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[Solifuge]

Honestly, the lack of ability to move the camera directly (at least not without nauseating people) is a boon to design. Same with the death of the cutscene as a trope of game design. It's a lazy copy-paste from film techniques, and totally undermines the immersion and agency that makes games different than film.

Perhaps if any devs are mired in the trope still, they can simply make the player an out of body camera with similar control and aim to how it's handled in normal first person play, with limited reign of the cutscene area.

[sambojin]

From a dev standpoint, it might be great for some things. Narrative style games will be very hard to produce, and players WILL miss things. Which in many ways, almost puts the onus on you as a developer to include all kinds of cool shit that they might miss.

Even if some things are mutually exclusive from others, so it's a different experience/storyline depending on what the player does and sees.

It'll be a weird form of replayability, where little easter eggs are all over the place, some rewarding exploration, some punishing "dicking around", and some mutually exclusive from others, being a core part of a slightly different experience in the medium. Some of these things can subtly or drastically alter your perception of a canned storyline. Is the bad-guy bad? Or did he have reasonable motivations? Can you find out both sides of the story? Where do your discoveries as a player put you in the larger scheme of things, as pro/an-tagonist, as a flunky, an investigator, or a willing part of the better of two evils? But even smaller stories than the main one can be changed by what you see and what you do. How chaotic neutral are you? Will you roleplay the character, yourself, or the game?

There's tools and techniques to make VR-style gaming interesting. Even to make it "an experience", sometimes very singular from a particular player's perspective. But the industry just hasn't used these techniques or tools in interesting ways yet.

It's very similar to the earlier days of cinematography. Techniques were developed that "worked" for different things. They're still being discovered. Except we've also got the internet now, which allows people to share "their" experience of a particular medium and entertainment product. I think that's going to be an awesome part of VR.

170mil units? Even if it's a bit slower than expected, easily that by 2020 (although I'd almost expect double that figure by then). There's massive studios, of very smart people, making games right now, just for VR. You'd better be sure they'll be damn entertaining, even in the earliest days of its wide-spread use. Simply because the games industry is very adaptable to new genres, has 100 years of both cinematography and VR-like experience to build on (not to mention 3+ decades of game design) and jumps on "what works and sells" very quickly.

There'll be standard tropes of VR game design by 2018, easily. No different from QT-events, walking-simulator cutscenes, loading doorways, invisible walls, achievements and everything else. They might not be a great part of game design, but they work. Just.

VR games will then get better. Hopefully. But even stuff like CoD will be pretty damn fun in VR.

[Ozyton]

It's funny how everybody pretends that moving the camera around freely is a new thing. Head tracking with six degrees of freedom has been around for quite a while, it's just nobody knows about it because it's not hyped up like VR is.

[sambojin]

Yep. It's the best damn thing ever in a flight sim.

The whole VR thing is just moving the basic techs (with "little monitor goggles") to different genres.

I reckon it can work. It'll probably be fun and make heaps of money too. Not everyone likes a good flight sim though. But lots of people like a good FPS. Or a good story (even without jump-scares, though horror is usually pointed to as "the genre" for early VR).

Hell. The Sega Master System had 3D stereoscopic/flicker goggles available (just no accelerometer head tracking, or in-goggle display). It's not new tech. There's been plenty of VR-like stuff around. But I'm pretty sure the games industry is intrigued by the bandwagon now, and wants to jump on.

Bigger than Hollywood? Yep, already there.

Better than Hollywood? VR might be the tool to make it so.......

[Solifuge]

I'm already having some trouble making a non-human first-person character with movement methods like wall-climbing or rolling not feel super nauseating in VR. It certainly complicates the game camera.

Pity we don't have affordable 3-degrees-of-rotation chairs that we can just stick people in or something while they play, or electrodes that stimulate their brains to simulate or repress their sense of balance. But I'll give it some time.

[sambojin]

I actually think 3rd person might be the "weapon of choice" for a while, until techniques are discovered to stop character "sway". It'll feel out-of-body, but you've just got to hope that they like the 3D'ness of it more than the lack of immersion. For action style games anyway. Narrative/Adventure games will be first-person straight away. Action's hard if you want cool movement options.


For first person action: Having a visual indicator (a little flashing/solid icon with a directional arrow for non-invoked camera movement/character movement) for at least a moment during these things can reduce orientation problems/nausea. It takes about twenty mins to get used to, but once your brain sees "I dodge rolled and 180'd and that's why I'm here and facing the opposite way" a few times, gets used to it, and learns that that screen icon "means" that, it's a lot easier on the player. Your brain can spacially plot the movement and disregard/understand the visual input, because you pressed that button, was expecting it, and got the glowing/pulsing icon onscreen to say "that's what happened".

It might slow down the movement system/input response, but it's kind of necessary to help with disorientation. "Swoosh", jumping sounds, etc work alongside it. Synaptic feedback response using several senses, to overburn neural pathways to overcome nausea, in a sense. Your eyes and brain can learn to ignore a really crappy camera angle, if it's got enough reasons to, and learns that a sound and an icon means "stuff happened, ignore it, you dodge-rolled". It also helps to show techniques like that (dodge rolls, wall runs, etc) in 3rd person in a tutorial segment. It lets the player "see" what that does, lets them do it in 3rd person a fair few times, then let them do it in first person. Let them switch between the two during the tutorial for that "move". Monkey-see, monkey-do. It's how we learn heaps of physical stuff, and gives us an outside reference that the "button push/icon thingy/crappy camera angle" does that thing.

There's been thoughts that "heavy motion blur/down resolutioning" might help for motion heavy segments, but I've found it quite the opposite. It not only leaves you disorientated, but changes your immersion quality, and gets you shitty at the game-engine for taking cheap shortcuts. A little bit of motion-blur is fine to simulate "you're moving fast", but don't go overboard with it. It looks tacky as shit, and annoys me for no good reason.

Like I said, there's lots of techniques to learn in VR. Not just storytelling, but with player feedback as well.

I actually think gamepads may also be the controller of choice for VR, due to "easier" inputs and rumble-pack by standard. The more "sense feedback" you can give the player, the easier you have it in adapting a set of stereo-goggles with angle/motion sensors into being awesome for your game. Finally KB/Mouse might not be the king of input (or you might end up with a rumble-pack mouse, or just buy a gamepad for VR stuff). We'll see.

[Cruxador]

I'm disappointed that Steam's list of games for Vive is so weak compared to what Rift has in it's lineup. Steam has a handful of artsie applications, and tech-demonstrations that last about 5 minutes. I was expecting more from the service that boasts more games than any other on PC.

The Rift has been releaseing dev kits for years, the Vive is much newer and Steam probably only started work on it when they found out about the Facebook acquisition. The Vive has far more content than the Rift did at the same age.

Honestly, the lack of ability to move the camera directly (at least not without nauseating people) is a boon to design. Same with the death of the cutscene as a trope of game design. It's a lazy copy-paste from film techniques, and totally undermines the immersion and agency that makes games different than film.

While I think you're right in the long term, I think that in the short term it means poorer story-telling as devs flounder around without the crutch they've grown used to. One more argument in favor of not adopting yet, I suppose.

[sambojin]

VR!

Pavlov yourself, you dog. Until we work out ways of making it less nauseating!

The new gaming sensation.......


Then again, Australia has a massive problem with pokie machines and gambling (one-armed bandits/slot machines elsewhere), so if there was a nice dinging sound or coins spurting out graphically, we'd probably play 'till we vomited. We're already waiting for the bell. Woof :p

[sambojin]

Sorry for the multi-post, but there's heaps of "thoughts" on player disorientation (and assisting in removing it) in VR.

If your tutorial system in your game provides a 3rd-person "mentor", give him/her slightly glowing eyes with a basic, small spotlight/pointlight effect, forward from their face/eyes. Whatever colour typifies the skill they're teaching or their character "type". Even if you've got to include a bit of fog/smoke/dust/snow/rain in that bit of the game, just so you can see the "teaching" light. Or do it from the PC themselves, if they're watching themselves in 3rd person perform the "move". It does give a slight reference to how f'd up the camera view will look from a first-person view while doing that, which lets the player expect it. Watching a mentor from first-person-player-perspective is essentially watching themselves third-person, but doesn't break immersion as much. Easier to learn off someone else. Preferably with glowy eyes if they're doing spinny shit. In some fog, so you can actually get an idea of how f'd up it's going to look to you in VR first-person when you do it.

Glowy edges on hands/claws/limbs/weapons in first person perspective, with motion blur/trailing effects, is perfectly acceptable to assist on player orientation during swift moves. Even just a light glowy pulse and blur helps you see "where the fuck you're going". Don't blur the entire environment/screen. Just the hands/weapons, or maybe on-screen icons or fonts. With a brief glow-pulse if it wasn't obvious enough. It does the job, while keeping fidelity high.

Icons should have variable arrows or some form of graphical indication (or outline, fade direction, colour, pulse etc), to help with directional player knowledge. All on-screen icons and menus break immersion anyway, so make them useful. If Doom/Wolfenstein can do it, so can you.

Stereo sound is amazing. Utilize it just as heavily for player actions (ie: pre-sound their action directionally, or "motion blur" it "behind" them, and have their ranged attacks "really move" with some "impact punch" as they hit) as you do for the environment/enemies/ambient/enemy attacks/soundscape style. You can 5.1 Dolby SS stuff, or just get good with stereo. Letting the player know "where they are" is just as much about what they do, as it is about the environment they're in and the enemies they're facing.

Dual-Shock gamepads are a thing. They provide easy player feedback. They're like stereo sound, but shouldn't be used nearly as often. They should however be used when the player is getting stabbed in the side of the head, and can't see it.



I'll probably add quite a bit more to this post later.

ps. 95% of this is standard non-VR 3D game stuff. It's just that most stuff we've seen from VR isn't from actual big game studios that specializes in, and make money from, making AAA games. Yep, even glowy eye'd mentors are a non-VR 3D game trope already, if you look closely enough. VR will be awesome soon. Many of the lessons have already been learned, just not utilized in the format or with the standardized hardware.

[Solifuge]

Sambojin, that's good stuff. No worries about them posts; I at least like the reading!


Cross-post from another thread, but... I think this is something I want to try.

Side note: I'm starting to wonder if it's possible to make a VR Game which displays 4 Spatial Dimensions projected down using Stereoscopic 3D, and wondering how much of a headache it would induce.

Spoiler: NVM, someone beat me to it. (click to show/hide)

Abstract
It is a long-lasting question whether human beings, who evolved in a physical world of three dimensions, are capable of overcoming this fundamental limitation to develop an intuitive understanding of four-dimensional space. Techniques of analogy and graphical illustration have been developed with some subjective reports of success. However, there has been no objective evaluation of such achievements. Here, we show evidence that people with basic geometric knowledge can learn to make spatial judgments on the length of, and angle between, line segments embedded in four-dimensional space viewed in virtual reality with minimal exposure to the task and no feedback to their responses. Their judgments incorporated information from both the three-dimensional (3-D) projection and the fourth dimension, and the underlying representations were not algebraic in nature but based on visual imagery, although primitive and short lived. These results suggest that human spatial representations are not completely constrained by our evolution and development in a 3-D world. Illustration of the stimuli and experimental procedure (as video clips) and the instruction to participants (as a PDF file) may be downloaded from http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

[Rift]

The Rift has been releaseing dev kits for years, the Vive is much newer and Steam probably only started work on it when they found out about the Facebook acquisition. The Vive has far more content than the Rift did at the same age.

..well, actually while the current design of the Vive may be newer.. Valve has actually been working on room-scale VR since before E3 2012 when the initial showing of the oculus happened (before the kickstarter).
Although the actual initial prototype (some cobbled together stuff in a garage) of the rift was made years before that... it's not like the Vive 'came out of no where' or wasnt in development for a similar amount of time... It's more that valve was focusing on room-scale vr and then with the rising popularity of oculus they adapted their plans to it.
...but yeah, since the design changed so much, they didnt start sending out dev kits until MUCH later... so it's no suprise their arent much in the way of actual games yet.

I wouldn't be suprised if the sitting down experience of the oculus was 'better' then the vive though... well, if you don't include the motion controllers which oculus isn't releasing until fall. i suspect that the motion controllers are going to be a BIG deal, and the fact the vive is launching with them may be one of the real deciding factors for a lot of people once they start using them...

Mostly cause.. inputs in VR are going to be annoying without.. you know.. appropriate controls...
Even using joysticks n stuff might be a bit annoying at times if you can't see them.
As much as i'm excited about 'immersion' from giant screen in face + headtracking... cool motion controls is really freaken exciting to me.

[Cruxador]

The Rift has been releaseing dev kits for years, the Vive is much newer and Steam probably only started work on it when they found out about the Facebook acquisition. The Vive has far more content than the Rift did at the same age.

..well, actually while the current design of the Vive may be newer.. Valve has actually been working on room-scale VR since before E3 2012 when the initial showing of the oculus happened (before the kickstarter).
Although the actual initial prototype (some cobbled together stuff in a garage) of the rift was made years before that... it's not like the Vive 'came out of no where' or wasnt in development for a similar amount of time... It's more that valve was focusing on room-scale vr and then with the rising popularity of oculus they adapted their plans to it.

The stuff they were working on was stuff that they would have been just as happy to share with Oculus, until Facebook bought them out and closed the source. It's not like Valve has ever really been a partner of HTC before, you know.

I wouldn't be suprised if the sitting down experience of the oculus was 'better' then the vive though...

Do you have facts to back that up? From what I've heard, the sense of place is better on the Vive and even in experiences that are comparable in scale to what the Rift provides, the reviewers and folks that I've heard from still pretty overwhelmingly prefer the Vive.

[Beggars` Sect]

From Gamespot Oculus Review

Of course, not every VR game is a good game by default. EVE Valkyrie, for example, is littered with microtransactions that detract from its initial appeal

 

For sure, how could we forget. My enthusiasm just went down a few notches...

[Rift]

I wouldn't be suprised if the sitting down experience of the oculus was 'better' then the vive though...

Do you have facts to back that up? From what I've heard, the sense of place is better on the Vive and even in experiences that are comparable in scale to what the Rift provides, the reviewers and folks that I've heard from still pretty overwhelmingly prefer the Vive.

actually.. i just spent awhile looking and
http://vrperception.com/2016/03/08/seated-htc-vive-experiences-with-one-lighthouse-station-is-possible/
It seems that it might actually be better even sitting down... so i agree with you.
M' happy i pre-ordered a vive and not a oculus.
and yes. I am aware of the slight irony based on my name.

[Retropunch]

From Gamespot Oculus Review

Of course, not every VR game is a good game by default. EVE Valkyrie, for example, is littered with microtransactions that detract from its initial appeal

 

For sure, how could we forget. My enthusiasm just went down a few notches...

Oh god that's awful. If I'm already shelling out insane amounts for a PC upgrade and the VR hardware, I certainly won't be paying for anything in game that I don't have to. I had hoped it'd work the other way really, and VR games would basically be a new medium more in line with films (or even the 'blockbusters' of old like HL2) where it tried hard to be a contained 'experience' rather than lots of extra bolt ons and whatever. I'd also imagined it'd be a bit more high brow, and a move away from that kind of cheap money grabbing techniques. Such a shame.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if facebook hack the price down quickly when they realise that they're not managing to sell to the mainstream. They'll obviously want to monetize by utilizing their massive customer base, and they can't do that if only 0.001% can actually use it.