VR support 'not at launch' for Odyssey

On the other hand they have definitely confirmed they are working on VR for EDO 🤷‍♀️ .


They haven’t actually. Read the quotes again:

Is Elite Dangerous: Odyssey coming to VR?

Currently, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey will not be VR-compatible at launch. We’re big fans of VR and we are truly proud of the amazing experience that we currently offer in Elite Dangerous. However, the new gameplay, mechanics and features that will be introduced with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey means that we had to re-examine if we could deliver that same experience without compromise, which, for launch, means Odyssey will not be VR-compatible.
Just to add to this, VR will still be compatible with the base game and Horizons!



I went through the Thursday stream, and there's a minor glimmer of hope there regarding post-launch support. I'd be wary of reading too much into it though. It was some quick phrasing from Stephen while dealing with an angry mob & streaming the game ;)


So again, I mean, this is just the beginning right now. We've explained the reason why it won't be there on launch. Obviously especially with VR it's a very difficult... you have to get it really right, because people can get motion sickness and everything else, and all this other stuff. So it may not be there on launch. And we hope that it doesn't upset anybody, we do apologise. [29m35s]

Full VR quotes from the stream here



UploadVR got this further info from FDev:

In a follow up email we confirmed that VR support is still an open possibility sometime after launch, “with no defined date,” according to the company.



Alec Turner: Zac Antonaci just PMed me on my VR question: "Can we fly ships under blue skies in VR? IE: Where's the cut off?"

Zac Antonaci: Hey Alec. Quick follow up to your question. For now it's too far out to confirm 100% where the split will be. We'll have more details closer to release. For now best to assume all Odyssey content is not VR compatible. But we can share more when we get close to the launch.


(Source)




Firstly, sorry for the late reply – it has been a busy week!

As I said, I will give you what news I have, be that good or bad, when I have it as I feel that is fair.

The short answer, I am afraid, is I have no other news that what was stated in the previous post: Odyssey will not support VR at launch.

However, I wanted to add some context to this in the hope this will provide some understanding of what that means.

Firstly, we have no intentions of removing VR, or support for it in Elite Dangerous.

With regards to the Odyssey statement, there are as you can imagine, a multitude of factors in play when looking at how the VR experience could transfer to the new mechanics and features being implemented for this expansion. Hence why it will not be supported at launch.

We are exploring many options of how this could work without compromising the quality of the VR experience.

If / when we can find a way of doing this, we will of course communicate that.

I understand the desire from the VR community and I am listening to you.

I will of course come back when I have more information on this.

-Arf



Grabbed some excerpts from the Thursday stream. Bruce said he was re-iterating the Arf re-iteration, and Stephen repeated his focus on nausea being a concern:

Bruce: "We are absolutely looking to get VR into Odyssey. It's just a question of whether or not we can deliver that to the high standard that you guys deserve." [24m45s+]

Stephen: "I've done a couple of VR things. Nobody wants to play VR if it isn't done right, coz I mean it's not just like 'oh this isn't going to play well', it's you'll probably throw up on your lap. We don't want the bill for that, for people throwing up everywhere and having to clean stuff up [jokez]. So it's very important when it comes to VR and the implementation of it that we do it right." [25m55s]


They’ve confirmed desire, and that they’re looking at options. They haven’t confirmed whether any current dev is being undertaken. (They’ve been asked about this, but have not responded to date).

---

There are two key strands here, which you are perceiving as either doom mongering or unwarranted concern, but which are in fact perfectly reasonable issues to raise:

  • EDO will not have VR support at launch. This is annoying to those who have enjoyed EDVR support to date, and who were looking forward to new content being added to that experience.

This is what FDev have said, and it's perfectly reasonable for VR-heads to be grumpy about it. Classifying this as unwarranted doom-mongering, or a mis-reading of FDev's statements, would be daft. Saying 'it's just an update' doesn't lessen the annoyance of this scenario.

  • EDO may never receive VR support.

You're welcome to cast this is as doom-mongering if you like, but there is some precedent for the concern. PS4VR received comparable 'want to do it / looking at options' response about post-launch addition, IE:

Will Elite Dangerous support PlayStation®VR?
Elite Dangerous is a flagship VR game on PC so of course, VR is important to us. It’s definitely something we’re looking into, but we have nothing to announce for launch.


But of course that never made it over the line into reality.

Given such a backdrop, it's understandable that VR heads are looking to keep the issue on the agenda and telegraph their desire for VR's addition. The fan communication there serves a purpose, all be it one of potentially limited impact.

---

You're not going to stop VR-heads being annoyed about the absence of VR support for major new content at launch. And you're not going to stop them canvassing for stronger assurances about future addition. I'm not sure why you're trying. Other than because you've misinterpreted both of these stances as being unreasonable. And because you're wrong about that ;)
 

Deleted member 121570

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But it's the FPS part that will be the problem, and the part they are clearly trying to allow us to pop OUT of VR for. Giving you .... what you want?

But rather than say Oh, they appear to be trying to give me what I want, you just say they are incompetent.

It's bizarre.

No - you misunderstand.
If they kick me outta my cockpit in VR, I'm annoyed. The FPS bit's irrelevant to me other than being the factor that's doing the kicking :D

What's truly bizarre is that you seem to keep misunderstanding that.
 
I have, that's why I know you're statement is wrong. Maybe you should read them?

Arthur Tolmie's statement:

from that:


and the context

and clarifies that they are looking at how it could work, NOT that they're actually working on VR for Odyssey.

You stating that they are working on VR for Odyssey is misrepresenting what FD have said.
There's an important nuance in their statements, the current position is still "not at launch" with nothing concrete beyond that.

Depends if you include planning in actively working on something. I'd say the planning stage is the single most important part of the process and definitely is involved. Get that bit wrong and nothing else will work at all, which is why it's billable time in a lot of professions.

You're not going to stop VR-heads being annoyed about the absence of VR support for major new content at launch. And you're not going to stop them canvassing for stronger assurances about future addition. I'm not sure why you're trying. Other than because you've misinterpreted both of these stances as being unreasonable. And because you're wrong about that ;)

It doesn't annoy me at all. While I find it funny that people combine dev abuse with demands that the devs communicate more I'm not actually bothered by the communication level that abusive approach has achieved. I understand FDEV's decision not to give specifics, under the circumstances it's perfectly reasonable people would lose it if they gave specifics, or didn't.

I'm a happy FDEV customer I don't need specifics to know I'll enjoy the new DLC.

How do you think you lot will react ?. I'm guessing you won't be happy at all no matter how it pans out.
 
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Deleted member 121570

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Depends if you include planning in actively working on something. I'd say the planning stage is the single most important part of the process and definitely is involved. Get that bit wrong and nothing else will work at all.

They haven't said they're planning to work on it either....just considering it. Bit late at this stage after the trailer, don't you think?
 
Depends if you include planning in actively working on something. I'd say the planning stage is the single most important part of the process and definitely is involved. Get that bit wrong and nothing else will work at all.
Now you're shifting the goalposts.

They have NOT said they're planning, they've said they're exploring options, very different thing.

Planning comes after when as a result of exploring options they've made the decision on what work they will be doing and then have to figure out how.
 
Now you're shifting the goalposts.

They have NOT said they're planning, they've said they're exploring options, very different thing.

Planning comes after when as a result of exploring options they've made the decision on what work they will be doing and then have to figure out how.

I'm not wasting time on a pedantic word definition argument. I'll happily accept that you are just wrong.
 
I'm not wasting time on a pedantic word definition argument. I'll happily accept that you are just wrong.
:) You were the one putting words in FDs mouth, they've not said they're planning nor that they're actively working on VR for Odyssey.
Sometimes the only way to conteract falsehood is to be pedantic.

What I've stated is factually correct and backed up by FD's current statements. Don't misrepresent them.
 
It doesn't annoy me at all. While I find it funny that people combine dev abuse with demands that the devs communicate more I'm not actually bothered by the communication level that abusive approach has achieved. I understand FDEV's decision not to give specifics, under the circumstances it's perfectly reasonable people would lose it if they gave specifics, or didn't.

I'm a happy FDEV customer I don't need specifics to know I'll enjoy the new DLC.

How do you think you lot will react ?. I'm guessing you won't be happy at all no matter how it pans out.


There's a lot of VR chat and dev outreach that's been perfectly civil, and so again you're being daft in bundling it together with the needlessly feisty stuff. (It's worth noting that the dev responses have come to these more civil outreaches).

You're own equanimity about the scenario, given it doesn't effect you, is also entirely irrelevant. I'm not sure why you think it's worth mentioning?

The point is that VR heads have perfectly legitimate grounds for making a noise. And that they'll continue to do so. Regardless of your bizarre attempts to cast all and any such campaigning as unwarranted disgruntlement.
 
:) You were the one putting words in FDs mouth, they've not said they're planning nor that they're actively working on VR for Odyssey.
Sometimes the only way to conteract falsehood is to be pedantic.

What I've stated is factually correct and backed up by FD's current statements. Don't misrepresent them.

See above.
 
There's a lot of VR chat and dev outreach that's been perfectly civil, and so again you're being daft in bundling it together with the needlessly feisty stuff. (It's worth noting that the dev responses have come to these more civil outreaches).

You're own equanimity about the scenario, given it doesn't effect you, is also entirely irrelevant. I'm not sure why you think it's worth mentioning?

The point is that VR heads have perfectly legitimate grounds for making a noise. And that they'll continue to do so. Regardless of your bizarre attempts to cast all and any such campaigning as unwarranted disgruntlement.

Entitlement is a large part of the toxicity mentioned in the article I posted, as is communicating in a counterproductive way.

Ok so we're more than happy to read the quote where they stated that they are developing VR for Odyssey.

You'd just claim it was a lie.
 
Entitlement is a large part of the toxicity mentioned in the article I posted, as is communicating in a counterproductive way.


Sure, but again, that doesn't mean that there can't be legitimate fan gripes or requests, and that they aren't being expressed here in reasonable ways.

If you're trying to cast any and all of the VR community's dev outreach as toxic and entitled then you're being absurdly excessive.

We can all quote dev articles about how best to communicate with devs. Here's a good one:

'Let's say the playerbase actually wanted to gain the ear of you/a gamedev to get something changed'

So for example, would you say my Suggestion thread is 'toxic, entitled and counter-productive'? Would you say it fits within the criteria the above dev presents for reasonable feedback?
 
Nonsense like that really doesn't help the discussion.
For PSVR they used exactly the same wording and in the end VR was never released for PS4.
Now we could argue that if VR will come in the next 5 years they actually told the truth but this also means that this feature was not so important as they said.
So in my opinion the lie is that they don't care so much as they claim and that VR will eventually come with the lowest priority.

There are other examples that confirm the lack of VR interest:
  • Beyond 3.3 had several VR visualization issues (one was even game breaking) that could've been spotted immediately by anyone the moment they put a VR headset on but FDEV couldn't find them and it actually required some noise to be fixed.
  • Few bugs present in the game since one year and still not fixed concerning the FSS orbit lines visualization and lack of key binds for the ship preview for the in-game store interface.
  • The FSS could've also been optimized for VR players (like a curved panel for example) with more spacing for proper descriptions instead of reusing the same flat panel.
  • They never cared to integrate motion controllers for a more immersive UI in the ships.
The final confirmation comes from David Braben's interviews where it's clear to me it's clear that VR is in ED because they were lucky enough to integrate it in a couple of days but it's also my understanding that if it was more complex it wouldn't be there probably.
 
No - you misunderstand.
If they kick me outta my cockpit in VR, I'm annoyed. The FPS bit's irrelevant to me other than being the factor that's doing the kicking :D

What's truly bizarre is that you seem to keep misunderstanding that.
Ah, my bad.

Believe me, my misunderstanding things is the norm!
 
Sure, but again, that doesn't mean that there can't be legitimate fan gripes or requests, and that they aren't being expressed here in reasonable ways.

If you're trying to cast any and all of the VR community's dev outreach as toxic and entitled then you're being absurdly excessive.

We can all quote dev articles about how best to communicate with devs. Here's a good one:

'Let's say the playerbase actually wanted to gain the ear of you/a gamedev to get something changed'

So for example, would you say my Suggestion thread is 'toxic, entitled and counter-productive'? Would you say it fits within the criteria the above dev presents for reasonable feedback?

It's not always about you. The entitled toxicity is whats killed dev communications for all of us right across the board, not just the 0.1%ers who are genuinely toxic.

Interesting link, you can see where most people are going wrong.

The only thing it doesn't cover is something that's really common in the ED forum where any positive thread written the way he advises gets immediately sunk under a deluge of salt. Remember how hotel California used to leak into everything ?. Lots of good ideas washed away with the tears there.
 
The piece I don't understand is the removal of VR from the flying piece of EDO. It's already in the game, it would have already been in the code base they started with, so they consumed development time to strip it out. Leaving it in would have avoided that cost, maybe there might be costs in making it work and providing the transition either when leaving the ship or your seat, depending on where made sense. The only reason I could see for stripping it out would be if there is ship boarding.
 
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