[HN Gopher] Missing the Point of VR
___________________________________________________________________
Missing the Point of VR
Author : owlbynight
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-10-10 16:25 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.owlbynight.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.owlbynight.com)
| outside1234 wrote:
| There are definitely applications for VR - see Microsoft Flight
| Simulator and Zwift.
|
| 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.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| TLDR: the author thinks accessibility and new UX is more
| important than mimicking real-world UX.
|
| 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.
| dvirsky wrote:
| > In all of its public spaces in the metaverse, you can walk
| around and listen in on conversations if you want to, but if
| you're socially awkward it's going to suck for you.
|
| 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.
| falcolas wrote:
| I've always thought that VR chat rooms absolutely need is voice
| changers. And not just pitch sliders, but "speech-to-text-to-
| speech" style options too. There's no reason you should be able
| to change your appearance but not your voice.
|
| Accents aside, imagine how much more comfortable people with
| "traditional" women's voices would end up being.
| dvirsky wrote:
| I know that there are some pretty low quality real time voice
| changers that can do stuff like this, I wonder if high
| quality models that can fix accent etc can operate in real
| time these days.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Voicemod (https://www.voicemod.net) can do some of that, by
| way of the "virtual microphone" kind of method. It's got the
| standard old-school voice adjustments you're probably used
| to, but also the speech-to-text-to-speech style with a
| limited set of 'AI' voices, plus various layered effects you
| can toggle on and off (e.g. "spooky cave").
| Uehreka wrote:
| Some of this may be a side effect of the fact that many apps
| built on WebRTC audio seem to opt for ultracheap audio codecs
| like G.722[1]. While I haven't been able to completely validate
| that this is the case, I have noticed that some platforms (like
| Clubhouse at least through early spring 2021) have truly
| atrocious audio quality, to the point that everyone sounds like
| they were talking on a landline phone (which is what codecs
| like G.722 were designed for).
|
| 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...
| dvirsky wrote:
| The audio quality in Horizon Worlds is actually surprisingly
| good, it sounds like everyone has an excellent mic. I don't
| think it's that.
| [deleted]
| 3qz wrote:
| > 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.
|
| 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.
| Abekkus wrote:
| what would be a shortlist of your best VR experiences?
| kbenson wrote:
| There's a difference between _possible_ and being the default.
| What 's being said is akin to complaining about UIs that are
| mouse centric not having a way to navigate or select controls
| by keyboard, which is a valid complaint. It doesn't have the be
| the default, it doesn't even have to show itself without a
| special setting being toggled, but it should be _possible_.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Every discussion about movement in VR reminds me of an old Penny
| Arcade Comic about Wii Sports. https://www.penny-
| arcade.com/comic/2006/11/13/you-know-it-to...
|
| 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.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| VR may open up a totally new field that is independent of
| current games.
|
| 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.
| falcolas wrote:
| > 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.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Heck, if you're over 40, you probably don't want to jump
| on a carpet with something blocking your view.
|
| Whoever _wants_ to do that is thinking completely out of
| inexperience. 20 years olds can permanently injure
| themselves too, and it 's not much harder.
| falcolas wrote:
| I can't disagree with this point, at all.
|
| But I also remember my "I'm invincible" years where I did
| a lot of stupid shit because it was novel and/or
| entertaining. I'm mildly shocked that it's just my knees
| that I gripe about.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| I think where we disagree is whether there is a large
| enough demand for these non-physical games.
|
| VR is selling bad enough as it is.
|
| Having seen friends drop out of VR for various reasons, I
| believe that the main draw, more so than immersion and more
| so than social presence, _is_ the physical movement.
|
| Oculus' top sellers list seems to confirm that belief.
|
| I'm not denying that there is demand outside of exergames,
| but contrary to the articles clickbaity headline, they're
| not "the point".
|
| Edit: *Currenty. This will change once VR becomes
| accessible and comfortable.
| falcolas wrote:
| I'm afraid that I don't understand the link between
| people dropping out of VR and a lack of good games
| requiring physical movement. As you said yourself, the
| top lists are dominated by those games. Not because
| they're superior, but because you can already play non-
| physical games on other consoles (PS5/Switch/Xbox,
| computers, phones, etc).
|
| I'd even go so far to say that the lack of non-physical
| games is the biggest detriment to the continued adoption
| of VR. Stick with me for a moment as I reason this
| through.
|
| Even the most fit player can only spend an hour or two
| playing physical VR games. What we do when our body is
| exhausted from exercising in VR, yet we want to play
| games some more? We go play more traditional games on a
| monitor or TV (or phone).
|
| Why do we change which entertainment device we're using?
| Because the non-physical games we want to play are not
| available in a VR setting. We can't play angry birds,
| Call of Duty, Hades, Genshin Impact, or FFXIV in VR.
| Thus, we must have at least two consoles. Which for most
| people means they'll have just one console, because
| consoles are expensive. And logically, that means most
| people will go for the non-VR console, since it has more
| games, by several magnitudes.
|
| In contrast, if our entire library of games was available
| via your VR headset - even as a "you're sitting in a
| theater" experience - I believe many would be happy to
| play them there. They could get their full experience
| with one console.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| > I'm afraid that I don't understand the link between
| people dropping out of VR and a lack of good games
| requiring physical movement.
|
| My argument is, that only these physical games are what
| currently sells VR, while the other experiences are not
| worth the current drawbacks.
|
| > I'd even go so far to say that the lack of non-physical
| games is the biggest detriment to the continued adoption
| of VR.
|
| If that was true, wouldn't the available non-physical
| games sell far better? Without knowing the numbers, Moss,
| Hellblade, and Lucky's Tale all didn't seem to make a
| huge splash. Developers of Subnautica and Everspace have
| abandoned their VR versions due to lack of interest.
| Additionally, I've consistently seen my friends chose 2D
| screens for games like Payday and IL-2 over VR.
|
| Again, I want to underscore "currently". I believe in a
| future where VR becomes a primary display.
|
| > Even the most fit player can only spend an hour or two
| playing physical VR games.
|
| With this, and the sibling comments about the danger of
| injury, I'm a bit surprised at how cynical you are
| regarding the average health. I wouldn't call myself
| remarkably fit, but I can and have played for five hours.
| I'm also interested to see how all these teens fare
| growing up with the device. I imagine they will have an
| exceptional awareness of both worlds.
| dexwiz wrote:
| The article's argument, and mine, is this is actually a very
| limited view of VR. Some people want to do these active
| things, but most people just want to hang out. Even in the
| much tamer example from the article, playing cards at a
| table, the game forces you to mimic the in game setup in real
| life. If the player has any a11y needs or just doesn't want
| to sit that way, then there aren't any good alternatives.
| [deleted]
| gs17 wrote:
| Yeah, I got the Creed VR boxing game in a bundle at some
| point and VR sports is honestly a combination of too fun and
| too sweaty for me to play much of. I haven't needed to
| stretch to prepare for playing a video game before, even with
| the Wii.
| filbo wrote:
| fspacek wrote:
| Somebody needs to make a 4D function viewer for regular old 3D
| VR. And then look at the Riemann Zeta function
| loa_in_ wrote:
| Isn't there anything like that already? If so, I was really
| overestimating our progress in the field of VR (I don't own a
| VR headset)
| falcolas wrote:
| Yes, there are tools for looking at running programs as 3d
| objects in VR, as well for static analysis of programs.
|
| 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.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Not to crack open a very annoying semantic argument again but
| our vision of the 3D world is just a 2D plane so having "3D" -
| by which I guess you mean perception of depth through parallax
| - would do little to ease visualization of 4D surfaces.
| adalacelove wrote:
| I think there is a lot of educational potential in VR
| fspacek wrote:
| Then will truly be able to resurrect Hilbert from Death ;-)
| tootie wrote:
| That would be a marginal improvement, but I don't see how it
| makes VR substantially more compelling or useful.
| barnabee wrote:
| This reads to me like criticising ski resorts because some people
| don't like the cold and are afraid of heights.
| vlunkr wrote:
| > It would actually be better for performance if those who wanted
| to hide their physical presence were allowed to do so
|
| 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.
| jayd16 wrote:
| But this is like saying zoom shouldn't let you turn off the mic
| or video and shouldn't have text chat.
| AgentK20 wrote:
| I think one thing that's being skirted past by the author with
| regards to allowing freecam movement is that freecam is the #1
| way to cause motion sickness in VR. The purpose of the realism
| isn't _just_ to keep the user engaged/sell units/have a good
| experience, it's also because alignment between "what you see"
| and "what you're doing" is a critical part of the inner-ear
| feedback loop. There's a reason that so much effort goes into
| comfort reticles, motor controls, etc: That if you do it wrong
| your users puke.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I mean it also could probably solved by just having a slider
| that allowed you to change your head position (like an offset).
| I think his problem is that his head is just way back compared
| to his body (offset backwards)
| alanbernstein wrote:
| You're absolutely right. To me this is an argument that we need
| much more standardization and fine-grained details about
| "comfort level", and control options.
|
| 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.
| ohCh6zos wrote:
| Don't a significant minority of people vomit or otherwise feel
| ill with VR? Is that adoption limiting?
| Arrath wrote:
| I tend to avoid more extreme carnival rides due to motion
| sickness, and must take drugs to be out on the open ocean and
| my own experience with VR was a mild feeling of being unwell
| that persisted for a few hours after the end of a session.
|
| This was only for the first week of owning and using VR, after
| that I acclimated to it just fine.
| nicolashahn wrote:
| I did, especially with Gorilla tag, but the more I've used it
| the less it affects me.
| wisnoskij wrote:
| I cannot imagine Gorilla tag. I think I am extremely hard to
| get nausious. I did not feel a thing for months using the
| Quest. But grabbing onto things in vr and climbing around
| like that, I am still feeling nauseous from playing Bonelabs
| yesterday.
| falcolas wrote:
| Pretty much everyone, when presented with a poor VR experience
| (high latency, low framerates) will get nauseous. But there is
| also a minority who can _never_ get used to even an otherwise
| good VR experience. Especially if there 's any kind of sliding.
|
| 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.
| potatolicious wrote:
| Even beyond acute reactions, current headsets are also pretty
| bad for eye strain, and for some heavier headsets also neck
| strain. Pretty much no current headsets are comfortably usable
| for very long periods.
|
| 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.
| syntheweave wrote:
| Nobody really agreed about what VR was supposed to be. It was
| just a "cool future" dream made manifest. I had a friend try a VR
| expo demo where they put a vibrator on the headset for added
| immersion. It gave her a concussion.
|
| Like a lot of cool future dreams, there's a need for a "yes, and"
| follow-up that grapples with the consequences honestly.
| recursive wrote:
| > If motion sickness is the concern, just slow down the top speed
| of free looking.
|
| 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.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Motion sickness is mainly caused by framerate and given that VR
| is extremely taxing compared just displaying on a monitor is
| often the issue. It is hard to drive two screens at once at 120
| or higher FPS
| zepolen wrote:
| No, it's caused by your brain and body disagreeing on
| movement, one thinks there is movement where the other
| doesn't and it's the reason you eg. in vr you see movement
| but your body doesn't feel it. On boats it's the reverse,
| your body feels movement but the brain sees everything
| stationary.
| dirtyoldmick wrote:
| It's all about porn
| filbo wrote:
| xwdv wrote:
| > Why is VR more restrictive than my 27" monitor? Doesn't that
| defeat the entire point?
|
| _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.
| Ukv wrote:
| > Do people really care that it kind of looks like they're
| betting or it kind of looks like they're really holding their
| cards, or do they just want to play poker and interact with
| people?
|
| 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.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > Would maybe go as far as to say that it's the primary point
| of VR tabletop simulator games
|
| 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).
| hartator wrote:
| > You should be able to do anything you want to in VR without
| moving anything but the controllers, ideally. Not just for lazy
| people like me, but for people with disabilities who would
| benefit from improved accessibility in general.
|
| 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.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| The elephant in the room with VR is wearing goggles which, no
| matter how you slice and dice them, just feel dumb to most
| people. It's why VR is a novelty that creates a laugh at
| Christmas but get dumped in the unused bin after new year.
|
| 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.
| etrautmann wrote:
| I don't know that I'd agree with you re: smell. It's strongly
| tied to memory, and can be tied with emotions via memory, but
| it's not "more powerful" than vision or audition. what would
| that comparison even mean?
| Melatonic wrote:
| You can do VR with a large screen and a webcam and it generally
| works great. A small room with a 360* circular screen would be
| even better. You would not even need to generate your own
| avatar or legs or whatever since you could simply look down and
| see yourself.
| tyrfing wrote:
| That elephant from a different angle: adults that grew old
| staring at glowing rectangles and are now highly resistant to
| change of any sort. At one point people thought that was
| stupid, too. What if future change comes mostly from your
| generation fading into irrelevance and dying off?
| wisnoskij wrote:
| I think this fundamentally misses the point of VR and buys into
| to the advertisements too much.
|
| 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.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| You think the entire point of VR isn't the actual virtual
| reality?
|
| 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.
| wisnoskij wrote:
| No, I think 1 screen vs 2 minutely different screens is the
| same order of magnitude of virtual reality. Their is almost
| no benefit, and far more downsides. The complete failure of
| 3D movies and tvs demonstrates that easily, as they had way
| fewer downsides and still failed.
|
| 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.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I can't tell if this is a tongue-in-cheek jab at the article's
| "missing the point of VR" or if you think the Wii is the next
| step in the evolution of VR. The whole point of VR is the
| immersion created by being able to look around with the parts
| of your body made for looking around and seeing a virtual
| reality substituted for the real one, i.e. the headset. Heck, I
| can be pretty satisfied with a VR headset and a bog-standard
| Xbox controller, so long as I have free-look based around
| twisting my neck.
| falcolas wrote:
| Agreed. Flying around in Elite Dangerous with a xbox
| controller is nuts when you have a VR headset on. Shame they
| didn't follow up on the VR experience with their expansions.
|
| 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).
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| A great use of VR without full-body controls was "Sir,
| You're Being Hunted". They changed nothing about the game
| when they added VR support, except that instead of being
| able to press ALT or whatever to free-look your head
| around, you could just... look around. All other controls
| and whatnot remained the same.
|
| Funny aside about that game, the initial development had
| promised multiplayer, and then the dev team went
| incommunicado for like 2 years, during which time everyone
| assumed the game had died. Then 'Surprise!' multiplayer
| release. Another year of radio silence and boom, VR
| support. Mind you, VR headsets were not yet widely
| available, as in maybe you could see one at some sort of
| tech fair, but there was no chance you could just go into a
| store and buy one.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I worked at a startup once and we had early access to the
| Vive before release. We did a whole VR horror that was set
| in one hotel room. Imagine something between The Ring and
| PT. It was unfortunately never released but we never found
| someone who could make it all the way through without
| needing to take the headset off.
| Melatonic wrote:
| You can very easily use a large TV (or multiple monitors) if
| they cover a good amount of your vision plus any standard
| webcam and do "VR" without a headset. It just basically tracks
| your head movement and moves the view the monitor produces.
| Which is the entire point of VR.......
|
| 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?
| wisnoskij wrote:
| I am not sure how that would work? You want a bunch of
| monitors mounted around your head somehow?
|
| 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.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is there a SteamVR driver for TrackIR-like setup? It feels
| there ought to be.
| crooked-v wrote:
| A 180-degree sphere of monitors would cost a whole lot more
| than even the fanciest VR headset.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| As someone who plays flight sim: the controllers hold zero
| value for me, because they're useless. However, the headset is
| _the_ thing that turns a flight sim into a truly immersive
| experience, because it allows for the kind of situational
| awareness that cannot be replicated without a full monitor
| dome. A triple-wrap-around monitor setup doesn 't even come
| close.
|
| As it turns out, VR means different things to different people.
| The best VR implementations allow _all_ those people to enjoy
| VR.
| dbrueck wrote:
| > But the entire point of VR is the controllers, not the
| headset
|
| Not to be rude, but have you used modern VR systems much? The
| above sounds exactly the opposite of what it's all about.
| wisnoskij wrote:
| I have used a quest 2.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when both in the op and the
| thread that nobody mentions vrchat. Regularly peaks at 30k plus
| simultaneous users, tons of game and puzzle worlds, rich avatar
| system, lots of amazing art and immersive experience projects,
| and somehow it just flies underneath the radar.
| crooked-v wrote:
| It's also worth noting that VRChat is incredibly janky and
| buggy in a ton of ways, but has pretty deep accommodations for
| play style (a sitting/standing toggle is one of the options
| that's been around for a long time, for example) and self-
| expression with avatars.
| cableshaft wrote:
| He's clearly using a Quest (he mentioned Horizon Worlds). I've
| tried VR Chat on Oculus Quest. It's usable, but only barely.
|
| 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).
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Quest users in VRChat are second-class citizens, it's true.
| The only way to experience that game is to play it on PC. Can
| I ask if you've tried Link to play the PC version with your
| Quest?
| Melatonic wrote:
| Part of the problem here I think is the author is focusing on
| more metaverse style VR and also experiences that are more
| "documentary" like (as in watching a sports game) vs actual VR
| games. In my opinion VR is amazing for lots of video games (like
| a shooter or a flying space game) and the technology has seen
| tons and tons of development here. It is fairly mature (although
| takes a fast PC still) and attracts high end developers and
| artists. A project like "Poker Stars VR" is probably not very
| attractive to top end 3D artists and VR developers because it is
| kind of a boring use of VR. People want to work on cool stuff.
|
| 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 ;-)
| chatterhead wrote:
| On my list of projects I'll never do but dream about being a
| billionaire from is a multidirectional VR deck that uses an
| omniwheel and outerbound drive system to simulate terrain and
| elevation.
|
| https://www.omnifinity.se is a pretty awesome concept that I'm
| keeping an eye on.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| I'm not so sure about all these insights, but I agree with the
| gist of what he has to say - quality of UX is going to be key
| with this stuff. Even more than it was with the smartphone
| revolution. When you are inside of a world and something doesn't
| work very well, the feeling of frustration is much more intense
| than when it's just your phone or computer screen. Getting that
| right will be an enormous project.
|
| 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.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I mean, the Oculus Quest is arguably a great technology sweet-
| spot. The original Quest had no problem rendering it's UI and
| environments at 90hz, and the Quest 2 even manages to lock
| itself at 120hz. It will be decades before we cross the uncanny
| valley for VR, so frankly I think the Quest is a great stopgap.
|
| 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.
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