How immersive would you want your VR?

[Sabre]

Okay so say they finally invent full immersion VR. 5 senses and everything. Feels like you're really there. If there was a "pain" option, would you turn it on? Like if you got shot in a Call of Duty game the VR would stimulate your nerves to make it feel like you really got shot. Would you do it if you risked being chainsawed in half in a Resident Evil game? Munched by one of the monsters in The Evil Within? Eaten by a shark in Depth? It would make you feel (as accurately as the developers could manage) like it was actually happening to you. Would you do it for an achievement? An unlockable? If you had to do it in order to get the true ending?

Also, would you play a fully immersive VR if it came with smell that you couldn't turn off? Say if you had to walk through a recently napalmed village in a Vietnam-themed game or had to slog through a sewer level in Doom? Would any of the above be deal-breakers for you in a game?

I'd be afraid to try it personally. If it were just being shot or something I MIGHT try it once I worked up the courage, but a horror game? Don't think I could.

[Tech_0ne]

Ha that's a good point, I don't think I'd opt for the pain option of being shot. It reminds me of the Star Trek holodeck when inevitably the safety would be turned off for plot reasons.

Smell on the other hand would be good to have on, the stench if walking through a medieval city, or the sweet smell of cherry blossoms in spring. Or even the rotting corpses in a survival horror game.

I guess the real question is how real you want a game to be? Is it escapism or a realistic experience.... I can see the appeal in both.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

[aileron]

Awesome thoughts/speculation. In reality I think we're a ways away from what you describe. I would so try it though, yes, full feedback. Sorry, let me correct myself, I have a family. If it were safe I'd try it. I'd be worried a complete "feeling" of getting shot or eaten or something would trigger a real shock reaction in your body.

[Matcam89]

No I think I can do without the pain or even smells - do you really want to know what a zombie smells like?

VR is a blast I am really hoping it gains traction - btw which setup do you have I’ve been thinking of getting the oculus rift?

[fenrif]

Both the Vive and the rift have the same setup. They're basically the same thing with a few minor technical pros and cons between them. The main differences are that Vive customer support is apparently awful (so I've heard, no idea about Occulus) and Occulus is owned by Facebook. With all the horrors that entails.

I run a vive in a very small room. My play space is around 5"x5". You can use it in seated/standing only mode if you want, but I just use roomscale and do most of my moving in-game. I only use the real world movement tracking for getting into cover, peeking roung corners, etc. As long as you can take a step in any direction you don't need much more room.

[Matcam89]

Maybe I have them confused I thought the Rift was the sit down desk version with just two sensors and the Vive was the full room setup I must be thinking of something else

[fenrif]

I think rift at launch was sit down only, but you could always play Vive like that. It depends on the software you're running. I'm not sure when exactly but at some point the Rift patched it's firmware and allowed it's users to buy another couple of sensors to use it roomscale like the Vive. It was when the motion controlers launched for it. Before that it came with a xbone controller.

[Ultimate Goose]

The pain option should be a vibration on the point of impact (would be pretty funny if kept getting shot in the groin area), actual pain would never be allowed, or at least I hope not, sounds scary!

[isturbo1984]

I just want my VR to not require you to use waggle controls like it was a fucking Wii. We did this already. VR has some great supporters, but sales dictates it is a dead fad. Just give me first-person modes in regular games with the option to use a VR headset. It goesn't have to be anything else.

[JackofTears]

I am really looking forward to full immersion VR, though I suspect it won't truly hit until we start getting neural implants, but I'm holding out hope that'll still happen in the twenty years or so before I die of a heart attack.

I would imagine that such a device would allow you to adjust your input the same way you can adjust your settings in games, now. You could turn your pain all the way up, partially up, or completely off. I expect there will be limiters built into those games by law, however, so you'd never actually have the experience of being sawed in half - unless you were stupid and bought a third-party hack which removed limiters.

I would play with pain set to about 15%, enough so I'd recognize it and want to avoid it, but not so much that it'd really and truly hurt. I'm playing to have fun, after all.

Now, here's the harder question: If Pain and Pleasure were on the same setting - so you could experience exquisite pleasure but at the cost of risking horrific pain, would you do it? What if the game only allowed access if they were turned on? How much is the promise of pleasure worth to you? (Though really, I imagine there'd be plenty of erotic games to get off on, so it wouldn't be necessary to make this choice)

[Garrett]

I don't like fantasizing about what might be when what is is not even remotely ready yet, and nobody even stopped to try something that works before going all in with something that doesn't.

As long as full haptic feedback is out of reach, all I want from VR is a 3d display to replace my 2d display. Motion controls are garbage and feel like you're miming something to a small child who needs to guess what you're trying to do. Objects have no weight or tangible surfaces, movement has no intertia and recoil literally doesn't exist. So what I want is my mouse and keyboard, and a display that is rendered in stereoscopic 3d. Which is why I don't play VR games because all the gimmick-fetishist hacks who make them skipped over the most important part of the evolution and went straight to the low-rent Holodeck design that is fun for a full five seconds. Stereoscopic > Virtual Reality.

Isn't it ironic that we call it "virtual reality", like how in fiction we call those shit AI that lack the true functionality of true AI "virtual intelligence"? Yeah, we just have the shitty virtual reality because we don't have access to artificial reality yet. Fits perfectly.

[Garrett]

aileron It's not a new concept. What would probably be better is a dynamic 3d desktop display using the tech of the Nintendo 3DS, with eyetracking that can adjust the depth of 3d projection based on the player's distance and position in relation to the screen. Because even a headset is not baby steps enough when evolving the hobby. The problem with headsets is the inability to see anything outside the game. Before that is solved there is a better alternative and that is the 3DS screen. Also when the display is not so close to your eyes, you can save massively on performance because you can render in a normal resolution and with a normal field of view.

So you take one step forward and no steps back. Stereoscopic rendering, but without cancer controls. The current trend of VR is two steps forward, fifteen steps back and one step into a pile of shit.

[aileron]

Ah ok yes I remember trying a 3DS once.

[fenrif]

VR is stereostopic. That's the method it uses to trick your brain into seeing three dimensions.

You can also do that 3d display thing with most both the Occulus and the Vive. Though the screendoor effect and resoution make it less than perfect, it's absolutely doable.

Recoil exists in VR games the same way it exists in flatscreen games. You don't feel it in your physical hands but it still effects your aiming and makes you brace your rifle to your shoulder to get proper accuracy. Though it depends on the game.

Scientific progress does not work in the way you seem to imagine. People don't say "lets invent a holodeck" and then there's a holodeck. Progress is incremental. There's no such thing as skipping over evolution. Yeah the modern implimentation of VR pales in comparison to a holodeck. But maybe it's an important step along the way? It's like complaining someone invented the horse and cart instead of just going straight to inventing the Ford Focus. It's not that they skipped over the combustion engine. It's just that the wheel came first, because it was easiest. Then that made further developments easier along the way, and eventually we have automobiles.

[Erebus]

Like SAO. I probably won't mess with VR til it gets close to it to be honest.

[fenrif]

I'd not want to feel the pain of being shot, but I'd certainly want some sensation. Maybe some pain on the same level as stubbing a toe? As to smell and taste and all the other gross stuff, yeah lay it on me. I wanna smell the rotting zombie, taste the musty air in a dungeon.

I just want my VR to not require you to use waggle controls like it was a fucking Wii. We did this already. VR has some great supporters, but sales dictates it is a dead fad. Just give me first-person modes in regular games with the option to use a VR headset. It goesn't have to be anything else.

None of the VR games I own use waggle controllers, and I own a lot of VR games. Modern motion controllers are to a wiimote as your smartphone is to the first Nokias. The wii did waggle controls because it's tracking was awful. It could detect movement in the controller, and which direction, but it had no idea where the controller was at the start or end of the movement. Vive controllers are perfect 1:1 tracking.

[isturbo1984]

My issue isn't with the accuracy of the waggle. Its the fact I have to waggle a controller to play my video games. Some games worked very well. But I sisn't didn't like them. It's still bonkers that VR has taking this evolutionary route to me.

[Verhoven 69]

Immersive? What about tactile and smell immersion? Just like the Sh'iar upgraded X men Danger Room.

[Dub-Z]

[Reperanger7]

I absolutely would play that!!! I'd guess it depends on what take I'm playing if I'd want feel the pain or not.The smell would be nice to have what point is playing something if you can't smell it. Imagine the possibilities 🤢