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Technical challenges aside, I don't think VR will turn Second Life into a Snow Crash Metaverse anytime soon. Speaking of 2007, remember how hyped motion contro

Technical challenges aside, I don't think VR will turn Second Life into a Snow Crash Metaverse anytime soon. Speaking of 2007, remember how hyped motion controls were? Remember how excited we got when we saw people "bowling" and "boxing" on Wii Sports? Remember the thrill of booting up LoZ Twilight Princess for the first time? Remember that first sword swing that was blocked on screen even as your real-life arm kept swinging, undaunted but by a pithy vibration? Even with VR that didn't cost an arm and a leg and ran Second Life at 90fps without trouble, the simple fact is that without realistic force feedback, every user will be constantly reminded that they are not actually flying a spaceship in zero G, they are not actually being double-teamed in a mass orgy, and they are not actually relaxing in mud bath at a sprawling spa. True immersion is decades away. Until we have Star Trek holodecks or Metal Gear nanomachines, we are only fooling ourselves into believing that virtual reality is completely immersive. We really ought to have a kind of Turing Test for VR to restrain the hype.

QAPereo 9y ago
Speaking of 2007, remember how hyped motion controls were? Remember how excited we got when we saw people "bowling" and "boxing" on Wii Sports? Remember the thrill of booting up LoZ Twilight Princess for the first time? Remember that first sword swing that was blocked on screen even as your real-life arm kept swinging, undaunted but by a pithy vibration? I remember other people feeling that way yes, but for myself and some others it felt like a big set a gimmicks. Motion control on the Wii wasn’t really motion control, it was wiggle control; I remember complaining years ago motion control would only be really interesting what it was 1:1. I don’t feel that way about VR this time. Virtual reality is rough and it’s it’s in its early stages in terms of hardware, software, and the user experience, but it has so much potential. If anything VR right now reminds me of games back of the time of Wolfenstein and Doom, and I’m pretty excited. Having said that I’m not buying first generation VR gear, I put in my time with early computers. My generation two or three though I expected things are gonna be pretty damn interesting. I’m not a particularly optimistic person, but I am genuinely optimistic about this. I don’t think full immersion is required for VR and especially AR to change the game.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I've tried VR and I liked it. I was surprised at how much further the immersion could go than on a distant flat screen when I'm standing still and watching the experience unfold around me; this would be particularly fascinating to see applied to a live sports match. But every time I've had to "walk" I am reminded that I am actually within a bounded box (and because my experience was at the home of a small child, I also ran the risk of tripping over an invisible toy at any given time), which made me feel even less immersed as I would be laying sideways on a couch looking at a screen that barely covers a quarter of my field of vision. AR is a completely different beast. I don't need force feedback for apps like Measuring Tape to be astoundingly useful. I am quite hopeful at the near-future utilization of AR.
- Nition 9y ago
  Things got a lot more accurate on the Wii with the MotionPlus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Very true, and now really excellent motion control is standard VR fare.
empath75 9y ago
The motion controls on the Oculus and Vive are spectacular. You can't even compare them to the wii. Playing Robo-recall on the oculus is like being in a john woo movie.
dithering 9y ago
> without realistic force feedback, every user will be constantly reminded And with realistic force feedback, a bluescreen will tear your arm off at the socket. I think you're right about the timescale, but more because we can't write truly safe software.
Jach 9y ago
Well https://axonvr.com/ https://axonvr.com/ is working on it from the haptic feedback end. But I'd like to see a different approach altogether: stick some wires in my head/spinal column. If you can hijack the input/output signals of my brain to the rest of my body, you don't need any sophisticated external machinery or nanobots or holodecks to immerse me.

QAPereo 9y ago

Speaking of 2007, remember how hyped motion controls were? Remember how excited we got when we saw people "bowling" and "boxing" on Wii Sports? Remember the thrill of booting up LoZ Twilight Princess for the first time? Remember that first sword swing that was blocked on screen even as your real-life arm kept swinging, undaunted but by a pithy vibration? I remember other people feeling that way yes, but for myself and some others it felt like a big set a gimmicks. Motion control on the Wii wasn’t really motion control, it was wiggle control; I remember complaining years ago motion control would only be really interesting what it was 1:1. I don’t feel that way about VR this time. Virtual reality is rough and it’s it’s in its early stages in terms of hardware, software, and the user experience, but it has so much potential. If anything VR right now reminds me of games back of the time of Wolfenstein and Doom, and I’m pretty excited. Having said that I’m not buying first generation VR gear, I put in my time with early computers. My generation two or three though I expected things are gonna be pretty damn interesting. I’m not a particularly optimistic person, but I am genuinely optimistic about this. I don’t think full immersion is required for VR and especially AR to change the game.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
Don't get me wrong, I've tried VR and I liked it. I was surprised at how much further the immersion could go than on a distant flat screen when I'm standing still and watching the experience unfold around me; this would be particularly fascinating to see applied to a live sports match. But every time I've had to "walk" I am reminded that I am actually within a bounded box (and because my experience was at the home of a small child, I also ran the risk of tripping over an invisible toy at any given time), which made me feel even less immersed as I would be laying sideways on a couch looking at a screen that barely covers a quarter of my field of vision. AR is a completely different beast. I don't need force feedback for apps like Measuring Tape to be astoundingly useful. I am quite hopeful at the near-future utilization of AR.
Nition 9y ago
Things got a lot more accurate on the Wii with the MotionPlus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Very true, and now really excellent motion control is standard VR fare.

empath75 9y ago

The motion controls on the Oculus and Vive are spectacular. You can't even compare them to the wii. Playing Robo-recall on the oculus is like being in a john woo movie.

dithering 9y ago

> without realistic force feedback, every user will be constantly reminded And with realistic force feedback, a bluescreen will tear your arm off at the socket. I think you're right about the timescale, but more because we can't write truly safe software.

Jach 9y ago

Well https://axonvr.com/ https://axonvr.com/ is working on it from the haptic feedback end. But I'd like to see a different approach altogether: stick some wires in my head/spinal column. If you can hijack the input/output signals of my brain to the rest of my body, you don't need any sophisticated external machinery or nanobots or holodecks to immerse me.