You are basically asking me to spend $40USD so that I can then spend hundreds of USD so that I can THEN spend over $1000USD.
Why would I do that?
This! So very much this!
Why would I do that?
This! So very much this!
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What if you could play games with people anywhere at any time? (blood bowl is one of the most popular and specifically a season game, what about every other game in the world or games that take longer and are harder to get people for like Twilight Imperialism?) Why do digital copies of board games exist at all? You have to admit you're making a silly point, half of the games out there copy some real world thing.
And what if you could play board games like regular games, but play them like actual board games, and be able to mod or tweak them? Modding board games can be really difficult and even house rules can be limited by not being able to change what is on cards..
Also the idea that no one wants this... https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/24/tilt-five-kickstarter-hands-on/
I never said this would be a good choice for Crusader Kings unless you want that to be even more of an RPG. For some other paradox games I answered this question like 5 times. There are multiple menus of important information or things to deal with, what if you had a 5 monitor set up with different information on each, and then abstracted that concept out.
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Because there is more than one game to play and it doesn't cost that much.
The fact that even posts where I state basic facts like headsets not having batteries get a half dozen downvotes shows that this conversation is pointless. It's a shame because there is definitely potential here, in one way or another, as innovative RTS and strategy games come out all the time and transformative tools can only be a good thing. When I was a kid the dream was holographic tables that would allow FPSes to be like in sci fi movies, that's a tiny fraction of what VR could do. I remember when endwar came out and how well it used the idea of limited vision and voice commands, or how Ruse had motion controls. Those were very early days but just recently Radio Commander came out and has a great first person Vietnam commander simulation. There is a future for this and I can't wait until another company makes a good game in one of these genres (there are already good RTS games but I'm thinking at least Total War levels of complexity) in VR, and then Paradox builds on their work.
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VR is perfect for flight and racing sims which are pretty much the only games I play other than strategy games from PDX, Creative Assembly etc.
DCS, IL2, DiRT Rally and even Euro Truck Sim are awesome in VR. I have poured hundreds of hours into them since I got my Vive in early 2016.
With regards to strategy games though, the current limitations would be:
1. Low resolution and Screen Door Effect which makes reading text and numbers hard. Although the new HP Reverb is almost as clear as a 1080p monitor.
2. The performance. The GPU has to push out like an 8K monitor worth of pixels for the Gen 1.5 headsets. Which is fine by me since I already have the best hardware for playing DCS, but 90% of PDX player-base doesn't.
3. The money. GSGs are already a small niche and PDX is trying to go wider by simplifying their games. VR GSGs will probably be the tiniest niche ever.
4. The thing is VR GSGs won't be as good as flight or racing sims are in VR. For those games you need situational awareness and depth perception and nothing can beat VR for that. Not even triple ultra-wide monitors. But for strategy games, it may not be that great an investment for now. Maybe in 4-5 years? (Meanwhile, please Gib Vicky 3)
All of that being said, you are not wrong in your assessment that some people just hate on VR for ignorant reasons. Its just how it goes. Like for example, batteries are an extra add-on for people who don't like wires. You hear the same BS sometimes in flight sim communities. The simmers who hate VR are the ones who have invested thousands into triple monitor setups and sim-pits and now they are just jelly lol.
DCS, IL2, DiRT Rally and even Euro Truck Sim are awesome in VR. I have poured hundreds of hours into them since I got my Vive in early 2016.
With regards to strategy games though, the current limitations would be:
1. Low resolution and Screen Door Effect which makes reading text and numbers hard. Although the new HP Reverb is almost as clear as a 1080p monitor.
2. The performance. The GPU has to push out like an 8K monitor worth of pixels for the Gen 1.5 headsets. Which is fine by me since I already have the best hardware for playing DCS, but 90% of PDX player-base doesn't.
3. The money. GSGs are already a small niche and PDX is trying to go wider by simplifying their games. VR GSGs will probably be the tiniest niche ever.
4. The thing is VR GSGs won't be as good as flight or racing sims are in VR. For those games you need situational awareness and depth perception and nothing can beat VR for that. Not even triple ultra-wide monitors. But for strategy games, it may not be that great an investment for now. Maybe in 4-5 years? (Meanwhile, please Gib Vicky 3)
All of that being said, you are not wrong in your assessment that some people just hate on VR for ignorant reasons. Its just how it goes. Like for example, batteries are an extra add-on for people who don't like wires. You hear the same BS sometimes in flight sim communities. The simmers who hate VR are the ones who have invested thousands into triple monitor setups and sim-pits and now they are just jelly lol.
VR is of course not just for gaming. Current VR and HUD industrial applications are advancing. Near future VR commercial operating systems (doing away with xwindows entirely) will probably start around 2030. Glove controllers or an IR capture of the users body will take care of human interfacing instead of mouse and keyboard. Here I'm stilling using a Pentium 4 HT processor.
You should try out an Index or even a Rift S, I'm able to run a lot of early VR games at full supersampling at 144hz. You're not totally wrong, I just think that the current gen of headsets now make reading large text possible, or even small text. Even games like Pavlov now have a fair amount of text and I can read it fine.
I also say this because from what I've seen simulators have some of the worst performance of any games in VR. Like I can run Boneworks at 120 fps, but Sturmovik just crumbles into heavy reprojection. I think maybe your expectations for how demanding VR is are specific to that context. Even I was surprised at how detailed some new games are because I assumed games like job simulator were the best VR could do that decade. That was not the case.
You're probably right about the money. Like Oculus is paying to get some games made even if they won't sell as many copies, that's how you have like 200 people working full time on a VR only Medal of Honor. Other games are banking on being the first of their kind in the new medium and have some success. I hope they do well. I would be fine with paradox just publishing a smaller game with a GSG adjacent gameplay by a third party. It is funny because honestly the best way to make a Crusader Kings spin off popular would be to put it in first person.
Do you play other genres in VR? Like FPS, sports (echo arena). Those genres are also better. I want Vic III and as much as I want VR I wouldn't want vicky delayed a single day to make room for a VR game. I think personally I think there is potential for a creative enough studio, but no one makes games as complex yet actually accessible and rewarding as Paradox so I hope they get involved at some point. And studios that are ambitious and optimistic do a lot better in VR. Wolfenstein made a super careful mech game instead of an FPS and it wasn't good, a huge shame.
You're right about the flight sim people, I can't imagine paying 20,000 for a full cockpit and then finding out that you can get a VR headset with finger tracking for like 500.
What if I had a 5 monitor set up? I hope somebody would have an intervention with me.
Part of it, and this is probably ungenerous, is you come off as a shill for the technology ahead of anything else. Like, this feels like an unflappable sales pitch rather than you just being an enthusiast of the technology. It's unnerving.
That’s totally fair, but it’s mostly because VR isn’t one persons product, who would I be shilling for? I actually hate Facebook because they’re a monopoly and they pay people to talk about their hardware. But people are finally taking VR seriously so I like anyone else who has tried it want to see more games get made and I like paradox games so I came here. To be clear, people are saying, “this can’t work, it would be awful, how the hell would it work?” And then I have to come up with an answer. I think I’m not much more committed than a lot of people are when they say “Paradox should make a game about X century or subject.” I remember people arguing about whether paradox should make a Cold War game or not, and there were good points and a lot of bad ones and people fought pretty hard. Here I’m just getting annoyed when people say things that don’t make sense. Why bother saying VR headsets need batteries (there is only one headset that uses a battery when you buy and use a wireless adapter, and another that has one just for mobile use) when you can just say “I don’t like not being able to be on my phone as I play,” or “I don't like the idea of using virtual monitors in one possible set up or not using a mouse in another.”
This is just me trying to suggest VR as something for paradox to explore because I’d rather that than mobile games and fantasy RPGs. I think there’s more potential and I want to play those games. Paradox gamers have gotten defensive over way way less.
A lot of people who use VR were surprised that more and more advanced games are being made and work on the same computers that we previously thought couldn’t handle anything more than superhot or job simulator. So it’s more clear than ever that a lot of the hate was based on the earliest possible software about watching whales or standing in one place and pushing buttons. It’s a lot more advanced than people think when they get really... really... angry about it. The comments on the articles announcing the new half life and Medal of Honor and crazy toxic by people who hate VR for some reason. To me it’s holding back games a lot, Ubisoft has a team of several hundred people or something making a game and hopefully be the assassins creed game I wish I had as a kid, I want the tech and the games market to move forward so these things exist a lot sooner and games in general get better.
I've worked on VR games in the past. There are a lot of issues with making the sort of UI you would need in them and a lot of those issues aren't obvious.
Sure. That's why newer games are being celebrated for innovating on this and delivering pretty good solutions. Walking Dead has a notebook on your chest with a lot of information inside that's pretty straightforward to keep track of and a backpack with all items and weapons not on your body. Final Assault has a clip board, etc One of my favorite so far is Dance Central, which has all menus and interactable UI on a cellphone in your pocket.
Can I ask when you worked in VR and on what platform?
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Right now, Pdox can't make the text in their UI accurate even after it is pointed out. For 4+ years.
I don't think the resources are available to them to make a breakthrough in UI on tech that is new + expensive in the market. They can't even manage it with core mechanics yet, and that would be the better starting point.
Another VR fiend here.
VR (from Rifts generation) is without doubt the best default way to play all cockpit games. Anyone says otherwise is frankly lying.
For other games which are well optimized and have been designed with VR in mind, VR is pretty cool too.
That said I prefer to play GS games and watch movies on my projector.
Seeing the map laid out like a table in front of me might feel God like but probably not sufficiently immersive to enhance the game for me. I've played a couple of rts games in VR but always return to pancake mode.
I would defo give it a go though, if PD ever branched out!
VR (from Rifts generation) is without doubt the best default way to play all cockpit games. Anyone says otherwise is frankly lying.
For other games which are well optimized and have been designed with VR in mind, VR is pretty cool too.
That said I prefer to play GS games and watch movies on my projector.
Seeing the map laid out like a table in front of me might feel God like but probably not sufficiently immersive to enhance the game for me. I've played a couple of rts games in VR but always return to pancake mode.
I would defo give it a go though, if PD ever branched out!
VR wouldn't make a ton of sense for these games, I'd rather have a giant touchscreen/table combo if I'm going to be overly extravagant while playing.
FWIW, I have been playing CKII via Google Remote Desktop on my phone while parked on the couch and while it takes a little getting used to I quite enjoy it. Some stuff is way way way harder to interact with like constantly pausing the game, some menu interaction, but I'm doing all of this on a Galaxy S6. If I had a bonafide tablet it'd be way easier.
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