VR.. What do you think really. Fad, dying, misunderstood or bubbling below the surface.

[Captain N]

VorpX in my experience, simply isn't worth it. I'd rather play those games on a monitor, the way they've been designed.

Flat games modded for VR tend to work better, at least when the mods add support for roomscale and motion controls (like Doom 3 and Vivecraft).

The idea that there is no content for VR is a meme mainly propagated by those who don't follow the scene. There are more interesting games than I'm willing to buy. I'm not on a mission to get every half-decent VR game out there, I would go broke lol. There used to be a time when I could catch'em all, but the volume of new releases has been steadily accelerating over the past 2 years or so.

Of course a lot depends on an individual's tastes, if you have a very specific taste that narrows down the selection. Right now there aren't a lot of "story-rich" single player games for example.

If you like cockpit-based flying like ED, why not look into IL-2 Sturmovik? DCS World? War Thunder? You could sink thousands of hours into any one of those if you're into flight sims.

Fallout 4 isn't my thing, but some play that religiously. It certainly has content, and mods on top of that.

 

[Arithon]

Is VR a FAD? No. Bubbling with frustration mostly.

What's holding it back?

Hardware costs. The headsets and controllers are too expensive and add to that the cost of a cutting edge video card and it gets absurdly expensive, especially with the video card manufacturers making hay from the bitcoin miners. In any normal circumstances selling more of a product makes for price drops, not price hikes; but when you come from the school of "how much can we get away with charging?" instead of just taking a reasonable profit, that's what happens. Two year old video cards cost more than they did on release and nothing better is being made because there's more profit in not innovating. Currently the entry-point to VR is too expensive for most and less than rewarding once you get there. A combination of "good enough" from GFX card manufacturers (mixed in with a fair degree of avarice) and only Oculus willing to lower the price-point to even something slightly affordable, most gamers are just resigned to waiting for a cheaper better generation of VR to come along, as all the interest in the PIMAX 8K Kickstarter demonstrated.

Lack of quality software. Aside from Elite (which I bought VR specifically to play) I've only found a handful of the titles I've purchased (Robo Recall, Virtual Rickality & Gorn) were any good for even mild replay value. Most titles are either clunky or little more than tech demos.

Lack of imagination. Trying to retrofit FPS games like DOOM for VR just won't work; they are the perfect anti-game for VR causing motion sickness and putting players off. Developers need to design titles with VR in mind, making a game that has no locomotion or uses a cockpit or helmet for a visual frame. Why we haven't see a MechWarrior VR I'll never understand!


Oculus and Vive are busy selling titles with exclusives, further splitting the marketplace. Oculus busy bricking hardware with unannounced automatic updates and HTC announcing a slightly improved "Vive Pro", but at a rip-off price excluding controllers. Yeah HTC! $799 = $1,129 in the UK according to HTC. Avarice. Again. Even if UK import duty was as high as US import duty (which it isn't) and even with 20% VAT the price is STILL £116 over the odds.

The companies who should be doing their best to sell cost-price hardware and a unified software platform to carve a market for VR (which could be as big as the console market) are all doing the exact opposite.

Until that changes, the greatest potential addition to the PC gaming experience in decades is held back by greed and protectionism and will remain on the bubble.

 

[StiTch]

Fallout 4 isn't my thing, but some play that religiously. It certainly has content, and mods on top of that.

The game itself is indeed a popular game but I tried the VR version and it was diabolical. I mean truly, truly appalling.

As VR ports go it's the second worst I've ever seen, with numerous bugs, missing mechanics/DLC...I don't wanna sit here and list it all lol.

But unlike the very worst VR version of a game I've seen, which goes to Ark (a real shame because I adore that game), it carried a hefty premium price tag for the VR game alone - and without any of the DLC that other major titles release theirs with. Skyrim is now coming to PC VR start of April and Bethesda deemed to release all DLC from the standard title in the VR version.

I am really hoping it's improved since then. But not as much as I am hoping Ark has improved. Gonna try that again later actually...

 

[Captain N]

The game itself is indeed a popular game but I tried the VR version and it was diabolical. I mean truly, truly appalling.

I meant, there are people who play the VR version religiously. A lot of the launch problems have already been solved either by Bethesda themselves or the modding community. I'm not saying it's a good port - it isn't, and that's part of the reason I don't play it much, but there are people who swear by it.

If you want to get the best ouf of it, in terms of mods and fixes, the FO4VR subreddit would be the first place to go look: https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4vr/

 

[Older Gamer]

Another article predicting the death of VR. I think there has been one of these every month for about the last two years. These guys have to talk about something to sell their advertising potential I guess, and click bait brings in the clicks!

 

[WindWpn]

I debated if to get VR or not.. My thinking is, I'd be sick, motion sickness etc.[knocked out]
So I never bought into it. I didn't think it was the next big thing, but that said, it looks amazing.
Or, are wrap around screen setups, better ?

I have two monitors, one is just for side things not the game I'm playing. I play solely on a 42" monitor, that's it. I like having my stuff around me and be able to get to it easily. VR could be a problem there perhaps ?

Heh, I read these posts from folks who have never experienced VR and talk about multi monitor setups and being surrounded by monitors etc... Frankly, VR is soooo far from monitors, its simply no compare period. Think if it this way... you are surrounded by monitors... perhaps three on your desk. Heck I have three including a center 21:9 ultra wide that I am typing this response on, with two additional panels on each side. Back in my TrackIR days, it was great to span an aircraft or cockpit display across these three monitors and use my head tracking to "look around." Wow, that was great until... i got a Vive.

Basically, here is the crux of the entire point. With monitors, no matter the size or how many you have, you are looking at screens. I look up from my 21:9 and I see the wall of my office, the window, or if I look down, my keyboard and PBR beer can. Basically, i see onscreen a cool aircraft/ship cockpit and game view, but i simply look away from screen, even at periphery, and I see everything in my office.

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

Simply put, no count of monitors can replace the experience of VR. Granted I no longer keep a beer can on my desk when in VR as I do not want to accidentally spill it, but its a modest sacrifice for simply being IN the ED galaxy rather than my home office where my fancy computer and monitors reside. Additionally with VR tools such as OVRDrop, I can leverage my monitor screens inside VR as voice managed "transparent ship panels" to display things such as Inara, TCE, or G19 for additional info which fits well within the VR experience.

All in all, for anyone thinking of buying monitors for playing something like ED, DON'T DO IT. Spend the money on a VR headset (Vive or Rift) and truly experience something new that will literally put you there.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

It's less about whether it "works", it's more about "what's the point"

What does it put on the table that makes it worth the hassle of putting on the headset and suffering the lego resolution, vs. just playing monitor games on a monitor?

For VR, you would want games that actually make good use of VR.

Each to their own, putting the rift on is no hassle for me, and I thought the head tracking tied to the torch and gun in Edge of Nowhere was great, Lucky's Tale feels great too, both games I'd rather play in VR even if they had the option of both.

 

[Alec Turner]

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

Nicely put, totally true! Basically - with screens (no matter how many or how big) you're looking at ED, with VR you're in ED.

 

[EDanaII]

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

Very true, and something I've enjoyed doing myself. Including being able to stick my head out the window. And except for the occasional invisible chair or desk shaped force-field that prevents some of my movement.

 

[Mu77ley]

Heh, I read these posts from folks who have never experienced VR and talk about multi monitor setups and being surrounded by monitors etc... Frankly, VR is soooo far from monitors, its simply no compare period. Think if it this way... you are surrounded by monitors... perhaps three on your desk. Heck I have three including a center 21:9 ultra wide that I am typing this response on, with two additional panels on each side. Back in my TrackIR days, it was great to span an aircraft or cockpit display across these three monitors and use my head tracking to "look around." Wow, that was great until... i got a Vive.

Basically, here is the crux of the entire point. With monitors, no matter the size or how many you have, you are looking at screens. I look up from my 21:9 and I see the wall of my office, the window, or if I look down, my keyboard and PBR beer can. Basically, i see onscreen a cool aircraft/ship cockpit and game view, but i simply look away from screen, even at periphery, and I see everything in my office.

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

Simply put, no count of monitors can replace the experience of VR. Granted I no longer keep a beer can on my desk when in VR as I do not want to accidentally spill it, but its a modest sacrifice for simply being IN the ED galaxy rather than my home office where my fancy computer and monitors reside. Additionally with VR tools such as OVRDrop, I can leverage my monitor screens inside VR as voice managed "transparent ship panels" to display things such as Inara, TCE, or G19 for additional info which fits well within the VR experience.

All in all, for anyone thinking of buying monitors for playing something like ED, DON'T DO IT. Spend the money on a VR headset (Vive or Rift) and truly experience something new that will literally put you there.

Cannot rep you enough. This is why VR is so good, and this is why Elite: Dangerous is still pretty much the poster child for it in my eyes.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

Just adding my agreement to the many others. VR was a real game changer for me too. I'm no longer controlling a commander in that game. I am the commander, almost literally - reality well and truly replaced by virtual reality. The first few months I was literally walking around the cockpits, looking at the scratches on the back of the chairs, checking out the cables, the doors, instruments, moving close to everything, looking at the hundreds of tiny stitches on the old gloves (gone now, sigh) from 6 inches away, lying down on the floor to see that the thousands of hexagonal bumps on the floor were actually modelled, not flat textures, each casting real shadows. And combat, well let's just say the radar doesn't need to be used nearly as much when you're in the cockpit, seeing the enemy from all angles, rather than the very limited viewport a monitor provides.

The Pimax 8k can't come soon enough.

 

[cpbtrading]

Just adding my agreement to the many others. VR was a real game changer for me too. I'm no longer controlling a commander in that game. I am the commander, almost literally - reality well and truly replaced by virtual reality. The first few months I was literally walking around the cockpits, looking at the scratches on the back of the chairs, checking out the cables, the doors, instruments, moving close to everything, looking at the hundreds of tiny stitches on the old gloves (gone now, sigh) from 6 inches away, lying down on the floor to see that the thousands of hexagonal bumps on the floor were actually modelled, not flat textures, each casting real shadows. And combat, well let's just say the radar doesn't need to be used nearly as much when you're in the cockpit, seeing the enemy from all angles, rather the very limited viewport a monitor provides.

The Pimax 8k can't come soon enough.

That post is a seller for VR. Its the little things that matter. I can't say I'll get to experience that, but its good that its there.
Good post.

 

[Darkfyre99]

In VR, that simply goes away. Everywhere/anywhere, I look its in the VR space. No more seeing PBR beer can, my office wall, window, etc... All i see (in ED as example), is my ship's interior as if I am literally there. Heck, I can even get up out of my ED ship seat and walk around exploring the bridge! I can literally get down on my hands/knees and look closely or even under some of the bridge structures and panels. IN a nutshell, i am literally in the ship... my office is gone... and I am in the Cobra MKIII, Python, etc.

^^^ This so much.

People who have never experienced VR simply cannot understand the feeling of being present in the game world, and how much that can change your reactions to what's going on in it. I still remember leaning against the table in Valve's Lab to reach for something on the other side, and being surprised that it wasn't there!

And then there was the time I gave Vivecraft a try. Started a new game, and before I knew it, night had fallen. I had made my standard "hole in the wall" shelter, and discovered what I had considered spacious on the monitor was claustrophobic if I was actually in a Minecraft world. The standard sounds of spiders, zombies, and skeletons outside took on a degree of menace that they've been lacking after years of playing the game, and exploring my first cave in VR was nerve racking.

Or the first time I loaded Elite: Dangerous, and realized I was literally seated in my Cobra III's bridge, and I could truly explore it for the first time. My first (relatively) longer exploration trip in VR was amazing. I had brought a DBX, and the bridge is about as wide as my VR space. On the longer Supercruise trips, I would get out of my seat, lean against the canopy, and gaze out into the Cosmos.

...

The less said about a certain panicked mauling of a Radroach in Fallout 4, the better.

 

[Insomnia]

My first VR experience was with Gear VR. It was...ok. Not to compare with the Oculus or Vive, but it felt a little underwhelming. And I was super excited for VR before trying it out.
Sort of shelved it for a year or so. Picked it up again last summer during a very long vacation, and bought a few games on the Oculus home including Affected: The Manor. I really liked it! But it was just fun for a few minutes.
Got the chance of trying the Vive a while back, and was very disappointed. Even though the Vive is like multiple hundred euros more expensive than the Gear VR, I didn't felt much difference apart from the head tracking.
A guy at work bought PSVR a few weeks ago, and was disappointed with it too, mainly because he got motion sick from using it.

Now, I haven't tested ED with Oculus or any "real game", just those quick half tech demos. So maybe I haven't been convinced enough about VR. But if true VR will be about equipment worth thousands of euros, it will always be niche.
But for me, at last for now, VR is just not as interesting anymore.

 

[Sweet&Dandy]

Today I flew around my shiny cutter in my SLF and could literally see the reflection of a Neptune type planet bouncing off the front of the ship. I turned around and there is the planet... VR is not dying, it has barely begun! Games like this were made for VR.

 

[Azirphaeli]

It's less about whether it "works", it's more about "what's the point"

What does it put on the table that makes it worth the hassle of putting on the headset and suffering the lego resolution, vs. just playing monitor games on a monitor?

For VR, you would want games that actually make good use of VR.

Here's the difference, you don't like the types of games listed or say they are "best" with HOTAS and thus ignore the fact that they are still good without wheel or HOTAS and then tell people they are "wrong" for liking things you personally don't like.

I am saying that there's more to VR than motion controls and the idea that there's a "right and wrong" VR is divisive and ridiculous because any game you play in a VR headset is VR and tastes are subjective so just because you don't want to play game X doesn't mean game X in VR isn't any good.

You want to point controllers at things while standing up ad mucking about, that's great. It can be fun and I enjoy it too. I also want to sit down and play a more traditional game while being immersed in the game via VR in a way that a monitor cannot achieve. That's fine too, it's not "wrong." You think VR adds nothing to a game not in first person with hand presence, and maybe for you it doesn't but for many others it adds plenty of atmosphere, immersion, sense of scale, and is just a great way to experience the content. Even with the reduced resolution, unless you think the entirety of what makes a game good can be summed up in how many pixels are on the screen and how good they look.

That mentality is exactly what I was talking about when i said the notion that VR games must be made one way and only one way is what can kill VR. Convincing devs to produce only a small subset of potential products by making a big fuss about what is "true VR" to limit the options via a perceived lack of a player base and instead ensuring a large number of potential customers never buy the hardware let alone the software simply because there's not enough of a use case.

 

[Captain N]

Nonsense, saying that there are good VR games and bad VR games is not going to "kill" anything.

There are also good and bad monitor-based games and always have been. They haven't died off because of it, have they?

If there are enough gamers with bad taste, then there will be a sustainable market for bad games. There are entire industries built upon that.

The idea is to bring the good games into the attention of people who have maybe tried something substandard and been put off of VR because of that.

 

[Insomnia]

Today I flew around my shiny cutter in my SLF and could literally see the reflection of a Neptune type planet bouncing off the front of the ship. I turned around and there is the planet... VR is not dying, it has barely begun! Games like this were made for VR.

Not trying to be rude here but while it won't die for you, it might still die because too few are buying it. VR is still very expensive and even though it might elevate some game experiences, most people can't afford a beefy PC and still have cash left for the headset. That if something will kill VR unfortunately. :/

 

[JonnyC0mbat]

Personally I find it a step too far into my already extremely nerdy past time. I don’t like the idea of having something strapped to my face either. I feel it’s too expensive, it would require a substantial upgrade of my pc, and it only caters for a very small subset of games (seated, simulators).

Plus the tech just isn’t there yet with low resolutions.

More power to those that enjoy it, and I can totally see why, but I find it doubtful it will ever catch on to the masses. It’s just too niche, and too expensive.

Plus if my family knew they could blindside me while I’m driving I’d take it off and find stuff stuck to my head

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

More power to those that enjoy it, and I can totally see why, but I find it doubtful it will ever catch on to the masses. It’s just too niche, and too expensive.

Well, the PC gamer market is already a niche and VR is in the high end so it's a niche within a niche. But it won't always be expensive.

Finally, if you think about it, it's a natural progression from books to movies to video games and finally to virtual reality. People have always had a desire to escape reality.