• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Oculus Rift Launch Thread: Ballpark 2016

Status
Not open for further replies.

corin7

Neo Member

DrBretto

Banned
Just a heads up, GTAV in VR isn't really a thing yet and likely won't be for a long time. There's a mod out there that sort of does it but it's not fully featured and not even in stereoscopic 3D.

Oh, not even stereoscopic? I had no idea. I knew it was a mod, but I didn't know it was that bad. Well, thanks for saving me 60 bucks.

I gotta imagine it's inevitable, though, right?
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Oh, not even stereoscopic? I had no idea. I knew it was a mod, but I didn't know it was that bad. Well, thanks for saving me 60 bucks.

I gotta imagine it's inevitable, though, right?
I know it's exciting to see older games in VR but, in reality, it's TERRIBLE. Games that were not designed for VR tend to work very poorly in that environment. Seriously.

You'll find out soon enough, though.
 
Oh, not even stereoscopic? I had no idea. I knew it was a mod, but I didn't know it was that bad. Well, thanks for saving me 60 bucks.

I gotta imagine it's inevitable, though, right?

Maybe one day but I would guess we're talking at least a year or more from now for someone/some group to do a mod with full support.
 

Tain

Member
DrBretto's posts remind me of the early DK2 days. The thought of entering your favorite games is too damn appealing to give up on, lol.

And while I'm satisfied with the original VR software we have, I'm still happy that I spent so much time trying all that jank early stuff. I'll still argue that there's value in some of it, too: Quake 2 and Alien Isolation in VR isn't for everyone due to the motion sickness thing, but I loved 'em.
 

vermadas

Member
I know it's exciting to see older games in VR but, in reality, it's TERRIBLE. Games that were not designed for VR tend to work very poorly in that environment. Seriously.

You'll find out soon enough, though.

Hey dark, any chance DF will do some sort of performance analysis of ASW? Impressions have been really good, but I'd like to keep my expectations in check.
 

Enordash

Member
Good stuff I will also check out!

I don't know if I'll still have access to Lucky's Tale. I am getting this second-hand from someone that tried it, got motion sickness (definitely not a problem for me, BTW.) and just wanted to get some of his money back, so it's been used once or twice. It wasn't preordered either, so I won't have Eve for sure, and I wasn't actually planning to get anything for another month so I don't have a lot left to spend money on.

I'll check some of these out, though. I will reference this thread after I get everything installed.

I believe Lucky's Tale is free no matter what so you should be fine buying used. Glad to hear that motion sickness isn't a problem for you. I've found that resting my hands on my desk grounds me and reduces motion sickness in games that drag you along. (This is an edge case since I have a standing desk, but for anyone in that same situation, anchoring yourself may help with the motion sickness).

I agree with most of this. The one thing I disagree with is EVE. It is my most played VR title by a mile. With the caveat that is mostly a multiplayer experience. It was a little bare bones at launch but they are supporting it with big free updates and it is fun as hell to play.

I will say that this game is way more fun with a friend or two. Perhaps I never gave it enough time. I actually may be actively hindering my enjoyment of EVE by playing standing rather than sitting... I need a computer chair perhaps, lol

Edit: It's nice to see this thread moving.
 

Wallach

Member
Overall I am really pleased with what came out of OC3. They just need to do something about Palmer Luckey.

Yeah. I wonder how much the California laws play into this. Like, they've clearly put him in a box for OC3. No presence there, no mention by name. He's just gone. But once you do that there's no good way to take him out of the box, in terms of PR. You can't just wait it out, because if you leave him out of the public eye for a while, when he comes back it will be a story that he is back and the questions come about why he was not around. So I don't see how the story ever goes away for them.

I still think he winds up splitting from the company. They probably want to make it news such that it's Luckey who is leaving the company, and to do it when it won't stay in the public eye for that long. They want whatever happens with him as far away from Oculus and Facebook as possible.
 

corin7

Neo Member
I will say that this game is way more fun with a friend or two. Perhaps I never gave it enough time. I actually may be actively hindering my enjoyment of EVE by playing standing rather than sitting... I need a computer chair perhaps, lol

Yeah I can't imagine it being a good time standing. It is also a cross platform title so there should be a big influx of new players next week when PSVR hits.

The two big updates since launch have been:

Carrier Assault
https://www.evevalkyrie.com/articles/news/carrier-assault-update-coming-june-20

and

Joint Strike
https://www.evevalkyrie.com/articles/news/joint-strike-update-coming-in-october
 

corin7

Neo Member
Overall I am really pleased with what came out of OC3. They just need to do something about Palmer Luckey.


There are a lot of assholes at a lot of companies. In fact I can't imagine there is a large company out there without lots of assholes at all levels of the company. You can't boycott everything. I think they are doing the right thing by just taking him out of a public facing role. Oculus is a lot more than one dude.

I thought OC3 was hype as shit. Touch looks amazing and we have some good software coming in the near term and I loved that they weren't afraid to talk about where they are heading with it.
 

Haint

Member
I'm picking up my Oculus tomorrow!

I feel like an anthropomorphic cartoon schoolgirl kitten on a sugar rush. This will be my first toe dip into the VR revolution.

Where do I start?? On the list are a couple of gimmies:

-Minecraft - I actually already have a server on the Win10 edition. This is the number 1 thing I need to see.

-Dolphin VR - OMG, Wind Waker in VR. And, I have never played the 3D Metroids. What better way to start than with it all up in my FACE!

-Eventually, GTAV. I have been waiting for this goddamn game to go down to like $40 or go on a legitimate sale forever. It's finally setting in that this ain't gonna happen. But, it looks like it can be a VR playground extraordinaire, so I will be picking it up soon.

But. What else? There must be a compiled list of things you NEED to do when you get your Oculus. PArticularly free stuff. I am overbudget for this month.

Thats not the point. The point is that these are experiences that will make you sick quite fast, especially if you new VR user.

Minecraft even has a "virtual TV mode", because they know their locomotion solution will make a lot of people sick.

FWIW, I'm prone to sickness with gamepad VR FPS's, but played through the entirety of Wind Waker with no ill effects. Third person games don't seem to bother most people. Aesthetically the game looks much better changing the scale so Link looks like a small child or large doll (try units per meter at 200). By default it tries to make things look semi-believably life sized, which looks kinda silly.
 

DrBretto

Banned
FWIW, I'm prone to sickness with gamepad VR FPS's, but played through the entirety of Wind Waker with no ill effects. Third person games don't seem to bother most people. Aesthetically the game looks much better changing the scale so Link looks like a small child or large doll (try units per meter at 200). By default it tries to make things look semi-believably life sized, which looks kinda silly.

Good to know this isn't a fait accompli.

I did watch some footage on youtube, so I know how it can be kinda buggy at time (like when using the scope!) but that guy kept zooming it in to first-person. It was driving me nuts. I would be quite happy with third-person.

Honestly, though, I think I'll be fine. I did get the tiniest blip of stomach turnage when I was sing the PSVR, but it was during a particularly fast head-move, and it was a split second. My guess is I just moved my head too fast for the tracking stuff to keep up. Other than that, though, I can't imagine having problems. I don't know the site's ToS policy on certain extracurricular activities, but let's just say my brain is used to getting fucked with a little bit.
 
I've just seen reports that ASW doesn't currently support Nvidia cards 600 or 700, which is a tad scary for me. Oculus says they can do it, it just has to be supported by Nvidia. I hope Nvidia doesn't try to pull an artificial software restriction...
 

DrBretto

Banned
Wow.


What a day. First day with my first home VR.

I experienced some things that can't be described to regular folk. It's like a lucid dream. Lucky's Tale was my favorite so far. Followed by Dreamscape, even though it was super short. Great way to demo what you can do with VR.

Boy, the motion sickness is real though. You all were right about that one. Never in danger of actually hurling, but definitely felt uncomfortable most of the day. Radial G was the biggest culprit, but also one of the most intense experiences.

Don't want to be crass, but it's part of the experience. Had to try the porn. I was expecting something pretty gimmicky. But, I found a 4k, 60 fps 180° 3D mp4 to give it the absolute best possible chance. And I'm here to tell ya, that is NOT a gimmick. That is another level of immersion. It almost registers like they are really there. Like, by the end if it, I pretty much just got fucked by Riley Reid. It was a completely different experience from a 2 dimensional video clip.

Overall, just a mind blowing day altogether. Really impressed. It definitely feels like early tech, but THIS is the VR I've always wanted. Can't wait to see where it heads from here.
 

Jamesac68

Banned
Really, the porn? I checked out one video and laughed at the scale of things. All the women were giants, 8 feet tall at least. It broke any immersion and made the whole thing a comedy. :)
 
Is priority status going to put us in the same order we preordered our Rifts regardless of the time we get our Touch orders in?

Or are they going to handle this the same way they did with the Kickstarters and their free Rifts?
 

AmyS

Member
From Abrash's predictions on where VR will be in 5 years:

G2dMvTm.png
 

Jamesac68

Banned
The 15-pixels-per-degree image has 12 pixels, while the 30-pixels-per-degree image has 44.

Also, priority status locks your position in at where you were in the initial order list. Maybe it's an advantage and maybe it isn't? No way to know right now, but also no reason to rush. The priority status is good until 10/27, which is plenty of time to see how the controllers sell.
 
Really, the porn? I checked out one video and laughed at the scale of things. All the women were giants, 8 feet tall at least. It broke any immersion and made the whole thing a comedy. :)

Sounds like what you watched was filmed by someone who had no idea what they were doing. There's definitely stuff out there that is at the right scale.
 

DrBretto

Banned
Really, the porn? I checked out one video and laughed at the scale of things. All the women were giants, 8 feet tall at least. It broke any immersion and made the whole thing a comedy. :)

Echoing the post above, I found one that was perfectly to scale. It took a while to find the right settings and all that, too. But, it was like she was right there, real life size.
 

Enordash

Member
Echoing the post above, I found one that was perfectly to scale. It took a while to find the right settings and all that, too. But, it was like she was right there, real life size.

I'm really enjoying your impressions and willingness to say what others have danced around, lol. And yes, there is a wide berth of quality in those videos. Also, streaming is a complete no-go from my experience. This is probably not the place for direct recommendations unfortunately.
 
Really, the porn? I checked out one video and laughed at the scale of things. All the women were giants, 8 feet tall at least. It broke any immersion and made the whole thing a comedy. :)

This is all dependent on the video. There are a lot of people who don't know what they are doing. That's just not VR Porn either. A lot of 360 videos have issues.
 
Touch pre-orders for existing Rift owners opens up in 3 hours, $199+shipping? from their rift page
https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/rift/


I'm totally on the fence. I barely use my Rift, have little interest in any upcoming game, already cancelled my PSVR pre order. Anyone seen a good reason to put another $200 towards touch?

Touch, afaik, is still basically front facing VR instead of room scale since the touch sensors are front facing instead of a 360 box space like lighthouse. Which is fine with me, I have zero desire to create a "VR space" in my office. But I don't really see why I'd use touch over the xbox elite controller I already have in that case.
 

wonderpug

Neo Member
Touch, afaik, is still basically front facing VR instead of room scale since the touch sensors are front facing instead of a 360 box space like lighthouse.

You can put the two sensors for Touch in opposing corners just like a Vive, and your experience will be almost identical to a Vive experience.
 
Touch pre-orders for existing Rift owners opens up in 3 hours, $199+shipping? from their rift page
https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/rift/


I'm totally on the fence. I barely use my Rift, have little interest in any upcoming game, already cancelled my PSVR pre order. Anyone seen a good reason to put another $200 towards touch?

Touch, afaik, is still basically front facing VR instead of room scale since the touch sensors are front facing instead of a 360 box space like lighthouse. Which is fine with me, I have zero desire to create a "VR space" in my office. But I don't really see why I'd use touch over the xbox elite controller I already have in that case.

To me it seems like the only reason to play in VR. The control games do very little for me. I feel like I am playing any normal game with a screen slapped on my face. Until there is new way to interact with games VR is nothing special.
 

Wallach

Member
Touch pre-orders for existing Rift owners opens up in 3 hours, $199+shipping? from their rift page
https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/rift/


I'm totally on the fence. I barely use my Rift, have little interest in any upcoming game, already cancelled my PSVR pre order. Anyone seen a good reason to put another $200 towards touch?

Touch, afaik, is still basically front facing VR instead of room scale since the touch sensors are front facing instead of a 360 box space like lighthouse. Which is fine with me, I have zero desire to create a "VR space" in my office. But I don't really see why I'd use touch over the xbox elite controller I already have in that case.

Touch can be whatever you have room space for. Front-facing, 360 or room scale. You'll need a third sensor to do anything over a ~7' x 7' space though, judging by their images.

You probably want Touch if you want to keep the Rift, honestly. Even if you would just use it forward-facing standing. You'll lose access to way too much of the game's library - and what will be the more interesting side of the game's library outside of cockpit games - if you stick with just the Xbox controller.
 

DrBretto

Banned
I'm really enjoying your impressions and willingness to say what others have danced around, lol. And yes, there is a wide berth of quality in those videos. Also, streaming is a complete no-go from my experience. This is probably not the place for direct recommendations unfortunately.

I was actually a little bit worried about how to word it here because I'm still new and I don't know what flies. Here are my initial impressions I posted elsewhere. Now that I'm a full member as of about 15 minutes ago, I feel more confident, lol.

I just straight up fucked Riley Reid.

I had to find and download a high quality test file. This was to test 3d video quality as much as anything else, but if you're gonna do something, do it. I had to break out the wallet and pay 1 dollar for a two day trial. I was able to download a full length, 4k 3D 180° 60 FPS mp4 file. 4.5 gigabytes for 21 minutes. I wanted to give this the highest chance to look good.

After that, it was hard to find a player. The best solution ended up being the virtual desktop, which is 13.99. it's kinda worth it anyway, because it emulates your desktop, but, like in space. I'm sure it'll have its uses.

But, it also runs 3d movies anywhere on your PC. Took a few tries to get the right settings. The movie was side by side for the 3d but it kept playing in a 2d sphere. But, I finally got it.

Despite some issues at certain angles being shaky and audio not being on sync, which might just be some codec issue, I was fucking blown away by the quality. It was like she was right fucking there, but for some reason, I was wearing goggles. Absolutely blown away by the effect. I had not intended it to be "practical" but, I was really impressed.

It's like she was right there. Not even like just up to your face. She gets into a 69 position, and you lay back and look up, and... There it is. In all its 3 dimensional glory. It was another level of immersion.

Edit: I do this all for science, BTW. The thing is going into a common area soon, lol.
 

Enordash

Member
Edit: I do this all for science, BTW. The thing is going into a common area soon, lol.

I'm not really sure about the specific rules here, but I'd steer clear of the super gory details just to be safe.

I'm also still on the fence over Touch. Is it worth grabbing for the Oculus Home exclusive games? I feel like once upon a time the plan was to allow any headset to be used with Home. An Oculus exclusive would just be a game exclusive to Home. They make their money on the software and everyone is happy. Although Oculus has now addressed room-scale, it seems that some games still prohibit it. I read that Killing Floor Incursion places an opaque wall behind you to force stick-based turning. Don't get me wrong, the controllers look really nice and if I wasn't already sitting on both headsets, I'd be jumping on it with no questions asked. I'm just having a really hard time justifying both in my home.
 

Wallach

Member
I'm also still on the fence over Touch. Is it worth grabbing for the Oculus Home exclusive games? I feel like once upon a time the plan was to allow any headset to be used with Home. An Oculus exclusive would just be a game exclusive to Home. They make their money on the software and everyone is happy. Although Oculus has now addressed room-scale, it seems that some games still prohibit it. I read that Killing Floor Incursion places an opaque wall behind you to force stick-based turning. Don't get me wrong, the controllers look really nice and if I wasn't already sitting on both headsets, I'd be jumping on it with no questions asked. I'm just having a really hard time justifying both in my home.

Killing Floor does that if you have both sensors in front of you. The reason for that is that the headset can be tracked if you are turned away, but the Touch will get blocked by your body, so they don't want you to feel like you can turn around and be able to shoot then wind up being able to turn around just fine but lose your hands when you go to fire.
 

DrBretto

Banned
I'm not really sure about the specific rules here, but I'd steer clear of the super gory details just to be safe.

Regardless of the rules, that's as far as I go, just as a matter of taste. I wanted to talk about the tech and its possibilities and it's hard to do that without a little bit of explicity.
 

Enordash

Member
Killing Floor does that if you have both sensors in front of you. The reason for that is that the headset can be tracked if you are turned away, but the Touch will get blocked by your body, so they don't want you to feel like you can turn around and be able to shoot then wind up being able to turn around just fine but lose your hands when you go to fire.

I definitely understand why it's doing that. I'm just wondering if that game and others like it that are designed for the front-facing configuration will also have a room-scale option that eliminates the rear wall (or whatever other restriction).
 

YuShtink

Member
A lot of the games they've shown for Touch look a lot better and more fleshed out than what we've seen for the Rift so far. The Unspoken, Wilson's Heart, Lone Echo, Arktika, Robo Recall, and a few others have me pretty excited again.
 
Edit: I do this all for science, BTW. The thing is going into a common area soon, lol.

Yeah, we checked it out when we first got my Rift and it was crazy. I'm fairly certain I know what site you checked out (as THAT Riley video was kinda the standard flag-bearer for what the industry could do in VR) and that site tends to get the scale, the intimacy, and actual feeling of what it's like to be there too.

As for my (and by proxy, my wife's) impressions:

VR has the potential to be an absolute game changer for the adult sector. Sure, it's still in the very early phases of figuring things out and there are a couple key problems (scale, clarity, lack of 360 degrees, etc) but there are some sites out there really pushing the envelope.

For me, the biggest difference between this and traditional stuff is that a large proportion of traditional videos are more voyeuristic; you're watching in on something and you're relatively detached. Even with POV stuff, it really more fees like "oh it's the camera guy that's nailing the actress" rather than you. VR completely demolishes this and gives you a completely new experience. Currently at its best, the porn VR companies are realizing they no longer are selling a voyeuristic experience but are selling closeness, intimacy, and essentially a Girlfriend Experience. Things that you couldn't give a shit about before like positioning, eye contact, and so forth are the things that you notice immediately. There were videos where an actress goes in for a kiss and I reflexively back up since I was sitting next to my wife and it just felt too real. In addition, more than ever things like bad acting or fake performances stick out immediately.

Having said that, there are a number of issues as I alluded to previously. Scale is something that some sites are still having trouble with, and sometimes videos feel more like Death by Snu-Snu. Similarly, the resolution is still fairly low for a lot of sites, and most sites are still doing only 180 degrees, meaning you look too far to the left and right, you're gonna see black and you're immediately taken out of the scene. But these are issues that the industry will certainly figure out as the technology improves.
 

DrBretto

Banned
Yeah, we checked it out when we first got my Rift and it was crazy. I'm fairly certain I know what site you checked out (as THAT Riley video was kinda the standard flag-bearer for what the industry could do in VR) and they tend to get the scale, the intimacy, and actual feeling of what it's like to be there too.

As for my (and by proxy, my wife's) impressions:

VR has the potential to be an absolute game changer for the adult sector. Sure, it's still in the very early phases of figuring things out and there are a couple key problems (scale, clarity, lack of 360 degrees, etc) but there are some sites out there really pushing the envelope.

For me, the biggest difference between this and traditional stuff is that a large proportion of traditional videos are more voyeuristic; you're watching in on something and you're relatively detached. Even with POV stuff, it really more fees like "oh it's the camera guy that's nailing the actress" rather than you. VR completely demolishes this and gives you a completely new experience. Now, at its best, the porn VR companies are realizing they no longer are selling a voyeuristic experience but are selling closeness, intimacy, and essentially a Girlfriend Experience. Things that you couldn't give a shit about before like positioning, eye contact, and so forth are the things that you notice immediately. There were videos where an actress goes in for a kiss and I reflexively back up since I was sitting next to my wife and it just felt too real. In addition, more than ever things like bad acting or fake performances stick out immediately.

Having said that, there are a number of issues. Scale is something that some sites are still having trouble with, and sometimes videos feel more like Death by Snu-Snu. Similarly, the resolution is still fairly low for a lot of sites, and most sites are still doing only 180 degrees, meaning you look too far to the left and right, you're gonna see black and you're immediately taken out of the scene. But these are issues that the industry will certainly figure out as the technology improves.

Excellent, intelligent and insightful response. I was hoping things would go this way.

[Edit: mixed up a couple of your points in the reply, but that was my mind wandering. I re-read it all and still totally agree]

I agree, wholeheartedly across the board and I'm confident you are aware of the exact clip I referred to. You nailed it, too. It's the intimacy, and the voyeurism.

There was definitely no illusion about who's package I was looking down to, so I agree there, too. That part does not feel any different. It's like you're watching people who aren't you, it just sells the idea of watching something in person rather than on a screen. I really did just intentionally find the absolute best possible test subject just to see where it's heading. There are kinks that need to get worked out before you get total immersion, but the promise of it is astounding.

And not just for single guys, though that will undoubtedly be the main market. But just imagine a system set up so you and a partner can almost completely immerse yourself into a fantasy simultaneously. Especially for some long term relationships and marriages, this can actually have some real value.
 
Excellent, intelligent and insightful response. I was hoping things would go this way.

I agree, wholeheartedly across the board and I'm confident you are aware of the exact clip I referred to. You nailed it, too. It's the intimacy, and the voyeurism.

There was definitely no illusion about who's package I was looking down to, so I agree there, too. That part does not feel any different. It's like you're watching people who aren't you, it just sells the idea of watching something in person rather than on a screen. I really did just intentionally find the absolute best possible test subject just to see where it's heading. There are kinks that need to get worked out before you get total immersion, but the promise of it is astounding.

And not just for single guys, though that will undoubtedly be the main market. But just imagine a system set up so you and a partner can almost completely immerse yourself into a fantasy simultaneously. Especially for some long term relationships and marriages, this can actually have some real value.

Thanks. In addition to what you mentioned about couples and so forth, another thing I can actually see happening in is treatment for something like porn-induced sexual/erectile dysfunction. They've already started using VR for immersion/psychological therapy for phobias. VR could potentially help tremendously with this as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom