One-third of Valve is currently working on Virtual Reality - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;50555348]I don't think it's completely out of the danger zone yet. Lots of resources is being poured into it, and a ton of big game players are going in, but there's still a lot of issues and most of what gets shown looks gimmicky as fuck. I feel like enough people still hold the opinion that it's a gimmick that it's still dangerous. Not enough people are getting the headsets, so there's still the chance that developing games for it simply turns out to be not profitable. I'd like to see a more informed opinion and analysis on this, though. I don't actually know how well the Vive and Rift and their games are currently selling.[/QUOTE] It's first generation, as far as games go we're in the proving grounds but I think so far we're doing really well in terms of support (especially after E3). Outside of gaming I think we're already in the clear, non-gaming applications are being developed and researched with a lot of positivity behind them. I hate when people moan about it being gimmicky, what does that even mean? Oh no, it's not mouse and keyboard or a gamepad! Gimmick, gimmick! If everyone wants to keep using the same input and display methods for the rest of human civilization, go ahead, but I'm still very enamored by current generation VR tech and I think most everyone that has actually tried it would agree. I think once VR gets cheaper, the extreme cynics will slowly calm down and admit that VR is a step below magic. [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Swilly;50555416]With 4 competing standards and exvlusives no less! It's life buying a console![/QUOTE] What is your point?

My HTC Vive is confirmed for tomorrow!

To all those in this thread bemoaning room-scale movement: have you actually tried it? It's amazing and very immersive. Traditional controls take you out of the experience noticeably. There is more to VR than head tracking. Same question goes out to the "expensive gimmick" people too, I guess. Give a Vive a try - you'll probably like it.

[QUOTE=Mesothere;50555564]To all those in this thread bemoaning room-scale movement: [B]have you actually tried it?[/B] It's amazing and very immersive. Traditional controls take you out of the experience noticeably. There is more to VR than head tracking. Same question goes out to the "expensive gimmick" people too, I guess. Give a Vive a try - you'll probably like it.[/QUOTE] Probably not, considering a VR headset and a computer that can run it costs enough to buy a cheap used car

[QUOTE=Mesothere;50555564]To all those in this thread bemoaning room-scale movement: have you actually tried it? It's amazing and very immersive. Traditional controls take you out of the experience noticeably. There is more to VR than head tracking. Same question goes out to the "expensive gimmick" people too, I guess. Give a Vive a try - you'll probably like it.[/QUOTE] I actually had the best opportunity possible a month ago when I tried Playstation VR, Occulus Rift (both DK2 and retail) and HTC Viv (also LG's VR and Samsung VR, but those doesn't compare) HTC Vive was by far the best. The occulus doesn't stand a chance when it comes to immersion.

[QUOTE=srobins;50555422]Outside of gaming I think we're already in the clear, non-gaming applications are being developed and researched with a lot of positivity behind them. [/QUOTE] Like what?

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;50555650]Like what?[/QUOTE] Architecture demonstrations, product imaging, education, and simulations, to name a few. If you browse the VR general thread, there's a bunch of folks that work with VR/AR hardware professionally for non-gaming uses. Little known fact, but in the period between the first attempts (in the 90s) at VR gaming and the modern iterations of VR gaming, the development of VR hardware continued fairly consistently for commercial and military purposes.

[QUOTE=redBadger;50555270]I haven't liked valve in a long time. They've stopped doing anything remotely interesting in years.[/QUOTE] Same, but VR does interest me. I just can't afford it. Valve as a game maker though? Well they ruined one of my favorite multiplayer games and seem to be more focused on microtransactions & the community market nowadays. At this point, I'm not sure if they're interested in making new big games anymore. Portal 2 was the last truly great thing they did, and it was also the start of their fall.

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;50555650]Like what?[/QUOTE] Aside from what Timebomb said, surgeons have been using the Vive to visualize tumors and vessel obstructions reconstructed from 3D imaging scans. Stuff like that!

[QUOTE=Eric95;50555282]The Lab shows that they still have people making cool game content[/QUOTE] lab is nothing special..

[QUOTE=Tsanummy;50555100]At this point, I hope so[/QUOTE]NEVER

[QUOTE=Tsanummy;50555100]At this point, I hope so[/QUOTE] Why? It's not like they forgot how to develop games.

Valve is like a hive mind sometimes, when they find something they really want to do they push hard. Valve has positioned vive to be the center of the VR market not because of superior software or even hardware, but through their open hardware approach which has let other vendors come in and make stuff. Valve isn't in the hardware business at least that's not where they'll make the margins. Steam is going to be the marketplace for VR.

[QUOTE=srobins;50555316]Aside from their VR department which has produced arguably the most groundbreaking advancements in gaming in years?[/QUOTE] And he clearly does not find that remotely interesting. If you're not interested in VR right now, Valve has done fuck all for the people who like them for their game development, which is what got them where they are in the first place.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;50555753]Why? It's not like they forgot how to develop games.[/QUOTE] I would argue they have. You forget that a lot of the people that made both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 great have left the company. Valve's last original in-house produced game is Portal 2, which is over 5 years old with nothing new even announced since then.

[QUOTE=Mesothere;50555564]To all those in this thread bemoaning room-scale movement: have you actually tried it? It's amazing and very immersive. Traditional controls take you out of the experience noticeably. There is more to VR than head tracking. Same question goes out to the "expensive gimmick" people too, I guess. Give a Vive a try - you'll probably like it.[/QUOTE] I have a Vive - after getting my Vive I cancelled my Oculus preorder. Room scale is no joke and the hand tracking is crazy precise and intuitive. It is a different set of experiences you get with VR, and those experiences right now are not games that I play for long periods (i.e. feel more like tech demo things) - but the headset is made whole and much less gimmick by having hands tracked.

I bet once most people try the room-scale and the things that are actually nice with it they'd have differing opinions.

[QUOTE=srobins;50555422]I hate when people moan about it being gimmicky, what does that even mean? Oh no, it's not mouse and keyboard or a gamepad! Gimmick, gimmick! If everyone wants to keep using the same input and display methods for the rest of human civilization, go ahead, but I'm still very enamored by current generation VR tech and I think most everyone that has actually tried it would agree.[/QUOTE] I think I mean the exact opposite of what you think I mean when I say gimmick. A gimmicky VR game is one that is dull and uninspired and [I]doesn't[/I] utilize the possibilities VR gives us. Games like Front Defense, Serious Sam VR and Brookhaven Experiment are just glorified rail shooters from what I've seen. Compare it to games like Hover Junkers, Tilt Brush and Holopoint, where room scale and hand tracking are completely vital and are used to create completely new game mechanics that have never been seen before. So let me rephrase what I said; a lot of what gets shown looks uninspired and, from an outside perspective, makes it look like a giant leap backwards. Seeing the gameplay video of Serious Sam VR looked atrocious, and I believe people who don't quite believe in VR will feel the same. [I]"So you're just standing there and shooting at enemy waves in front of you? Seriously?"[/I]. The spectacle of scale isn't impressive to skeptics, and won't keep being impressive to VR headset owners. So a game will have to be interesting and engaging beyond [I]"it's in VR"[/I], and a lot of what gets shown isn't - they're gimmicky.

To be fair, any rift games are just games "in VR"

[QUOTE=Keychain;50555997]And he clearly does not find that remotely interesting. If you're not interested in VR right now, Valve has done fuck all for the people who like them for their game development, which is what got them where they are in the first place.[/QUOTE] If somebody cures cancer, it's still a big deal even if I don't have cancer personally. Maybe you aren't interested in VR, but you're objectively wrong if you say they aren't still innovating.

[QUOTE=Keychain;50555997]And he clearly does not find that remotely interesting. If you're not interested in VR right now, Valve has done fuck all for the people who like them for their game development, which is what got them where they are in the first place.[/QUOTE] Except for maintaining their current games, working on VR, and keeping steam working and adding features to it? ~oh no, valve isn't focusing solely on games and is instead diversifying, shame on them on not relying on just games!!!!~ [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50556159]"Innovating" in regards to video games Why would we discuss medical VR in a thread about Valve's VR team?[/QUOTE] it was what is called a "metaphor" they are innovating VR in video games.

[QUOTE=1/4 Life;50556024]I would argue they have. You forget that a lot of the people that made both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 great have left the company. Valve's last original in-house produced game is Portal 2, which is over 5 years old with nothing new even announced since then.[/QUOTE] I would argue the fact they decided to make a brand spanking new engine more evidence that they're working on video games over some rando's pessimism. That and the leaks mentioning specifically which two games they're currently working on.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50556192]I don't understand the point of the metaphor. VR isn't curing anything? Talk to me in english[/QUOTE] Just because they're innovating in an area of video games you're not interested doesn't make it invalid was the clear meaning of the metaphor. Also there's some astounding ignorance in this thread from comparing vive/touch controllers to wiimotes and saying that KB&M/controllers work best with VR

Also DOTA 2 was the last game they did in house.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50556206]I would argue the fact they decided to make a brand spanking new engine more evidence that they're working on video games over some rando's pessimism. That and the leaks mentioning specifically which two games they're currently working on.[/QUOTE] Source 2 is barely an upgrade from Source 1.5, and is absolutely primitive when compared to even an awful modern engine like Unity. Dota 2 and a few VR games are so far their only practical applications for that engine, and Source 2 is the first engine Valve has ever made that didn't debut with a AAA title. There's even evidence showing that Valve has been toying with Unity. I don't think their engine has any say in them working on major projects this time around.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50556192]I don't understand the point of the metaphor. VR isn't curing anything? Talk to me in english[/QUOTE] He's saying that just because some people aren't interested in VR doesnt invalidate it as an innovation it's unfair to say that Valve isnt innovating just because they arent innovating in traditional games like they used to; they are innovating, just with different gaming mediums [editline]20th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50556240]What area of video games are they innovating in? [B] Isn't there just one area?[/B][/QUOTE] no, VR gaming is completely different from normal gaming, to the point that it is actually considered a different medium altogether.

[QUOTE=1/4 Life;50556234]Source 2 is barely an upgrade from Source 1, and is absolutely primitive when compared to even an awful modern engine like Unity.[/QUOTE] Eh? Last i checked the currently available "Source 2" is a sort of half-baked hybrid that was released with Dota 2, not the full thing. [QUOTE=1/4 Life;50556234]Dota 2 and a few VR games are so far their only practical applications for that engine, and Source 2 is the first engine Valve has ever made that didn't debut with a AAA title[/QUOTE] They are working on some games, last i checked.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50556265]Last i checked the currently available "Source 2" is a sort of half-baked hybrid that was released with Dota 2, not the full thing.[/QUOTE] Source is Source. It's modular for this very purpose -- so that it can be specialized for a task. Source 2 does not have any kind of shader editor, still uses primitive tools for mapping, and still has ridiculously low in-engine limits. [QUOTE=AaronM202;50556265]They are working on some games, last i checked.[/QUOTE] Source?

[QUOTE=Mesothere;50555564]To all those in this thread bemoaning room-scale movement: have you actually tried it? It's amazing and very immersive.[/QUOTE] There is no doubt about this, but this is a simplified perspective. Room scale movement also imposes a fuck ton of restrictions on what can or should be done. In the future, we will have many games as unique in their approach as Hover Junkers, but right now a lot of skeptics will see the restrictions more than they see possibilities. Mainly, movement beyond the border is a huge problem right now. It's an incredibly exciting time, since new solutions are popping up left and right. So little has been tried that it is actually possible to easily come up with your own ideas for solutions that could very well be the answer. Maybe it's cool to have a teleport function, but where you just dash forward instead of actually teleporting? As far as I can tell, that has only been done in Realities and Raw Data. There's so much possibility. But at the same time, so much that we are used to is being shoved away. Want to convert a game like Counter Strike to VR? Not gonna happen. We're probably going to get VR twitch shooters, but the maps will have to be designed with VR in mind, the movement mechanics will have to be designed with VR in mind, everything will be something that we currently probably can't imagine. There will be countless creative solutions that we couldn't have thought of, and the final result will be new mechanics and entire genres. But at the moment, you might only see the problems and thus view VR as incapable of providing good games. I can't stress how good of an example Hover Junkers is of this. It creates unique mechanics with every single issue there is, and this is only the beginning of creative solutions. Watch [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0YxzgQG2-E]this video[/URL] for an overview of quite a lot of locomotion solutions. I think a lot of them are utter shite, but again, this is just the beginning and he doesn't even mention everything that has been tried. So in short, there's good reason to be excited for the future possibilities, but also a lot of good reasons to think that room scale currently sucks overall.

[QUOTE=1/4 Life;50556268]Source is Source. It's modular for this very purpose -- so that it can be specialized for a task. Source 2 does not have any kind of shader editor, still uses primitive tools for mapping, and still has ridiculously low in-engine limits.[/QUOTE] Yes as i said, you're basing this off a weird unifinished version used for Dota 2. That and what? When people got their hands on the tools people were freaking out about how the limits increased on things like map size and whatnot. [QUOTE=1/4 Life;50556268]Source?[/QUOTE] You know, the dozens of leaks over the past couple of years pointing to the same two games? No? You dont remember all the L4D3 and HL3 stuff?