Fair enough, I'm happy to be wrong on that. It was a cheap shot and I apologise for it.
What Odyssey could and should have been like...
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Fair enough, I'm happy to be wrong on that. It was a cheap shot and I apologise for it.
Fair enough, I'm happy to be wrong on that. It was a cheap shot and I apologise for it.
Apology accepted.
I am quite happy to discuss the subject, it may get heated at times but as long as we are dealing with the subject it's good.
True of course, it just appeared on the right list and I replied without looking at the forum title when I opened it, my bad.
Interesting discussion...even though I haven't worked out what it's about yet
Well, it started with someone saying that they thought SC's locomotion was better than E: D's, then the E: D white knights appeared and people started arguing about that, because apparently it matters if one game is good and another is bad. White knights don't like it when their religion of choice has inherent flaws pointed out to them. Blame 2021 for that I guess?
Then the white knights began inventing a wishful roadmap for E: D that had no basis in reality (and didn't like it when that was pointed out to them), and then some people got offended & apologies were issued. Some people may have been blocked, it's hard to say. Nobody cares either way.
Think that covers it? Usual forum fare tbh, though it normally belongs on the Elite forums. No idea why it's here.
I was going to add something to the discussion...but I really have no idea where to startWell, it started with someone saying that they thought SC's locomotion was better than E: D's, then the E: D white knights appeared and people started arguing about that, because apparently it matters if one game is good and another is bad. White knights don't like it when their religion of choice has inherent flaws pointed out to them. Blame 2021 for that I guess?
Then the white knights began inventing a wishful roadmap for E: D that had no basis in reality (and didn't like it when that was pointed out to them), and then some people got offended & apologies were issued. Some people may have been blocked, it's hard to say. Nobody cares either way.
Think that covers it? Usual forum fare tbh, though it normally belongs on the Elite forums. No idea why it's here.
...Back to hiding in the usual off topic section it is then
Odyssey was already a buggy mess - no need to pile an overpriced non-working game prototype on top of it.
NoVR - What_The_X_F_Dev
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I'm delighted to see this thread still has momentum, it shows it's doing exacty what I hoped it would - provoking thought and discussion
99% of the heavy lifting for VR is already in game in Odyssey, the original Elite VR implementaiton was one guy one day according to David Braben, if you don't believe me I can provide video clips for you? So it's not unreasonable to conclude that Odyssey VR, albeit sans hand controllers, would be a smaller undertaking than most monitor players believe it would be. Sure, there will be gotchas, like the hud might need more or less curviture and scalled up or down to be legible in a headset's FOV, but given the company expect us to play the game as seen on standard monitors only this time rendered on a virtual flat screen filling a fraction of the headset's field of vision and therefore it's resolution, in a grey bubbble that is a ood few nix brighter than most settlements.... even a roughshod "VR cam on the avatars shoulders" implementation will be better than what has deliberately disparagingly colloquoally become known as "the grey burqah".I’m not FDev and I’m certainly not a programmer, but I can guess getting on-foot VR to work is not just a simple case of slapping the UI on the vanity cam and voilà!
Actually, they were a firm kick starter pledge, half a decade ago, and have been down played with the company's recent statements on the topic, with CM's towing the line that "you don't really want us to do ship interiors as walking in ships would be boring"
But the difference was that Sandro said numerous times that they wanted to do legs, he, nor any other company representative ever said "legs" would be detrimental to the game, and voila, we've got legs, or atleast femorus bone parts of legs.
A FORUM is by definition a place for discussion or debate, a healthy discussion inherently involves the interaction of opposing viewpoints in an amiccable manner, viewpoints cast agendas as their shaddows, it takes true enlightenment to realise that many shaddows are cast by a common light source, and the topic of VR in Elite is one such example. Someone recently told me they would rather see Frontier make new paintjobs rather than devote any development resources to making paintjobs than improving VR, then most saliently, a few days later, Sally-Morgan-Moore chimed in to a thread about the cyber monday sale stating that the creation of these paint jobs weren't detracting from the efforts to fix the game as a whole. It is my interpreatation that this chain of events proves we can have our cake and eat it, we can get new paint jobs and work on other aspects of the game, and paring a small subsection of the team off fora small period of time can give us the VR implementaiton we are asking for and keep us in the game and thus keep the community whole. Sure, it might stick a couple of weeks or months onto the delivery of a "completed" Odyssey, but we'd emerge from that epic journey as a united, larger, cohesive community...
True, but harsh. The galaxy was and is an undertaking par excellence, kudos to Dr. Ross for their work on this. However, it has remained stagnant, and is as you say unchangeable, like despite my best efforts in BGS, the most impact I could have on an entire system was changing the accent of the ir/space traffic controller, and maybe the colour of the lights of a coriolis starports latticework. I couldn't damage it, destroy it, move it, or upgrade it, and that's only one hunk of metal, picture how inept my efforts to change a planet were, we can't even permanantly take out a gunnery emplacement on a surface starport, they respawn.
The galaxy model is excellent, it even had systems in places we later found real star ystems wiht some of the first and most important exoplanets in. But yeah, it's big and empty, perhaps we should aliken the galaxy which is the foundation to Elite as like building the first exa-byte sized jukebox, but with all due respect if noone loads it with tunes, despite all it's exa-byte majesty, looping the few ringtones / operating system sample music tracks isn't going to provide much atmosphere to the party when the players / revellers arrive.If 400bn completely empty & practically identical systems to fly to satisfies "ambition" in your book, then fair enough. Not for me to tell you otherwise.
Sure SC is one system, so is the expanse, or it was for four seasons, but that's action packed, like absolutely utterly compelling kind of entertainment. Meanwhilst star trek TNG has a whole fricking galaxy, and all the TV series episodes follow a "syntax"
- Shiny people in impeccably pressed mostly black uniforms on a bridge looking poignant and stoic#
- Cue quasi scientific anomalous events/characters
- Crew and ship look in jeapordy, maybe some casualties of minor characters
- Cue some brainstorming in quasi-scientific technobabble
- Deliver an implemetation of this together think in an almost didn't make it dramatac climax
- Brush off the uniforms over a poignant zygote soundbite
- Cue credits
- Rinse Repeat
Easy tiger, while I hear and feal you, let's be reasonable. Elite's got the bigger gaffe, but there's nowt to do in it, see my SC-Expanse Vs. TNG-Elite analogy above.It's procedurally generated... using equations inside a computer. Really, it's all smoke and mirrors... and once you realise it's just maths and you can't actually impact it (no base building, no player-owned stations, you can't even alter the terrain on a planet), it loses its shine very quickly as a game backdrop.
I mean, you literally can't do any of these things... the system just isn't designed so you will ever be able to. It's fixed & static, forever.
Sorry, but in 2014 that might have been 'wow'. But in 2021, it's a bit crap.
Funfact is that at some point Frontier are going to have to call it "done" on Odyssey and move their team on to their other multibillion-dollar-IP commissions for Games Workshop titles, and realistically that's going to represent another couple of years, if not a half decade of content void. Whereas the much vilified $cam Artist "Chris Robbers" and his "band of thieves" will be plugging away at SC constantly.Sure, why not. Not that I'm making much of a thing about SC either, only that they are at least trying to make a game world that is rich, varied, and the player has engagement in.
Amen Expanse > TNG...
And more importantly,they won't stop because there's a burgeoning orderbook of franchise titles approaching deliverable dates.
If you as Elon Musk, EVERYTHING WE OBSERVE is just a numerical simulation.
True, but thier original premise was player group "squadron" cap ships, not the jumpable quicky-mart they became. The fact that shipyard and outfitting facilities are addons whereas the shopkeeper parts are core says it all.
IT's one system with a jazillion things to do rather than 400 billion systems with a couple of handfuls of things to do, repeatedly because grind sells paintjobs.
I wonder did they genuinely not appreicate how hard a task it was going to be to build a whole mandelorian galaxy, or did they just "do a NASA" and deliberately pitch low because it's easier to ask for ten billion in chunks rather than it is to get a billion in one hit? There's also scope creep on SC, they hear the communities great ideas and enthusiastically adopt them, diverting resources from the original plans allocaiton. Meanwhilst, over here, we get the opposite, we were promised a full on galaxy, and it's "shrunk in the wash" with deliberate "downwards management of player expectations" - cue Arf and the CM team starting to try to indoctrinate us into thinkign that "it will be boring walking inside ships" during streams in the period since EDO's Alpha started.
Have a look at some of the tech demos for some of the headline off the shelf engines, particularly unreal, what they can do there is simply unreal - bah doom doom tssh! - Seriously though, I seen a video where the guy making the map decided to smash a meteorite into the ground in the level creation mode and it created a crater with believable strata and ejecta.
I can't speak for Juniper, but I'm guessing we are both for similar reasons, a mixture of emotional attachment, and belief in the potential of this game, and our vociferousness arises from our mounting frustration at how that potential is being mismanaged into unfocussed mediocrity.
White knights, would inherently be opposed to the Black Knights? I'm neither, somewhat agnosti, would that make me a Grey Knight? Let's call me a grey beard as I've been involved in both these games for half a decade now and being pragmatic I think these two games could and should learn a lot from each other. I see the merit in drawing comparisons between tham as more like how F1 teams are "inspired to emulate" the faster cars design, than an outright holywar wherewinner takes all and the loser must fall.
That was either a bit gullable or disengenuous, taking a kick starter pledge that's recently been trash talked by the team's official mouth pieces and citing it as a cardinal fact to use against Vr, which was similarly "a core part of the game's DNA" since original alpha in December 2013, that is now being deprecated...
It started on the Dangerous Discussion's section of the Elite Dangerous forum and got moderated here - beyond caring about alot of the shennanigans in here now, so if the thread languishes, so be it, but if we get some robust and thought provoking discussion from it, genuinely all the better. o/Think that covers it? Usual forum fare tbh, though it normally belongs on the Elite forums. No idea why it's here.
You don’t need to provide clips - if I remember, David Braben said Greg took a couple of days to get a basic implementation into Elite, less time than it would’ve taken to make a business case for putting Elite into VR. I very much doubt that was the sum total of VR work on the original game though
As I’ve said in another thread, sometimes the last 20% of a job can take 80% of the time. I think making guesstimates on Odyssey VR programming difficulty without knowing anything about the Cobra engine or, well, programming, would be an unreasonable conclusion on my behalf.As per the Arthur quote I provided, I think it’s unlikely we’re getting any roughshod solutions, and any additions to what we’ve already got will be looked at after optimisation work - and (I suspect) after console release. The virtual surround colour has been discussed at a CM’s meeting so perhaps that might be up for alteration, and there have been CM posts about VR bug fixes going forward, so we’re not being totally neglected
You don’t need to provide clips - if I remember, David Braben said Greg took a couple of days to get a basic implementation into Elite, less time than it would’ve taken to make a business case for putting Elite into VR. I very much doubt that was the sum total of VR work on the original game though
I've been a developer for more years than I can remember (30+). I've also dabbled in VR a bit, as a user & as a developer, so take this for whatever it's worth.
Adding VR into an already 3D game is not difficult. The problem is that they're having trouble getting a stable 60fps on even high end systems rendering once. VR requires rendering twice per frame (one for each eye), and that puts a massive additional strain on the engine. It would be a vomit fest all round.
The other problem (and the main reason they're not doing it IMO) is that once in, it will need to be supported. The support costs of adding it far outweigh the cost of actually developing a VR render pipeline (which is fairly trivial). They're chasing their tails as it is, adding VR into the mix would be crazy at this point. Frontier have done some questionable and arguably stupid things in the last few years, but crazy they are not.
Maybe once they get Odyssey into a usable state they can revisit it, but I do understand why it's not a priority right now.
Performance-wise, I can quite happily run Odyssey on-foot sections in full VR with the camera suite - with the odd exceptions when the framerate can suddenly drop like a sack of wet cement for seemingly no reason, though that happens in flatscreen as well.
I’m using an RTX 3070ti, but earlier in Odyssey’s life I was running a GTX 1080 and could manage acceptable frames - as long as I dropped the settings right down
Thankfully I can now run mostly High/Ultra with the FSR thing and it’s not too different from Horizons’ looks and my Quest 2 retains its FPS.Like you say though, it’s a cost versus users problem - looking at what Devs of other games have said, some VR users tend to grossly overestimate what financial gain they will bring while grossly underestimating how much work will be required - and being very vocal while doing so
I’m looking forward to what the next Update brings with regards to performance, but going into the future I can only see bug fixes and perhaps a few QoL changes to the virtual flatscreen. I can’t see any harm in asking for interim solutions (as long as it’s in a non-toxic way) but to be honest I think it’s wasted effort on our part - I think we’d be better off asking once the console releases are out of the door.
Performance-wise, I can quite happily run Odyssey on-foot sections in full VR with the camera suite - with the odd exceptions when the framerate can suddenly drop like a sack of wet cement for seemingly no reason, though that happens in flatscreen as well.
I’m using an RTX 3070ti, but earlier in Odyssey’s life I was running a GTX 1080 and could manage acceptable frames - as long as I dropped the settings right down
Quest 2 has a bunch of optimisations (such as rendering every other frame and using AI to interpret) which aren't available on other headsets. I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure it's a "fair" test for VR as a whole.
Like you say though, it’s a cost versus users problem - looking at what Devs of other games have said, some VR users tend to grossly overestimate what financial gain they will bring while grossly underestimating how much work will be required - and being very vocal while doing so
I’m looking forward to what the next Update brings with regards to performance, but going into the future I can only see bug fixes and perhaps a few QoL changes to the virtual flatscreen. I can’t see any harm in asking for interim solutions (as long as it’s in a non-toxic way) but to be honest I think it’s wasted effort on our part - I think we’d be better off asking once the console releases are out of the door.
VR is exploding as a market, and that's largely down to the Quest 2. Loads of people I know have bought a Q2 for Christmas in the Black Friday sales, just as a purely anecdotal example.
They're pushing it hard, and the low cost entry point & some decent dedicated games being released for it means that it's an exponentially growing market. I've no doubt that Frontier will want to get in on that, but right now they probably have bigger fish to fry (optimisations, and then console release), so are probably thinking of any VR discussion right now as unwanted noise.
I agree - start banging your fist on the desk after the console release (assuming it happens). No point before IMO.
In my book EDO should have focussed on just legs. Not FPS gameplay. Legs and adding depth to the existing game where it is sorely sorely needed. Finish those unrealised proof of concepts the game is rife with.
Had they held fire on the FPS gameplay they could have put that effort into ship interiors and frankly more places to get out. It would easily have been possible to have all the places we have now but without the shooting.
Why no FPS? Because ED's strength has always been the flying! Legs should have been the novelty that adds depth to being a pilot. NOT an alternative career path.
And that's why comparisons with SC are so apt, FDev chose to enter the the arena.
Had they held fire on the FPS gameplay they could have put that effort into ship interiors and frankly more places to get out. It would easily have been possible to have all the places we have now but without the shooting.
Why no FPS? Because ED's strength has always been the flying! Legs should have been the novelty that adds depth to being a pilot. NOT an alternative career path.
And that's why comparisons with SC are so apt, FDev chose to enter the the arena.
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Seems a shame that most space games focus on pew, pew. Exploration seems to take second place, when in fact it should be front and centre.
The issue is that there are still some major items to tick off the list and to reference something you posted later that I didn't quote, I don't think when it comes to the items on this list, like atmospheric worlds, gas giants etc.. that we can have our cake and eat it too. And I'm speaking as one who has VR and wants to see it implemented, so I'm on your side of this one. And while I agree that a lot of the code is already implemented already I still think it's a down the road thing. Let's wait till Odyssey is where it needs to be first, and on console, along with some of the stuff that was planned that is to come. That's not to say that anyone should be quiet about this or that request in the meantime either.
At the end of the day development costs money and what I would say is that if FDev had Star Citizen money Elite would be quite a lot further along than SC...
I don't have time to back up sources so it's a trust me bro statement from me that I've heard similar downplaying of legs in the past from FDev and I appreciate you confirming that ship interiors were a bona fide kickstarter pledge so again, one should take what they will from it - Kickstarter pledges have more weight than some off hand comment from a dev livestream during a phase of the game where the devs were literally being bombarded by dissatisfied players, rightly or wrongly to greater or lesser degrees. To me, FDevs communication is pretty much the same scenario as legs, atmospheric worlds etc.. I'm confident that ship interiors will be a part of the game, no-one else has to share that confidence but then it seems to me that a lot of those who were saying that legs were never coming sounded the same to my ears too and here we are.
I'm not sure what I said prompted that apart from the fact that there are those whose heels are firmly dug in and won't budge even being given a bigger picture and your definition applies as much to what I said as anyone else. Though I will choose to disengage and mention why if it's obvious that I'm in a discussion with someone who not engaging honestly.
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Mmm. nods
Slightly hopeful for Starfield, as the latest info on that is that exploration is a huge part of the game.
Who knows, but the galaxy was built in 2014. They've steadfastly refused to add much to it since. Can you impact this galaxy in any way?
If 400bn completely empty & practically identical systems to fly to satisfies "ambition" in your book, then fair enough. Not for me to tell you otherwise.
Personally, I like to have more to do in a system, since you're only in one at a time. In that respect, in terms of adding gameplay, content, varied & fun mechanics etc, E: D falls massively short. Walking down corridors of your own ship (maybe even doing stuff on the way) would be a start.
"They've added nothing"
....
"Walking down a corridor would be a start"
I never said that. Please don't mis-quote me, it makes the rest of your "point" moot.
I never said that. Please don't mis-quote me, it makes the rest of your "point" moot.
It was the jist of your comments.
If you don't like what they've added then that's great, your choice. But as a statement of fact it's entirely incorrect. They've added lots to the game. There's plenty of things to critique without overcooking the goose.
However I would agree about impacting the galaxy, especially in the bubble, I made a similar post a couple of days ago, here.
But you cannot impact the galaxy in any way. That was the "jist of my comments", so if you're going to misquote me & put words in my mouth that I didn't say nor imply, at least try and understand what I'm saying to begin with.
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