What level of compromise are VR players willing to temporarily accept in Odyssey?

Indeed.

I mean, I hope FDev will leave the door open for the community to mod VR into the game.

God lord that’s wishful thinking. There is no way in hell they will leave the game open for mods by the community. The real reason single player was abandoned was to stop it being pirated. Braben has form for that. Even Frontier Elite would ask you to input text from the manual as a form of copy protection!
 
I never counted on roomscale and motion controls for on-foot portions of the game, so I'd be fine using a mouse and keyboard and nothing more complicated than the image going into our headsets correctly. I always imagined it'd be similar to Subnautica, and they wouldn't do the effort that NMS's devs put into things.

Which is fine, it'd be our own choice whether to use that form of VR for on-foot gameplay. I've done it in other FPS's, it's not really a problem and I don't need special controls or fancy VR-controller stuff for it.
 
Yea but I think we are past the pro/con should we shouldn't we discussion. -- Most people were asking for this for the past few months, and people have been talking about it for years. -- but to your origonal point, what 'new tech' -- Are you talking about the graphics? You do understand that clip was not a gameplay clip right?

What I am talking about is opening a door for a paid update (or part of one) that works with VR.

As for the clip, it states "pre alpha in engine footage".
 
God lord that’s wishful thinking. There is no way in hell they will leave the game open for mods by the community. The real reason single player was abandoned was to stop it being pirated. Braben has form for that. Even Frontier Elite would ask you to input text from the manual as a form of copy protection!

There are already countless mods that tinker with graphics, and if VR mod was possible for GTAV, then I hope Elite won't be an exception...
 
So long as I can keep playing Horizons as-is in VR if I only want to stay seated, or can choose to switch to Odyssey if I want to spend any time on foot, I could accept it. I never really expected to be doing space legs in VR anyway, simply becuase it would make me puke.

But, we know so little about whats coming its really hard to say.
 
There are already countless mods that tinker with graphics, and if VR mod was possible for GTAV, then I hope Elite won't be an exception...

So do I but I wouldn’t hold your breath 😁

If it cost £1 million to add VR and £1.5 million to implement protection to stop people modifying the game I bet they would rather spend the £1.5 million!
 
I can live with no spacelegs in VR at all, as long as I am able to enjoy the rest of the content of the expansion (new engine, atmospheric planets, improved missions, spheres of combat in SRV and spaceship).

Likewise. Legs were never even on my wishlist, really - so many other games allow you to run around.

I would be happy with a definite statement that VR will come to Odyssey, within half a year or so ... I am used to waiting, and in no particular hurry. I don't like being left hanging.

Confirmation would be nice. But I suspect it is too early.
 
I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the annnouncement (at some level) and didn't necessarily want VR support for the walking component anyway. With the reveal that Odyssey is (apparently) going to include atmospheric landings tho' - at a very basic level what I want is to be able to fly my spaceship over the surface of a planet, in VR, with blue skies above me. I think the experience of that (with whatever other terrain improvements Odyssey brings ... perhaps even weather?) would be an absolutely sensational VR experience and something that will be hard to bear if it's not supported.

Initially this is how I interpreted FD's VR statement. I imagined a situation where there'd be a moment when you get out of the pilot seat (perhaps via a fade to black, perhaps via a 3rd person animation) and that that would be the moment when, at launch at least, it would say "sorry - VR no supported". I could live with that. It never occured to me that VR users might be excluded from the basic improvements to the graphics engine, the new terrain and the lighting and sky colours provided by atmospheric worlds. I assumed it was just a technical issue to do with the practicalities of locomotion and other "legs" related issues.

I'm currently still trying to get an answer from FD to the question I posted in the Odyssey announcement thread.

Will people in VR still be able to fly space ships around beneath a blue sky?

Right at the end of last night's livestream Zac spotted my request for clarification on this issue and I'm hoping that he's going to try and provide an answer if at all possible. 🤞
 
t never occured to me that VR users might be excluded from the basic improvements to the graphics engine, the new terrain and the lighting and sky colours provided by atmospheric worlds. I assumed it was just a technical issue to do with the practicalities of locomotion and other "legs" related issues.

This would require either a free update for horizons OR a split of Odyssey into two parts you could purchase separately. One with or one without legs.

However I think the free-bees are over and done with, considering that we havent payed for any expansion since 2015.
 
VR+Hotas+pedal+Headtracker owner here.

If i have to choose where frontier focus their afford.

VR or the new contents game loops, game mechanics and quality.

Then i say scrap VR for now. do it later when everything else, is working. focus on quality.
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I would be more sad to see headtracking go.
 
I suppose you could always put it in SBS mode and play it on Virtual Desktop or Bigscreen just to see how it'd look in 3D with your current headset, but it'd be a shame to then lose all the cockpit quality. But virtual screens do kill most of the sim sickness. Along with your headtracking.

Scrapping VR means it never comes back. I say experimental support with barebones camera and HUD tweaks as a foundation to build on later (Is this not the FD way? Are we not men?) and a way for the diehards to get their fix. Controllers? Comfort? You're on your own. So gate it for the newbies who'd get sick and moan. A compromise that doesn't take away too much from development priorities.
 
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VR was built into this game. I'm a software developer, though not a game developer admittedly, but I don't think there is any issue in Odyssey with VR support with regards to sending the image to the VR HMD at the vantage point of the player character's head, including with head tracking, which is also already supported.

I think that FDev did not schedule development on movement mechanics and in-VR motion controller capture, and how it will be handled graphically and mechanically.
This is why I'd be willing to compromise in the interim, whilst at the same time expressing alongside the VR Elite community how important we think continued support for VR is.
Looking at other games, that were ported to VR like the Serious Sam series or Hellblade, you can see a number of changes had to be done to make them work in VR. The player movement and mobility is pretty different for VR player. Even with locomotion considered it is hard to find a common ground and create working challenges for both types at the same time.
Both mentioned titles show how a mix of flat and VR could be accomplished. Hellblade for instance shows cinematics with lots of camera movement on a big screen in VR - sounds weird but works pretty good. For Serious Sam the dev recognized VR players are worse at moving, dodging and shooting at the same time, so the gave them the ability to dual wield weapons and a specific mode to enable them to shoot projectiles, that needed to be dodged in the regular game.
If flat and VR players are merged compromises have to be made. But since ED is full of compromises by design, I don't think it would hurt the FPS part that much, if it was made compatible to VR.
 
I can't see me bothering to fly spaceships on a flat screen again. But I understand that VR FPS is fundamentally different gameplay to mouse and keyboard; the industry has standardised on teleporting movement to avoid motion sickness, and that's going to be a weird experience for the two groups fighting each other.

So I think my preference order for squaring that circle is:

1) Ensuring that the rest of Odyssey's improvements with more landable planet types, greater base variety etc. are still available to those of us stuck in ships wearing headsets.

2) If some elements truly require us to suit up and get outside, that they make that transition something that works as a diegetic helmet removal as the player suits up for EVA.

3) Just give those graphic improvements to everyone, including the VR people not buying Odyssey.
 
VR was built into this game. I'm a software developer, though not a game developer admittedly, but I don't think there is any issue in Odyssey with VR support with regards to sending the image to the VR HMD at the vantage point of the player character's head, including with head tracking, which is also already supported.

I think that FDev did not schedule development on movement mechanics and in-VR motion controller capture, and how it will be handled graphically and mechanically.
This is why I'd be willing to compromise in the interim, whilst at the same time expressing alongside the VR Elite community how important we think continued support for VR is.
What would be the point of motion controllers in Elite, what would it add? A gamepad will do just fine, the biggest challenge would be the UI.
 
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The below quote from Tim Smith (emphasis mine) talks about wanting to have VR support meet a particular standard of form and function before allowing VR play in the Odyssey expansion.

My understanding is that, technically, VR perspective capability in any part of the game world is already inherent, and is a matter of enabling and disabling.
It seems as if the motion and movement mechanics for FPS VR gameplay are a concern to FDev, who understandably want to release a high quality product, and haven't put the required work yet into that aspect.

My question is, would VR players accept an interim compromise of being able to control their player character during EVA gameplay, without any consideration given to optimisation for in-VR control and controller-motion capturing?

Personally, for the ability to continue to play currently existing game loops in VR mode with Odyssey, and for the VR functionality to continue, however crudely, into EVA play, would mean a launch date purchase from me, particularly if FDev committed to work on improving the VR experience within even an estimated one year time-frame.

How would the rest of the VR playing community feel about that?

They probably looked at the numbers of concurrent VR players of Elite and figured that the development wasnt worth the effort. The language they're using to describe the insurmountable technical hurdles is so vague though that I cant possibly believe any of it. They simply dont think it's worth their time. But they arent looking at the trends. VR has hit critical mass. What are they going to do when PS5 and xbox x series reveal their VR capabilities shortly after release?
 
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