I had the understanding that the 2D screen is an intermediate solution as there was believed to be no satisfying VR experience for on foot missions been found at that time.
I fully understand that putting resources in releasing Odyssey was given priority. Completely dropping any further VR development is straight out misleading.
This game was originally advertised for VR and therefore a major feature and selling point. It is why people bought and played the game.
Having full support for VR at the launch would be a great thing, but understandably there are issues which are addressed at a later point in time. But dropping it is a completely other product.
@David Braben has mentioned that they heard the community clearly. I hope he heard as well that VR is something which should not be dropped!
Maybe to add a more detailed stance on things, as I figured that I was talking of "VR being dropped", which is not completely true in the sense it is still there:
I almost always use VR. I need to admit that the 2D screen projection thing is not as bad as I imagined initially as the virtual screen appears quite large and - while 2D - it is still kind of immersive to some extent. (I'm still irritated by the camera not being placed correctly at eye-height. You appear smaller than anyone else)
If you'd want to compare, you could turn on the vanity cam which still is a 3D projection and yes, this would be the way I'd like to see a VR game. Maybe it is - like someone said before - the performance which prevents from VR being enabled as technically many things are present already. But it should have held the release at all then, as driving with the SRV through a settlement in VR is no different from a performance perspective.
Having to decide beforehands to use VR or not based on what to do feels like deciding what game to play. This is a somewhat disconnected experience and FDev in this way would have been better off in many aspects effort and performance wise to make a separate shooter game re-using the same universe.
Having taken care in the past to deliver a good VR experience I understand that it is not only a technical question on how to best support VR in combined seated and on-foot experience people getting sick and I also completely am d'accord with focusing on other topics first until this has been sufficiently elaborated. From the announcements I had the initial impression that the 2D projection was kind of an intermediate solution and continued effort would be spent in VR. Latest things I heard was that this would not happen which I find it
a bit disappointing. It'd be the last meters to go in that way of a marathon, why stop?
Well, FDev has the numbers, and they need to make money in the end, so it's an effort vs. gain thing. It has nothing to do with greed, FDev is a company and their obligation towards investors and employees is growth and financial wealth. VR players are for sure many, but a minority. VR usage has been increasing but maybe not to the extent they predicted and expected a few years ago and in hindsight they rather wouldn't have included VR support at all.
David Braben has said recently that they heard the community clearly. Let's see what they heard, tbh. I couldn't tell besides that what they released was not ready to be released. But that's something the stock prices told them, not the community. I could not remember anyone in the community say to not further develop VR or saying that the support so far was crap and should be removed. VR was strongly advertised as game feature and while VR has not been removed and remains in the state it has always been, the original statement has become simply untrue (and the statement has been removed from the website some time ago to be fair). I'd consider it a game feature which extent has been changed to the worse by the means of it - due the lack of continued support - falling behind the overall game being further growing and thus feeling crippled, eventually aging away.
Maybe one could compare it with if they'd decided to change flight mechanics completely and removed flight assist off towards a much more simpler ship control so that new players have a lower learning curve. I'd believe that here also many players would have the feeling that the game has changed in a way so they think that this is not anymore the same they bought initially.
So, finally. I do not find the 2D projection not too bad but find it disconnected and disappointing that apparently no more effort is spent on how to further improve it while my personal impression and wish would be exactly that, as I think it would be the well spent extra meters to make the experience great.
And last but not least, I find many aspects of Odyssey great, engaging and fun. There's great potential for many other things too!