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[werty892]

From Gamespot Oculus Review

Of course, not every VR game is a good game by default. EVE Valkyrie, for example, is littered with microtransactions that detract from its initial appeal

 

For sure, how could we forget. My enthusiasm just went down a few notches...

Oh god that's awful. If I'm already shelling out insane amounts for a PC upgrade and the VR hardware, I certainly won't be paying for anything in game that I don't have to. I had hoped it'd work the other way really, and VR games would basically be a new medium more in line with films (or even the 'blockbusters' of old like HL2) where it tried hard to be a contained 'experience' rather than lots of extra bolt ons and whatever. I'd also imagined it'd be a bit more high brow, and a move away from that kind of cheap money grabbing techniques. Such a shame.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if facebook hack the price down quickly when they realise that they're not managing to sell to the mainstream. They'll obviously want to monetize by utilizing their massive customer base, and they can't do that if only 0.001% can actually use it.

Reading about the microtransactions, it's basically the same as EvE Online's Plex system... which apparently everyone is upset about now. Even though everyone was fine with it for the last 10 years... Ok.

[Solifuge]

New tech isn't going to change the market on it's own, let alone overnight. Besides, there's so much money being generated by "Free-To-Play" games that are carefully crafted to exploit human psychology that it would make you sick. And the current era's Free-To-Play bubble certainly doesn't incentivize App Farms to change tactics any time soon.

That said, I do think it will change the landscape of gaming away from conflict and murder for funsies, and over toward empathy and experience-building. Stanford ran and shared a pretty solid lecture on the subject by Vander Caballero (of "Papo y Yo" fame), which I caught while gardening today. If you're interested in VR and have 30 minutes to listen even in the background, it's worth it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llmJwKZTekA

[PTTG??]

One thing I like about VR is that, from the demos i've seen, it looks like we're finally getting more variety back in environment design. Not to say we've left the Distressed Modern Industrial era behind, but there's a lot of much more colorful design.

Motion control looks like it's still a big problem. I don't think we need a omnidirectional treadmill to solve it, though. People use vision to correct their walking direction in real life. I figure that if you distort people's virtual paths subtly enough, you can trick them into walking in a circle when they think they're walking forward without motion sickness... Possibly as small as 10 feet in diameter. Since the space would need to be larger since the player could change directions at any time, it might need to be expanded to something like 20 feet in diameter. At that point it starts getting difficult to find a large enough space in the average home.

I dunno. Omnitreads are just so expensive, and it's hard to picture a way to make them cheaper. Pure motion tracking with some clever illusions would be free, but it demands space that many people just don't have available.

[Rose]

All I can say is that room-scale VR is a perfect fit for strategy games. Just have the map scaled to the available walking space, and the player walks through it like a god, directing his minions.

[Retropunch]

I dunno. Omnitreads are just so expensive, and it's hard to picture a way to make them cheaper. Pure motion tracking with some clever illusions would be free, but it demands space that many people just don't have available.

They're expensive now, but I can guarantee that if VR takes off they'll become hilariously cheap - it's the most obvious next step for VR, and people will start demanding it pretty much as soon as they play the first blockbuster FPS on the VR.

[Beggars` Sect]

Reading about the microtransactions, it's basically the same as EvE Online's Plex system... which apparently everyone is upset about now. Even though everyone was fine with it for the last 10 years... Ok.

I don`t play Eve, but doubt it`s as black and white as you paint here. Micro$ in games you purchase for a fee are never okay. I hate f2p model too - though after playing Planetside 2 I must admit that it might "work" sometime - with the caveat that the game would always be better without this crap. But at least it sort of makes sense there and is more honest.

The goal of VR is ultimate immersion. If it works, then I can only imagine that avoiding some pushy ads and "gimme yo $$$" nagging will become much more insufferable (never mind the standard side effect of broken gameplay balance).

[werty892]

Reading about the microtransactions, it's basically the same as EvE Online's Plex system... which apparently everyone is upset about now. Even though everyone was fine with it for the last 10 years... Ok.

I don`t play Eve, but doubt it`s as black and white as you paint here. Micro$ in games you purchase for a fee are never okay. I hate f2p model too - though after playing Planetside 2 I must admit that it might "work" sometime - with the caveat that the game would always be better without this crap. But at least it sort of makes sense there and is more honest.

The goal of VR is ultimate immersion. If it works, then I can only imagine that avoiding some pushy ads and "gimme yo $$$" nagging will become much more insufferable (never mind the standard side effect of broken gameplay balance).

Except Valkarie comes free with the rift.

[Solifuge]

On the flip side, there's apparently some sort of VR Hangout With Bill Clinton that has me wondering about VR in political ads, or in hacking that sense of immersion and presence for marketing purposes.

Power Plants or Nukes. It's up to folks to decide what's appropriate use of any new tech, vs what's exploitative or harmful.

[Beggars` Sect]

Except Valkarie comes free with the rift.

With a Rift pre-order, you mean. Maybe they will make it f2p later, even on PS4, but we don`t know it yet. However it`s not that relevant since I just meant it as a general example of a trend.

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-quest-to-solve-vrs-biggest-problem-walking-around/ hard to believe, but yeah, you can look - but you can`t walk. I guess it`s still a mindblowing experience, but if they don`t sort it out soon ,the gameplay will be severely limited.

[Cruxador]

One thing I like about VR is that, from the demos i've seen, it looks like we're finally getting more variety back in environment design. Not to say we haven't left the Distressed Modern Industrial era behind, but there's a lot of much more colorful design from what I've seen.

That's not because it's VR. We've been having professional "indie" games and publishers pushing that aesthetic for quite a while. It's just that these indie groups are the ones willing to go into VR since it's compatible with a strategy of attracting a small dedicated market, rather than an extensive one, whereas the AAA devs can't afford to take risks.

I dunno. Omnitreads are just so expensive, and it's hard to picture a way to make them cheaper. Pure motion tracking with some clever illusions would be free, but it demands space that many people just don't have available.

I suspect that full-mobility VR won't see consumer success in this round. But headsets and hand controls don't really require that kind of thing anyway; walking with a joystick or using one of several other mobility solutions that creative people come up with should end up being adequate; people learned to deal with motion sickness for the sake of cars, after all. However, I do suspect we're going to continue seeing games made where you're in a space ship or other vehicle, and can only walk in an area the size of what your peripherals allow and otherwise move the vehicle (see for example Hover Junkers).

All I can say is that room-scale VR is a perfect fit for strategy games. Just have the map scaled to the available walking space, and the player walks through it like a god, directing his minions.

While I agree, no dev seems to be following this train of thought. Perhaps because graphical gimmicks don't tend to track particularly well in the strategy market, and strategy gamers are quite discerning in game mechanics, making the barrier to entry higher than a lot of the simple games and glorified demos we're seeing so far. It would be awesome to play, for example, Stellaris, as a giant galaxy-striding space god, but I don't think we're going to see strategy game engines supporting that for around half a decade.

[PTTG??]

Actually a space stratagy game is the first use case I can think of that really demands VR.

A universe of 3D stars is nearly impossible to manipulate without depth perception unless you customize the galactic map to be viewed from above. Plus, a science fiction setting has a thematic union with VR gadgetry.

Since you can't walk in space, especially when you are a cosmic star god the size of solar systems, an alternative movement scheme works fine. Since ships have 3D motion, having a volumetric controller is the only efficient way to select them.

Throw in nice orbital-scale planet textures to show off the visuals, and it sounds perfect. I personally want a fairly hard-science space empire sim (hard science in the sense that we're allowed one fairly concrete miracle like exotic matter for our albercuie drive or something), maybe even based on real star maps and known and hypothetical exoplanets. At the same time, a soft science fiction with cartoonishly scaled systems could look good and certainly might play better.

[Rose]

For what it's worth, there is defense grid for the rift, which is a tower defense game, which is the closest thing going to a strategy game right now.

I'm also working on a vr version of Armok Vision, but I can't do proper room scale without a vive. The only vr I  have is really shitty.

[Cruxador]

Well, most space games make things function more or less in a plane to varying degrees and just display in 3D and it works okay.

This talk of gods though, brings up another genre that would work well in vr: the God Game. Just remaster Black and White for VR, modernize the graphics a bit, and you're sure to have a best-seller. Hell, the game even works by dragging yourself around the map using your hand, which seems like it would probably do well in mitigating motion sickness.

I'm also working on a vr version of Armok Vision

What scale? Will the player be a dwarf, or a giant with the map scaled to match your room size? I see advantages to both.

[PTTG??]

Finally, some unbiased reporting on the advantages of VR.

[Cruxador]

Wait a second, people are doing room-scale porn? How the hell do you film in room-scale?