That was the same in my house
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VR support 'not at launch' for Odyssey
- Thread starter Lordxenu
- Start date
That was the same in my house
Maybe there's an evil despot somewhere, like a .... a ... Pancake Blofled and he wants to rid the world of the oppressed VR players.
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Last ED update out today that supports VR. What a shame.
VR is a thing in 2020 even more so than it was in 2013 when it was first introduced in ED.
It just strikes me as odd that, the moment the HMD's are "getting there" after all this time - FDEV decides to pull (maybe the biggest AAA VR title) off the grid.
And yes, I know call of duty style games make money... but still...
VR is a thing in 2020 even more so than it was in 2013 when it was first introduced in ED.
It just strikes me as odd that, the moment the HMD's are "getting there" after all this time - FDEV decides to pull (maybe the biggest AAA VR title) off the grid.
And yes, I know call of duty style games make money... but still...
I didn't think Godwin's Law would strike so soon...
![[VR]m335](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/156/156512.jpg?1592093295){kind=avatar}
There are a lot of finer points here, but let's just take that somewhat reasonable total estimate at face value. How many millions has FDev made from ED? Like 20? If the project has been well managed, they should be able to spare one developer's time to keep at least barely adequate VR headlook support.
I also do not think VR headlook imposes some special risk that newbies will get nausea. Motion sickness has been par for the course, from the earliest films, to desktop games, to VR. Newbies can start with less expensive headsets, and return to desktop play as needed. Experienced VR users like me will have no problems with an implementation that works.
Balance is also not an excuse. Onward and PavlovVR both limit rate of motion for VR roomscale users, to ensure maneuvers like ducking, jumping, and racing around corners, are fair between players with different setups. In fact, I think they go too far balancing this, since it is usually not practical to duck back behind cover to reload.
Technically, 'spray and pray' from behind cover might be something VR users can do, but even at close range, this is a very bad strategy in practice. Actual point shooting, where one is not using the sights, but relying on the 'feel' of where one is pointing, may also be something desktop users can't do. But then they don't have to, because their sights are stabilized.
Most of the effort designing a game is not about the VR support. All of this is stuff we are discussing is mostly done with standard software packages, and even from scratch, is of vastly lesser expense than developing ED as a whole.
Most VR games were developed solely for VR. Not desktop applications with the equivalent of VorpX and good TrackIR emulation tacked on from the inside. FDev could at least keep that working.
Fixed it for you, wouldn't want yo to be getting all upset.
I'm sure they can. But as mentioned, that would be way below the current standards expected for FPS / RPGs etc in the VR world. Legs are clearly the headline feature of Odyssey. It would look pretty sub-standard. It would get crappy reviews. Understandably.
Yeah, you don't get that game companies don't want to make noobs feel off. And yet look at all the titles that go to the trouble to minimise that effect. By having a range of options, and no/low nausea locomotions like controller-relative / HMD-relative etc. 'Vets don't get nausea from this' is not an argument that has much power here. Just look at the reality of the releases that are out there + have made money.
I'm talking about balance between VR and flatscreen as a design challenge. The above examples aren't hugely relevant.
It's in the hypothetical range, but as mentioned before, we're not talking about conventional weapons here, so some novel zero-recoil plasma launcher could theoretically hit OP territory here. If you prefer a different hypothetical, how about the ability to toss grenades around cover without leaving that cover. A potentially OP scenario for the VR side.
Again, they may decide not to care (and in many cases K/M is liable to be OP vs VR etc). But flatscreen + VR multiplayer PvP is pretty much untrodden ground, so R&D is inevitable. That's the point.
Which = dev time. Which = cost.
Comparatively no, sure. But once again, most of the cash will not be coming from the VR side. That relatively small dev effort may make relatively even less money.
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Honestly man, the whole 'it’s easy / just do a basic (non noob friendly) job' angle is wishful thinking.
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For a new product, not supporting VR to ensure better review statistics, avoid newbie VR nausea, etc, might be a sane business decision (much as I hate that). But this is a very different situation.
Elite Dangerous is an already controversial product in decline, which will lose to loss of interest and competing products (possibly SC) eventually. Elite Dangerous also gave a reasonable expectation of a decent VR space sim from the start. To back out of VR now, completely, won't help anything, only result in a loss of something like 10%-20% (a reasonable guess) of the customer base. Many of whom have multiple paid accounts, paint jobs, etc. Many more were reasonably expecting FDev could not possibly have done as badly as they already have.
At this point, Elite Dangerous is maybe the single most notable vaporware example in the entire gaming industry. FDev is going beyond any reasonable doubt of that with this.
As for the balance point, being able to toss grenades around, two things are basically true of such scenarios. First, they are only relevant in close quarters. Second, in such close quarters, both VR and non-VR users use wall bounce to keep the element of surprise. To balance this with some kind of 'plasma launcher' could be done very simply in two ways - add wall bounce or make the player's avatar follow the plasma launcher position. Both have been done in VR and otherwise.
Bottom line, again, is not whether FDev is doing something that might be rational in another situation, but that they are acting irrationally in the current situation. FDev is clearly bringing the practices of disinterested management, customer neglect, and vaporware, to new lows, even for the gaming industry.
Elite Dangerous is an already controversial product in decline, which will lose to loss of interest and competing products (possibly SC) eventually. Elite Dangerous also gave a reasonable expectation of a decent VR space sim from the start. To back out of VR now, completely, won't help anything, only result in a loss of something like 10%-20% (a reasonable guess) of the customer base. Many of whom have multiple paid accounts, paint jobs, etc. Many more were reasonably expecting FDev could not possibly have done as badly as they already have.
At this point, Elite Dangerous is maybe the single most notable vaporware example in the entire gaming industry. FDev is going beyond any reasonable doubt of that with this.
As for the balance point, being able to toss grenades around, two things are basically true of such scenarios. First, they are only relevant in close quarters. Second, in such close quarters, both VR and non-VR users use wall bounce to keep the element of surprise. To balance this with some kind of 'plasma launcher' could be done very simply in two ways - add wall bounce or make the player's avatar follow the plasma launcher position. Both have been done in VR and otherwise.
Bottom line, again, is not whether FDev is doing something that might be rational in another situation, but that they are acting irrationally in the current situation. FDev is clearly bringing the practices of disinterested management, customer neglect, and vaporware, to new lows, even for the gaming industry.
These are exactly the areas that Odyssey addresses though, presuming it has a reasonable launch in the broader market.
Purely from a business perspective, the issues are that:
A) They can make up for any losses from VR regulars via broadening the base of the game. (FPS / RPG titles sell a lot more than flight sims. They're broadening the genre of the game significantly)
B) They could still regain some of those VR players (and gain new ones) with decent post-launch VR support
C) Retaining those VR players + their VR reputation now, if it comes at a financial loss or low financial return (or takes resources off the core title, lessening its chance of success), isn't enough of an incentive, given the above. It takes a massive incentive for a company to do something at a loss or merely to break even (or to do something that lessens the potential sales success of their big money spinner).
This is the single most absurdly overwrought sentence I've read in ages
You're not really contesting the point that it could need testing & dev work though, some of which for VR alone, some of which potentially VR impacting core design. Nor that this is just one example of many where those factors could impinge.
Bolding and repeating this stuff doesn't make it any truer. It's still a deeply hyperbolic take.
Look, you're deeply annoyed by the threat of VR getting dropped. I'm deeply annoyed too. But unless you recognise the liable causes you're forever going to be tilting at windmills, and never likely to identify possible solutions to the issue.
But if you just want to fight 'irrationality with irrationality' keep tilting friendo
Making money is fine, the cost of developers, ok, they're expensive, making VR for the minority maybe doesn't make financial sense but it does make artistic sense.
Fdev have made lots of money as many have noted since they took others money to kickstart their company back into life and the mainstream; so they could put more of that money back into the development pot and they'd still have piles of money.
If they don't make the VR they are murdering art (art is the base DNA of gaming), so Fdev, please don't murder art, please reconsider VR in Odyssey (after launch for a little extra payola even, we're happy to pay for our niche hobby).
Kthxbi!
Fdev have made lots of money as many have noted since they took others money to kickstart their company back into life and the mainstream; so they could put more of that money back into the development pot and they'd still have piles of money.
If they don't make the VR they are murdering art (art is the base DNA of gaming), so Fdev, please don't murder art, please reconsider VR in Odyssey (after launch for a little extra payola even, we're happy to pay for our niche hobby).
Kthxbi!
It doesn't need to compete with a dedicated FPS VR experience. The reason why is that it needs to seamlessly work with the seated experience which is likely to still be the main part of the game.
If VR is to come to Odyssey, I fully expect it to be a fully seated experience. It's the only way it could logically work.
I haven't posted before, but I'll have to add my 2 credits as I rarely feel this strongly about a game. Game development is hard, schedules are tight and I am completely fine with delaying VR support (partially or fully), but I'd really like to hear a confirmation that Frontier actually intends to keep VR and the "at launch" actually means that, as corporate press release language is always best served with a truckload of salt. Losing VR would sadly mean that ED is dead to me. There are other space sims, but the incredible immersion and the perfect combination of realistic sim elements and sci-fi gaming keep me coming back.
I was going to ask the opposite - is there confirmation that VR will never happen for EO? Yes, I'm aware of FDev's reputation. But, as far as I'm aware, all we have is a press release with some marketing speak and a prttey video. There's an jungle of speculation and a desert of facts. I'm waiting until I have more facts.
It seems pretty clear that Odyssey itself is a 'Legs' focused DLC. (3 out of 4 of the feature sections flagged in the initial PR appear to relate to character actions primarily etc)
This is the product they're bringing to market:
Taken as a product in its own right, it absolutely is placing itself up against the FPS / RPG genre, and consumer expectations (and dev norms / requirements) will sit in those areas for those feature additions.
Of course it does need to integrate with the main current game. And seated play is very much one no-brainer solution on the table. It's far from the only solution though, and successful AA+ VR games have shown a tendency to embrace multiple solutions to locomotion etc, to allow users to find their best fit.
NMS went the extra step of introducing a virtual cockpit to allow full motion controller play (and perpetual standing play if wanted, despite the UI oddities), and this is still one of the possibilities out there for a full fat VR Odyssey take. At a minimum, allowing for both seated and standing play, at the user's preference, is also a possibility. (Many users currently transition between controller types for ship / SRV transitions etc. Transition between controller types & sitting/standing is a possible, if clunky, option.)
(Frankly I think there's a possibility out there that they may facilitate new players spending the majority of their time as walking characters rather than pilots. 'Full spectrum' combat games, such as the ones they reference with the last item on the feature list often encourage specialisation, and the flight simplifications added at the start of 2019 point to a possible 'taxi to your Legs gameplay if desired' strand, if pursued further. The focus on 'character content' is also suggestive of it aiming to be weighty enough to provide prolonged gameplay. But time will tell on those fronts.)
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What we have are vague non-commitments, for sure, not a statement that it will never happen. But given the precedent of PSVR having similar vague aspirations, and never arriving, (and given Odyssey in VR represents a reasonably large technical challenge to do well) it doesn't seem unreasonable to raise an eyebrow
But its not a product in its own right. It's an expansion for Elite Dangerous and therefore any VR need to seamlessly work with that or do you think when we launch Odyssey, we can't use our ships or SRV and will have to log out and enter in horizons or the base game?
True, but it's the 'big refresh' for the franchise, which will most likely be marketed at AAA prices, as with Horizons. The marketing push will doubtless highlight the new features as the new point of interest.
Nope, where did I suggest that M?
I'm just saying the new features will need VR functionality that supports them. (And that those aspects will be held up against competitors in that genre).