I saw From Other Suns is half price for a day too. Grabbed!
Hallelujah. I’ve been wanting this for ages. It would be so good for trucking games of every stripe (land/air/space). It’s weird it’s not universal, but maybe there are issues around code injection or something like that.
Actually, after some more playing it seems I was mistaken - the pinning and visibility in-game is universal… with a sample size of three games… :)
Seems calling up the dash and interacting with it isn’t. The dash opens up fine inside Lone Echo for example, but when trying it in X Rebirth it switches back to Home first. Pinning a window works in both.
It’s not even a big deal, I mean the game is paused either way.
By the way, is “pinning” relative to your visual field (ie always in the same part of your view wherever you look) or to your “physical” location in the virtual space? It would be nice to have a big window pinned beside me that I could turn to and look at occasionally.
Leinad
1651
You honestly believe the “physics” of all things aren’t there yet for proper VR and won’t be for decades (!)?
You know what was “decades” ago? The internet or games like Doom. I think you VASTLY underestimate the speed of technological improvement and the fact it’s ever accelerating.
I’m not a researcher but I follow the developments in the area (always good to know as Programmer what might be possible in the future) and the “physics” is certainly not what will stop VR from becoming a success, no (current) technical hurdle is really a problem that would take decades to solve.
There is for example a lot happening right now with what AIs can already do (latest example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhH2Cc4thJw ) and if we are talking “decades” then we might not even have classical simulations anymore but AIs which will simply “guess”/“imagine” worlds and hugely cut down on processing power (and manual labor needed to create such worlds).
I don’t think people fully realise/appreciate what is currently happening right now because most of it hasn’t reached a wide audience yet or is still mostly researchers doing their thing but it will totally transform our society (even more than the internet did). Games are of course just a tiny part in all of this but there will be huge changes in this area within the next 5-10 years too.
So the biggest issue VR will face in the future is not what COULD be done but what people will actually do with it to make it interesting enough as consumer product.
wumpus
1652
VR is a colossal failure in the market so far, which isn’t surprising, at least not to me anyway. And it will continue to be.
What I mean by physics is the ability to project very high definition images directly into the human eye – without strapping a pound of equipment on your face. Wake me up when that’s possible.
It stays fixed in 3D space wherever you put it, so you can certainly pin it beside you and look occasionally.
You can move it in all three axes, scale it up/down, ‘snap’ to a cylindrical grid that will make it curved in the horizontal, or position it off-grid so it stays flat.
It’s an overlay, so it’s always visible even if you position it behind something in the game world.
I cant read the article but while I may agree with the first line, the second seems a stretch. So far Augmented reality hardware has flopped as badly as VR and seems likely to continue to do so. Low tech AR using your phone like Pokemon Go might have a decent future, but beyond that the customer has spoken loudly so far and the answer is “no thanks”.
Both Google and Microsoft have failed to generate enough customer interest in the AR space just as Facebook & Valve & Sony have in VR. Maybe Magic Leap will be the thing that makes one of these markets explode?
Teiman
1655
I think VR will be a slow-burn. Current generation works and is amazing, but theres still problems to make it highly desirable.
I don’t know that anyone expected Wii-levels of market penetration – Facebook in particular seems to have a long view on the subject. Current VR is impressive and exceeded the expectations of everyone I demoed it to over the holidays. They were all disappointed once I explained the price/system requirements. The biggest hurdle is cost; everyone in that sample of 5 families owned a Wii, no one owned a gaming pc or PS4. If they do a good job with the Oculus Go or Vive Focus, I can see it taking off (for a time, at least.)
wumpus
1657
No, it isn’t.
Even if you gave them $1000 each, they’d struggle to use it regularly because it requires so much configuration and setup, and for previous little payoff versus a regular game. It’s also uncomfortable (for all) and nausea-inducing for some.
rowe33
1658
Well fuck, I’m going to throw my shitty VR equipment in the trash now that I’ve learned it’s not impressive. Damn it.
In terms of regular use, the only setup is putting it on my head.
Teiman
1660
Connecting the PSVR is about has complicate a VHS, maybe easier since you don’t have to configure the clock :D
VR it don’t feel natural and make you feel bad if you use it too long. And I don’t think games are the best use for VR. I think is place will ultimately be somewhere between a tool and a toy.
I just want to be able to play audio files from an app running in the background while I’m inside. There are some experiences I like to spend hours in, and having my own soundtrack or being able to listen to podcasts would be a plus.
Over the holiday break, I decided it might be time for me to enter the VR world. I’d do some research, look at the games available vs games coming out, as well as taking the temperatures of those playing those games and figure out how to proceed.
And what I’ve discovered in my hours of research ended up being sadly quite simple: stay away.
That’s too bad; while I can’t say it’s lived up to the massive hype and the content has been somewhat anemic, I can say that for me it has been money well spent. It’s the most engaging and novel tech device I’ve owned in at least six years.
Teiman
1664
Things that improve greatly with VR:
- Animals. they are cuuute in VR, and you want to pet every animal you see.
- Fashion, music people, dance. Is hard to describe it, like having people in a bar spontaneously start singing opera. People like rappers are really cool in VR, their physicality, manners.
- Cameras travelling trough minecraft maps, probably any computer generated landscape, maybe just travelling trough cool places. That Allumere demo in the demo disc.
- Any type of chat in VR. But it expose you to other people, and other people is hell.
Things I trough would be cool in VR but where so-so:
- Vehicles moving really fast.
- Games like Skyrim, beyond “I am hitting the head of this wolfie with a blade and saying “bad dog” out loud in real life”.
- Games in general.
Quite the opposite. The “too bad” part would have been laying out between $300 - $600 for a VR setup with the current lay of the land.
And I say this, fully cognizant of the fact that I’m largely speaking to VR owners who now have at least some investment in bringing others along to grow the marketspace.
A phone is useful for this.
