Yes, titles need to be better at seated play, because it is a reasonable way to play, given almost no one has enough room to actually walk around.
But the entire point of VR is the controllers, not the headset. The headset is a huge pain in the ass, annoying, blurry, and tiring to use. No one would put on a headset if it were possible to transfer hand movements to a game world any other way. The monitor has to be glued to your face, but that is a downside, not the benefit.
There is even a horror game where all you can do is look around, as you're canonically bound to a wheelchair with chains. You can direct an AI companion with a laser pointer, and that's about it. No controller required (or allowed for that matter).
As it turns out, VR means different things to different people. The best VR implementations allow all those people to enjoy VR.
Without the headset you're back to looking at a 2D projection of the world. There are plenty of fantastic VR experiences that are fully playable in a seated position, flight sims in particular are vastly more immersive when you can physically look around the cockpit and the glass canopy.
Also the neck control is nice, but the only significant benefit of vr is the use of hand-eye coordination for the controller. The use of our feet for locomotion would also be huge, but no one can afford a warehouse to play VR in, so that is possibly never going to happen.
Not to be rude, but have you used modern VR systems much? The above sounds exactly the opposite of what it's all about.
Also the headset does not transfer hand movements at all? Are you talking about the handsets like the two controllers that come with the Vive?
All modern VR does either full body tracking with the base stations or quest style hand tracking. It would be pretty hard to arrange the monitors in such away that you has full hand movement I dont see how they would not get in the way unless they were tiny and strapped to your face.
Many games seem to implement motion and interaction controls internally, which is great for experimentation. But for many games, that isn’t the main point. In those, the user could instead select one of their own personal control schemes. Maybe some of those control schemes could even be extensible, for games that want a familiar UI, but also want to experiment a bit.
VR should create simulations that are consistent with that kind of environment.
In my mind the bigger issue is games are just not designed for free look and it doesn't even make all that much sense. Heads clipping through walls is already an annoying problem without the assumption the user can fly anywhere.
I think supporting stick movement and crouch or fixed height seems like something that might be standard if we end up seeing some AAA experiences.
What is “the point of tv”? Or of “the internet”?
Let's imagine perfect VR (the Matrix). Would it be better to play Mahjong, Poker, Blackjack, Chess, pick your favorite board game, with real pieces setting at a real table or at a computer terminal moving pieces with your mouse? I get each person might have a different answer to that.
What I like about "immersion" when done right is I just do the thing I already know how to do. Pick up the ball, cards, dice. I don't have to fiddle with one 18 buttons on the 2 controllers (up, down, left, right, press, A, B, upper trigger, lower trigger) x (left hand, right hand) .... actually 20 buttons if you include the "system" buttons on each controller.
This is one thing I hated about No Man's Sky in VR. I enjoyed it over all and never played non-VR No Man's Sky, but, while flying and aiming the gun/probe is VR, all the inventory management is 18 button based and even 25hrs in I'd be pressing the wrong button on each menu option.
Now of course, VR isn't good enough yet to do this "immersion" so often, picking up the cards, ball, etc, is just to damn fiddley. Maybe I have to put my hand 10cm past where my brain believes the object is. I've had that very frustrating experience where I can't reach the thing in VR because it's below the physical floor in my room or behind the wall/sofa/desk, so there's a lot to be fixed.
And, also, of course maybe someone will figure out better interfaces without the constraints of the physical world. For example I'm a little sad when someone makes a piano in VR given that you could invent a new instrument with a sphere of controls around you.
But, every time I play a VR game that makes me memorize which of 18 buttons to press I want to scream.
I think your point was more about which interface is best for these games, but it made me think of something else.
I don't even play those games very often in real life, why would I be excited about playing them in VR?
In fact, more often then not, if I ever play these, it's if I'm on the bus, or taking a shit, or something like that, which means I'll exclusively play them on my phone at this point.
I really don't feel the prospect of playing these games in VR, even in perfect matrix like VR would appeal to me. If I want to be bothered to physically play these games, which I already don't, I can just physically go play them, or more conveniently play them on my phone.
I think if VR is to draw people in, it's got to bring whole new games, experiences I can only live in VR.
I believe the person you were replying to was just using those board games as an example to illustrate the silliness of reverting to 2d or pancake style interaction while immersed in a VR experience. There are certainly many VR games that give you experiences that are only possible in VR. One of the most popular is Beat Saber although you may take issue with that because there are rhythm games outside of VR. It's still a unique experience to have to use your whole body to play the game though. A better example of VR only may be Swarm[0] which is a game about swinging around a 3d arena using a grappling hook while shooting heat seeking missiles that are trying to hit you. I'm pretty sure there is no way you could play this with a normal computer interface and if you could it wouldn't be very fun.
[0] https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2236053486488156/
If you think about it some more, that’s not always true. Every player needs to want and be able to play at a specific time and specific location. With VR, both limitations are gone. While living in North America, I can play VR pingpong and chess with relatives in Asia, and VR poker with my old friends on the opposite coast. The immersion makes it a lot more appealing than playing in front of a flat screen. Even an 80 in flat screen isn’t as immersive as VR
We trained our brains to know that we are going to 'trick' them with sight/sound all the time. TV, music in headphones, etc.
What VR doesn't do (apart from some of the weird Facebook prototypes you'll sometimes see) is affect any of the senses that actually make us feel immersed in a space.
So great, I'm looking at a beach and when I turn my head, it's still there. But it's 68 degrees in my apartment, I still feel the carpet on my feet, I still smell my partner cooking, etc.
It's honestly why a VR metaverse just seems so far away. My current problem with media is not that I can't see it anymore when I turn my head.
The most important things for immersion are the visuals, then sound, and then your ability to interact with the environment (more on this later). Being able to affect your smell and temperature is just novel at best. If you were very familiar with VR, your picks for missing features would instead be the following:
- being able to physically feel virtual objects like a soda can. (You can kind of feel things that tap or strike you now with speaker vests.)
- being able to physically walk an infinite distance in any direction inside of a room
Even without those features, modern VR is immersive enough just like the internet was useful enough in the last 90s and early 2000s
I often joined rooms that would cause VR Chat to crash on the Quest and if I stuck to the default rooms VR Chat recommends, I've mostly just get accosted by children (they sound like they're 10 years old at the oldest) or assholes "Hey, I'm talking to you, why didn't you answer me right away (I'm in a menu). I'm going to kill you!" (and other nasty things until I just left the room)... as one example that happened to me.
I personally would rather stick with Horizon Worlds (as boring and sterile as it is) than deal with that garbage. The people there have been older and more pleasant, on average (but it's also mostly empty, that might change if it actually became popular).
I hear on PC VR Chat is quite nice, though. In particular the raves look like a lot of fun, judging by the documentaries on Youtube. I haven't been able to access those places from the Quest (or at least, not easily or without crashing).
Is this true? I have VR but I don't enjoy it as a social hangout space for example. Why do you think that most players are interested in that type of content?
I don’t know why more IPs aren’t hopping on the VR immersion bus. People would pay decent money just to roam around their favorite locales from TV shows/movies.
Sadly (note, my opinion comes from being in that minority who can't get used to sliding), the current VR player community has settled on sliding as the best mode of movement, and berate developers who create alternatives, when they even create alternatives (Boneworks, etc).
Even many games which do offer alternative movement methods still expect you to crouch, kneel, lean, pivot, etc. I'm not 20 anymore.
Combine the above with the lack of audience (largely due to cost), it's a positive feedback loop of mediocrity. The Quest2 was the closest we came to affordability, and it was still the cost of a middle-range cell phone with limited utility and way fewer games.
When I was new to VRChat, I mainly played with teleport locomotion. (Well, "holoport locomotion": you point somewhere and hold a joystick, your point-of-view stays still while you and everyone else sees your avatar walk there, and then when you let go your point-of-view teleports into your avatar's new location. No unnatural nausea-inducing sliding.) Though there are some game worlds in VRChat that involve running around a lot that don't work well with holoport, and I would occasionally try sliding controller locomotion mode instead. Eventually, around the time I put in a hundred hours into the game, I found I could use sliding controller locomotion without issue, and switched to it for good.
This was only for the first week of owning and using VR, after that I acclimated to it just fine.
If the bar is "can spend as much time in VR as I currently do on PC gaming/console gaming" we're nowhere close to it. I can (and have) sat in front of a Playstation for 5-8 hours in a row, and even though my body feels like crap afterwards it's still a heck of a lot longer than I can stand being in a Quest 2.
There's a reason the most successful applications are short-and-sweet. But if you want people to socialize in VR and spend a large amount of time there both the acute illness issue and long-session comfort need to be solved.
There is no non-zero speed of free looking that solves my motion sickness. If "free movement" is the only way to move around space in a VR title, then it's unplayable by me.
Nothing mitigates it. Vignetting, reticles, low-acceleration movement curves. None of it really has an impact on my immediate visceral reaction.
Doesn't mean that all people can get used to it though. Or that it's worth the effort.
* The vignetting on the oculles quest version of "until you fall" is really good, in my opinion
* Have you tried closing your eyes during movement?
I've tried closing my eyes. It makes it slightly tolerable, but it's definitely not anything I'd call a "good" experience. If I have to fight against the UI just to make it usable to allegedly experience "entertainment", I'll probably just skip it and call it a day.
Sure, it looks really cool to make big sweeping motions, and have them reflected in the digital world. But in reality, most people want to minimum input/maximum result. We need the power steering UX for VR.
The best examples are Echo VR and BeatSaber. Some call them Exergames, but i think "exercise" discredits the amount of fun you'll have.
When the movement of your body itself becomes a major component of the gameplay (beyond gimmicky reload sequences), VR begins to shine. For example, EchoVR has players dribbling, precisely throwing, pushing themselves off walls and even _physically jumping_ to catch a disk.
I get how this can be fun (I do enjoy Beat Saber), for short stretches of time and if you're in decent physical condition (my knees hate crouching-heavy songs).
But if you're in a wheelchair, you can't jump. You can't crouch. Heck, if you're over 40, you probably don't want to jump on a carpet with something blocking your view. Bad landings can easily result in permanent injuries. I've seen more than a few colleagues quit after-work basketball games for this very reason.
So, while there's definitely a place for physical games in VR, there also needs to be a place for more Moss-like games in VR too.
I have never disagreed with an opinion on VR more. The worst VR experiences are the ones that would be possible without the VR. I thought half life Alyx was bad because of this. I don’t want to treat my headset as just another screen.
Have to assume you meant "impossible", otherwise I'm confused by your comment.
And I have to disagree. There's nothing wrong with giving people are few nice powers and magic forces over their environment. In real life, I'd love to have a way to pick up objects from a distance. Who wouldn't want that? VR can provide that easily.
Caveat: I don't get VR sick and hate all of the clunky movement options you are stuck with in most games. Teleporting around is never not awkward.
I also enjoyed Down the Rabbit Hole, but I have to admit that it could have worked just as well on a regular screen.
God I love Star Wars Squadrons.
That's true, but another thing that to me is a huge blocker in that sense, is simply having an accent. When I'm writing in chat rooms my English is fluent and I can just fit right in. But I'm really awkward going into a conversation with a foreign accent in the metaverse.
Even though my accent is not strong at all, and I live in the US and have no problem interacting with people f2f or on the phone/Zoom all day, something about it in the metaverse just makes me feel too self conscious about it. It's weird, it's the only space in which I feel like that, it could just be me I suppose.
When you cut the bitrate on an audio signal, it can hurt the signal-to-noise ratio, causing small differences in speech (like a normally subtle accent) to become a larger impediment to being understood.
I'll admit, I'm deep in speculation territory here, but this seems plausible. I will note for the record that this doesn't necessarily apply to larger and more established apps like Zoom and Google Meet. They're definitely compressing the heck out of your audio, but they at least have the decency to use more modern codecs like MP3.
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Media/Formats/A...
Accents aside, imagine how much more comfortable people with "traditional" women's voices would end up being.
The one I looked at a few years back was focused on JVM programs, so it created a 2d graph of objects, and while running moved those graphs into 3d as the classes were instantiated. An intuitive view that made it easy to identify memory issues and poor relationships. A set of colored lines displayed the execution of code (one color per thread), making it a great tool for identifying bottlenecks.
In reality, most people would love a magic way to pick up objects from a distance. In VR this could be implemented easily. His criticism is that it is not implemented; they are forcing the limited parameters of our current reality on VR.
VR needs to extend the "reality" metaphor to do cool things. But to do so in a way that is intuitive is hard.
If there was a virtual ski resort and I could feel like the air around me was cold, I would want to!
I'm not saying that no VR experiences can work and be more casual or less immersive (indeed there are some great ones that are just that), but to me the whole point of VR is about going to that next level of immersion and presence.
> In reality, most people would love a magic way to pick up objects from a distance
Many (maybe even most) good VR games have this. Half Life Alyx does it beautifully.
To respond to some points in the article:
> "If you can’t do something in VR because of a limited range of motion in real life, I think that you have failed as a VR developer."
This is nonsensical. Beat Saber would be pointless if you didn't have to wave your arms around, move, dodge. Games with shooting mechanics take on a whole new dimension when you're actually wielding a (virtual) gun with your hands and arms and when you can sidestep, duck, etc. They also allow you to do things (like teleport, jetpack, etc.) that you can't do in reality, but they'd be much worse if they didn't also force you to move (and be limited by your mobility) and use that as part of the control scheme and immersion.
What this statement really says to me is "I'm only interested in VR experiences where I don't need to move" not "you've failed as a VR developer".
> "Some people argue that VR should be a totally immersive experience. You look down, you see your hands, you move your hands around, and so on. Your view is restricted to your neck’s range of motion. While that’s cool, does that kind of immersion trump user experience?"
Yes, totally, in some cases. Often, that kind of immersion is the user experience.
Honestly, I think it's fine to say you want an app for watching TV in VR that's just a big floating screen and works great lying down. Or to criticise the control panel in BigScreen because it could be more usable from a reclined position in which the app otherwise still totally works anyway — that's totally valid feedback.
But to claim that these preferences are the most important thing about VR and that developers should prioritise apps and games for the lazy and casual user with those preferences over pushing the boundaries of the medium is a bit much.
In my opinion what we really need is the metaverse but for hackers. A bunch of business suits meeting in real life or VR will always be boring and sterile. But a place that has the magic of early IRC where a group of whitehats and blackhats anonymously can meet virtually? That could be pretty damn cool and result in some whacky crazy avatars and out of the box environments. Imagine a completely P2P capable hackerverse that mashed together something like Mr. Robot and A Scanner Darkly and your friend shows up looking like a cybernetic android dolphin. You won't see the suits Hug in VR - they're all about Handshakes ;-)
Whenever I get on VRChat with my friends, often a few people show off recent work they've done on their own avatar or worlds. I've uploaded worlds, visited the public instance of the world, and then bumped into tons of random people checking out my world. The game is so good for directly showing off work you've done and talking to other people about the stuff they've made.
My own suspicion is that the one company that can make a substantial move on this space has done extensive research on this topic and that they're waiting patiently until the technology gets to just the right sweet spot. I'm talking about screen resolution, processor size/speed/power, miniaturization, inside-out hand-tracking etc. But once that device gets rolling, developers will have a lot of work on their hands figuring out how to design these sorts of spaces and how to make work comfortable and natural in these sorts of environments.
If people want to compete in the VR space, they're going to do so with pricing. I should hope the sales of the Quest vs the Index illustrates that well enough.
The sweet spot I’m talking about is probably just not possible right now. Kind of like how good multi-touch no-keyboard smartphones were not quite there in 2004.
For me, I think the winning strategy of VR is to not have to wear goggles and something that can generate smells as this is our most powerful sense.
No sir, restrictions are the point. Restrictions are what prevent a reality from simply being a bunch of abstract concepts floating in and out of existence without rules or reason.
Our physical reality has many restrictions: we cannot move through objects, energy is conserved, entropy cannot reverse. These are the restrictions we have to face. And in virtual reality you will have virtual restrictions.
They want their virtual reality to allow them to do more than they can in the real world... wtf is the point of virtual realities if they suck just as much as this one?
The key is that these are things that are either hard to do in reality (flight) without a lot of risk or that people can't do in reality for whatever reason (like when there is snow or lots of rain with Zwift).
What people do not want is ordinary reality in cartoons.
As for the range of motion: input is the cornerstone of every game system and technology in general. The content is defined by the physical input of the device. That's why touchscreen games are different from console games, why you have autoaim in consoles while it's considered cheating on PC. In VR the input is your head and hand movements, and it extends to your movements in the room too.
VR is not missing the point. It might be missing accessibility features for disabled people (although some applications do try their best, like Half Life Alyx, and stationary mode is available for most applications). While I feel for the author for not being able to enjoy VR in their special circumstances, there's only so much the developers can do.
> Why is VR more restrictive than my 27” monitor?
Because you're trying to use it as such while being unable to use the intended input methods. It's like asking how is cycling slower than walking when you can't ride a bicycle.
As a socially awkward person, I understand their difficulty with being present and not speaking. The only advice I can offer is to learn to be comfortable with that discomfort, not very helpful I know. Most people are accepting of quiet people just hanging out and occasionally contributing, there's no need to hide.
Alternate input is tricky especially when we're talking about a multiplayer experience like Poker Stars VR. If they did allow you to interact solely with button pushes, what would the other participants see? Some default set of animations? A big part of the experience of that game is the social interactions around the table. Turning to speak to the person next to you, playing with all of the props provided in game, telling jokes or stories, etc. It's like a real poker game. The author seems to want a 2d experience instead so my question is why are they even bothering with VR? Why not just buy a headset that is designed as a heads up display and play regular pancake content?
I think people do care about factors that add towards the feeling of physical presence. Would maybe go as far as to say that it's the primary point of VR tabletop simulator games as opposed to the more convenient sites/apps for playing and chatting.
Support for more/arbitrary seated positions seems like it'd make sense though.
I think there's another big aspect there, though - the annoyance with software (even well-made software) when it comes to "goddamn it just let me move the thing over myself".
That goes a long way towards explaining the fairly substantial popularity of Tabletop Simulator as used mostly with mouse and keyboard (its VR interface really isn't great), since it's basically a light physics simulator specialized for board games plus all the helper tools needed to make cards/dice/boards convenient (so, for example, rather than having a rules-enforced game engine, you're moving virtual pieces around in virtual space yourself).
Maybe I don't understand the point of VR chat apps, but if you're hiding your avatar, what is the point? You may as well just use discord.
I think the premise of current consumer VR investments and experiences (Meta, ahem), are wasted money - the future will be something like a miniaturized magicleap/hololens.
Unlike the 90s, I think a lot of the required hardware precursors for success exist. The remaining "hard" precursors are display tech and interaction methods/input. When that's solved, then we will have at least the required baseline for building decent AR/VR experiences.
Trover saves the Universe: This even makes fun of the fact that you're stuck in a chair. You're called a Chairorian.
No Man's Sky: Most of the time you sit in a pilot's seat
Astrobot (PSVR): Arguably one of the most polished VR games to date.
Farpoint (PSVR): Again, designed to be played from a sofa
No guarantee they can be played from a recliner. In fact I think No Man's Sky in particular worked best from a chair with no arms, like a dining room table chair.
On other hand, most of my favorite experiences in VR, much of the enjoyment comes from physical movement. Half Life Alyx, Jet Island, Until You Fall, Eye of the Temple, Audica (on harder levels), Synth Riders (on harder levels).
If you enjoy the pilot's seat I can't recommend Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR enough. The easiest way to get it working in a quest 2 is through Steam. You'll need a beefy GPU to run it comfortably though.
Even in winter, after a couple of minutes the headset screen is completely foggy and my head is uncomfortable
I tried the oculus, htc, cardboards... all the same. At this point I think this technology will simply not work for me
Furthermore, the resolution also meant I couldn't see code on the virtual screens unless I zoomed in significantly.
IMO that's an impediment to the majority of the further use cases.
I've explored places flying around in Google Earth VR that I never would have otherwise. I partially based my decision on where to move through exploring on it.
VRchat is weird but feels like real social spaces. I think it helped me overcome some social anxiety, and it was nice to have some analogue of "going out" when quarantined. I never got that into it, but I met people on there who made friends in VR that they later met IRL.
There are a few art/design/sculpting apps that work well in VR. Blender has a VR add-on. Those and molecule builder and 3D function graphing apps give a better visualization and are arguably more intuitive than working with 3D objects in a 2D render.
Not all apps require that much energy since they can be run on a standalone battery powered headset, and apps that require a PC would use more energy if rendered to a 4k monitor.
I actually have an issue where my right thigh starts burning like crazy if I stand in place for too long (walks are just fine, I can go for miles no problem, but if I mostly stand in place it starts being an issue until I sit down for a bit). I don't know exactly what causes it, but I'm guessing it's probably related to a known bulging disc in my lower back, pinching the nerve a bit.
There's quite a few games that are good for 'seated in an executive chair', like where you can still spin around to react to things behind you, but several of those games don't really let you spin using the motion controller for if you're in a non-spinning chair (some do, I'm thankful for those). Also I've noticed that several games have height adjustment for sitting but for some reason the limits they set on it are too small and/or you have to go into a menu to adjust it. There are times in a game where I mostly want it to be a certain height, but something fell on the ground or at some weird position that's just out of a comfortable height for sitting, so I want to adjust it real quick to grab something and reset it back, but there's not a good way to do it.
I'm not saying you have to do these things, but the games that have a good 'sit in a chair that doesn't swivel' experience get played a lot more than my other games, especially if it's a story driven game. I even play Ragnarock (viking drumming game) more than Beat Saber some weeks, to get my arms moving without having to stand mostly in place.
IMO accessibility does need to be a consideration, VR can be a big help to disabled. That said, I don’t agree that the default should be “remove UX for accessibility”. I’d wager that mimicking the real world is VRs “files and desktops” skeuomorphic analogy that makes it more approachable in the short run to new users. Like other devices, there should probably be an accessibility mode in VR tools. The authors use case seems pretty common (reclining to use a headset) and probably should be handled well at the OS level.
Simracing really got a thousand times better with VR. Completely eliminates the need to have 3 flatscreens on your rig. Also the immersion when racing other cars in VR is just something else.
The best cockpit VR games are iRacing, Automobilista 2, DCS World and Elite Dangerous.
Using it for anything else makes no sense to me. Especially walking around in some world, I prefer to do it in 3rd person with a controller.
This part of the article really got my attention and I wonder if there's a better way to re-imagine the chat-lurker dynamic for VR. The author suggests opacity and free looking but I wonder if there's a better way to convey a crowd of people who are supposed to lurk. That way you get a visual representation of how many people are in a chat. What immediately comes to mind for me are:
1. theater/stadium seating
2. rap battle format(a group of people in a spontaneous circle around 2 main speakers
3. Some sort of Oxford debate(https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...) app so you can listen in on people with strong opinions.
https://www.omnifinity.se is a pretty awesome concept that I'm keeping an eye on.
The top selling titles on Quest have been at the top for years. The Apple App Store model alone will not catapult the platform.
Meta should deprioritize Horizon (a Mii lookalike ain’t it) and spend the next 10 years developing 1st party titles. Set the benchmark. Learn best practices. Let the technology evolve.
We’re not ready for Ready Player One.
Like a lot of cool future dreams, there's a need for a "yes, and" follow-up that grapples with the consequences honestly.
I'm extremely interested in VR but I'm cynical about what implementation will catch on.
This. VR misses the boat thanks to Facebook's vision of a brand new world, instead of just a better more-accessible screen.
It is the future for sure, but no one will care for fake 3D experience of your people. We want an actual reinvention of what an OS is, a higher bandwidth input, and a new way to visualize things. Instead of 2D views in a 3D environment. Such a miss opportunity so far.
