including the base locomotion mechanics, even though that would be guaranteed to make a lot of people sick (depending on how many try it).

I don’t see how that invalidates anything I said. Many people get sick. But many don’t. So have options for everyone. Why are you against that?

The Minecraft article, it’s been ‘a few more months’ since that was published in August 2016. And the author says this:

I turned off all the silly “comfort features” that it offered. I was sure that I could take it.

So who’s fault is that? Certainly not the developers for including the full locomotion options. I use them all the time and they’re great. Note that the game defaults to using the ‘comfortable’ settings, so you have to go out of your way to make yourself sick.

Your own quote says they’re doing as many as they can to appeal to everybody, but you doubt one of those optional modes will be full locomotion similar to the standard game? At least you’re now saying it’s ‘possible’ I guess. :)

You asked why a developer might not include the original locomotion mechanics of the game they’re porting to VR, and my answer was that you will end up with articles like that where the author describes in excruciating detail how awful their experience was, with a generalized attention-grabbing headline to boot.

I think they’ll at least strip out things such as head bobbing, and possibly not include acceleration/deceleration and artificial yaw.

I wouldn’t assign someone prone to 2D gaming motion sickness to review a shooter. Why let someone who gets VR queasy easily review VR games?

Fine to mention motion-sickness is an issue for some, it’s not for everyone. I have no issues with traditional movement in Minecraft, with turning off the anti-sickness stuff in Google Earth, etc. The options for traditional movement should be there for those of who aren’t very susceptible; just put a warning in front of it the first time you select it that you have to acknowledge, and don’t make it the default mode. Then those attention-grabbing writers will have to acknowledge they couldn’t handle an optional mode instead of making it sound like a flaw in the game’s design.

Head bobbing in a VR game is stupid, though, unless you’re bobbing your head.

Well that article isn’t really complaining about the option for original locomotion, it ends up complaining that the game makes the author sick regardless:

Even with all the comfort features turned on, I can only hang out in there for short periods of time.

The menu system seems to take a shotgun approach to comfort settings by putting a bunch of them in there and hoping for the best.

None of it really works for me.

I’m at a loss as to why, exactly, Minecraft is giving my inner ear so much trouble.

I don’t think any developer is going to read that and then seriously consider removing movement options, or not supporting those who have little to no sickness in VR.

That makes sense; by ‘original locomotion mechanics’ I mean free twin-stick movement/strafing/rotation versus teleport/incremental rotation, not stuff like head bobbing that doesn’t make sense in VR.

Yep, which is exactly what Minecraft does. ;)

The real question, of course- regardless of how they look,are there the correct number of rivets?

Quoted above is 1/2 of Old Man Murray, ex-Valve employee, and current VR developer Chet Faliszek. Displayed here is the sort of thinking that would cause a developer to not support certain options. He is explicitly delineating things that give him motion sickness as “Bad VR”, and things that don’t give him motion sickness as “Good VR”. His fellow indie buddies seem to agree with him in the reply section.

I have yet to acquire my VR legs after decades of on/off experience. So there may be some psychopathic level of immersion, similar to extended sea travel, that accomplishes this but for me repeated light usage did bubkiss.

Minecraft VR comfort or no makes me immediately ill. Using Vivecraft instead and teleporting around prevents any ill feelings, even after hours of exposure. I totally don’t mind teleporting with limited roomscale, I understand it can break immersion a bit but it works for me. Minus the cable, that’s a minor pain in the arse, despite what lots of people claim. Hopefully the wireless options are as good as people are indicating.

Well I guess we can be glad that Chet isn’t making Fallout 4 VR then, if you think that Tweet proves he’d refuse to include movement options that make him personally unwell.*

The comments seem pretty mixed to me. :)

*the point I get from that Tweet is “don’t use (non-existent) ‘VR legs’ as an excuse for not building comfortable VR options”. Not “don’t provide options to accommodate all types of VR users”.

This is starting to read like a P&R argument!

The advice I’ve seen is that you should never “power through” a bad VR experience, as this can not only leave you feeling ill for over a day but also increase your brain’s negative connection to VR. People who believe in the existence of VR legs seem to recommend repetition above all else, although it seems to have not worked in your case.

What strikes me in particular is that a lot of the VR game developers themselves seem to suffer from sickness when using “bad” VR practices. I’m curious as to how that affects the development process.

Also @Profanicus, since you’ve played Minecraft on Oculus, I was wondering if the sprint speed is lower than it is on the normal Windows 10 version even with comfort settings turned off?

I was fairly certain it existed, based purely on my own experience. Of course it’s a difficult thing to test one way or the other given the subjective nature, but I don’t think it’s gained by powering through and enduring bad VR, it’s by putting in the hours with the headset on in a comfortable experience.

‘Repeated light usage’ like Gendal’s may be insufficient. Or else it’s all in my head! :)

It might be a bit slower, it’s hard to tell as things seem different in there and I’ve not really played the Win10 version without VR. :)

There may be an option, I don’t recall. There’s options for a couple types of jump trajectories. I could check after work.

Michael Abrash said that there’s a segment of the population that will acclimate with time, but that it’s very idiosyncratic.