VR is dull, wait for holoden/whatever hologram tech, though it should already be here

Wow, oh WOW!

I never expected the thread to grow this fast, but I want to get a few things out of the way first:

a) If one is skeptical about it and think that it is just a gimmick, please, go and try it at one of the retail outlets which offer short demos without cost;
b) the cost of entry is much less than a 500 megagbyte hard drive cost in the late 80's and less than 10 commercial VHS tapes offered by the movie studios;
c) it is a new medium and yes, the content is not quite there, but AAA titles were announced for next year at E3.

Please, just hearing about VR second hand, reading news about it or just thinking about it is not the same as experiencing it. I own an HTC Vive and not only has the experience been awesome, but I am actually getting a work out playing one of the games (AudioShield to be specific) which is probably why one sees less of me (literally in real life) on the forums.

It is starting to take a foot-hold and yes, there is a lot of hype surrounding it, but it is the latest and greatest, why not be one of the pioneers?

For those who like multiplayer games, there are several of them, Pool Nation VR is one of them and if one likes playing Pool (or Air Hockey, their latest beta) it really is up to par.

There are already two games here on GOG which support Virtual Reality, Mind Path to Thalamus and The Solus Project. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter did before they pulled it and sold it as a seperate add-on elsewhere.

I will try to address a few concerns below:

"Standardization. The entire exclusivity bullshit surrounding VR currently is getting on my nerves, and it's not really early battle I wish to be a prt of."

- Fortunately they are supporting OpenVR, both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, under the hood they are using the same interface even if they do have different wrappers.

"Price. My computer plays Witcher 3 nearly maxed out, and it cost less than Vive - including the monitor. Oculus is a bit more affordable, but not by much. As it stands, I have other things in life I want to spend my money on."

I hear you, I had to buy my EVGA GTX 970 after my computer almost melted down playing The Longest Journey 2: Dreamfall, fortunately it was also strong enough to play The Witcher 3. While the barrier to entry to use VR is just that, a GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290, most enthusiastic gamers who play games on the PC already have this. $800 plus computer upgrades, I understand, it is expensive....

With No Limits 2 Coaster, their coasters and flat rides, I do not need to wait in a line to ride something and I feel like I am actually riding it! I do not need a savings plan to go to Universal Studios or Walt Disney World. With New Retro Arcade Neon in VR, I can walk that eighties hall of coin-op games which brings back some really sweet memories. Want to hang out with the sharks, well Pool Nation VR is there for people to enjoy.

"Evolution. I'm not a fan of how either Vive or Oculus deal with movement in space and I wish better methods of doing so were developed, which ideally give you a lot bigger freedom and don't make you vomit."

Actually, it is not about how the device itself controls the movement, but it is up to the game developer and there have been several different forms of locomotion that have been tried to alleviate this. Teleporting is one of them, most notably used by Budget Cuts, however, people have come up with other creative ways of moving around in VR without the feeling of naseua.

"We'll talk again in like 5 years from now but I suspect I'll still don't care then."

Fair enough, but five years from now when all of ones peers or the next generation are using it, you will be lagging behind. One might care if their workflow incorporates it or it increases productivity, it is not just for games.

"I've never tried it. How's the responsiveness?"

Excellent, while I have not used the Oculus Rift, I can only speak of the HTC Vive and the minimum graphics requirement (I have an EVGA GTX 970 FTW) which is what I own. It supports "room scale", which means that you do not have to be sitting down to play it and you can move around in the virtual space. The tracking is within sub-millimeter precision and not only is ones head tracked accurately. The controllers are rendered in real time and if you choose to do so, you can throw them and catch them while you have the headset on and they are beautifully rendered. You can even turn them over and see the undersides of them, it is just that detailed.

"On the other hand, I also don't like the so-called first-person perspective (FPV, right?) in video games. I've never agreed that it is first-person because it's only a visual (no sense of location of bodily contact, no reliable aural, etc.)"

You should try one of the multiplayer games they have, like "The Rec Room" or "Battle Dome" for a place to just chill, "AltspaceVR" is the choice. You do not have to be alone to share the experience with others, and even just reprojecting the screen to allow others in your vacinity see you reacting to VR is fun in and of itself.

"I'm holding out till they offer better content. By better content I mean pron."

Personally, I have not tried it (honestly), but people ask about it elsewhere and apparently since the days of Google Cardboard, there are sites which offer pornographic 360 degree experiences. What I can say is this, while you have the HMD strapped to your head, you cannot see anyone else, so make sure you keep that door locked and do not become the accidental exhibitionist.

"What he said, plus I want some extra information on the effects of LED lightning to your eyes, as in keeping a LED screen very close to your eyes for hours and hours. Macular degeneration much?"

That is a fair statement, but you are basically looking at backlit LCD displays through fresnel lenses; but the same LCD technology we are using on large screen televisions, tablets and cell phones. However, I think the macular degeneration is specific to looking at the sun directly, not sure I have heard any cases of it with people viewing LCD technology.

"I'll add comforts about it sitting on your head. I'm very sensitive when it comes to headphones"

I suppose it depends, but I find the HMD rather comfortable, no different than wearing a "scuba mask" to swim underwater. It is not that heavy (even though it appears from first look to seem so) and when one is actually playing or using something in Virtual Reality, one does not even notice it.

"I'm more worried abot myopia."

If one wears glasses or contacts (even better) they will still need to wear the corrective lenses. I wear glasses and I can use the Vive just fine, but others who have an Oculus Rift have reported that it is too tight a fit. One's mileage may vary.

Do you mean Microsoft's HoloLens? Not due out until next year and I think its price point is at $2000, not $800 like the Vive or $600 like the Oculus Rift.

Why wait to pay more for an augmented experience when you can have a virtual one? :)

In all seriousness though, augmented reality has its advantages, but you can't turn it into a simulated roller coaster. What you can do with it is augment what you're seeing with less computing power, which is why augmented reality solutions will work without being connected directly to a computer.

In the current state of VR though, they need the processing power of the GPU to render things.

Maybe because some people want to do this in their living room? ;)

Or from another point of view, you can save yourself a lot of rendering by using what reality already renders for you :-P

Half joking, but you see, with MR you don't need to render every single pixel in your field of view, like VR has to do.

They are different experiences though, but I think both can be really interesting.

I am definitely not disrespecting the technology and I would love to own consumer augmented reality headsets, but the price to entry was a bit more steep than what I was willing to pay at the time.

And while you can use reality to render everything around you, one still cannot have a full "someplace else" experience with augmented reality, you're limited by what reality renders, but it takes less computing power to augment it.

I've always dreamed of owning a place (like a hotel) out in a wooded area where people could use VR hardware to augment their experience, like going on a search and find mission or fighting an 'augmented reality' dragon while exploring. I think experiences like that are in the not too distant future.

It's quite frustrating that no one I know has a VR piece I could borrow, and only one friend I know actually has the hardware to use it. I upgraded my rig to a GTX 960 a bit before the minimum specs were known to me because fuck me. That's why I don't intend to buy a VR before buying a new PC, and I don't intend to do that for a good year now.

I'm more worried that it's not a very sound investment - as in, with the tech evolving, my potential VR device will be rendered useless in a few years.

I'm perfectly fine with my peers doing the guinea pig bits and then getting the evolved and polished version of the product :-P

I tend to think that the cost of the device may eventually decline somewhat, but the cost of the software which takes advantage of it will go up over time.

Assuming you will pay $800 US for a headset, you could expect to pay on average around $10 for early release games. Now, considering those games are still in development and will probably be around $20 on release, you're paying more for content over time than for the device itself.

I think it's great you're looking for the first wave of input and watching the industry refine itself, I usually do that if I don't think I would enjoy the medium, but to be honest, you have to try it.

Not interested at all. For several reasons.

First, is that one of my eyes is very weak due to a birth defect. So I have trouble accomodating depth in real life and I amost can't see 3D in 3D theaters or the Nintendo 3Ds. I've tried a couple of VR sets in computer shops here and, while I do admit it's technically impressive, it didn't really do anything to me.

Second is that I'm reluctant to isolate myself further from the real world. Say whatever you want, when you've done your VR helmet, you can't be responsive to real world threats or problems. I know it sounds paranoid, but take for example Japan: personnally, if a major earthquake occurs, the last thing I want is to have my head trapped into a VR set. Playing in front of my computer at least lets me duck quickly under the desk.

Third and final, I paradoxically am becoming more and more unwilling to commit to more and more technology. I have a powerful gaming comp, a 3DS, a Vita, a Tablet and a Smartphone and more and more I want to get rid of my smartphone and back to a normal brick phone which can only be used as a phone. I'm tired of 24h world connectivity, mainly because Internet reveals to be more and more a place steeming with hatred, misinformation, treachery and corporate greed. Yeah, might sound a little Luddite, but I also have observed I meet less and less my friends in the real world and I read less and less books - which scares me since I was a heavy reader not long ago...

So, no, VR is not my thing. And I don't think it will be ever used in my current line of work, so...

I completely agree that VR is and will be a big game changer going forward one way or another despite any contrarian claims some might make over personal feelings about VR. On the individual level it is indeed an individual thing, but on the market level VR will be a huge thing moving forward. Like any new big thing, not everyone will like or want or even have any interest in it, and VR wont be any different from that standpoint.

From a purely technological viewpoint of what it brings to the table going forward I embrace the new VR and experiences that it will bring to the table outright, including such experiences that I myself might some day enjoy, as well as things others may enjoy that I may not find remotely interesting.

However, there are economical and other factors that will prevent VR from becoming all out mainstream for some years to come I believe, at least the high-end VR experiences on deck. The reason being that as it stands right now, the high end VR hardware - namely the HTC Vive, and the Oculus Rift both have identical computing requirements, which is to say a current generation modern high-end gaming PC such as the recommended AMD FX8350 or Intel equivalent or newer, as well as a current extremely high end GPU such as the nVidia 980Ti due to the high resolution and extremely high frame rate the VR hardware requires (90FPS).

The problem with this as it currently stands is that only about 1% of all gamers already own computers that meet the specifications required in order to even use either one of these high-end VR products. I doubt that 100% of those gamers will all want to go buy a Vive or Rift however, so only a fraction of that 1% will even be interested in VR, and be able and willing to spend the money to buy a VR hardware solution. With the price of the Rift being around $900 CAD and the Vive at $1150 CAD currently, that is a lot of money to put out to be a 1st generation early VR adopter assuming one owns a PC that is already fully capable of running the VR hardware and games at recommended or even usable settings.

The majority of the potential market for the hardware and the games and other software however does not currently own a PC capable of using VR (according to Steam hardware survey statistics), so the largest part of the potential market for this hardware has to be ready and willing to spend money to buy:

- A brand new high end PC or PC upgrades and/or GPU, probably $600 minimum for just a capable GPU and scaling up to thousands depending on what other or full blown PC they need to purchase.

- The VR hardware - $900-1150 or more (CAD) as well as potentially spending more on controllers later (for the Rift anyway).

- The games/software products. Sure, there are free titles that will be enjoyable, but the real deal will be with the high end games that haven't come out yet. People can expect to pay probably $40-80 or more for big name triple-A games or thereabouts when they exist, as well as less for titles from smaller developers and indie shops etc.

There will be people apeshit ready to go spend whatever it takes I'm certain of that, but such people I believe will be in the very small minority of VR enthusiasts, rich people, people with more money than brains, and other niches. I doubt the mainstream populace will jump on VR any time soon until the price of the hardware comes down dramatically, the PC+GPU hardware needed to run it is in consumer spending ranges rather than high-end enthusiast pricing like we see now, and more big name titles/experiences are available that are of blockbuster quality.

The other aspect is how people feel at least with the Oculus Rift about Facebook tracking your every movement and sending the data back to Facebook's central spying system to sell to advertisers. No idea if the Vive does that, but I for one and many other consumers wont be willing to cave in to being spied upon just for some amazing VR experience.

All that being said, I think VR will be a huge success and that we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now. Fast forward 2 years and we'll have a much bigger picture of how things will be. Fast forward 5 years and I think VR will be super hot gotta-have-it tech that will be both much more affordable, and due to the incredible experiences people will also increase the price they're willing to pay to be able to own it to some degree.

For the time being though... I've got to personally pass on diving into VR, and put it on my 2-5 year wishlist.

Not to mention that VR technology will advance in the future and if it eventually destroys our eyesight, it will also be able to be embedded in our eye sockets to replace our eyes surgically obviating the need to care. :)

I personally do not want anything VR. Its interesting to follow and see what is cooked up, but in most entertainment I prefer the "2D World".

Not even the 3d with movies turns me on (that is, porn ironically is still on the to do list for that :P). Tried with Avatar in cinema & few others at a pal place with his 3d TV + pair of goggles; felt indifferent about it.

I think the whole thing might evolve into a different direction; one where stuff gets made that specifically makes only sense in a VR setting and stuff thats better off the traditional way.

Well said and fair enough. As I have invested the time to learn game development and the tools are out there right now to create Virtual Reality games, I see no reason why I shouldn't grasp that brass ring; I've missed so many other opportunities in the past and I don't wish to miss one more. :)

Oh absolutely, go for it if you can. It's at the early stage now and probably a gold rush of sorts for early developers/projects that become successful in the process. I know the feeling. :)

No symptoms. 4DX is a regular 3D movie with added effects of the seats moving and wind and water effects. The wind made the experience quite cold on occasion and getting sprayed by water wasn't that much fun either.

I agree with her, the added effects didn't really make the movie more enjoyable. However, it was the first time she didn't seem to suffer from 3D. I don't think that has anything to do with 4DX, just that 3D glasses have gotten better with time.

Yeap. I mean, look at the original Ghosts 'n' Goblins, or Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. They didn't use keyboard+mouse, so playing those games as they were originally released is stupid.

(For those unaware, the games first appeared in arcades, thus the control scheme was a joystick and a couple of buttons. And while some of the ports did use the keyboard, quite a few used a controller instead).