Oculus pre order information

[tresch]

I'm just chiming in both to be part of the crowd to say how important this is to me (ALL of my elite play is in VR, I have no interest in playing in 2D anymore. I try every once and awhile, and I ogle at all the pixels for a couple minutes, and then get frustrated at my lack of awareness and immersion)

That said I also want to say that I'm just concerned, not mad. Overall I like the way you do business, FDEV! Just... Just concerned and curious and really, really eager.

 

[Raptoyd]

Seems like there was some kind of falling out and everything changed after that. Hopefully everything is worked out before I get my hands on the CV1.

This is exactly what happened and the first rule of business is never, ever make your problems your customers problem

 

[Vasious]

this seems to be 5 pages of panic and random speculation

There is a thread right below in the 0.7 SDK thread that addressed the OR and ED have split or what not

the issues faced with Oculus are completely technical. both the Oculus team and the development team have worked hard to try and find a solution but sadly it has not been possible. It's something that the team would like to support in the future.

IIRC FDev was holding off on updating each time as due to the Cobra engine they had to do a lot of work each time, so it was decided to wait until 1.0 for the next update.
Love to find the quote but my google fu fails here

 

[CMDR Harmless]

This is exactly what happened and the first rule of business is never, ever make your problems your customers problem

Source for the "this is exactly what happened?"

As for your proposed "first rule of business" ... just no. Important? Sure, not the first rule of business though.

...some people are being quite a bit histrionic in here.

 

[Xebec]

Hey everyone,

With the news that Oculus are starting pre order of their consumer version tomorrow, I wanted to just make a quick post to confirm that we are still actively working with Oculus but currently the only SDK we are able to officially support is 0.6.

We wanted to make sure you had as much up to date information as possible and will let you know as soon as we have any more information.

Fly safe, Commanders!

"Actively working with Oculus" sounds good to me. Keep up the great work FDEV! Elite + Oculus = being a 5 year old again flying a spaceship under blankets..

 

[Raptoyd]

Source for the "this is exactly what happened?"

As for your proposed "first rule of business" ... just no. Important? Sure, not the first rule of business though.

...some people are being quite a bit histrionic in here.

Source would be eyeballs for reading and also seeing that the Oculus TM is gone replaced with the HTC Valve TM. Really what in your mind then is the first rule of business if not the customer? You sound really knowlegable, source = sound.

 

[IronGremlin]

Frontier doesn't control Occulus.

If the SDK moves in a direction that prevents Elite from rendering properly, Frontier may or may not be able to do anything about it.

"We're working with Occulus"

This probably translates as:

"The new SDK fails mysteriously due to undocumented changes to an API we don't own. The code we're writing should work per our understanding, and what Occulus tells us, but it throws horrible lovecraftian errors and generates non euclidean rendering artefacts instead because those guys have some weird bug in their code."

This is how interfacing with third party software under development goes sometimes. It sucks.

I'm pretty sure Occulus and Frontier understand that there is a big wallet influx waiting for both of them if they can hash this out, which is why it's "We're working with Occulus" and not: "Occulus support has been discontinued until further notice".

Corporate speak gets rough sometimes, but you have to understand, straight up saying: " It was working fine until those nuttholes broke it " has potential legal consequences, so we only get distorted parts of the real story.

 

[duanedibly]

We aren't able to say at this stage, although as Dr Kaii mentions it's likely.

what about SDK 1.0 support?

As a rift user (and the rift support being the only reason I bought this game) I am pretty disappointed in the nonchalance response you guys keep offering up when it comes to rift support as well as the numerous numerous bugs with rift support in the first place in this game..it used to be more or less bulletproof but more and more bugs kept creeping in as you appeared to take more people off VR support..

VR is game depth, Depth is one of the things this game is criticized most about, pull your finger out FD, this response is simply not good enough.

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Frontier doesn't control Occulus.

If the SDK moves in a direction that prevents Elite from rendering properly, Frontier may or may not be able to do anything about it.

"We're working with Occulus"

This probably translates as:

"The new SDK fails mysteriously due to undocumented changes to an API we don't own. The code we're writing should work per our understanding, and what Occulus tells us, but it throws horrible lovecraftian errors and generates non euclidean rendering artefacts instead because those guys have some weird bug in their code."

This is how interfacing with third party software under development goes sometimes. It sucks.

I'm pretty sure Occulus and Frontier understand that there is a big wallet influx waiting for both of them if they can hash this out, which is why it's "We're working with Occulus" and not: "Occulus support has been discontinued until further notice".

Corporate speak gets rough sometimes, but you have to understand, straight up saying: " It was working fine until those nuttholes broke it " has potential legal consequences, so we only get distorted parts of the real story.

I doubt it mate, they have moved a lot of the people who developed the VR component to other areas, the only ones that are left dont know how to get it to work and continue to generate more VR bugs with each patch.

 

[Raptoyd]

Frontier doesn't control Occulus.

If the SDK moves in a direction that prevents Elite from rendering properly, Frontier may or may not be able to do anything about it.

"We're working with Occulus"

This probably translates as:

"The new SDK fails mysteriously due to undocumented changes to an API we don't own. The code we're writing should work per our understanding, and what Occulus tells us, but it throws horrible lovecraftian errors and generates non euclidean rendering artefacts instead because those guys have some weird bug in their code."

This is how interfacing with third party software under development goes sometimes. It sucks.

I'm pretty sure Occulus and Frontier understand that there is a big wallet influx waiting for both of them if they can hash this out, which is why it's "We're working with Occulus" and not: "Occulus support has been discontinued until further notice".

Corporate speak gets rough sometimes, but you have to understand, straight up saying: " It was working fine until those nuttholes broke it " has potential legal consequences, so we only get distorted parts of the real story.

Well that's one opinion but on its face it sure looks like VIVE exclusivity has given SDK 1 a backseat to the movie and the only ones that will suffer that decision is some of the same people that have backed your little VR experiment.

 

[duanedibly]

If FD dont have SDK 1.0 support by the time CV 1 is out we should petition them to remove the made for VR thing off elite dangerous webpage since they dont support the only consumer version of VR on the market.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

A lot of posts here. I'm not technical, and I can't code. But my understanding is that the bottom line is quite simple.

Elite works with VR in extended mode. SteamVR allows extended mode, and the previous versions of the Oculus SDK also allow extended mode. Oculus removed extended mode, and Elite no longer worked with the Oculus SDK. However it still works with Vive as the Vive still supports extended mode.

But what the problem specifically is, who knows. However, it is almost certainly something to do with Elite having an inability to work with Direct Mode. It has always had trouble with that right from the start.

The bigger issue could well be what happens when (not if) Vive / SteamVR also remove support for extended mode?

 

[Raptoyd]

A lot of posts here. I'm not technical, and I can't code. But my understanding is that the bottom line is quite simple.

Elite works with VR in extended mode. SteamVR allows extended mode, and the previous versions of the Oculus SDK also allow extended mode. Oculus removed extended mode, and Elite no longer worked with the Oculus SDK. However it still works with Vive as the Vive still supports extended mode.

But what the problem specifically is, who knows. However, it is almost certainly something to do with Elite having an inability to work with Direct Mode. It has always had trouble with that right from the start.

The bigger issue could well be what happens when (not if) Vive / SteamVR also remove support for extended mode?

So VIVE works in extended? I thought they were going to direct also as I am running in Direct right now via the Steam VR beta app.

 

[CMDR Harmless]

Source would be eyeballs for reading and also seeing that the Oculus TM is gone replaced with the HTC Valve TM. Really what in your mind then is the first rule of business if not the customer? You sound really knowlegable, source = sound.

So that's a no on the source, you just simply made it up.

Regarding the first rule of business, your claim was:

the first rule of business is never, ever make your problems your customers problem

...now you're changing your opinion to it being just being "the customer is the first rule."

I can see this is going nowhere fast. Enjoy just making random claims about rules and what "happened."

 

[Slopey]

Why is everyone getting themselves in knots over this?

The CV1 is NOT released - it's pre-order. Palmer is shooting for Q1, but that could be the last day in March before they ship.

I wouldn't expect FD to be able to announce compatibility until they get hold of one or more CV1 units to test with prior to them releasing an update which supports SDK 1.0 or higher. They may not have direct access to CV1 units from Oculus themselves, and may have to wait like the rest of us. And they then may need to do some technical work to support the device itself (which they don't have access to yet).

We all know that FD like the rift. It has worked in the past, and there's no reason to think they won't have compatibility with it when it launches, but lets let it actually launch first before everyone jumps off the nearest cliff eh?

Sheesh!

 

[Soda Popinski]

I'm sure FD are trying to get OR support but don't want to make any promises. The post was to clarify and reiterate the current situation, so of course there isn't any new news.

Seems a number of developers with custom engines that work under Extended aren't getting much luck with Direct mode. Seems Oculus is focusing on the more common engines like Unity, Unreal, and Cryengine. Makes sense for Oculus, not so great for FD.

If SteamVR gets full OR compatibility, it should be a moot point.

 

[Zandil]

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD......IS THE WORLD ENDING ?

 

[SpectrumZZ]

Yet FD has no qualms about making regular official statements about Vive support (it's already in and working). On the surface, it looks like Steam has ED lined up as an exclusive. Given that CV1 was expected to ship sooner, why did FD spend valuable dev cycles putting in Vive support that no users can take advantage of, instead of fixing the existing OR support for customers that already use it?

About Elite Dangerous 1.5: Ships

...

The HTC Vive virtual reality headset will be available to consumers in 2016, and Elite Dangerous will support Vive on PC from launch via today’s free update. SteamVR support in Elite Dangerous marks the latest step in Frontier Developments’ ongoing commitment to immersive, high resolution virtual reality experiences.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/261982/ELITE_DANGEROUS_HORIZONS_Available_Now.php

 

[Raptoyd]

Yet FD has no qualms about making regular official statements about Vive support (it's already in and working). On the surface, it looks like Steam has ED lined up as an exclusive. Given that CV1 was expected to ship sooner, why did FD spend valuable dev cycles putting in Vive support that no users can take advantage of, instead of fixing the existing OR support for customers that already use it?



http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/261982/ELITE_DANGEROUS_HORIZONS_Available_Now.php

Exactly and why would anyone take the risk of paying 400+ dollars for a wheel chock.

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So that's a no on the source, you just simply made it up.

Regarding the first rule of business, your claim was:



...now you're changing your opinion to it being just being "the customer is the first rule."

I can see this is going nowhere fast. Enjoy just making random claims about rules and what "happened."

Yes customer is in that sentence glad you can read. Didn't know I had provide sources to you, so you are speaking on behalf of everyone then? Or could this just be a random thought from your head also? HHMMMMM

 

[KING5TON]

Why is this being hidden away in the VR subforum?
Why are threads from the main discussion forum about this being moved here just because they related to VR?

You're only hurting yourselves FD/Mods in the long run by attempting to hide this, if people buy the Rift and you don't end up supporting it you're just going to annoy people. Do you want to annoy people? Has that been the wheeze all along?? Explains a few things! :|

 

[drkaii]

Why is this being hidden away in the VR subforum?
Why are threads from the main discussion forum about this being moved here just because they related to VR?

You're only hurting yourselves FD/Mods in the long run by attempting to hide this, if people buy the Rift and you don't end up supporting it you're just going to annoy people. Do you want to annoy people? Has that been the wheeze all along?? Explains a few things! :|

Moving things to their correct forums should not be interpreted as a sign of a conspiracy