Oh, and remember how this thread started with me suggesting that rmcelwee should strap a monitor to his head?



I’m one step closer to Azeroth

 

 

omnidirectional treadmills...

they are exactly like walking or running...

through several thousand gallons of karo syrup.

 

Oculus Rift + keyboard and mouse = winning.

Oculus Rift + omnidirectional treadmills = torture, my favorite game is Arma II/DayZ. They aren't affectionately called "jogging simulators" for nothing. I mean the map for DayZ is 225km^2.

Maybe I just need to get a TrackIR instead of an Oculus Rift.

 

Ok, yeah. The treadmill thing is probably a pain the *** IRL.

Just kind of cool to see interest continuing to spawn weird inventions here.

 

omni treadmills are not a new invention.

there's powered ones, unpowered, hamster style, etc. the concepts are pretty cool if you can get over the fact that they all pretty much fail.

the best omnidirectional treadmill is the one where you're not bound by cables.

 

I see what you did there.

 

This one I saw a while ago looks pretty cool. All of these would probably be really fun as a novelty, but not so much for playing every day.

 

It seems to me that no treadmill/headset gamer is ever going to be competitive head to head with a keyboard/mouse gamer, given the lightning quick moves afforded by the mouse that the human body simply isn't going to be able to replicate in meatspace.

I would love to have an Oculus and an articulated cockpit simulator for Descent 2, however. Or any of the good flight sims.

 

expecting reality (or virtual reality) to be faster than some dumbed-down version like a mouse is kind of missing the point.

but it does raise a very different point: is gaming more fun when you're subjected to real world physics?

 

As far as FPSs go, I've never used a non-keyboard/mouse control that provided anywhere near the accuracy. That's not to say a 'gun controller' couldn't work. It's just that all the ones I've used either 1) were inaccurate or 2) got around the inaccuracy by making you aim with an on-screen crosshair that has too much latency to use.

I got all excieted to play some hunting game on my friend's PS3 with a Move gun controller. It even had a scope! But if you looked through the scope to the TV, you saw an on-screen crosshair that was nowhere near where the scope was pointing. What's the point?

The problem with current motion controls (for me) is that they HURT immersion, because of how poorly they work.

 

No, with a but:

Part of the fun of gaming is being immersed in an environment with entirely different physical laws. Personally, I cannot run as fast as the Scout, or carry objects as massive as the Heavy, or explosive-jump like the Soldier or the Demo.

On the other hand, some aspects of gaming are more enjoyable when they translate naturally from everyday paradigms to which we are all accustomed, such as turning my head to change my field of vision, or moving my arm in three-dimensional space to aim a weapon.

Thus, those elements of "real world physics" which enhance the playability and immersiveness of a game cause the fun to be doubled. Those elements which limit my ability play (by requiring constant physical exertion, for instance) cause it to be halved.

 

I wish that I could take people who have had such negative experiences and teleport them back twenty years to play for a few minutes on a Virtuality CS1000 machine. It really is an experience like no other which I have ever seen.

(I've yet to play with an Oculus Rift, so I have no idea how it will compare. The hybridization of a spatially-tracked HMD plus a conventional mouse is not something I can easily imagine.)

 

I got to check out an Oculus Rift dev kit today.

I'm still forming my opinions. My context is high-end pro HMD vs. consumer gaming HMD and hearing the opinions of a system integrator that we are very close with.

Short early impression: simple and effective for their target market.

I can tell you this: casually looking at it (no disassembly beyond what they expect you to do for normal use), I'm thinking it is a Galaxy Note II display and some relatively simple optics. Plus a swanky plastic housing and strap.

 

And it's finally happened:

'Project Morpheus' is Sony's virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4

Project Morpheus Hands On: A Look at Sony’s VR Headset for PlayStation 4 - Personal Tech News - WSJ

 

Joe, no.

THIS finally happened.

Facebook Buys Oculus, Virtual Reality Gaming Startup, For $2 Billion - Forbes

the sony product is just a copy cat of the single phablet oculus solution.

we pondered doing a similar product but decided it wasn't our market.
my codename: FaceCave

I guess I will let FaceBook have that.

 

Yeah, I saw that too. The forums seem quite divided by it.

I honestly am more excited about the Sony product, though. There are more important factors than which display technology is better or who copied who. The simple fact is that the Sony product is in a much better position to deliver on the promise of truly immersive VR, since it's going into an environment which is already populated by handheld position-and-orientation-tracking controllers designed to move freely in three dimensions.

By comparison, Oculus, regardless of who owns it, is still a fancy monitor being used in an environment centered around the paradigm of a seated operator using two-dimensional input devices on a flat surface.

 

Face it, this is how most people will use it:

 

The Oculus Rift dev kit #2 is taking too long to come out. Its needs 1080p like last year.
I guess sony is going to step up to the plate with something more affordable than the super expensive, narrow FOV, **** theyve been selling.

 

perhaps I am a bit jaded but I haven't seen a head mounted display that wasn't **** for anything under 10,000 dollars.

HOWEVER

I'm not their target market.