[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;48253245]Just something to think about.[/QUOTE]
If Valve manages to release a game to bundle with the Vive in Decemeber (like L4D3) they're going to do really well, but if they don't they're screwed.
As of now there's only several prototype games being made for the Vive, even though the lighthouse system is far superior to the tracking of the Rift. Valve really just can't compete hoping to launch their VR system with only tech demos
[QUOTE=EliteGuy;48253400]If Valve manages to release a game to bundle with the Vive in Decemeber (like L4D3) they're going to do really well, but if they don't they're screwed.
As of now there's only several prototype games being made for the Vive, even though the lighthouse system is far superior to the tracking of the Rift. Valve really just can't compete hoping to launch their VR system with only tech demos[/QUOTE]
i'm guessing L4D3 with full vive support, but not a requirement, sounds quite probable
Someone on GAF brought up an imo good way for L4D VR integration, which would be a room-scale experience with you and your team fighting of zombies from that room/house, like CoD zombies. That way there would be a proper L4D experience for regular fans and a built-for-VR mode.
Yeah, Steam offered their VR-headset for free to developers and a lot actually asked for one. They're just not being that open about everything, but I'm guessing that's gonna change soon. (Gamescom maybe?)
I think it'll be interesting if the Rift doesn't ship with SteamVR compatibility, and Valve doesn't try to support the Rift. That would, pardon my pun, cause an incredible rift in the VR market at launch.
Vive registration page for Gamescom demos: [url]http://www.htcworld.de/en/vive[/url]
[QUOTE=woolio1;48253897]I think it'll be interesting if the Rift doesn't ship with SteamVR compatibility, and Valve doesn't try to support the Rift. That would, pardon my pun, cause an incredible rift in the VR market at launch.[/QUOTE]
The ball is in Oculus' court to support SteamVR IMO, since SteamVR is completely open source.
If Valve/HTC are going to give everyone the tools to work with SteamVR and Oculus decides not to use them, that's entirely on them. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Facebook is gonna try and keep Oculus away from SteamVR, regardless of what it does to the market.
[QUOTE=Clavus;48253192]Yeah but unless the VR implementation is solid, which often requires changes to core mechanics and design, it just doesn't live up to its potential and won't add as much value (and adding value to your experience is entirely what VR is being sold on).
Alternatively, I think it'd be fun for larger games to re-use assets to make VR specific minigames. That way costs can be kept down while experimenting with high quality VR content.[/QUOTE]
I could care less honestly. I don't need to have things be "super amazing perfect VR experiences" for it to be a better replacement than gaming with my monitor.
If I get head tracking and 3D on a superior OLED screen than that is already a massive improvement in playing a game on immersion factor alone than using my monitor
It is good that VR has VR focused stuff being made for it. But I think it is silly that people are throwing some kind of expectation around that nobody should ever use VR for anything but made for VR experiences, even experienced PC gamers who wouldn't be nearly as phased by the limitations of using the rift for old games VS using a standard monitor VS playing a VR only title. In my experience with the dev kit (and all of my friends) HL2 was still a profoundly cool and amazing experience in VR, despite it being a "NEVER PLAY A GAME LIKE THAT IN VR OMG!!" game that people talk about.
The taboo that surrounds using the rift to play older games but with head tracking, in 3D and have it cover your whole FOV is incredibly overblown. The biggest reason that taboo exists is heads of Oculus really don't want that image being the image of VR because the stuff made for VR is ultimately going to work better, and they are trying to sell this thing to a much larger market than enthusiasts in the long term. Doesn't make it any less true that a lot of older game experiences work perfectly fine in VR for most enthusiast gamers, as most enthusiasts understand its limitations.
honest answer: i've always wanted to try trackIR in arma, but the idea of turning your head but having the movement be on a screen that is now not naturally where you should be looking doesn't sit right with me
strap a vive on, problem solved
[QUOTE=KorJax;48254065]The taboo that surrounds using the rift to play older games but with head tracking, in 3D and have it cover your whole FOV is incredibly overblown. The biggest reason that taboo exists is heads of Oculus really don't want that image being the image of VR because the stuff made for VR is ultimately going to work better, and they are trying to sell this thing to a much larger market than enthusiasts in the long term. Doesn't make it any less true that a lot of older game experiences work perfectly fine in VR for most enthusiast gamers, as most enthusiasts understand its limitations.[/QUOTE]
It's not a taboo. It's literally "make your game for VR or you're going to make users sick", in a lot of cases. Some genres translate quite easily to VR, but pretty much every game has to rethink how they handle the camera for example.
Even though I barely ever get sick from VR games, I still get this miserably funny feeling in my stomach when I play bad VR demos. You just want to completely minimize that happening to any of your customers in the early stages of VR where it really has to shine to sell itself.
[editline]20th July 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Timebomb575;48254028]The ball is in Oculus' court to support SteamVR IMO, since SteamVR is completely open source.
If Valve/HTC are going to give everyone the tools to work with SteamVR and Oculus decides not to use them, that's entirely on them. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Facebook is gonna try and keep Oculus away from SteamVR, regardless of what it does to the market.[/QUOTE]
I wish people would stop with the "Facebook is going to force them to do stupid shit" scaremongering. FB seems to have given Oculus completely free reign on how they're going to tackle the VR market so you don't have to blame certain decisions on FB intervention. FB might have its share of privacy issues but as far as I can tell they're as much of a progressive tech company as Google.
[QUOTE=Clavus;48254161]
I wish people would stop with the "Facebook is going to force them to do stupid shit" scaremongering. FB seems to have given Oculus completely free reign on how they're going to tackle the VR market so you don't have to blame certain decisions on FB intervention. FB might have its share of privacy issues but as far as I can tell they're as much of a progressive tech company as Google.[/QUOTE]
right except that oculus [I]is[/I] still owned by facebook and I kind of doubt that oculus is going to be making those kinds of big time business decisions without any input from facebook.
Why would [I]any[/I] company spend money developing games for competing devices [I]that offer wildly different usage experiences, and whose development plans they know nothing of?[/I]
It's too early to work on cross support. This shouldn't need explaining.
[editline]20th July 2015[/editline]
I'm tired of shitty demos and games that only run in extended mode. I read that even Elite Dangerous runs in only extended mode, but that it may have gotten proper support [I]only this fucking month[/I], after all that time of boasting itself as the big vr game. Disgusting.
[QUOTE=LordCrypto;48254128]honest answer: i've always wanted to try trackIR in arma, but the idea of turning your head but having the movement be on a screen that is now not naturally where you should be looking doesn't sit right with me
strap a vive on, problem solved[/QUOTE]
TrackIR works better than you think. I can count on one finger the number of people I have heard that both think TrackIR doesn't work well, and have also actually tried it. Once you get it configured to your liking, it feels completely natural.
Oculus Connect 2 registrations have opened for the rich US folks amongst us: [url]https://www.oculus.com/en-us/connect/#register[/url]. Though they did introduce an indie/student tier that 'only' costs $95.
[QUOTE=bitches;48254433]Why would [I]any[/I] company spend money developing games for competing devices [I]that offer wildly different usage experiences, and whose development plans they know nothing of?[/I]
It's too early to work on cross support. This shouldn't need explaining.
[editline]20th July 2015[/editline]
I'm tired of shitty demos and games that only run in extended mode. I read that even Elite Dangerous runs in only extended mode, but that it may have gotten proper support [I]only this fucking month[/I], after all that time of boasting itself as the big vr game. Disgusting.[/QUOTE]
I don't think anyone's suggesting that Oculus needs to develop games for the Vive. I suggested that they need to support SteamVR, since that's the platform most games on Steam will likely use for VR, including Valve. But I think that's Oculus's responsibility to enable compatibility for that API, and I'm sure they will once the headset is actually out and the standard is formalized and they have a reason to.
We don't necessarily want a divided market at launch. We don't want all the great games on one platform. Nothing would kill the VR market sooner than having to buy another $500 headset for half the games available, just because the two major players refused to cooperate. Imagine if consoles only had exclusives, how would that work?
Really, an ideal situation would be Oculus enabling support for SteamVR games, and Valve enabling support for games compiled in the Oculus SDK. That, or someone makes some sort of middleware that handles compiling for both platforms with the necessary software changes. And I'm sure we'll reach that point eventually, it'll be absolutely necessary for proper market penetration. Exclusives should use exclusive features of the hardware, not be kept behind a fence just because the developers could only build for one platform because nobody thought to support the other side.
So I tried the Samsung VR demo thing at a Best Buy today and so far I'm really impressed with it. The way you control the menus doesn't take you out of the experience which is something I liked, you point with you eyes and then click a trackpad on the side of the visor. There were a few demos in it. First was a Cirque Du Soleil 360 degree demo which was neat. Second was a 3d ocean with a bunch of fish swimming around. but the best demo I think by far was the movie theater. Using the trackpad on the side of the visor you could flip through different movie theaters. One was a normal run of the mill theater, the other was one you would probably find in some rich person's house and the last was a theater on the moon. Overall a great experience, can't wait to see what's used with this tech.
[QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;48255548]So I tried the Samsung VR demo thing at a Best Buy today and so far I'm really impressed with it. The way you control the menus doesn't take you out of the experience which is something I liked, you point with you eyes and then click a trackpad on the side of the visor. There were a few demos in it. First was a Cirque Du Soleil 360 degree demo which was neat. Second was a 3d ocean with a bunch of fish swimming around. but the best demo I think by far was the movie theater. Using the trackpad on the side of the visor you could flip through different movie theaters. One was a normal run of the mill theater, the other was one you would probably find in some rich person's house and the last was a theater on the moon. Overall a great experience, can't wait to see what's used with this tech.[/QUOTE]
That's in Best Buys now? I might have to check that out, I'm really itching to see what VR is like this time around. I know it won't be Rift or Vive-level, but it'll be a taste.
Is there anywhere I can find a list of the stores that have it?
[QUOTE=woolio1;48255498]I suggested that they need to support SteamVR, since that's the platform most games on Steam will likely use for VR, including Valve.[/QUOTE]
This is the part where every SteamVR versus Oculus Rift argument loses me. Did I miss a memo saying that games developed for use with the Oculus Rift are not allowed to be sold on Steam? I've always been under the impression that Oculus' fancy VR interface is just a fancy storefront for, at most, their "first party" games. There is no writing that I'm aware of saying that if you make a game for the Oculus Rift you literally cannot sell it on Steam. That's ludicrous and hugely limiting your audience. I've never heard anything of the sort in all the Oculus news I've heard, but everybody [I]talks[/I] about Oculus Rift as if this is the case.
For example, Vox Machinae is a game being developed with the Oculus Rift in mind. Why can't this be released on Steam like literally every other game on Steam with VR support right now?
[QUOTE=Why485;48255919]This is the part where every SteamVR versus Oculus Rift argument loses me. Did I miss a memo saying that games developed for use with the Oculus Rift are not allowed to be sold on Steam? I've always been under the impression that Oculus' fancy VR interface is just a fancy storefront for at most their "first party" games.
For example, Vox Machinae is a game being developed with the Oculus Rift in mind. Why can't this be released on Steam like literally every other game on Steam with VR support right now?[/QUOTE]
SteamVR is, at least the way I'm referring to it (because SteamVR is this nebulous bubble of hardware and software and games and features), is directly referring to the SteamVR APIs. The way developers use APIs determines what kind of hardware their games will run on.
Oculus needs to support that API to support games built for the Vive, or there needs to be an easy way to convert games that use the SteamVR APIs to their own APIs, in order to allow games not directly built in the Oculus SDK to work with the Rift.
[URL="http://store.steampowered.com/universe/vr"]I suppose I should be referring to the SteamVR APIs as OpenVR, but Valve refers to them as both.[/URL]
So you're entirely right, games built specifically for the Rift will probably be sold on Steam... But what if they're not, because they're not compatible with the OpenVR API, which is what Valve is pushing?
[QUOTE=woolio1;48255933]
So you're entirely right, games built specifically for the Rift will probably be sold on Steam... But what if they're not, because they're not compatible with the OpenVR API, which is what Valve is pushing?[/QUOTE]
Literally nobody said that vr games that aren't OpenVR compatible won't be sold on steam.
Nobody's said anything about how distribution of Oculus-only games on Steam is going to be handled at all. This is a perfectly legitimate concern until we know otherwise.
Don't try to act like I'm proposing some ridiculous notion. You know just as much as I do.
[QUOTE=woolio1;48256606]You know just as much as I do.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I just see no reason to be as pessimistic as you.
Pessimism checks optimism. I'm a realist, though, and a pragmatist. I propose these situations because it's important to not let hype go unchecked.
These are very possible scenarios, and we're no better for pretending they aren't.
[QUOTE=woolio1;48255933]SteamVR is, at least the way I'm referring to it (because SteamVR is this nebulous bubble of hardware and software and games and features), is directly referring to the SteamVR APIs. The way developers use APIs determines what kind of hardware their games will run on.
Oculus needs to support that API to support games built for the Vive, or there needs to be an easy way to convert games that use the SteamVR APIs to their own APIs, in order to allow games not directly built in the Oculus SDK to work with the Rift.
[URL="http://store.steampowered.com/universe/vr"]I suppose I should be referring to the SteamVR APIs as OpenVR, but Valve refers to them as both.[/URL]
So you're entirely right, games built specifically for the Rift will probably be sold on Steam... But what if they're not, because they're not compatible with the OpenVR API, which is what Valve is pushing?[/QUOTE]
There's SteamVR which is probably a big-ish suite of VR-related software (and hardware? I think only sofware), and OpenVR is almost the same as SteamVR, but it excludes anything related to Steam, so it's (probably) fully open.
SteamVR also includes the Vive as its flagship, which is a SteamVR platform. Again, convoluted mess of weirdness.
Also, because I think it's important:[B]
Don't get me wrong, I am super pumped for VR. I'm saving a bit of every paycheck to get a headset at the start of next year. I've been following Rift development since the start, and I'm thrilled that other companies are getting into the arena and putting out fantastic products. [/B]
I'm just trying to field some concerns that I think we like to conveniently ignore. I'm not pooh-poohing on the industry, and I'm sure it's going to take off and do just fine and we'll all be living in the Matrix in ten years. I'm just worried about what I feel could hurt it.
[QUOTE=woolio1;48255498]I don't think anyone's suggesting that Oculus needs to develop games for the Vive. I suggested that they need to support SteamVR, since that's the platform most games on Steam will likely use for VR, including Valve. But I think that's Oculus's responsibility to enable compatibility for that API, and I'm sure they will once the headset is actually out and the standard is formalized and they have a reason to.
We don't necessarily want a divided market at launch. We don't want all the great games on one platform. Nothing would kill the VR market sooner than having to buy another $500 headset for half the games available, just because the two major players refused to cooperate. Imagine if consoles only had exclusives, how would that work?
Really, an ideal situation would be Oculus enabling support for SteamVR games, and Valve enabling support for games compiled in the Oculus SDK. That, [b]or someone makes some sort of middleware that handles compiling for both platforms with the necessary software changes.[/b] And I'm sure we'll reach that point eventually, it'll be absolutely necessary for proper market penetration. Exclusives should use exclusive features of the hardware, not be kept behind a fence just because the developers could only build for one platform because nobody thought to support the other side.[/QUOTE]
Isn't that exactly what OpenVR is? According to it's documentation
"The OpenVR API provides a game with a way to interact with Virtual Reality displays without relying on a specific hardware vendor's SDK. It can be updated independently of the game to add support for new hardware or software updates."
"OpenVR is an API and runtime that allows access to VR hardware from multiple
vendors without requiring that applications have specific knowledge of the
hardware they are targeting."
[url]https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/wiki/API-Documentation[/url]
[url]https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr[/url]
So the main issue to me is getting the Vive to work on games built using the Oculus SDK instead of OpenVR/SteamVR, and sure enough somebody or maybe even valve will eventually make a compatibility program to take care of that.
Right, but it's a separate API from what Oculus is shipping, which means that it's not enabled by default on games made for Oculus. If a developer chooses not to implement OpenVR as an API, then that game just won't run on the Vive. My concern is that, because the Oculus APIs offer great features like Time Warp, developers won't bother with OpenVR.
Simulations of redirected walking: [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3e2gmz/a_simulation_of_5_km_of_redirected_walking_in_a/[/url]
Basically if you have about a free flat surface of about 80m in diameter, you can simulate an infinitely large walking space in VR using redirection. For those that don't know about redirection: it's a technique where your reference rotation is ever so slightly altered as you move around (which is apparently unnoticeable), in order to make you naturally avoid the boundaries of the physical play space.
Well, looks like Nokia's joining the fun too: [url]http://recode.net/2015/07/21/nokia-plans-to-debut-virtual-reality-product-next-week/[/url]
Oh god.
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