…And I’m torn over it. On the one hand, it definitely feels like a second Super Mario 64 moment in the eye-opening-this-is-incredible sense.
But on the other hand, it’s just so fatiguing to you play games this way. The lack of physical sensation to accompany the motions just makes it feel like a half measure and creates a heavily dissonant experience that wears on you for some strange reason. And I doubt we will ever get the full body sensation to go with it. I don’t get nauseated, but I do find it mentally and physically taxing to simply sit there and have the game “moving around me” for lack of a better expression. It has nothing to do with being out of shape either - I can run for miles and enjoy working out/playing sports.
Instead, this is a different type of physical fatigue. Taking off the vr helmet almost leaves me with a hangover I’d get from drinking too much.
Do you think they’ll ever solve this with a practical solution?
I don’t know if it’s so much about them solving it as much as it is about people simply getting used to it if/when it becomes the norm. Like, kids will grow up playing VR so it won’t feel “weird” to them.
But yeah I’m sure that if/when it takes off companies will try and develop some sort of feedback devices like vests or some shiz.
As far as how it feels I can’t comment since I don’t have VR myself.
I don’t know if it is a good thing to “get used to” in a neurological sense. I get the impression that I’m doing some sort of damage to my health when playing in vr - although I can’t put my finger on what it is.
People said the same about video games, computers, cell phones…you may be right, maybe not. Maybe time will tell if it catches on and some proper studies are done. Maybe some other VR users here will chime in though. Would certainly be interesting to hear their experiences.
Yeah I’ve seen the discussion about the concerns of closing yourself off to the world like that with VR. Definitely a conversation worth having I think.
I also feel just lousy for hours after playing. Like I’m getying over a hangover. I can’t imagine anyone feels that way after using an iPad for 20 minutes.
But man, there is so much potential here at the same time.
I absolutely love my PSVR, but I can see where you’re coming from Peltz. I have to be in a very specific mood for VR, and yes, the “hungover” feeling is real. I do think it’s something that you can get used to, or at least I can. For example, I can usually play for around 1 - 1.5 hours before I start to feel off. Usually I limit myself to an hour because I know I can almost always play for an hour without feeling sick.
When I first started, it was only 20 minutes before I started to feel ill. Games like Rigs and Here They Lie were making me very nauseous. I also was extremely nauseous the first time I played the RE7 demo after it got patched for VR (Before the release of the game). But again, I “got my VR legs”, and it’s gotten a lot better over time.
My biggest complaint with VR, is that there isn’t enough amazing experiences that make me want to put on the helmet. Resident Evil 7 was mindblowing, and I couldn’t get enough, playing through it multiple times in VR. But the small little “experiences” started to get stale pretty quickly: most feel as if they are barely getting started before an abrupt end (Batman VR is amazing, but again so so short).
I wish more games used VR to enhance the experience, like RE7. Some of the games out there are cool, but would be boring or bad if you didn’t have the helmet on. RE7 gets it right because it’s a fun, exciting game first, that is made all the better because of the immersion the headset gives you.
VR has always done bad things to me physically whenever I’ve tried it, and I was one of the first to try it when Disney was experimenting with it at Epcot with the Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride many years ago. That’s when SEGA had their massive display at the park.
I was one of the people selected to give it a go and I was fine while I was in the world with the headgear on, but when I left the ride about twenty minutes later I felt like I was going to die. It crushed me. I went back and told them about it because they wanted feedback. It was running on a whole pile of SGI workstations at the time.
Anyway, in the years since, every time I’ve tried VR, I have physical reactions to it. The most recent was playing Gran Turismo with the Sony gear. Fine while playing, but not long after I was messed up and had to fight through it.
There are certainly people who have no issues with it, but I do think everyone comments on that hangover at the least and more violent reactions at worst. Ultimately, unless someone figures out the science of the mind at play here, I think it’s always going to be a niche.
I’d always kinda dreamed of VR stuff since I was a kid and would see those Sony Glastrons in the catalogs. In modern times I’ve been fairly involved as a end-user since the Oculus DK1 days till now.
I guess for me I lucked out - even on games that seem to give people motion sickness or the hangover feeling I don’t really ever feel it. I feel things like roller coaster rush or a jump scare around the corner but never the negative physical reactions and can seem to go for hours w/o a problem.
I’m not heavily emotionally invested the future of VR, although I think they’ll eventually figure out the physical triggers enough to make it semi-mainstream. Inside-out tracking stand alone headsets (with whatever wireless inputs) is probably where it’s headed imo. I think folks are thinking pretty small if all they can see is games when it comes to VR and AR, although games and porn will probably be the initial catch for most people.
The most fun I’ve had is some of the high score games, things like Space Pirate Trainer, or cockpit/driving games. The more social or multiplayer games can give me an almost eerie feeling - the first time playing Echo Arena I had a guy from across the globe give what felt to me like a real life tutorial on how to launch myself around the arena and score goals (essentially the battle room from Ender’s Game). It was intense for me. Playing Climbey and physically reaching my arm out to catch a friend by the fingertips while he was trying to make a ridiculous jump across a stage was exhilarating.
The price:experience is probably going to take awhile for most people to stomach, the power it takes to push that many pixels on that small of a screen will get cheaper but will still be significant for awhile. For me, if it stays niche forever it’s not too big of a deal - I’m on a forum about 30 year old hardware discussing TVs and monitors that will never be anything beyond niche for the rest of my life!
Sony sent me a VR unit to test this past year. I was impressed and underwhelmed at the same time. I found watching video on youtube to be fine but playing a lot of games was horrible. I feel sick for hours after using it. I thought I’d get my VR legs but I never did (I only had it for 2 weeks).
I have a theory about it and it comes down to a few things the PSVR will never be able to do. Sure the sensation of moving will help but ultimately I think it comes down to power. The screen isnt’ high resolution and doesn’t have a fast enough refresh rate. The screen door effect, the poor quality graphics and the frame rate just aren’t there.
I have a friend who has a HTC Vive and says its great but he wants to get the new one because of its increased resolution and refresh rate. He also feels that standing is the way to go with VR. He never sits down and I was unable to stand up due to how my set up is for my tv.
On a personal level, I really want VR to be a thing. I want it to be good and I think it really needs to figure out how to be higher fidelity AND at the same time wireless. Wireless needs to be how this thing operates. The wires are a hazard and take away from the experience and I just don’t think we are there yet for wireless tech which makes me think the real leaps in VR in the future will be on our phones so we don’t have a secondary device. I think that is going to make VR quite low quality for at least a decade. I also think there needs to be a video camera on the thing so you can see what youa re doing with a push of a button so you don’t have to come out of the VR unit.
I am a dad and my wife barely tolerates my gaming BS. She mocked me so hard when I got the PSVR and when I took a look at myself in the mirror I felt really silly. More silly than waggling with the Wii. Ultimately, I don’t want to go through the growing pains of VR. Wake me up when its ready for prime time and I will join in.
The last sentence there is the truth. I suspect I will not ever get to experience good VR in my lifetime. I’m happy to play on a screen for the rest of my life. VR for me is the simple reality of walking into a dark arcade filled with games from my past.
For each guest, we used a custom Silicon Graphics computer
with 512 megabytes of RAM, 16 megabytes of texture
memory, eight 150 MHz MIPS R4400 CPUs and three Reality
Engine pipelines with four RM5 raster managers each. We
rendered 20 frames per second on each pipe, interleaving the
frames to achieve a 60 Hz frame rate. Although the frame rates
could vary between 15 and 60 during a flight, the
overwhelming majority of the time the system rendered at 60
Hz.
Unrelated but I’m interested to see how the Microsoft AR HoloLens evolves if/when they apply it to gaming. I think AR might be the easier pill to swallow given some of the concerns and issues brought up in this thread.
This is exactly the way I feel after playing my PSVR, which is why I barely touch it anymore. I just feel off afterward, and the feeling lingers for way longer than the time I actually spent playing.
EDIT:
After I posted this, I recalled my wife and I tried a room-scale VR experience (Ghostbusters) while we were both hammered last Halloween, and it was actually pretty awesome! We both felt great after, lol. (It was only about 20mins long IIRC.)
Not sure if it was the drinks or the room-scale VR, or both working together in some sort of unholy tandem.
Hmm… thread makes me curious about everyone’s experiences.
For me the biggest initial rush of the “current gen” of VR was playing Budget Cuts. Room scale finally made sense. I was totally tricked that I was inside that office building sneaking around. I didn’t truly grasp it until I did it. I thought I’d be very content with seated stuff but besides racing/cockpit games I want to be moving around and at least standing. A regular controller is a huge disconnect vs my hands being tracked (for me at least). And racing feels much better with a wheel. I passed on my X52 before I got my Vive but I would expect it would make a pretty immersive set for Elite Dangerous.
I have some friends that used to get the hungover/woozy feeling after playing VR but have since gotten better “VR legs”. I don’t know if that is the common experience but I hope they can figure it out, head and body wise, for everyone.
