It appears Valve are truly getting more serious about Virtual Reality as they appear to be making their own headset. On top of that, apparently a new Half-Life VR game is coming.
Leaked to an imgur album, which contains multiple shots of the new hardware. These includes shots clearly showing a Valve logo:
The uploadvr website has claimed they have had it confirmed by various sources that it is in fact real. As someone who really wants to try VR, I am hopeful Valve will be able to give it a decent price. The current price for most VR hardware is simply out of reach for a lot of people, myself included.
Even more interesting, is that Valve are apparently working on a new Half-Life which will be a VR title. That certainly could be one way to push adoption, I imagine that would turn a few heads that otherwise wouldn't have been interested. Could backfire too of course, if it's VR-only. To keep expectations in check though, reportedly it's a Half-Life 2 prequel and not Half-Life 3.
Valve News Network also have this video up about the Half-Life game which is interesting:
Direct Link
Considering Microsoft is making moves buying up more studios and making another attempt to fix up the Windows Store, along with some bigger players leaving Steam like Activision, EA, Bethesda with the new Fallout and all this together should make Valve at least a bit worried. Their current growth will only last so long, if others continue to leave and become exclusive to other stores.
Valve obviously need to make moves of their own and it looks like doubling down on VR is what they had in mind. The amount of people that currently own a VR headset as reported on the Steam Hardware Survey is still extremely low (lower than the Linux share) so Valve really will need a decent price on it.
It does make you think about Valve's future plans. They're doing this new VR hardware, some new games and pushing Steam Play to get more games on Linux. Would it be too far-fetched to consider a new Steam Machine? One continued to be powered by their SteamOS Linux distribution that allows VR support out of the box along with a huge back catalogue of previously Windows-only games.
That's a pipe dream of mine though really and I'm basically thinking out loud at this point, as I'm sure it's just different teams working on their own thing. However, if it did all come together, that could be amazing.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: EikeWhat you're talking about is the focal plane disconnect. Our eyes in real life naturally focus based on what we're looking at. In VR it's fixed at 2 meters always. But this is actually close to being fixed, and there are many solutions proven to work through publically revealed prototypes like the Oculus Half Dome prototype. That headset shifts the focal plane by moving the display back and forth depending on what your eye is looking at using eye tracking.Quoting: ScrollingSquirrelThere are zero issues that can't be solved aside from wearing something on your head
As far as I know, there is: The 3D focal point and the 2D focal point fall apart. (I can look up the optical terms and explanation if needed.)
In a few short years, this will be the norm and the vergence accommodation problem will be solved.
PublicNuisance Nov 12, 2018
As a side note, despite being The Future Of Gaming, I can't really see how a lot of game genres would see much benefit by going VR. Certainly first-person games, and the sort of physical stuff that the Wii used to do (and to some degree the Switch does now) translate well. But RTS games? TCGs? Story-based RPGs with a lot of text, like Pillars of Eternity? Roguelikes? Seems to me that you'd have go to a lot of trouble just to tease out some way to present those on a VR platform that's just not worth the effort. And I'd personally rather not leave stuff like that in the past to pursue that golden future of gaming.
Last edited by Nezchan on 12 November 2018 at 11:47 pm UTC
Quoting: NezchanI wonder, on the other side of things, how much of a barrier there is to developing for VR from the indie/solo developer side of things?For a solo dev, VR might be one of the best areas right now because you can get a lot of visibility compared to anywhere else in gaming.
As a side note, despite being The Future Of Gaming, I can't really see how a lot of game genres would see much benefit by going VR. Certainly first-person games, and the sort of physical stuff that the Wii used to do (and to some degree the Switch does now) translate well. But RTS games? TCGs? Story-based RPGs with a lot of text, like Pillars of Eternity? Roguelikes? Seems to me that you'd have go to a lot of trouble just to tease out some way to present those on a VR platform that's just not worth the effort. And I'd personally rather not leave stuff like that in the past to pursue that golden future of gaming.
There are RTS games in VR. They are quite fun, and in fact would be very suitable for single player RTS games because we don't need insanely fast mouse / keyboard controls for that. For multiplayer RTS, mouse / keyboard will probably remain the norm.
TCGs can actually be amazing in VR. First, you get to turn cards on a screen to physical cards in your hand, which is a plus, but then you can animate everything like a Yugioh duel with life sized monsters. It's also much much much more social, because now you can physically feel someone's presence. AR/VR will probably be the medium for TCGs to really thrive in.
Story based RPGs with a lot of text just need to skip the text and go to audio, or otherwise we wait until resolution increases and it won't be that different.
Pillars of Eternity would just be a case where the added scale and immersion of VR would be an improvement for those who want it. It would be really cool. I can tell you that playing Hellblade in top-down VR at mini scale was seriously stunning.
Roguelikes in what sense? Turn-based / text adventures? Obviously text is off the map, but turn-based could work, but would likely be preferred without. Any other form of roguelike can be adapted to VR well and these days the "other" kind is the more popular kind.
So yes, it's not going to fit some things. But it does in fact fit most genres. You also need to consider that VR is a simulation medium as well, which means with increased resolution you can replace any screen setup no matter how good or expensive it is, with an identical or even better version. Then you can play all these games like Shovel Knight inside of VR, maybe even make the room all retro and play on a NES or something. You can of course do this with friends in a way that won't be any different from sitting on a couch with your friends playing games.
There is a ten-year old cliffhanger that needs to be resolved and instead we get to force fail through the Combine invasion?
Quoting: GuestYou realize that room-scale games or rather games built just for room-scale are almost non-existent now? Most games can be played in a small space, enough to stretch your arms out around you, and these are much better than the 2016 launch games that relied on room-scale. But there are also a decent number of seated VR games with and without motion controls.Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: GuestVR was basically DOA, and until we get proper peripherals for it instead of roomscale and motion controller trash, it will remain DOA.VR is amazing. Seriously amazing. I don't know how you can say roomscale is trash. The controllers work well enough for a first iteration on the Vive (been waiting for Knuckles forever).
Unless you've tried some of the amazing things that VR can already do, you are talking out of your ass.
Cost is probably the only real prohibitive thing, and the cost is always going to go down.
Roomscale fills a very specific niche, a niche for gamers that are excited about (or even just ok with) needing to stand while playing their games. Personally I play games to relax and I prefer to do that from a sitting position. It is also a gimmick, and an expensive one at that because it requires a large amount of empty space and has all kinds of issues even if you have said space. It's just not appealing to anyone except for a small specific crowd of gamers...
Is it cool? Yes, an amazing experience? probably, but it's not practical.
VR is ultimately a medium that includes everything. And I mean everything. This includes seated games, standing games, room-scale games, soon house-scale and world-scale games, non VR games played on virtual displays, TV, movies watched on virtual displays, 360 photos, 360 videos and movies, and of course your PC desktop. That is all existing media.
So once it becomes more refined, it will be for absolutely everyone, leaving no one person out. Input will be offered in many forms with upcoming advances like hand tracking without gloves for socialization and easy media viewing, eye-tracking for intelligent interfaces, and of course motion controls / gamepad will still be there, and in gaming will be the main choices until gloves replace motion controls.
As Gabe says: These things, they take time. We're still in the early 2000s of the smartphone industry before the iPhone launch.
slaapliedje Nov 13, 2018
Quoting: GuestQuoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: GuestVR was basically DOA, and until we get proper peripherals for it instead of roomscale and motion controller trash, it will remain DOA.VR is amazing. Seriously amazing. I don't know how you can say roomscale is trash. The controllers work well enough for a first iteration on the Vive (been waiting for Knuckles forever).
Unless you've tried some of the amazing things that VR can already do, you are talking out of your ass.
Cost is probably the only real prohibitive thing, and the cost is always going to go down.
Roomscale fills a very specific niche, a niche for gamers that are excited about (or even just ok with) needing to stand while playing their games. Personally I play games to relax and I prefer to do that from a sitting position. It is also a gimmick, and an expensive one at that because it requires a large amount of empty space and has all kinds of issues even if you have said space. It's just not appealing to anyone except for a small specific crowd of gamers...
Is it cool? Yes, an amazing experience? probably, but it's not practical.
Ha, if this were reddit, I would say it is because you got an Oculus Rift. Room scale games are amazing, and I would almost say that without it, VR is nothing but 3D with head tracking. I am fat, so don't play a lot of room scale because I can't do it for very long. But I think it is currently the most amazing thing a computer can currently do. Bow hunting in Skyrim VR or being able to go shooting in the virtual gun range of Hotdogs, Horseshoes and Hand grenades is amazing.
Also, Google Earth VR is fantastic.
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