2nd September 2014, 8:42 PM
Another barely thought out opinion... from me! :FuckYou:
Every few years, VR is "coming to revolutionize everything and everyone forever". There's the ol' power glove, the runnin' pad, the dance pads, the guitar thingies, wiggle and waggle via Wii controller, "Kinect" style "track your movement" games, and where are they all now? Well, the Power Glove was actually superior to the Wii in the degrees of movement (even if the tracking system itself was off), but it failed fast. All those one-trick addon controllers seem to have died a fad's death. The Kinect is so hated and reviled that removing it outright has been a boon to XBox One sales. (The PS4 camera seems to have been abandoned as well, now that all the weirdos can't use it to creep out kids any more.)
But what about 3D? Yes, 3D, the tech that just wouldn't give up. From the ol' red and blue glasses to modern 3D that's so revolutionary no one really wants to pay for it any more (and no one really notices the difference anyway), and from Virtual Boy's utter failure to impress, to the 3DS's 3D abilities actually confusing consumers into thinking the product wasn't even an upgrade (to the point they felt it less confusing to release a "2DS"), that doesn't seem to be doing so hot either.
But sure, the Oculus, that'll change everything, right? It's got motion controls AND 3D, all in your chair!
Well, I think that's the problem right there. No matter how much they try to put you "in the game", totally immersed and secluded from the outside world, you're still bound to a chair. Maybe at best, if you're rich and living in a 90's kid's movie about being rich, you get a harness or one of those giant human gyro thingies. You never really do get complete immersion, as your fat body sack still has to sit still and can't really move around on it's own, no matter how many neat gloves you have on, because in the real world you'll either run into a wall, or a busy intersection (there's really only two options in this scenario, maybe if you've got the battery life you might wander into a waiting tiger's jaws).
We all want to be "in" our games, but the weak link is that we aren't! I see people wearing an Oculus, turning their heads around to see, but still forced to use a controller or keyboard to actually move anywhere, like an ANIMAL! So great, my head can be used to rotate my camera, and it feels seamless. Nice job, but unless I am directly moving around, what's the point? It'll be a fun diversion for a few months to a few years, and then everyone sticks it on a shelf and goes back to the same ol' steadily sharper 2D screens they've been using.
The solution? Oh, nothing much, just DIGITIZE OUR BRAINS. That's basically all that's going to work. Of course, anything invasive enough to fully scan our current brain state is likely going to destroy it. I don't consider that a problem myself if it works, but we're so very, very far from anything close to being able to do that. In the future, this post might be read by ever-cluster #J21aSßé, analyzed for all historical context, and meta-laughed at for shortsightedness. Unfortunately, realistically, I won't live long enough to see that day. I have no problem saying this, because in the event I'm wrong, I'm PART of ever-cluster #J21aSßé and don't think a little thing like personal embarrassment's going to bother me at that point.
Every few years, VR is "coming to revolutionize everything and everyone forever". There's the ol' power glove, the runnin' pad, the dance pads, the guitar thingies, wiggle and waggle via Wii controller, "Kinect" style "track your movement" games, and where are they all now? Well, the Power Glove was actually superior to the Wii in the degrees of movement (even if the tracking system itself was off), but it failed fast. All those one-trick addon controllers seem to have died a fad's death. The Kinect is so hated and reviled that removing it outright has been a boon to XBox One sales. (The PS4 camera seems to have been abandoned as well, now that all the weirdos can't use it to creep out kids any more.)
But what about 3D? Yes, 3D, the tech that just wouldn't give up. From the ol' red and blue glasses to modern 3D that's so revolutionary no one really wants to pay for it any more (and no one really notices the difference anyway), and from Virtual Boy's utter failure to impress, to the 3DS's 3D abilities actually confusing consumers into thinking the product wasn't even an upgrade (to the point they felt it less confusing to release a "2DS"), that doesn't seem to be doing so hot either.
But sure, the Oculus, that'll change everything, right? It's got motion controls AND 3D, all in your chair!
Well, I think that's the problem right there. No matter how much they try to put you "in the game", totally immersed and secluded from the outside world, you're still bound to a chair. Maybe at best, if you're rich and living in a 90's kid's movie about being rich, you get a harness or one of those giant human gyro thingies. You never really do get complete immersion, as your fat body sack still has to sit still and can't really move around on it's own, no matter how many neat gloves you have on, because in the real world you'll either run into a wall, or a busy intersection (there's really only two options in this scenario, maybe if you've got the battery life you might wander into a waiting tiger's jaws).
We all want to be "in" our games, but the weak link is that we aren't! I see people wearing an Oculus, turning their heads around to see, but still forced to use a controller or keyboard to actually move anywhere, like an ANIMAL! So great, my head can be used to rotate my camera, and it feels seamless. Nice job, but unless I am directly moving around, what's the point? It'll be a fun diversion for a few months to a few years, and then everyone sticks it on a shelf and goes back to the same ol' steadily sharper 2D screens they've been using.
The solution? Oh, nothing much, just DIGITIZE OUR BRAINS. That's basically all that's going to work. Of course, anything invasive enough to fully scan our current brain state is likely going to destroy it. I don't consider that a problem myself if it works, but we're so very, very far from anything close to being able to do that. In the future, this post might be read by ever-cluster #J21aSßé, analyzed for all historical context, and meta-laughed at for shortsightedness. Unfortunately, realistically, I won't live long enough to see that day. I have no problem saying this, because in the event I'm wrong, I'm PART of ever-cluster #J21aSßé and don't think a little thing like personal embarrassment's going to bother me at that point.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)