Virtual Reality now!

Owen Glyndwr said:
b) that "immersion" or "immersiveness" is the hallmark of a good game.
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Personally, I highly value immersion. However, I don't think immersion requires super graphics, or virtual reality or anything. I mean it's possible to get immersed in old games or table-top role-playing games or even board games. and the like. It's more about a strong theme and detail. I've played games that had okay-ish mechanics or graphics, but presented a strong enough theme to keep me playing. So yeah, I'd be careful with walloping "immersion". It's just that the term is used everywhere and brutalized by promo-hype-machines. "Suuuper immersive graphics! Suuuuper immersive fish reaction!". That's not immersion.
 
Valve is developing his own VR device:

Valve’s VR Demo Felt Like Being in a Lucid Dream State and Very Much Like a Holodeck

From the article said:
Today is the big day for VR but I wanted to begin by addressing Valve’s VR solution since I woke up to dozens of text messages from friends asking if this really was “better than Oculus.” Well, first thing to understand is that what Valve demonstrated isn’t a consumer product and likely won’t be for a while. It was using custom tech, was uninhibited by the need to even approach a consumer price point, and needed an entire (small) room for tracking. Prior to trying it I was told it blew away Crystal Cove and it really does. That said, Oculus has prototypes that blow away Crystal Cove as well. The statement isn’t meant to be “console warrior fanboy” fodder, but rather an indication of how rapidly VR is improving. Today we’ll see a lot from Oculus. They are a central cog in Valves VR plans, and the two companies are clearly working in close proximity. Count them out at your own discretion.
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So, it seems it was even more impressive than Oculus Cristal Cove prototype however the prototype presented by Valve is a technology demonstrator and such technology will not be in a reasonably priced consumer version in any foreseeable future. But it will be eventually...
 
Another Article on Valve's prototype, this one very spectacular in its assertions:

VR and Steam days

There really was a sense of presence with the tech that I didn’t think was possible (or at least for decades). It’s possible my brain was just more easily tricked than others (and also maybe the extreme hang over and lack of sleep also added to this), but looking back my memories of it are like I was actually there and not just viewing pixels on a screen. It was better than real life – people will get lost in this and not want to leave. Nothing else gives the same escapism – I can imagine becoming completely lost in games for an entire day (something I in no way do currently). Linear non interactive experiences also will be more impactful and meaningful. I understand how VR will take over entertainment because nothing else has such a deep and visceral impact. I have no doubt VR rooms in houses will become a common thing in 5 years.

After the demo was over I talked to the Valve employee for a few minutes afterwards about the tech. And while standing and in the middle of a sentence, I had an incredibly strange weird moment of comparing real life to the VR. I understood that the demo was over, but it was if a lower level part of my mind couldn’t exactly be sure. It give me a very weird existential dread of my entire situation, and the only way I could get rid of that feeling was to walk around or touch things around me (or sit down, basically just get in a situation where I wasn’t just standing still like I was in the VR demo). I tried to walk it off but alcohol was really the only thing that made me shake the feeling completely. Unfortunately since I had to get away from the Valve employee having a bit of a existential crisis because of this I wasn’t able to actually discuss it with him.

It was so incredibly weird that it got me worried about the tech in general – people have worried about us not being able to distinguish reality from entertainment, but in my view there was never really an issue (the absolute lack of found correlation between use of violent video games and violence in real life is an example). But I am worried this will be different – that the line will blur and the entertainment we consume will not just feel like a story we read – it will be something our brains think we actually experienced. I think all entertainment before required some effort for us to be immersed, with reading the most effort, but even with TV and current tech we always have to try to pay attention and form the environment in our heads – I think this makes it naturally different. With this sense of presence, it literally puts you in the environment, I worry that will cause us to not understand the difference between reality and the virtual world.
I don’t just think that will mean desensitization to violence, I actually wonder if psychological problems distinguishing VR from reality will have an impact in the future. When I felt as if I was still in the VR room, that wasn’t a logical conclusion my mind made, I just started to question what input was real. It worries me that while virtual reality will have very little consequences for your actions, reality does, and while I may be able to logically understand the differences I am worried my entire mind won’t.
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:eek:

Valve's protoype technology is similar to current Oculus Rift develeopment kit which can be aquired by $300 but having much more resolution (two small 1080p screens instead of one 1280x800) and better position tracking. But Oculus development kit is only a very early and cheap alpha and according to Oculus CEO the final consumer version will be similar or even better than Valve demo prototype. So if the author of the article is not exaggerating about his feeling things can get pretty interesting in a couple of years...
 
UPDATE: Oculus Developemet Kit 2 has been released and it can be preordered at its homepage at 350$. They insist it is not for consumers but only for developers, however anybody can buy it. Apparently it is much closer to the final product than the DK1, having a 1920x1080 screen (so 960x1080 each eye), lower latency and positional head tracking.

The most important thing is Oculus claimed that the final product would be released shortly after the DK2 so maybe the waiting will be shorter than everybody thought. i hope so since resisting to buy this DK2 is hard enough yet...
 
I guess it may be nauseating if your PC, particularly the graphic card doesnt make the grade, but if everything is OK and the game runs smoothly it seems this DK2 is near to the zero nausea panacea, or at least so is said at Oculus forums.
 
I can already taste the tears of the 'core gamers hahaha.
 
Well. Crap.

"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."
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:lol: no. I'm pretty sure that social integration is the last thing that immersive VR needs.
 
Maniacal said:
I'm pretty sure that social integration is the last thing that immersive VR needs.
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Well it's where most of gaming is going anyway and why I'm slowly going out. Remember it all started with those pointless achievements that the casuals liked.
 
Well... wow. I did expect something like this would happen sooner or later but no yet! I feel somewhat dissapointed with Oculus, they started getting money from people through kickstarter and now sell it all to Facebook? Is that what kickstarter is about? That felt pretty low from OR to say the truth. :nono:

On the other side this just shows how mature the technology already is and how big has it become in no time, and that, probably, everybody and his dog is going to have a rift at home. So, VR is the future like it or not. I only hope hardcore PC gamers who mostly backed Oculus Rift at first will not be too affected by this. :(

Fortunately, in any case, VR is spreading beyond Oculus Rift Facebook and there are other alternatives like Valve's Cristal Cove, Sony or even Microsoft devices. Surely we will see how things develop soon.
 
There is currently a campaign for people to cancel their pre-orders.

In any case, whether I like it or not, VR is coming. If it's not Oculus Rift, it'll be something else. At worse I guess it'll just delay things until a company caters to hard core gamers again. Or maybe facebook will somehow keep that angle going. I dunno.
 
I already can see everybody in the subway at the morning playing Candy Crush in the rift. It is scary.
 
I don't have a facebook account any more, I want nothing to do with social websites. I hope I can still game without a facebook account in the future lol.
 
Rub'Rum said:
El lado positivo; puedes mirar a sus... cosas atractivas... y no lo saben! No creepy at all.

Translation: Yeah there's no way I'm wearing an Occulus Rift in the subway.
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:lol: Cierto, no hay mal que por bien no venga.

Translation: Yes, i wouldnt wear it either.
 
The_J said:
Now your friends can like it when you killed someone in the next battlefield.
Meh.
Not good.
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You kind of already can since Battlelog is very Facebook-like (but not as crappy).
 
Futurama got it right again, the future is here:

 
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