![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
tbh I'm mostly looking forward to Odyssey being a major update, since Horizons 2.1 I've always felt the updates were good in the sense stuff was fixed/added/changed but it was it was always so limited.
Polygon and Twinfinite interviews - more Odyssey details, unknowns, and Walking-In-Ships not at launch
- Thread starter StuartGT
- Start date
I think if Horizons was added in one lump it would had a bigger wow factor. Hopefully the next update will be fully fleshed out from the get go.
They mentioned they'd shifted away from that DLC delivery model after horizons.
at the times of beyond it was my understanding that frontier wouldn't do any more season progression stuff (to avoid release pressure), just developing and releasing in big complete chunks with occasional dlc. they have been silent since, for years.
alas, no dlc has shown up, and the current reveal of odyssey is very underwhelming. they MUST have some 'ooohh-factor' surprise in there somewhere. if not, it's going to be painful.
other than that, they still cling to the narrative of 'expanding game' and 'future developments'. the prospect of yet another few years pushing bland and fluff updates on odyssey is just depressing. it's history repeating except the codebase will be half a decade older ...
I think internally it was too chaotic and got out of hand.
It was a while ago, but I think they acknowledged the pay up front for a season of stuff you don't really know that much about and then get the content over time afterwards wasn't all that popular.
They also mentioned a bunch of stuff that won't be in Odyssey "at launch" which somewhat suggests further content updates. Is the difference between Horizons' and Odyssey's release model just semantics?
It's a little too early to tell.
Yeah, but I think it's a valid question that a lot of people seem to be asking at the moment.
If they did that, I'd want a list of what was being added later really. Just knowing something will see some love is sometimes enough*
*terms and conditions apply
*terms and conditions apply
Yep, but the only valid answer is the one I gave.
Okay, first off, VR isn't expected "at launch" -> which is a radically different spin than "VR SUPPORT HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY DROPPED".
It's not present at launch is a bit of a kick in the knackers but from a dev-perspective, it's an understandable "how-the-eff-do-we-fix-this".
Elite Dangerous is sit-down vehicle-based VR, correct?
FPS VR has two main issues that Vehicle-Based VR does not.
With Elite Dangerous to date, the player has been "bolted" to a seat of a vehicle, it's vehicle-based VR which solves both of those issues.
- movement in the game world
- Detail issue
Valve's Half-life: Alyx set a benchmark for how first-person combat in VR could work and it works very well indeed, and Elite Dangerous, is far behind on that front as it's has been vehicle-based to date.
- Sitting down covers the entirety of the HMD owning demographic, as all VR peripherals systems can do "sitting down", were not all of them can do standing up and moving around, thus if Fdev goes the route of "room-scale", they risk alienating their "some" VR users.
- VR design for movement in the game world, matching the vehicle's movement (HOTAS, etc etc) is easier than trying to match 1:1, the human expectation of how it is to stand and walk-around in real-life (after a lifetime of perceiving First Person-Environment) giving more rise to motion-sickness when we don't have 1:1 head-movement when we walk around (aka room-scale).
- The hands, screens, panels, objects are "far" away, and aren't needed to be mirrored in your Game World in insane detail like a First-Person VR experience.
There is so much to get right, with just rendering and keeping the FPS's smooth for "screen-users", let alone having those visuals that stretch to the horizon in stereo and in crazy detail so you can hold your hand up to your face and see the text on the circuit board.
How does sitting down in a cockpit translate to walking, and jetpacking around, Planets, station interiors and moving on into the future, zero-gee combat in the space-ship interiors?
Sorry kiddies, it's getting the nuts and bolts of the UNDERLYING Frameworks that support gameplay and game loops which is the priority, rather than the other way around, hence working inwards (from the Galaxy down through stations and planets to the ship interiors). Building outwards from the cockpit, punts a whole lot of issues to a later date that could blow up in the entire communities faces irrecoverably changing the game we love as certain gameplay can't be supported by a future framework to address a different segment of the game.
Good post. And the previous one too.
Okay, first off, PSVR wasn’t expected “at launch” -> how’s that one coming along? Different SRV types after the launch of Horizons? Perhaps you may see where VR user’s concerns are coming from now?Okay, first off, VR isn't expected "at launch" -> which is a radically different spin than "VR SUPPORT HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY DROPPED".
It's not present at launch is a bit of a kick in the knackers but from a dev-perspective, it's an understandable "how-the-eff-do-we-fix-this".
Elite Dangerous is sit-down vehicle-based VR, correct?
FPS VR has two main issues that Vehicle-Based VR does not.
With Elite Dangerous to date, the player has been "bolted" to a seat of a vehicle, it's vehicle-based VR which solves both of those issues.
- movement in the game world
- Detail issue
Valve's Half-life: Alyx set a benchmark for how first-person combat in VR could work and it works very well indeed, and Elite Dangerous, is far behind on that front as it's has been vehicle-based to date.
- Sitting down covers the entirety of the HMD owning demographic, as all VR peripherals systems can do "sitting down", were not all of them can do standing up and moving around, thus if Fdev goes the route of "room-scale", they risk alienating their "some" VR users.
- VR design for movement in the game world, matching the vehicle's movement (HOTAS, etc etc) is easier than trying to match 1:1, the human expectation of how it is to stand and walk-around in real-life (after a lifetime of perceiving First Person-Environment) giving more rise to motion-sickness when we don't have 1:1 head-movement when we walk around (aka room-scale).
- The hands, screens, panels, objects are "far" away, and aren't needed to be mirrored in your Game World in insane detail like a First-Person VR experience.
There is so much to get right, with just rendering and keeping the FPS's smooth for "screen-users", let alone having those visuals that stretch to the horizon in stereo and in crazy detail so you can hold your hand up to your face and see the text on the circuit board.
How does sitting down in a cockpit translate to walking, and jetpacking around, Planets, station interiors and moving on into the future, zero-gee combat in the space-ship interiors?
As for the rest of your post, have you played many VR games? I’m currently playing one that has spaceship flying, vehicles, walking, jetpacking around, planets, Station and capital ship interiors, all that stuff in VR and I get to play with flatscreen players too! No zero-G though, mores the pity.
While HL:Alyx has set a benchmark, I’d say it’s a pretty unreachable apex for most other VR games at the moment, but I’d hope something akin to Subnautica VR would be more feasible for Elite. Have you tried the work of lone modders, like the Alien: Isolation one, or the fantastic first-person body mod with inverse kinematic arms for SkyrimVR?
I think the key non-semantic difference is
Horizons: exactly 5 updates paid for in advance, containing specified stuff (except 2.4's mystery box, though people correctly guessed it was Thargoids a long way in advance)
Odyssey: 1 initial release (paid for), then potentially a bunch of mystery boxes but no-one knows if or how many and they don't have to commit, and those boxes might officially be part of a "Beyond II" series which also contains improvements for base game and Horizons features.
So Horizons you could buy somewhat on the basis of what it was going to contain in future, and in the expectation of its initial features getting further development during the season (which they mostly did), whereas Odyssey is being sold on whatever it contains at the individual time of purchase and no more.
![[SI] Bobdelion](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/35/35943.jpg?1553527109){kind=avatar}
This is probably the last thing people want to hear but I still think it's too early to jump to conclusions. FDev, for fair means or foul, are playing a very close game with this release. The Dev Diary was a master class in saying absolutely nothing (including repeating the same trailer, like, 15 times?!). The little bit I know about game development (I've been a dev, just not a game dev) from various articles and interviews would suggest that many large projects have many smaller groups working on separate features and that the final shape of what will actually be included in a release and what will be included as post release content is often only decided quite close to the end of the project. I'm wondering if that is what we are seeing here. FDev are still probably a good 6 months off from releasing Odyssey and I suspect a lot of the planned aspects of the update are only just coming together. The core features have already been announced (ie, on-foot gameplay, graphics tech upgrades, limited atmosphere worlds, etc) but everything else is still in flux, hence why FDev are keeping shtum. I could be completely wrong - future Dev Diaries will show for sure - but I suspect we still have a few surprises in store. As for features that will not be part of Odyssey at all, I tend to go with what FDev are actually telling us. FDev have explicitly said not to expect VR because it is explicitly not going to be included in Odyssey. As a result I think it pointless to speculate about anything they have not yet commented on because without explicit acknowledgment from the mother ship I have to assume that these features are still in play, until it is announced to the contrary.
I think it's more likely they are tight lipped for marketing purposes rather than anything else.
Drop a few teasers early get people speculating, drop a few more and so on to keep the hype train going. It builds up to the big reveal, which is usually a cinematic trailer with FDEV. Which is how they announced Odyssey.
If they told us everything they were doing now we'd have moved on by early 2021.
I suspect the two are operating in tandem. They are definitely starting to ramp up their marketing push, but we are still very much in the early stages and as mentioned above Odyssey itself is also still a way off. I think there is a very good reason why the announcements we've seen so far are more about 'scene setting' and do not feature a clear breakdown of the features to be included in the update (as other pre-release trailers have done). In short, I don't think we should expect anything like that until either the end of this year or even early next.
A clear breakdown would be counterproductive at this point. Even though as you said things are bound to change and be adapted pre-release they still know what elements they are working on so massive directional change is probably now all in the past.
I agree about the timeline you expect, FDEV's cinematic trailers have come out with the blockbuster Christmas star wars film before. They look great on the big screen.
They sure do.
Whilst expectations and hope battle it out over odyssey, I am cheered by the realisation that no matter how good or bad it turns out to be, once the dust settles:
My base game will get a free graphical improvement.
Space will become a little friendlier, as some of the murderhobos will spend at least some of the time planet-side - stamping on each others sandcastles. (sandcastles yet to be confirmed)
My base game will get a free graphical improvement.
Space will become a little friendlier, as some of the murderhobos will spend at least some of the time planet-side - stamping on each others sandcastles. (sandcastles yet to be confirmed)