VR, if you can't wait for Frontier and Xbox to do something...

Bongo Fury

B
I have been playing Elite on Xbox since early access (and before that back in '84 on my BBC micro) and I love it, (not very good at it though!). I was pretty upset during the Xbox one X reveal at E3 this year that Microsoft seemed to walk back its promise of VR on the platform. Then 4 weeks ago Oculus started their summer of Rift sale. This was enough to make me decide to jump in not only to VR but also to PC gaming (I didn't have a PC at all). After having spent the best part of £1500 on a PC and Rift set up I re bought Elite and fired it up.....

Holy , nothing could prepare me for this. I am not using prone to hyperbole but you are in the spaceship, you can lean forward and look out of the windows and see parts of the externals of your ship, it is not "head look" as we have it on xbox it is piloting a completely realised ship. When you want to access navigation you just look over to the panel. The galaxy map is all around you, Planets and other ships are huge, the space stations are vast. Nothing online in videos does current PC based VR justice. I can't play elite on flat screen again.

Like every technology there are small issues with current VR, the field of view is smaller than it could be (although you don't really notice it), the resolution could be better (although you forget this as well and can read all the text and menus with zero problems) and you need a beefy PC to run it (especially with Elite, a 1070 is probably the lowest card you would want for this game).

However if you love Elite, and were disappointed when Microsoft didn't talk about VR at all for the xbox then take advantage of the sale on oculus and get involved. you wont be disappointed!
 

Bongo Fury

B
Completely understand, I was of the same opinion. However this generation (Rift/Vive) is frankly amazing and more than good enough to jump in now. It also seems that the next generation might take a while (2019 or so from comments made by industry leaders). I urge you to get a demo if you haven't tried it, don't take the experience you get on a phone (or even to a lesser extent PSVR) as representative of top end VR. I made the OP just to encourage other xbox owners to give it a try, Elite is a fantastic experience in VR much more profound than higher resolution or faster FPS could ever be. Even if you thought that playing elite on a 120" projector screen was immersive VR is this times 100.
 

Zerakue

Zerakue
I can agree with the 1070 thing, though my processor bottlenecks the crap out of my experience, average fps in VR for me is 45-75. At first you will feel nausea for a few days to a week but then you get used to it and can play, granted with the lag from heavy combat it feels like the console version in VR which I suppose is why I can manage compared to other PC elitist who would scream about it being unplayable. But yeah Elite in VR gives you perspective on how large the game is and she's a beauty.
 

Docjas18

Docjas18
As much as the added immersion excites me in questionable ways, I don't know if I could relax and enjoy gaming wearing peripherals on my face. My wants don't extend much further beyond wanting a flight stick on Xbox, which is coming soon. Heck even now I'm planning on building a tray out of an old hospital bed side table I "acquired" to accommodate the HOTAS.

But, if I ever had the chance to try elite in VR, I would do it just to say I have.
 

Bond00789lol

Bond00789lol
The only thing I really want VR for is to try Star Trek bridge crew. Multiplayer looks like an absolute blast. I'm sure Elite would be good too though. Shame I'll never buy a PlayStation or build a PC.
 
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dreampage

dreampage
Unfortunately Xbox is years behind the competition when it comes to technology. The Xbox One X will be a nice console and it will be strong enough to support VR on paper but Microsoft tie their own hands by their "Mixed Reality" Windows 10 policy which develops at a glacial pace. Phil Spencer (head of Xbox) reasons that he doesn't see current VR technology advanced enough but I don't think it's the full truth. The truth is that while Sony is already enjoying some success with PS VR and PC gamers have several high-end options, Xbox is still struggling with basic things like the fricking Home screen on the Dashboard. They are so behind the rest of the field that it's embarrassing now. VR is completely off the table at Xbox for the time being and I don't expect even the slightest mention of that until 2019. What's more, I expect VR truly be a thing only in the next generation, so the next console after X1X, possibly fall 2020. This is the reality - Microsoft has been completely stuck for years.
 

CMDR EO

CMDR EO
The lack of any VR talk at E3 caused enough backlash that Spencer had to come out and say that the Xbox department was still very committed to vr, so who knows? The frustrating thing about MS, particularly with Xbox, is that they look at current trends in gaming tech and instead of following along they try to "one-up." Wii remote motion controls are popular? Check out Kinect! VR is trending? Check out AR!
I don't want to discourage innovation, and I think Kinect is great and AR will be great, but it seems to come at a cost. Kinect didn't have great motion control games like PS and Wii, and while MS spends a bunch of R&D on AR, PS already has a massive headstart on VR and we've seen no VR from MS. Usually we're shown some early prototype before now.
Maybe the lack of anything to show in the VR dept is a good thing. Hopefully it means that when 1X launches it'll support the Rift. "Surprise! instead of taking resources away from our AR project to develop a VR headset, we just partnered with Occulus! Enjoy!"
 

Deleted member 110222

D
Docjas18 said:
As much as the added immersion excites me in questionable ways, I don't know if I could relax and enjoy gaming wearing peripherals on my face. My wants don't extend much further beyond wanting a flight stick on Xbox, which is coming soon. Heck even now I'm planning on building a tray out of an old hospital bed side table I "acquired" to accommodate the HOTAS.

But, if I ever had the chance to try elite in VR, I would do it just to say I have.
Click to expand...

Current models are heavy for my liking. I wouldn't wear one for an extended period.

Also, on PC, now I'm playing with mouse and keyboard, I don't know if I'd ever want VR. Multi-monitor seems better for that.
 

wstrk

wstrk
I have always wanted to buy a VR headset and play Elite, i have the money saved up to do it. The main problem though which im sure MANY people are facing and i think is a severe problem is not being able to transfer stats. The time that we have all put in to the game is way to much to just restart ALL over from scratch on PC. I would never be able to do it. Having to re do everything re buy all of my ships and do engineering grinding again. I never could re do that. They need to come up with a way to transfer stats it would easily make them a lot of money because i know that a whole bunch of people would buy the game on pc and transfer.. I have wanted all of the extra features that you can get on pc and the VR capability for a long time but i never could do it because i cannot imagine starting with NOTHING , just a sidewinder and thousands of hours of grinding in the future....


 

Frank

Frank
wstrk said:
I have always wanted to buy a VR headset and play Elite, i have the money saved up to do it. The main problem though which im sure MANY people are facing and i think is a severe problem is not being able to transfer stats. The time that we have all put in to the game is way to much to just restart ALL over from scratch on PC. I would never be able to do it. Having to re do everything re buy all of my ships and do engineering grinding again. I never could re do that. They need to come up with a way to transfer stats it would easily make them a lot of money because i know that a whole bunch of people would buy the game on pc and transfer.. I have wanted all of the extra features that you can get on pc and the VR capability for a long time but i never could do it because i cannot imagine starting with NOTHING , just a sidewinder and thousands of hours of grinding in the future....
Click to expand...

I'm surprised Frontier Developments doesn't offer the service of swapping stats to other formats. I can't imagine it would cost that much money to set up, and it might encourage a few sales.
 

wstrk

wstrk
Frank said:
I'm surprised Frontier Developments doesn't offer the service of swapping stats to other formats. I can't imagine it would cost that much money to set up, and it might encourage a few sales.
Click to expand...

Yea I know for sure that there would be people buying it on PC if they were able to transfer, who knows maybe it will come in the future?
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Have you actually contacted support? I could be wrong but I'm sure I've heard stories of people getting their accounts transferred across. Oh, and if anyone knows for sure that this has never happened (maybe it can't for technical reasons) then please set me straight. I'd hate to be spreading fud.
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Ian Phillips
You can ask Customer support to transfer your net worth over, so the new account starts with the credits that you had accumulated up to the point of transfer.

Nothing else gets moved across.
 
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