@@OiiiiiIt’s true, but the modded Skyrim experience is amazing and something you can’t find anywhere else, which makes it worth a temporary $5 nexus subscription, Skyrim VR on sale, and 200 GB install folder with wabbajack lmao
Having watched the whole video now, I'd say it can be summed up simply as VR should do what it says on the tin: Virtual Reality. The more real the interactions feel, the more enjoyable the experiences will be. The games themselves don't need to be in any way realistic, but the actions and reactions in the games need to be believable enough that you can get lost in their worlds.
3 minutes in atm and you're still playing with your gun and bullets :P Really though, H3VR has been around since 5th April 2016. It is incredible how many lessons could have been learnt from this game that has the best gun handling, customisation and physics in the VR space, also I'd say the best modding scene too. 8 and a half years later and devs are still making mistakes that this game solved an age ago. To put it in perspective, the distance from H3VR initial release until now is almost the same as the release of Mario 64 to the Xbox 360 release date.
Even though he is younger than I am (I assume), by the end of ever Mr Voice video I am left with the haunting feeling that my father is deeply disappointed with me.
It's like music. Someone who's not trained in music can tell if a note is off, it just sounds off. Much like VR games that does not mimic real world physics and consequences, it just feels... off. It then just feels like a game with 3D stereoscopic vision instead of an actual virtual REALITY. Also the whole point of VR is to transport the player literally into the world, that's what's missing from flat screen gaming no matter how "immersive" they are, they don't make the player feel like he/she is actually physicaly inside the world. I think that's the next logical step and what every VR game dev should strive for, that feeling.
As always, very insighrful video, let's just hope more devs try to push the medium forward instead of releasing more halfbaked unity shooters. I haven't seen you cover any of Nimso Studios work, so in case you haven't heard of him, here's the link to his YT: www.youtube.com/@NimsoStudios He seems to be a really smart and creative guy, working on his own engine and rethinking the groundwork VR games are based on, with really stunning results so far. And while it's still in development, he's the only person i know of who's really trying to "reinvent the wheel" in this Field, so i already respect him just for that. He also plans to license the Engine out once done, so there' still hope out there for a better VR Future.
For me it’s about simulating and presenting what you would expect to happen and how objects should look/behave if you were there for real and then making it fun. In practical terms I think it has to be broken down into chunks because we are still a long way off getting everything right but new hardware, software and controllers should really be about progression…
I must thank you for this video. Not did it just help me realise a lot of things for VR, but outside of it also. Its the kind of advice I think I needed for awhile. Thanks.
One basic thing has to be achieved - NO LASER POINTERS ! Every interaction has to be done with a physical move, touch, grab, slap, push with the index finger, thumb, pinkie, whichever ! But no more laser pointers, that should be the first sentence in the design document when making a VR game, laser pointers are banned.
amazing referencing mathewmatoisis I miss him. You remind me of him but for VR and its cool to me you mentioned him when I already thought all this about you.
The secret to vr gaming is to play pcvr for the best experience with a steering wheel,hotas,gun stock,and a playspace😊😊😊and kat locos s for locomotion or treadmill, oh and a haptic vest
I've always just told people that the same philosophy that makes VR games good is the same philosophy that makes Non-VR Immersive Sims good. The whole idea that I decide to do a thing, and the game is like "alright bro, that's an option." and you have that moment of like "Oh wait, really? The game's reacting to me doing this? Cool!" But that is on the game design side of things, not the basic controls side of things. I'll forever be pissed about how badly Hitman 3's VR port was fumbled. You had the *perfect environment* for a VR game, and because they didn't fundamentally understand the basic act of interactivity and how it relates to the world you're in, it's rightfully looked down upon as a port. Because the problem isn't that Hitman 3 isn't suited to VR. It absolutely is from a game design standpoint. I'd argue there is no other kind of game that is MORE suited to VR. The problem is, Hitman 3 VR hasn't grasped the concept of fundamental interaction this video's conversation is about.
@WMan37 hitman 3 VR failed because... 1 you can't use a gamepad to play it in 3rd person like the game was originally intended to be played. And 2. The locomotion when sprinting is screwed up. 3. Every attempt at gesture control was bad. Had they not attempted to turn it into a first person jank show, it would have succeeded. Or rather Hitman should have just focused on the HMD support instead of trying to make it for the VRAF crowd. VRAF opinions is why hitman turned out like that. I think everyone needs to grasp the fundamental concept that an hmd doesn't need first person or motion controls to justify itself.
@@nope1a4 1. That would not be comfortable in VR without it being dollhouse-esque like Moss was, but good luck with that in such a big game. 2. Agreed, this is covered under complaints about interaction in my comment. 3. See 2.
@@nope1a4 Don't you lecture me on VR legs, I can do a backflip maneuver in Sairento VR with no issues at all and Star Shelter is a game played entirely in zero gravity where there is a lot of involuntary movement and I really enjoy that game. I have played GRIP: Combat Racing where stuff moves at a blazing fast pace while having a 3rd person car cam. Don't just assume things about strangers on the internet please, it's rude. My reason for suggesting the dollhouse thing is because of the control issues that would arise from not having this, not issues related to motion sickness. There is a game called Holoception gave the best shot I have ever seen someone give third person VR, and it still feels somewhat jank in a way it doesn't when you play first person mode. There's also Hellblade: Seuna's Sacrifice VR, but that's hardly a VR game, you're playing it with a controller like you play it on flat. It's cool to have don't get me wrong, and it's cool that senua's head follows the camera look, but it's not quite what people mean when they think "third person VR".
I think this doesn’t go far enough! What you are describing is the reliable and predictable translation of input to output. This is essential in any game; in VR the input is, as you show, gestural. This isn’t the secret to a good VR game but a basic prerequisite to a game! For a good game it is not enough that one CAN interact reliably and predictably, one must be able to interact MEANINGFULLY. There must be a purpose to the interactions, a reason to engage, like pick up this object (bullet) and combine it with this one (magazine) and I get a new thing (ammunition). It follows then that there must be a reason to have ammunition. There must be a purpose because, at an essential level, what separates a game from a toy is goal. A good VR game is one in which repeatable and learnable gestural inputs create reliable and predictable outputs that allow the player to use the virtual environment to pursue and attain goals that are challenging and rewarding precisely because they were achieved physically. We can’t have good games until we fix the input/output problem.
And a minor thing VR is good at people don’t use enough: Make me look up. VR grants an incomparable sense of scale that people aren’t using enough, and it’s something that doesn’t translate to flat screens well.
It is like being an infant, we have a tendency to pick things up out of curiosity and picking things up stimulates our brain significantly. Manipulation of the virtual world is important as that connects us to this new "reality". In the first level of Alyx, we do not immediately go and play the mission, what we usually do first is just going around and picking things and throwing them as if we are back to being a child...
@JunjiItoDougWalker thank you for that comment. It's like get over the honeymoon phase of mundane shit so we can get back to making playing games The primary focus. I for one did not stop, get giddy and waste hours picking up every piece of mundane trash when I played Alyx. Because the fidelity of it all is nothing like real life to have spent any time getting excited about any of it. I started VR and still view it as an adult who got over the novelty within 1 week of buying a vive back in 2016. The rest of you need to grow tf up. It shouldn't take 8 years to realize how dumb and pointless forcing the mundane is on behalf of a bunch of vocal VRAF users with a childs mentality who gets excited that they twisted a door handle in VR
@@nope1a4 VRchat is the only use case for me to put the goggles on now, none of these recent games offer anything anywhere near the versatility and interactivity as a random VRchat world
wonderful video, youtube did recommended this vid to me and im glad a saw it, very well constructed, compelling arguments and high quality and presentation. definitely subbing and looking foward on what else you make! cheers!
The creators of this game need to make a serious shooter, i never liked this game because of the hot dog thing, its goofy to me, but the gun physics and weapon handling are out of this world. I wish they can apply these physics into a full “realistic “ gun game
As much as I'd like that, the lead dev Anton Hand does not want realistic humanoid enemies in his game. It is a shame though as there are plenty of people put off by the whole hotdog thing, but at least they are still satisfying to shoot.
The movement in population one is in my opinion the best part of the game. If you need to get away quickly (really quickly) it’s 75% physically moving with my arms - climbing flinging and flying and 25% running with the joystick. So without having a treadmill the movement is almost entirely me moving my body.
Fun is subjective. Although ultra realism can be very fun in VR games, I don't think it's required to be fun. I understand it feels disappointing that VR games hasnt evolved faster but hopefully as it becomes more mainstream we will get there eventually...
Some of the best games tap into that instinctual satisfaction with tactility/interactivity (like when you were a kid playing with legos or sand). And I’m not just talking about VR. Red Faction does this for me, as well as Half Life 2 and Halo. And it’s NOT just physics either, games with interlocking systems that you can interact with and manipulate, whether physical or narrative, tend to really be enjoyable well after the story is over.
Like it or not we are all still early adopters. I think Quest 2 selling for £200 was a low enough bar that the argument of "the hardware being too expensive etc" is no longer a valid argument; but we have to recognise and understand, that is still the first time in nearly ten years of this technology, that it finally hit that low bar of affordability. VR is a paradigm shift. The knowledge we have built out of 30 years of flat screen development is not always applicable. We are at the point with VR games that the first 3D games were at in the early 90s. We can see that it's the future, but there's still years of development and more powerful hardware before it can truly be said to have exceeded the old paradigm. There's no way around it, this will take patience, and it will be more or less trial and error. I'm sure there are devs out there who are learning just as much from the failures as they are from the successes, much like 3D games learned as much from Bubsy 3D as they did from Mario 64. I also think going forward, in future generations of VR hardware, we will have to move past the motion controller. The controller itself is an abstraction layer and barrier to fully intuitive mechanics. If headsets could precisely track hand and finger position, and allow direct unimpeded interaction instead of even needing a controller, that would be a huge barrier removed.
i agree with VR hardware NEEDING major improvement to let VR catch on to flat game levels with 4k HD graphics at high frame-rates. Only then VR will truly take off, and why eyetracked-DFR has to become a universal standard on ALL headsets so HD can be displayed more easily. ...But one thing that will be forever in gaming is that VR will always need a controller like flat games currently use no matter how advanced VR gets "gamers" will need controllers. The reason is "haptics". Hands floating in the air is great for opening doors & touching menus, but if you need to shoot a gun or swing a sword "gamers" NEED to feel the haptics of sword strikes and the click of trigger pulls that come with controllers. Sony has the best haptics with variable pull strength on triggers and rumble haptics for hands and face. Those things will always need controllers to be awesome. Driving games are okay without a wheel but add a wheel with rumble & feedback and its so much better. Thats why GAMING will need to always have controllers will they evolve sure but we will always need to feel the rumble. :) Great write up tho, just not the controller part. ❤
Here is what you are missing: 1. Developers don't share their frameworks, locomotion systems, or source code. 2. Even if they shared their code, it might be incompatible with what you are already developing or may be locked to a specific engine or other requirements. 3. Creating a believable, accurate locomotion system or IK in VR is much harder than what flat-screen titles are doing. 4. VR is an extremely small market, which leads to the doom loop of stagnating development, even if we all know it's the superior medium for experiencing games. 5. Most people simply can't afford the setup and consumer hardware, and current rendering conventions make VR far too demanding to be as visually appealing as a flat-screen title game. Stop calling VR developers lazy; they are literally pulling the weight of a 3-15 person dev studio on their own and need to play every role, knowing full well that they will be outshined in every category because they can never specialize and hone their skills in a specific area. Until hardware catches up and VR becomes really affordable, development will stagnate. End of the story.
Getting physics and movement right might be basic. As in being the basis for everything else. But it's FAAAAR from simple or easy to achieve. The Mario movement was simple. Doable.
In current time, the game engines we have are very powerful and do much of the work for us. simply put Physics engines just work, game designers just need to actually design with these in mind. Many VR dev's don't bother, nor think about these simple interactions. VR is all about detail, Half Life Alyx proved this long ago.
Verity. That's what it needs, and if I am not being selfish, simplicity... Also, people want their cake and a song about cake too. Hence the demand for RPG mechanics being in everything and REAL RPG's getting shallower than the gene pool on a beach.
Have you seen nimsoo's project TX / hybrid engine? Hes been prioritising making the game interactions feel logical and responsive before he actually makes a game utilising his system and it looks really really promising. Its like the bone series but with all of the jank ironed out
I think you're absolutely correct and I think this is where people who say they want some kind of immersive fidelity are somewhat misguided. VR doesn't need a perfect simulation of reality. It needs an approximation that FEELS like fidelity while working in a perfectly intuitive way that makes sense for the game it's in. HL:A got that right with the gravity glove. It just feels right and it works for the HL universe. The other game that figured it out is Red Matter 2. Making the in-game tool shaped the same as a controller (rather than showing hands) was a genius stroke and made it all feel intuitive leaving the player to focus on the game itself rather than how hard it was to interact with the game.
Late to the party, but I hear what you are saying about getting into the psychology. For me, I think if we had better full body movement tracking, and accurate scale for the players in the game. I think many players want to visit the worlds of the games we play, and we want to interact with that world as if it were real. I fully agree about getting back to basics of the virtual interaction.
Thank you for sharing this video with us! I think your push to improve VR with the perspective you share in so many of your videos is one VR needs more and is lacking a bit too much! I think we are all wrong when we believe we understand the full potential of VR or anything else to be honest. We never made a huge push to discover the potential in mobile games, because the gaming community that is able to demand for it, neglects mobile games as a pay-to-win market. We never made big pushes to implement new gesture controls that came from touchscreens to our mouse experiences. There is so much space to explore in non-VR gaming and when we then look at the potential and freedom of VR nearly a decade after its current start then I think we should remind ourselves that we are still only at the very beginning of this technology. Even in a decade from here we still will only scratch on the surface of what is possible. I think that is one of the many things that is so exciting about this technology. It will have surprises for us for such a long time to come. That can be frustrating and can make us hopeless in our very fast times today, but nothing that lasts long and matters deeply comes quickly and easily. The slower and more difficult the growth the more lasting the result! As you talk about in this video I strongly believe that VR really needs us to experiment again on very basic levels. I believe the power of VR lies in its ability to grand us experiences that are impossible anywhere else. I am worried that we developers are already implementing standards and have already set so many into stone. As helpful and necessary they can be to grow our development efforts, at this point of VR we should be careful how strongly we set certain mechanics into stone and how strong we demand them to be in every game. Because breaking off a standard path becomes more difficult the more developed the path is. For VR this is dangerous in the long term. I worry that we miss so much potential and that we discourage so many developers from taking the risks to go a new way and to discover new paths. That might bring us experiences we couldn't have imagined or that can teach us how not to do something, so we can find a better path next time. I only hope I will be able to do my little part in this process that is so much bigger than any of us. In the meantime I am grateful that your videos make me reflect and think more about these topics.
I probably have the intelligence to put together something like this. At the very least, a functional concept around these basic principles.... but I also have ADHD, and it's EXTREMELY hard to stay focused on any single project for any significant length of time. I really wish I had got in to game development, because I know precisely what you are talking about in your video and see these flaws everywhere, even in non-VR games. I might download UE and start dabbling in these concepts.
I REALLY want to make a VR game but between not having the time and not having any experience or knowledge with programming is keeping me from doing so
unfortunately as someone whos tried to and has made vr games its insanely more difficult than creating any flatscreen game, it definitely is more satisfying but horrifying to develop. MY TIP, make a VR game in Roblox that’s probably the most fun and easiest time you can have making a VR game.
The take away is that while VR is magic, you don't get that magic for free, and you're always dancing around player psychology. There are reasons why someone puts on a VR HMD instead of sinking into a couch with a gamepad. While I do believe VR has game design overlap with flatscreen, it's better to not go in with that assumption as it isn't necessarily that massive.
I think the sentiment was closer to "Why would you play a VR game, as opposed to a flatscreen game?" I do agree it could've been worded slightly differently, but I got the general idea.
Why does a gamer need to do any of that Maybe a youtuber. But in general, that much fidelity on reloading is completely pointless. How much time do you think the average non-youtuber is going to play around with something as pointless as...balancing a clip? You ask me. You all want VR as your personal grooming device to practice with guns when you go off the deep end. Maybe they should make VR for gamers. Also someone name me a game where you go into a menu to use a grenade. The secret to VR is understanding that VR can be a Strramlined reality. Forcing the mundane is the opposite of that concept.
@MrHocotateFreight dude spent half an hour infatuated with flipping a gun on a platter calling it the secret to making VR succeed. This is exactly why VR is actually slowly losing interest rather than gaining more. What you want already exists. Take the HMD off and experience real life. But dont drag down what VR is supposed to be, freedom from physical reality. Does mimicking and forcing the mundane sound like it fits the definition of what VR is supposed to be? A disabled person with no arms should be able to enjoy a Virtual Reality, in fact I'd say they are more deserving of a VR than any of us. But you are trying to make VR as inaccesible as possible to blow smoke up your ass about a gun realoading mechanic and twisting door handles. Such a great use of VR. We've gone from flat games where a reload is just a button press that occasionally forces you to stop shooting to making games where that reload is pretty much the entire game and the only thing that justifies its entire existence. Htf did something so dumb suddenly become "the secret" I'LL let you In on a secret. The majority of flat gamers are ignoring VR because of motion control gimmicks. Not because of price or motion sickness. Hell I own multiple VR headsets but still do 99% of my gaming flat because of the motion gimmicks. Subnautica with a gamepad is basically the best thing to come out of VR after 8 years. Not Alyx..
For me, if a medieval-style VR game can't be better than modded Skyrim VR in any way, then I won't even bother with it.
Kingdom Come Deliverance VR needs to happen....
The fact that you need so many mods to make the overpriced crap good... is still crazy.
@@OiiiiiIt’s true, but the modded Skyrim experience is amazing and something you can’t find anywhere else, which makes it worth a temporary $5 nexus subscription, Skyrim VR on sale, and 200 GB install folder with wabbajack lmao
Having watched the whole video now, I'd say it can be summed up simply as VR should do what it says on the tin: Virtual Reality. The more real the interactions feel, the more enjoyable the experiences will be. The games themselves don't need to be in any way realistic, but the actions and reactions in the games need to be believable enough that you can get lost in their worlds.
this is a very eloquent way of saying return to monke
3 minutes in atm and you're still playing with your gun and bullets :P Really though, H3VR has been around since 5th April 2016. It is incredible how many lessons could have been learnt from this game that has the best gun handling, customisation and physics in the VR space, also I'd say the best modding scene too. 8 and a half years later and devs are still making mistakes that this game solved an age ago.
To put it in perspective, the distance from H3VR initial release until now is almost the same as the release of Mario 64 to the Xbox 360 release date.
The developers of Waltz of the Wizard seem to be on the right track on understanding fun in VR.
Even though he is younger than I am (I assume), by the end of ever Mr Voice video I am left with the haunting feeling that my father is deeply disappointed with me.
It's like music. Someone who's not trained in music can tell if a note is off, it just sounds off. Much like VR games that does not mimic real world physics and consequences, it just feels... off. It then just feels like a game with 3D stereoscopic vision instead of an actual virtual REALITY.
Also the whole point of VR is to transport the player literally into the world, that's what's missing from flat screen gaming no matter how "immersive" they are, they don't make the player feel like he/she is actually physicaly inside the world. I think that's the next logical step and what every VR game dev should strive for, that feeling.
As always, very insighrful video, let's just hope more devs try to push the medium forward instead of releasing more halfbaked unity shooters.
I haven't seen you cover any of Nimso Studios work, so in case you haven't heard of him, here's the link to his YT:
www.youtube.com/@NimsoStudios
He seems to be a really smart and creative guy, working on his own engine and rethinking the groundwork VR games are based on, with really stunning results so far.
And while it's still in development, he's the only person i know of who's really trying to "reinvent the wheel" in this Field, so i already respect him just for that.
He also plans to license the Engine out once done, so there' still hope out there for a better VR Future.
For me it’s about simulating and presenting what you would expect to happen and how objects should look/behave if you were there for real and then making it fun. In practical terms I think it has to be broken down into chunks because we are still a long way off getting everything right but new hardware, software and controllers should really be about progression…
i bet you can do a really good gman impression
I must thank you for this video. Not did it just help me realise a lot of things for VR, but outside of it also. Its the kind of advice I think I needed for awhile. Thanks.
What a pleasant voice.
One basic thing has to be achieved - NO LASER POINTERS !
Every interaction has to be done with a physical move, touch, grab, slap, push with the index finger, thumb, pinkie, whichever !
But no more laser pointers, that should be the first sentence in the design document when making a VR game, laser pointers are banned.
amazing referencing mathewmatoisis I miss him. You remind me of him but for VR and its cool to me you mentioned him when I already thought all this about you.
The secret to vr gaming is to play pcvr for the best experience with a steering wheel,hotas,gun stock,and a playspace😊😊😊and kat locos s for locomotion or treadmill, oh and a haptic vest
I've always just told people that the same philosophy that makes VR games good is the same philosophy that makes Non-VR Immersive Sims good. The whole idea that I decide to do a thing, and the game is like "alright bro, that's an option." and you have that moment of like "Oh wait, really? The game's reacting to me doing this? Cool!"
But that is on the game design side of things, not the basic controls side of things. I'll forever be pissed about how badly Hitman 3's VR port was fumbled. You had the *perfect environment* for a VR game, and because they didn't fundamentally understand the basic act of interactivity and how it relates to the world you're in, it's rightfully looked down upon as a port. Because the problem isn't that Hitman 3 isn't suited to VR. It absolutely is from a game design standpoint. I'd argue there is no other kind of game that is MORE suited to VR.
The problem is, Hitman 3 VR hasn't grasped the concept of fundamental interaction this video's conversation is about.
@WMan37 hitman 3 VR failed because...
1 you can't use a gamepad to play it in 3rd person like the game was originally intended to be played.
And
2. The locomotion when sprinting is screwed up.
3. Every attempt at gesture control was bad.
Had they not attempted to turn it into a first person jank show, it would have succeeded.
Or rather Hitman should have just focused on the HMD support instead of trying to make it for the VRAF crowd. VRAF opinions is why hitman turned out like that.
I think everyone needs to grasp the fundamental concept that an hmd doesn't need first person or motion controls to justify itself.
@@nope1a4 1. That would not be comfortable in VR without it being dollhouse-esque like Moss was, but good luck with that in such a big game.
2. Agreed, this is covered under complaints about interaction in my comment.
3. See 2.
@WMan37 that's a no on the moss dollhouse for 3rd person. Get some vr legs so you can handle a chase cam in vr.
@@nope1a4 Don't you lecture me on VR legs, I can do a backflip maneuver in Sairento VR with no issues at all and Star Shelter is a game played entirely in zero gravity where there is a lot of involuntary movement and I really enjoy that game. I have played GRIP: Combat Racing where stuff moves at a blazing fast pace while having a 3rd person car cam. Don't just assume things about strangers on the internet please, it's rude.
My reason for suggesting the dollhouse thing is because of the control issues that would arise from not having this, not issues related to motion sickness. There is a game called Holoception gave the best shot I have ever seen someone give third person VR, and it still feels somewhat jank in a way it doesn't when you play first person mode. There's also Hellblade: Seuna's Sacrifice VR, but that's hardly a VR game, you're playing it with a controller like you play it on flat. It's cool to have don't get me wrong, and it's cool that senua's head follows the camera look, but it's not quite what people mean when they think "third person VR".
I think this doesn’t go far enough! What you are describing is the reliable and predictable translation of input to output. This is essential in any game; in VR the input is, as you show, gestural. This isn’t the secret to a good VR game but a basic prerequisite to a game! For a good game it is not enough that one CAN interact reliably and predictably, one must be able to interact MEANINGFULLY. There must be a purpose to the interactions, a reason to engage, like pick up this object (bullet) and combine it with this one (magazine) and I get a new thing (ammunition). It follows then that there must be a reason to have ammunition. There must be a purpose because, at an essential level, what separates a game from a toy is goal. A good VR game is one in which repeatable and learnable gestural inputs create reliable and predictable outputs that allow the player to use the virtual environment to pursue and attain goals that are challenging and rewarding precisely because they were achieved physically. We can’t have good games until we fix the input/output problem.
And a minor thing VR is good at people don’t use enough:
Make me look up.
VR grants an incomparable sense of scale that people aren’t using enough, and it’s something that doesn’t translate to flat screens well.
Serious Sideshow Bob vibes in the first part
It is like being an infant, we have a tendency to pick things up out of curiosity and picking things up stimulates our brain significantly. Manipulation of the virtual world is important as that connects us to this new "reality". In the first level of Alyx, we do not immediately go and play the mission, what we usually do first is just going around and picking things and throwing them as if we are back to being a child...
the problem is it feels like we've been infants for like 5 years now. Its so sad
@JunjiItoDougWalker thank you for that comment. It's like get over the honeymoon phase of mundane shit so we can get back to making playing games The primary focus.
I for one did not stop, get giddy and waste hours picking up every piece of mundane trash when I played Alyx. Because the fidelity of it all is nothing like real life to have spent any time getting excited about any of it.
I started VR and still view it as an adult who got over the novelty within 1 week of buying a vive back in 2016.
The rest of you need to grow tf up. It shouldn't take 8 years to realize how dumb and pointless forcing the mundane is on behalf of a bunch of vocal VRAF users with a childs mentality who gets excited that they twisted a door handle in VR
@@nope1a4 VRchat is the only use case for me to put the goggles on now, none of these recent games offer anything anywhere near the versatility and interactivity as a random VRchat world
wonderful video, youtube did recommended this vid to me and im glad a saw it, very well constructed, compelling arguments and high quality and presentation. definitely subbing and looking foward on what else you make!
cheers!
The creators of this game need to make a serious shooter, i never liked this game because of the hot dog thing, its goofy to me, but the gun physics and weapon handling are out of this world. I wish they can apply these physics into a full “realistic “ gun game
As much as I'd like that, the lead dev Anton Hand does not want realistic humanoid enemies in his game. It is a shame though as there are plenty of people put off by the whole hotdog thing, but at least they are still satisfying to shoot.
@@jiantjingerjohn yea thats fair its his vision and I cant be mad at that
Can’t believe your channel isn’t bigger! The only real voice for vr around here
The movement in population one is in my opinion the best part of the game. If you need to get away quickly (really quickly) it’s 75% physically moving with my arms - climbing flinging and flying and 25% running with the joystick. So without having a treadmill the movement is almost entirely me moving my body.
Fun is subjective. Although ultra realism can be very fun in VR games, I don't think it's required to be fun. I understand it feels disappointing that VR games hasnt evolved faster but hopefully as it becomes more mainstream we will get there eventually...
Some of the best games tap into that instinctual satisfaction with tactility/interactivity (like when you were a kid playing with legos or sand). And I’m not just talking about VR. Red Faction does this for me, as well as Half Life 2 and Halo. And it’s NOT just physics either, games with interlocking systems that you can interact with and manipulate, whether physical or narrative, tend to really be enjoyable well after the story is over.
I only pay for replayability even in flatland. Single player means waiting for 70% off for naritive based
i was there
Like it or not we are all still early adopters. I think Quest 2 selling for £200 was a low enough bar that the argument of "the hardware being too expensive etc" is no longer a valid argument; but we have to recognise and understand, that is still the first time in nearly ten years of this technology, that it finally hit that low bar of affordability.
VR is a paradigm shift. The knowledge we have built out of 30 years of flat screen development is not always applicable. We are at the point with VR games that the first 3D games were at in the early 90s. We can see that it's the future, but there's still years of development and more powerful hardware before it can truly be said to have exceeded the old paradigm.
There's no way around it, this will take patience, and it will be more or less trial and error. I'm sure there are devs out there who are learning just as much from the failures as they are from the successes, much like 3D games learned as much from Bubsy 3D as they did from Mario 64.
I also think going forward, in future generations of VR hardware, we will have to move past the motion controller. The controller itself is an abstraction layer and barrier to fully intuitive mechanics. If headsets could precisely track hand and finger position, and allow direct unimpeded interaction instead of even needing a controller, that would be a huge barrier removed.
i agree with VR hardware NEEDING major improvement to let VR catch on to flat game levels with 4k HD graphics at high frame-rates. Only then VR will truly take off, and why eyetracked-DFR has to become a universal standard on ALL headsets so HD can be displayed more easily. ...But one thing that will be forever in gaming is that VR will always need a controller like flat games currently use no matter how advanced VR gets "gamers" will need controllers. The reason is "haptics". Hands floating in the air is great for opening doors & touching menus, but if you need to shoot a gun or swing a sword "gamers" NEED to feel the haptics of sword strikes and the click of trigger pulls that come with controllers. Sony has the best haptics with variable pull strength on triggers and rumble haptics for hands and face. Those things will always need controllers to be awesome. Driving games are okay without a wheel but add a wheel with rumble & feedback and its so much better. Thats why GAMING will need to always have controllers will they evolve sure but we will always need to feel the rumble. :)
Great write up tho, just not the controller part. ❤
Here is what you are missing:
1. Developers don't share their frameworks, locomotion systems, or source code.
2. Even if they shared their code, it might be incompatible with what you are already developing or may be locked to a specific engine or other requirements.
3. Creating a believable, accurate locomotion system or IK in VR is much harder than what flat-screen titles are doing.
4. VR is an extremely small market, which leads to the doom loop of stagnating development, even if we all know it's the superior medium for experiencing games.
5. Most people simply can't afford the setup and consumer hardware, and current rendering conventions make VR far too demanding to be as visually appealing as a flat-screen title game.
Stop calling VR developers lazy; they are literally pulling the weight of a 3-15 person dev studio on their own and need to play every role, knowing full well that they will be outshined in every category because they can never specialize and hone their skills in a specific area. Until hardware catches up and VR becomes really affordable, development will stagnate. End of the story.
Getting physics and movement right might be basic. As in being the basis for everything else.
But it's FAAAAR from simple or easy to achieve.
The Mario movement was simple. Doable.
In current time, the game engines we have are very powerful and do much of the work for us. simply put Physics engines just work, game designers just need to actually design with these in mind. Many VR dev's don't bother, nor think about these simple interactions. VR is all about detail, Half Life Alyx proved this long ago.
Verity.
That's what it needs, and if I am not being selfish, simplicity...
Also, people want their cake and a song about cake too.
Hence the demand for RPG mechanics being in everything and REAL RPG's getting shallower than the gene pool on a beach.
Have you seen nimsoo's project TX / hybrid engine? Hes been prioritising making the game interactions feel logical and responsive before he actually makes a game utilising his system and it looks really really promising. Its like the bone series but with all of the jank ironed out
First thing I thought of as well. Really fascinating stuff he's doing.
Secrets out now, lets hope Devs catch on! Well articulated and eloquently put, keep up the good fight, VR needs it
ohshit i did not understand it the first time, sorry
Bloody good show!
I think you're absolutely correct and I think this is where people who say they want some kind of immersive fidelity are somewhat misguided. VR doesn't need a perfect simulation of reality. It needs an approximation that FEELS like fidelity while working in a perfectly intuitive way that makes sense for the game it's in.
HL:A got that right with the gravity glove. It just feels right and it works for the HL universe.
The other game that figured it out is Red Matter 2. Making the in-game tool shaped the same as a controller (rather than showing hands) was a genius stroke and made it all feel intuitive leaving the player to focus on the game itself rather than how hard it was to interact with the game.
Late to the party, but I hear what you are saying about getting into the psychology. For me, I think if we had better full body movement tracking, and accurate scale for the players in the game. I think many players want to visit the worlds of the games we play, and we want to interact with that world as if it were real. I fully agree about getting back to basics of the virtual interaction.
Thank you for sharing this video with us! I think your push to improve VR with the perspective you share in so many of your videos is one VR needs more and is lacking a bit too much!
I think we are all wrong when we believe we understand the full potential of VR or anything else to be honest. We never made a huge push to discover the potential in mobile games, because the gaming community that is able to demand for it, neglects mobile games as a pay-to-win market. We never made big pushes to implement new gesture controls that came from touchscreens to our mouse experiences. There is so much space to explore in non-VR gaming and when we then look at the potential and freedom of VR nearly a decade after its current start then I think we should remind ourselves that we are still only at the very beginning of this technology. Even in a decade from here we still will only scratch on the surface of what is possible.
I think that is one of the many things that is so exciting about this technology. It will have surprises for us for such a long time to come. That can be frustrating and can make us hopeless in our very fast times today, but nothing that lasts long and matters deeply comes quickly and easily. The slower and more difficult the growth the more lasting the result!
As you talk about in this video I strongly believe that VR really needs us to experiment again on very basic levels. I believe the power of VR lies in its ability to grand us experiences that are impossible anywhere else. I am worried that we developers are already implementing standards and have already set so many into stone. As helpful and necessary they can be to grow our development efforts, at this point of VR we should be careful how strongly we set certain mechanics into stone and how strong we demand them to be in every game. Because breaking off a standard path becomes more difficult the more developed the path is. For VR this is dangerous in the long term.
I worry that we miss so much potential and that we discourage so many developers from taking the risks to go a new way and to discover new paths. That might bring us experiences we couldn't have imagined or that can teach us how not to do something, so we can find a better path next time.
I only hope I will be able to do my little part in this process that is so much bigger than any of us. In the meantime I am grateful that your videos make me reflect and think more about these topics.
Fun fact, SM64 is one of Gabe Newell's favourite games
Outstanding as usual,a gentlemen and a scholar
I probably have the intelligence to put together something like this. At the very least, a functional concept around these basic principles.... but I also have ADHD, and it's EXTREMELY hard to stay focused on any single project for any significant length of time.
I really wish I had got in to game development, because I know precisely what you are talking about in your video and see these flaws everywhere, even in non-VR games.
I might download UE and start dabbling in these concepts.
some devine stuff. I feel smarter and motivated somehow :)
My favorite VR games are those that utilize motion controls.
I REALLY want to make a VR game but between not having the time and not having any experience or knowledge with programming is keeping me from doing so
unfortunately as someone whos tried to and has made vr games its insanely more difficult than creating any flatscreen game, it definitely is more satisfying but horrifying to develop.
MY TIP, make a VR game in Roblox that’s probably the most fun and easiest time you can have making a VR game.
what do you think of rumble vr?
Right on the nose
It must be human shaped.
nice
The take away is that while VR is magic, you don't get that magic for free, and you're always dancing around player psychology.
There are reasons why someone puts on a VR HMD instead of sinking into a couch with a gamepad.
While I do believe VR has game design overlap with flatscreen, it's better to not go in with that assumption as it isn't necessarily that massive.
hello
my fav fps in vr is contractors and bonelab.
4:08 There isn't an answer for what makes a good flatscreen game either. This is a dumb argument.
I think the sentiment was closer to "Why would you play a VR game, as opposed to a flatscreen game?"
I do agree it could've been worded slightly differently, but I got the general idea.
Why does a gamer need to do any of that
Maybe a youtuber. But in general, that much fidelity on reloading is completely pointless.
How much time do you think the average non-youtuber is going to play around with something as pointless as...balancing a clip?
You ask me. You all want VR as your personal grooming device to practice with guns when you go off the deep end.
Maybe they should make VR for gamers.
Also someone name me a game where you go into a menu to use a grenade.
The secret to VR is understanding that VR can be a Strramlined reality. Forcing the mundane is the opposite of that concept.
Thats...well it's an opinion to be sure.
Seems more like something ticked you off prior and vr was just the topic that took the heat, am I right?
@@MrHocotateFreight dude is talking like gabe newell personally broke into his house and beat his dog to death with a knuckles controller lmaooo
“You all want VR as your personal grooming device to practice with guns when you go off the deep end.”
Get a grip
@boinqity4621 no but Gabe can shove those touchpads he's tried to push on gamers up his ass
@MrHocotateFreight dude spent half an hour infatuated with flipping a gun on a platter calling it the secret to making VR succeed. This is exactly why VR is actually slowly losing interest rather than gaining more.
What you want already exists. Take the HMD off and experience real life. But dont drag down what VR is supposed to be, freedom from physical reality.
Does mimicking and forcing the mundane sound like it fits the definition of what VR is supposed to be?
A disabled person with no arms should be able to enjoy a Virtual Reality, in fact I'd say they are more deserving of a VR than any of us. But you are trying to make VR as inaccesible as possible to blow smoke up your ass about a gun realoading mechanic and twisting door handles.
Such a great use of VR.
We've gone from flat games where a reload is just a button press that occasionally forces you to stop shooting to making games where that reload is pretty much the entire game and the only thing that justifies its entire existence.
Htf did something so dumb suddenly become "the secret"
I'LL let you In on a secret. The majority of flat gamers are ignoring VR because of motion control gimmicks. Not because of price or motion sickness.
Hell I own multiple VR headsets but still do 99% of my gaming flat because of the motion gimmicks. Subnautica with a gamepad is basically the best thing to come out of VR after 8 years. Not Alyx..