David Braben interviewed by EDGE

I have similar reservations about VR headsets as David.

I could be wrong but there seem to be obvious issues with it. I wouldn't mind sticking my head in one and being removed from the world, most PC gaming is played alone anyway.

The main issue I see with it, apart from resolving the latency issue inherent in VR headsets, is the fatigue factor of wearing and using one: Bad neck, nausea, and headaches. How long are we comfortably going to be able to use it?
 
Also, I'm not sure I agree the professionalization of the gaming industry has been entirely positive. The gaming industry has stagnated in recent years with endless clones and sequels. Back in the day, so to speak , there was much more innovation and originality.
 
The main issue I see with it, apart from resolving the latency issue inherent in VR headsets, is the fatigue factor of wearing and using one: Bad neck, nausea, and headaches. How long are we comfortably going to be able to use it?

Yeah, the issues with it are primarily physiological (and to be fair I don't think neck issues will be significant, it's very light). David's views on isolation are rather narrow-minded and only really relevant if you're looking at a specific type of gaming (such as console gaming, where a bunch of people often sit on a sofa and play various multiplayer games).
 
Yeah, the issues with it are primarily physiological (and to be fair I don't think neck issues will be significant, it's very light). David's views on isolation are rather narrow-minded and only really relevant if you're looking at a specific type of gaming (such as console gaming, where a bunch of people often sit on a sofa and play various multiplayer games).
Don't dis' the Braben. Sacred Rock is watching you and your words will be reported to Disco Horse.
 
in my case VR is meaningless. I have a defective eye since birth and even with corrective surgery applied some years ago, I never developed stereoscopical vision as a kid. OR would give me nothing but headaches so honestly, can't care the less about it.

as for the rest I pretty much agree on his opinions on almost everything he spoke about. Nice read indeed.
 
Also, I'm not sure I agree the professionalization of the gaming industry has been entirely positive. The gaming industry has stagnated in recent years with endless clones and sequels. Back in the day, so to speak , there was much more innovation and originality.

I'm not so sure. There were lots of **** clones back in the day. These days we just tend to remember the highlights.

Right now with the indie scene I think we have the best of both worlds. Just 2 years ago was pretty grim, mind, and there are still vestiges of stagnation abound with samey shooters and constant sequels. Next year, on the other hand, will be bloody awesome :D
 
in my case VR is meaningless. I have a defective eye since birth and even with corrective surgery applied some years ago, I never developed stereoscopical vision as a kid. OR would give me nothing but headaches so honestly, can't care the less about it.

The quest to provide tourist access to space, as pioneered by several companies, is a waste of time because I'll never be able to afford it. Let's get them to just call it off eh?
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
I can't help feeling VR is doomed, just as 3D tv is doomed. Ultimately the majority of people don't seem to want to have to put on head sets or wear glasses if they can avoid it. I guess time will tell.
 
I'm not so sure. There were lots of **** clones back in the day. These days we just tend to remember the highlights.

Right now with the indie scene I think we have the best of both worlds. Just 2 years ago was pretty grim, mind, and there are still vestiges of stagnation abound with samey shooters and constant sequels. Next year, on the other hand, will be bloody awesome :D

Too right! :cool: The original Elite back in 1984 was an innovation that raised the bar on gaming and broke away from the traditional stuff we saw back then. I hope ED and SC (and X-Rebirth to some extent with its focus on a living breathing AI world) will be another watershed moment for gaming when history looks back from the 2020's. These games are laying down the standard of what follows them - true immersive worlds, AI that is intelligent in nature, and not just by name, breathtaking visuals, and a return to open worlds where the player is given the freedom he craves (although I think ED is alone in that respect).
 
VR is doomed? I reckon the Occulus Rift is gonna kick serious ass, and it's something that's been waited on for years, but noone had the technology nor inclination at the time.

Before, it was lack of decent simulation games on it, but there appears to be a lot on the horizon at the moment.

As for motion sickness, that could be a major downside to it. I think it will depend highly on the field of view in any game. I had serious issues playing Metro 2022 (first person shooter) which made me incredibly ill from motion sickness, but I hardly get that from any other game. I think it was just a narrowing of the field of view to something that the eyes/brain could not stand. Our brain's are weird like that.
 
I can't help feeling VR is doomed, just as 3D tv is doomed. Ultimately the majority of people don't seem to want to have to put on head sets or wear glasses if they can avoid it. I guess time will tell.

Ha ha, I can't wait to quote that one back to you IF, as I think, we're on the doorstep of a VR revolution! The OR dev kit is amazing, as is, everyone I've shown it to thinks it's incredible... and the resolution SUCKS, the demos/games are pretty half baked and not generally designed for VR from the ground up. Seriously, I cannot tell you how good it is to simply look around out of your cockpit and see what is there... the level of immersion and scale is just something else. 3D TV is utter garbage in comparison. :p
 
The quest to provide tourist access to space, as pioneered by several companies, is a waste of time because I'll never be able to afford it. Let's get them to just call it off eh?


Hey hey hold off right there, jabokai. I said I can't care the less about VR as in my particular case I can't get anything but headaches out of it. I said that -for me- it holds no importance and that -I- can't care the less about it.

I never said nothing should be done in that regard or that advancements in that field are meaningless. I was giving -my- view about what David said in that interview in what affects to -me-.

Dude, chill, seems as if I had said that VR technology development should be killed or something o_O
 
Hey hey hold off right there, jabokai. I said I can't care the less about VR as in my particular case I can't get anything but headaches out of it. I said that -for me- it holds no importance and that -I- can't care the less about it.

Sorry if I offended... it just seemed like an overly dismissive way to put it when you could have said something like "unfortunately it'll be no good for me, but it seems an interesting development" or something. I don't really care about space tourism with regards to myself, because I doubt I'll ever be able to afford it, but I still think it's a great thing that advances are being made in that field, despite my lack of potential participation! :smilie:

OR is an amazing experience (for those with "normal" eyesight) and will only get even better.
 
Hey hey hold off right there, jabokai. I said I can't care the less about VR as in my particular case I can't get anything but headaches out of it. I said that -for me- it holds no importance and that -I- can't care the less about it.
Unless you're totally blind and/or cannot move your neck that can't be true.

Stereoscopy is just a small part of the experience OR offers.

Much more important is the sensation of being surrounded by the virtual world.

It's a completely different experience to a 3D television, which really is laughable in comparison.

No monitor based setup can compete really. Even with TrackIR or any head-tracking technology, you're just looking at pictures inside a rectangle. Not so with with OR.
 
Unless you're totally blind and/or cannot move your neck that can't be true.

Stereoscopy is just a small part of the experience OR offers.


Yet is the foundation of it. You get two different images in each of your eyes so your brain mixes them and gives you a 3D perception the same way it does without any glasses. Both your eyes are receiving different images due to different position, the brain mixes them up, and works out the 3D perception from their differences automatically.

if your brain hasn't developed that ability, the only thing you get out of that experience is a headache and if the images you've seen are moving enough, a slight sense of nausea.

mine didn't, is a process that happens between 8-12 years of age. I had huge disparate eyesights in my left and right eyes. Left eye has an almost perfect vision (it's actually REALLY sharp). Right eye had a mix of severe astigmatism and hypermetropia that seriously distorted images. When such a thing happens (hugely different images from different eyes) the brain doesn't just only not develop stereoscopic vision, it actually supresses the image that comes from the defective eye.

I went trhough surgery when I was 31 years old (I'm currently 35). Laser surgery virtually eliminated all the graduation I had on my right eye. From the optical point of view I have now a 100% working right eye. However is hard to overcome decades of a brain shutting the images down - even when I have a nominally 0 graduation right eye and I went through some post-surgery daily training exercises to recover vision trhough it (and to regain muscle tone, as the eye simply wasn't used to focus properly at all as it was actually not being used) I still have a blurry vision through it. Much, much sharper than before the surgery (I can actually read what I write in this screen if I close my left eye, before the surgery I wouln't been able to do so)...but still blurry.

I now more or less mix images in my brain but stereoscopical vision is out of the question. For starters I still have blurry vision through my right eye( consequence of the brain still opposing the input from it) and when I get fatigue on my eyes I even get double vision. A good- well focused image from the left one and a doubled up blurry one coming from my right eye as it loses focus due to tired muscles (and they tire out sooner in the right eye after a life of not being used at all). And finally my brain never "learned" to do it. It's an automatic process that happens at a given age. Afterwards it simply won't happen, so even while mixing two images in my brain happens ,more or less, now, I don't get any 3D perception out from it.


I've tried VR glasses before. I got a slight headache after trying them out for less than a couple minutes, and I couldn't darned perceive any 3D out from it. I'm just figuring out that if I try to put an OR set on my head and give it a go for maybe an hour in a row the only thing I'll get out of it will be an unpleasant experience and a huge, not slight, headache out of it.
 
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Let's not rush to use what David "kinda said" for underlining our own beliefs, and maybe listen to actual content of interview. As the matter of fact he said that Oculus Rift is great innovation, that he sees use of VR in gaming, but also that he sees it as niche (that's true, it's cool tech, but not everyone will use it, and that's completely fine), and it can cause psychological and social issues with gaming in general if not applied correctly. OK, I agree, we can discuss this part and mostly healthy individual don't spend endless hours at PC (every day, release of ED is completely another matter :D), so they won't have this alienating aspect, but there can be many exceptions.

Myself I was skeptical year ago, now I more or less would like to experience ED trough OR. However, it won't be my primary way of playing ED. I would keep it for those moments when I am truly alone and don't have any other obligations.

p.s. I also don't believe that this will be reason for ED not supporting OR :)
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
I found David's comments on the social aspect of gaming to be quite interesting, including his comment lamenting the sentiment from some Elite Dangerous backers that Elite is, at it's core, a single player experience.

I'm not sure I really agree with him regarding VR either. I can see his point about the Rift promoting isolation and how that might not be a good thing, but honestly VR is in its infancy. I think there is at least the possibility that as the tech matures that the physical isolation that David disapproves of may be mitigated.

As for Elite, I for one am definitely willing to play with others online but one of the things that I do think is commendable is the option to *not* do so. Elite and Frontier were games that had obvious predilections for multiplayer, but it'll be interesting to see just how sculpted Elite Dangerous is to facilitate that kind of experience.
 
I'm not sure I really agree with him regarding VR either. I can see his point about the Rift promoting isolation and how that might not be a good thing, but honestly VR is in its infancy. I think there is at least the possibility that as the tech matures that the physical isolation that David disapproves of may be mitigated.

Just an idea - for those who play ED with OR have an option to turn on (off by default) that game after some time (customized by player) shows a little 3D message about taking a break, letting your eyes rest and communicate with the rest of the world :)
 
Coming from a (predominantly) MMO background for PC gaming, I'm not sure that I'd describe VR as isolationist any more than I describe wearing a headset as such. LAN parties aside, when I'm playing multiplayer games I'm typically communicating/socialising freely, it's just not necessarily with people in the same room.

My main concern for VR such as Oculus Rift is how I interact with my other peripherals when I'm immersed. I'm no touch typist so (for example) if I were using OR while playing ED, how would I use keyboard commands reliably? If everything can be slaved to my joystick or a few hotkeys that I can keep at my finger-tips it's not an issue, but if I stretch or move a bit I'll be fumbling for where my keys are without a visual reference.
 
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