Elite Dangerous could be the first VR esport

[Daniel Vallah]

So i made a mistake and posted this to the dangerous discussion section. Maybe i was reaching for the wrong crowd.
I believe that Elite Dangerous could be the first Virtual Reality esport and it could be epic. Let me explain. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and i gathered a lot of information in this period. As a pvp player i took part in a lot of epic fleet battle. It is exhilarating. Flying my silent cobra in the middle of the battle shouting commands at my voice attack is one of the best experiences i had in Elite. People don't say this much but Elite is the killer app for VR at the moment. Wanna sell some one on VR, get him to play Elite on the Oculus or the Vive using a hotas and voice attack. It is mind blowing. As some of you know the big pvp clans hosted a League for pvp with 4v4 and 5v5 matches. Nail biting action and with the commentary of Sempreviren it feels like a proper esport. Take a look at this video and be sure to watch the last fight where Cmdr Robbie faces Cmdr Fox Cent Onze in an epic final battle of 1 percent hull. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfwlvpgDne4 Most of you are also familiar with motion platforms. Have people on motion platforms in VR in an epic space battle. Done locally and with state of the art equipment. Dress them with these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1fCIbqdNxI for the epic factor. It is actually a simple idea. All FD would need to do is design an in game camera system run by the commentator or a camera crew for that epic live footage. The Pvp League was filmed from the cockpit but with a relative in game camera system design especially for this it could be epic. Have fights in asteroids fields where you could have this amazing cat and mouse gameplay. Don't even get me started about multicrew. I have some friends building sims and they build a two seated one for the Oculus. It would work like a charm for a Cobra. I am not a very good writer and i don't know if i can communicate my idea very well. I just see it all in my head and it's epic. So 20 or 30 multicrew ships on motion platforms with everybody in VR going at it in full PVP. A special camera system to capture it all in real time(should be no problem we already have that in War Thunder) I say that's an epic esport competition. Imagine the attention received as the first VR esport...one can only dream. This is a video where i talk about this idea.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1eCMERI5VA&feature=youtu.be

 

[Captain N]

A beautiful thought but I think the first VR esport is yet to come and won't come in many years - the first requirement for a game to become an esport is for it to be popular enough to sustain a healthy competitive scene. Nothing VR is mainstream popular. It's entirely a niche market at this point.

Also there's really nothing inherently VR about Elite, it's just one of the few regular desktop games that happen to support VR headsets as well. Desktop players can compete with headset users just fine. Even if the unthinkable happened and Elite became a popular competitive game I don't think calling it a "VR esport" would be justified. I'd reserve that term for something that is built for VR from the ground up and uses VR in such a way that it just can't be emulated on flat screen. Uses roomscale, motion controls etc. Something closer to Battle Dome than Elite. Funny thing is roomscale games like BD can be surprisingly demanding physically. If this picks up use of the term "esports" could be more justified than ever.

 

[Muzz UK]

It's an interesting idea and would be very cool but I believe something like Hoverjunkers or a simple VR game might become the first VR esport. I think the thing about Elite is, even though it's glorious in VR it can be played without just as well. The first VR esport would have to be an app or game build solely for that purpose... more than likely Valve/Steam will get the monopoly on that or EA god forbid.