On Foot in VR

[ArchangelGold]

Whos in charge of the Frontier team, has he/she given any update on FIXING THE GAME IN VR WHEN YOU ARE ON FOOT?!

the free camera works on foot but not the first person? This is sad and mind boggling that NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT IT, not even an EFFORT or a mention of it from the Devs! (That I know of)

Are you kidding me???
(I can't believe a game that I love so much, suck at VR on foot)

 

[Factabulous]

ANNOUNCEMENT - Odyssey: Update on VR and Ship Interiors

Greetings Commanders! We hope you enjoyed our first dev diary release and stream. It was our pleasure to bring you the latest news on Odyssey and needless to say we can't wait to share more info around further locations, missions, combat and more in further episodes over the coming months. We...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Only took you 3 1/2 years to notice - I guess you can't be that bothered about VR

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

I've started to play with VR on foot options again. I'm currently looking at switching to SBS 3D when disembarking. Same time enabling that in my headset (using virtual desktop on the quest 2). This doesn't give me VR on foot but it does give me a much bigger static screen in my headset which is in 3d.

Even having that scaled of implementation native in the game would be lovely.

 

[robbyp]

Look up on the internet the state of VR.
It's near death
It does not have any critical mass.
No one is going to invest serious money in it.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Look up on the internet the state of VR.
It's near death
It does not have any critical mass.
No one is going to invest serious money in it.

Yeah, meta only invested $4.3 billion in VR this last year and Apple have just entered the market. Definitely not serious money.

 

[robbyp]

My point was about game companies (not clear I agree). Why would you do VR for a game when so few people use it.

And as for Meta, where has that got them? They have been pouring money into it for years and yet it's still not taken off.

Apple have enough of your money from their overpriced eco system not to worry about blowing the odd billion or so on a punt.

 

[aRJay]

My point was about game companies (not clear I agree). Why would you do VR for a game when so few people use it.

And as for Meta, where has that got them? They have been pouring money into it for years and yet it's still not taken off.

Apple have enough of your money from their overpriced eco system not to worry about blowing the odd billion or so on a punt.

But given Apples record with devices in a new field consider waiting for the second version before catching that punt.

 

[DjVortex]

Be glad that Odyssey supports VR at all. If I understand correctly, their original plan was to drop support completely. Thankfully they changed their minds and ended up in the current compromise where Horizons content is still full VR, while the new content isn't. Could be much worse.

To be fair, adding support for VR in an entirely new game mode isn't as easy is just flipping a switch in the game engine. It requires quite some development and testing to get it working correctly, as VR requires its own rather different approach at the controls, the movement, and how the HUD is designed and visualized. There are also tons of stuff that needs to be taken into account that doesn't need to be in normal non-VR gameplay (such as the player moving their head inside an object, and what to do if that happens).

 

[Dragsham]

VR is not dead.
But there is a fundamental problem.
Freedom of movement.
Which wireless headsets like the new valve headset (in development), pimax crystal, quest 3, apple, HTC, are addressing.
But the real issue is being able to run..
Before crashing into a wall or falling over because you can't see the real world.
There are walking floors which address it but their hugely expensive.
None of that is important with elite VR because we're stationary sitting down. So tethered isn't a big deal.
I love VR. Especially elite. I've tried going back to pancake with tobii 5 etc but it's just not even close.
We've been led to the garden of Eden. As space sims go VR is it. And once the technology improves resolution, colour, no screen door, and comfort, VR will find its place as an alternative to monitors.
Right now VR isn't the future as l once thought.
But it's coming. A huge shift in how humanity interfaces with computers is just 5 to 10 years away.
I cannot understand why fdev dropped development of elite in VR.
Perhaps that'll change in the coming years.

o7

 

[metatheurgist]

VR isn't dead, but it's not commercial yet. This wave made more inroads into viability than previous ones. It's firmly imbedded into industrial applications for design, medical, remote operations and even therapy now. That's the great hope for gamers, the tech will continue to develop in those arenas which will eventually make it good and cheap enough for commercial viability, which is something that didn't happen before. This wave was started by a bloke hacking two phone screens together, the next one will actually be serious.

 

[jojon]

Slowly climbing the "Slope of enlightenment", out of the "Trough of disillusionment"...

 

[DjVortex]

VR is not dead.
But there is a fundamental problem.
Freedom of movement.
Which wireless headsets like the new valve headset (in development), pimax crystal, quest 3, apple, HTC, are addressing.
But the real issue is being able to run..

You do know that first-person shooters, even very fast-paced ones where you run around at completely superhuman speeds, have existed for VR for many, meany years now?

It's a solved problem. Where are you getting this idea that you have to run in real life in order to run in-game? You don't have to do that in non-VR games. Why would VR games be any different?

The ONLY difference between non-VR and VR FPS games is that, usually, the camera is rotated in steps rather than contiguously, in order to avoid nausea (although most games will give you the option to turn contiguous rotation on if you so desire.)

Why are many people here talking as if first-person shooters, including those where you run around large distances very fast, do not exist on VR?

 

[Arioch]

I’ve been using VR since 2017 and playing ED since 2014 and both have had continual prophesies of doom for almost their entire spans

The Quest 2 headset alone has sold something like 20 million units, and the Quest 3 is around 1.5m so far - and a cheaper model is due to be released later this year, sales of which I expect will be given a boost by the upcoming Quest 3 series-exclusive game Batman: Arkham Shadow which is sounding very cool from initial reports.

I think stand-alone VR will be the way forward as an expensive PC isn’t required (and looking at the graphics of games like Red Matter 2 I have high hopes for Q3-exclusive games in the future) but I also think PCVR isn’t going away - a HMD is as an essential piece of kit in the sim world as HOTAS or steering wheels, imo.

I’d love for Odyssey to get proper on-foot VR (beyond the glimpse we can get using the camera suite) but I don’t think there is the time/money/passion in FDev towers anymore, and the best we can hope for is a few of the existing bugs to be fixed. Flickering shadows and view glitch, FDev, pleeeeeeeaase!

(also, I’ve been playing fast paced fps games in VR since getting the headset, Quake 3 (on stand-alone VR thanks to the Team Beef mod) probably being the fastest!)

 

[MPL3D]

I think the problem with VR in Oddisey was just performance and FPS output, it barely run in normal mode. Now that performance is better they could consider VR again, as well as getting back the console version.

 

[Dragsham]

You do know that first-person shooters, even very fast-paced ones where you run around at completely superhuman speeds, have existed for VR for many, meany years now?

It's a solved problem

Cool!
So how do u move forward? Without having to walk on the spot I mean. Ain't played a fps in ages. Used to be point a laser, lining up rear & foresight etc. Shaking yeeting around haphazard and unable to compete with 2d players.

 

[Arioch]

Cool!
So how do u move forward? Without having to walk on the spot I mean. Ain't played a fps in ages. Used to be point a laser, lining up rear & foresight etc. Shaking yeeting around haphazard and unable to compete with 2d players.

Here’s a short video I’ve just taken* without running into any walls

Source: https://youtu.be/8DNQcX8li0g?si=oKaVDJkZJCNoQR6V


*(Espire: VR Operative - Quest 2/3 stand-alone)

 

[jackwall]

To the OP, Welcome to the energy infused topic and thanks for a new thread on the topic ...maybe ? I dunno. Whatever.
I see your own contribution to this energy with your capitalization .... LOL ... fair enough!

As you can see, the reactions will range from gentle poking fun about what took you so long (no defense or explanation required), to world market viability of VR, (the relevance of which speaks only indirectly to the topic and less so to your actual OP question), finally to actual direct answers/guidance (which speaks to the current and 'has-been for some time' state of VR in ED) and without any further input from FDev, the likely way this will remain.

I can thank the lucky stars (or who/whatever) for the fact that the updates that have occurred over the last many years have not broken the VR that we still have ...... Long may this remain true.

Your reaction is shared widely. You are not alone.

There is little more to add.

S!

 

[DjVortex]

Cool!
So how do u move forward? Without having to walk on the spot I mean. Ain't played a fps in ages. Used to be point a laser, lining up rear & foresight etc. Shaking yeeting around haphazard and unable to compete with 2d players.

You just play it like any FPS game with a game controller. Default controls would be left stick to move forward and backward and to strafe. You can look around with your head, but of course that's not enough to make full turns, so you can turn yourself with the right stick. (This is most usually done in steps of eg. 30 or 45 degrees by default, although most games will also offer the option to make the turning contiguous. However, contiguous turning of the entire world tends to cause nausea even in the most hardened experienced VR players, so stepped turning tends to be the default.)

Even with VR controllers the controls in FPS games tend to be the same (although, quite often, you will be able to aim and shoot with your right controller, making it more immersive.)

It works perfectly well when sitting down, just like playing any FPS game normally. (Having a rotating chair may help turning your head more, but it's not really a necessity, just a convenience.)

See for example

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy3gpt-MzbA


(See examples of shooting at 10:50 in the video.)

 

[Ocane]

Playing Elite VR and waiting for a on foot VR solution. MSFS24 is announced in November with full VR compatibility including on foot. Maybe my time in ED is finishing.

 

[Ydiss]

Yeah, meta only invested $4.3 billion in VR this last year and Apple have just entered the market. Definitely not serious money.

Not particularly relevant in this discussion though. VR for FPS games isn't a solid market. Even the best case example (HL Alyx) doesn't actually have free-form FPS.

I can easily see why Fdev just abandoned the concept with EDO. It works great for vehicular games. I'm entirely unconvinced meta and Apple are going to leverage their tech into anything remotely useful for FPS VR games.

It's also still garden walled to hell. Imagine needing a different monitor to play every game you owned.