Have you seen the Oculus Rift? It’s a VR headset being designed for gaming, currently being Kickstarted (insanely funded), hyped like crazy, and oozing with potential.
While an awesome idea for any kind of game (Minecraft, Assassin’s Creed), most of what Graev and I think about goes back to MMORPG’s. You guys know us. We’re always pining for immersion and the experience that feels more like we’re ‘living’ in the game than simply arcading. While going over what we think about the Oculus Rift, we reminisced about the old days of EQ first-person and how everything was augmented by seeing through your character’s eyes.
Playing MMO’s *AS* your character, instead of just controlling a character, is such a different experience — one we think would be made even better by something like the Rift. Imagine playing as an Asura in GW2 with the ability to be in first person looking around the world from that perspective. Instead of just using the mouse and keyboard to accomplish it you would actually move your head and look around. Looking up at a tall mountain, performing a jump puzzle, or even trying to see past the zergs in WvW would be entirely different.
I could lose myself thinking of all the new and improved ways MMORPG’s and other games would be designed if the devs could take advantage of that field of view and perspective in a more immersive (and less restricting) way. For this to work, games would certainly have to transition to more of a first-person experience. Assassin’s Creed, for example, running across rooftops looking down as you run would be intense.
There has to be a next big step for gaming one day. We started with keys, moved to controllers, and a few hundred years from now it might be Holodeck. Maybe something like this will be somewhere in between. I’m more than willing to try any new idea that comes along promising to improve my gaming experience — especially with immersion. File this one under ‘cool’.
Catch a video of the Oculus Rift after the break.
I may be a minority here, but I find myself more immersed when I’m in 3rd person. While first person gives you the perspective of the character, there is just to little information given for my brain to accept. You don’t even get peripheral vision, just a very narrow view.
In third person, I see all the actions my character needs to take. Instead of viewing a sword swaying that I happen to be holding at my face, I can see the asura is really booking it. I can see how speed and wind are affecting my character’s cape in city of heroes, I have a better idea of the distance I’ve moved when dodging.
All this comes together into my over active imagination, which can use this information to tell me what first person couldn’t.
It’s one thing to stand in Skyrim and hear the wind, it’s another to know what angle it’s hitting you at, and how strong, if that makes sense.
Very skeptical about the Oculus Rift.
Reason? I’ve seen similar VR headsets show up every so many years.
I think more then 10 have passed by and failed.
Why would this be different?
However.. I do remember that in the late 80ties they had similar VR headsets in arcades.
Graphics where a bit dull in the game I played using it, but immersive yes.
I had one more thing…only seeing and hearing is not enough. You could also move and your character in some kind of first person game moved as you did.
(there was a barrier preventing you from going to far or falling.)
Also if you moved your arms the gun would move. ( I can not remember if I hold something in my hand for that.. yet who cares)
Such technology would be nice in todays games.
I think first person shooters would benefit the most.
Annnnnd banned soon after… They would say it seems to similar to a military training.
1) I wear glasses. Some of the Valve guys implied that they tested it out (they were some of the few people in the video with glasses), but in all the actual “this thing on your face” shots it seemed like there was little room for additional headwear.
2) Err… how are you supposed to see the keyboard? A dimming feature? I can see controller-focused games working, or even simplified FPS titles, but MMOs? Unless they are pushing integrated always-on mics with this thing, you are going to want to actually type things occasionally, presumably without having to take the whole thing off your head each time.
I still see this as a solution in search of a problem – a problem that can be solved right now by purchasing two more monitors – and likely to amount to much the same 3D is now. But, whatever, good for them.
Agree with Azuriel. I expect this thing to work about as well with glasses as those 3D glasses for movies, that is, badly. If I ever watch a 3D movie again (which I’m not too interested in right now), I’ll probably wear daily contacts for that. That’s fine every now and then, but it wouldn’t work for a controller I want to use on a daily basis.
He’s also spot-on about the keyboard thing. Having peripheral visions with these goggles is awesome, I’m all for that. It will also improve immersion, I won’t argue that. But without a keyboard, you’ll have to use voice communications all the time. And there goes all your immersion again, if your muscle-packed orc warrior sounds like a 14-year old boy, with breaking voice; your high elf has an accent as if he grew up with the cast from Deliverance; and your dwarf with his impressive beard sounds like a middle-aged women with an Italian accent.
I’m with McJigg on this. My first MMO was EQ and for many years I played in first person. I thought it was great and when I went to other MMOs that didn’t play nicely in first I struggled to get used to third. Once I did, however, I found it much more immersive. I wouldn’t go back to first person now.
im not sure how old are you but i have seen glasses like this in the 80s, 90s, 2000, etc…and are always a failure. why? because they are very cool to use for 10-15 minutes after of this they are a hell, you are tired and your eyes hurt.
is the typical idea that is cool in a paper but unsuccesfull in real life.
Reminds me of the Virtual reality demo I did when I was a kid. You wore the big glasses, stood in this circle thing and had a fake gun thingy. It was neat and multiplayer too. Never really went anywhere, just not practical. Maybe this time they will be.
I think the idea is cool but it wouldn’t web nearly as immersive for modern MMOs. First person perspective just isn’t very good or practical because they haven’t been designed for it, and third person perspective defeats the purpose, no? For third person gaming, it doesn’t see much different than having an extra large 3D monitor very close to your eyes. Head tracking in that case might be cool but I couldn’t see spending $250+ just to save on moving the camera with my head instead of hand.
That said, first person games would probably be fantastic.
Writing on my iPhone. Forgive what’s non-sensical there.
I think like any revolutionary device the applications and software will come after the hardware. If the device is solid then more developers will take an interest and then after a while we will see titles that really utilize the technology. In the initial stage the only games I can see making use of this are FPS style games or even more so games such as Amnesia.. that would be terrifying and amazing at the same time.
My main concern with any VR device would be the effects after long use. I am replaying Deus Ex: HR at the moment (god I love that game) and last night played for 3 hours straight. I get a headache from those god awful 3D movie glasses so what kind of effect would 3 hours of the Rift have on someone like me?
I’ve been doing research on the VR scene for a fairly long time now, since my DAOC days.
With the limited field of view that being in first person gives you, this is but a setting in the game engine. Most.. no, all companies have this set as a static FOV, however, in the option area of the game, they could have an option “Oculus Rift mode”.
When enabled, it tells the engine’s camera to widen the FOV to the FOV of the Rift, as well as enable head motion tracking. This would by-pass the “looking at a window” effect of using the thing in any game as a 3d display.
The next step, which would take a bit longer to do, is for Microsoft to update the directX driver for Rift support. Why? How this was designed was that there will be distortion in the peripheal view. Even if you move your eyes to look at it, the image will be distorted. Mini ascii pic to demonstrate being…. | versus )
By handling support at the driver level, this would help ease the load on the game developers.
Eye-strain and seeing impaired: I wear glasses, and I refuse to wear glasses. I cannot see 3d (at least, with the glasses) due to some strange reason. I have to admit that yes, I was concerned about this, however, in one of the interviews, they “promised” that you would be able to adjust the lens distancing inside of the Rift to compensate for visual impairedness. How well this goes, we’ll see. I presume it will be the same “technology” that eye doctors use when you’re reading the letters on the wall.
In my above comment, “I wear glasses, and I refuse to wear glasses.” should instead read, “I wear glasses, and I refuse to wear contacts.”
As my reply was getting a bit long, I wanted to stop short, however, one more thing before I leave, is that while this will not be a “total immersion” effect that I, myself, am looking for, it is a step in the right direction.
I believe though, that big companies like EA, Blizzard, and NCSoft may not support this level of immersion, due to legality reasons alone. People often blame the corporations for other people’s actions.. like taking the action outside of the game, or even not paying attention to their bodies while playing.. we have all heard the news. Imagine what it would be like if you could truly immerse yourself.
I’m sure most of you have heard of Sword Art Online.. while I won’t go into details, Akihiko Kayaba wouldn’t need to forcefully trap people in the game; they would do that to themselves (me included).
i prefer third person immersion, i like seeing what my character looks like