Kevin's Watch

In a recent book review I read, the author said that if, in the next ten years VR didn't take off and become the next huge transformative change to gaming [and possibly in other areas as well, perhaps he meant] then something would have gone 'badly wrong'.

To add flesh to the bones of this particular prediction, I was intrigued to read that in a VR simulation of that French guy who did the twin towers tightrope walk [upon which the film Man on Wire was centred], something like 40 percent of people wearing the latest VR head set found themselves physically unable to take the step over the virtual edge of the building, so realistic was the simulation in which they found themselves.

Any thoughts on this? Are we on the verge of a VR explosion into our lives; Has anyone tried a VR experience at this level of sophistication yet?

I'm very interested in perhaps getting on board with the tech, but I can't afford to do it until I've got at least some feedback that it trounces the gaming [think consul] experience that I already enjoy so much. I'm not in the business of springing shitloads of dough for a thing that turns out to be a flash in the pan gimmick.

I'm holding out for an actual Holodeck.

But you have that 'removed' element Sorus, that VR eliminates (not that I don't think a holodeck wouldn't be fun! ).

Meh. I vacillate myself. Found myself looking at headsets recently in fact, but they're hell of an expensive. I'll wait until it's cheaper, more accessible and better.

Definitely has potential though. But so far the games out for it (there's a VR Skyrim btw, apparently it's awful) don't seem all that polished.

I want it to be awesome, and probably at some point it will be. Have to be patient though I suspect.

--A

Yeah - that's pretty much my take Av. When I can walk into a local store, stick on a headset and be blown away by a mass market product in the field - that's when it becomes viable really. As for Skyrim - I'm so jealous of people with the latest consul's (I'm still on X box 360) that anything less in quality would be a no no.

Here's a review of it if you care: www.ign.com/articles/2017/11/22/the-eld ... -vr-review



--A

Very much a work in progress by the sound of it Av. I imagine that it will progress rapidly though, now the ball is rolling. Here's hoping........

I'm usually late to the party on new technology, and while VR has been around a long time, and has been super expensive for a long time, this is nothing I'm eager to jump into. They really are going to have a library and at least one game that would make it worth it for me. Like if Team Ico came out with a game, or ThatGameCompany. Something I know will be beautiful and cool that I would want to interact with. But since the cheapest for the full experience and not just an iPhone version is the same price as a console, I'm definitely waiting. It seems like peripherals that are successful make a ton of money, but most of them don't. And the PlayStation Move controllers felt like a bit of a burn for me in that the games were primarily crap and the camera required Hollywood lighting and a larger room than I have for my hobby. I don't see this being much different with PlayStation VR, except for the room aspect.
I loves me a good peripheral, but it has got to be cheap enough and it really should work (unlike the majority of the peripherals I have used for PlayStation, and yes, I'd include 50% of the games for the Wii in there as well).
With that said, I do really hope it succeeds, because then it will be cheaper and there will be more games that will be fun.

I can see the appeal to VR and I can imagine several game types where it would improve the experience:

-Racing games. Being able to look where you're turning, glance at drivers alongside you, etc. would be a huge game-changer. Same goes for anything in a cockpit (space sims etc).
-First Person Shooters. Using your hands to aim a gun rather than having your crosshairs in the centre of the screen is a real big difference. You could do things like shoot you gun round a corner without seeing what you're aiming at and the resolution of your controls would be limited only to how fast you could move your hands.
-Any other kind of simulation where your viewpoint is inside the head (or chest as is often the case since apparently this seems more natural to us) of the character you're controlling. Things like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which can put you right in the room with the bomb instead of looking at it from a screen. This must be a huge boost to immersion as you can't look away from the screen while it's strapped onto your face!

As others have mentioned they're well expensive though! I've yet to try one myself because of this.

At first I thought VR was another gimmick like 3D films but having seen videos of people experiencing modern VR games and being able to imagine the improvements it would make to certain types of games I'd love to try it out.

Unfortunately I don't think the games I play the most (Strategy Games) would see any appreciable benefit (although I could be wrong).

NATHAN!

Just waltz back in and drop a post like you've never been gone why don't you?

Welcome back. Good to see you around man. Hope to see you more often.

(I dunno, I could see playing TW in VR...especially if you were constrained to your general for example...could be interesting. (And cool not to be constrained too, just hovering over the battlefield...)

--A

Avatar wrote:NATHAN!

Just waltz back in and drop a post like you've never been gone why don't you?

Welcome back. Good to see you around man. Hope to see you more often.

(I dunno, I could see playing TW in VR...especially if you were constrained to your general for example...could be interesting. (And cool not to be constrained too, just hovering over the battlefield...)

--A

Hey man! It's nice to see you too. I'm listening to the seventh decimate on audiobook and it reminded me of this place!

Interesting suggestion about TW - I can see playing in general's eye view, but it would have huge balance and gameplay implications. Most of what you do in a battle is micromanaging your units to perfectly position them before your lines meet or time a cavalry charge or flank the enemy, etc. and to do that you need a pretty good idea of what's happening all over the battlefield. If you took that away by restricting your view to what the general actually sees you'd no longer be able to do those things in real time. I'm not saying it's without merit - I'd actually go a step further and make it so you make a general plan for the battle in advance and have to rely on the autonomy of lieutenants to fill in the details and/or use pre agreed signals with horns/drums/flags to issue mid-battle orders.

Essentially you'd be playing a battle simulation at that point, which isn't really total war any more...

As you can see, we're still here.

TW already has the option to do just that...limit your view to what the general sees. (Or it might be just limiting it to the totality of your unit's view...never actually use it myself so not 100% sure.)

(Anyway, I'm ignoring TW until they stop with the damned Warhammer stuff. ) (Or at least, only playing Attila until such time.)

--A