Governments across the Globe are in Quarantine, so I figured that this community could use a thread to discuss our first-hand experience of its impact. As a side note, I never would have guessed that a global pandemic would be the primary driver to getting VR more mainstream! :p For me, I had taken a long break from VR. I have maybe engaged in VR for 1 hour ever 2-3 weeks. It's been that way for nearly 6 months now. Mostly because I feel that I've experienced so much since I first acquired my Rift in 2016; I got to the point that everything (even new AAA titles) started to feel like 'more of the same.' This is something that has impacted me before. For example, I began gaming with the Atari 2600 as a kid, moved on to NES, SNES, Sega, and eventually PC Gaming. But I took a very long break from gaming (over 5 years) because I hit a point where everything on every gaming platform felt like a regurgitation of something I've done before.However, now that I'm stuck home for at least 2 weeks during quarantine... it's time to jump back on to the fray!So...What games/experiences will you be engaging in with VR?What non-VR activities will be occupying your time?Are you one of the people who can work from home during quarantine? Or is this pandemic negatively impacting your job?Are you hoarding food and toilet paper?I'll answer first:I will be (finally) completing SkyrimVR. Before I took my VR "break," I had already completed both DLC's in SkyrimVR, and I'm already near the end of the main quest. After that, I will be loading up Stormland.I'm playing through Divinity Original Sin for the first time, in preparation for the upcoming release of Baldur's Gate 3. Beyond software, I will be doing lots of exercise.. Gotta keep up the conditioning!Since I'm a software engineer who has been working from home primarily for at least the past 10 years, this quarantine will be... more of the same.I'm a non-hoarder, but wondering if I will regret it.

Just thought i would come on and say i hope my favorite forum family are doing well in this trying times.I know some of you either are older or suffer from illness as well so my thoughts go out to you all. It is loco how fast this situation has changed worldwide, we were put on alert this morning i think this is going to be around for a while.My love to you all and be safe.PS stop buying all the god damn toilet rolls!!!

I'm putting myself in self Isolation for at least 4 weeks due to my diabetes. Getting a delivery tomorrow with a bit of luck but I checked earlier and almost everything that I've ordered is out of stock.I've got 5 small boxes of cat food left but hopefully Asda will deliver some more tomorrow.I've got enough food to last me for 3 or 4 weeks, and have 6 bog rolls left. Hopefully people will calm down a bit before I need to order anything else.So here's my answers to the questions:1) Am splitting my time between working on my VR game and playing Feral Rites, Skyrim VR, No Man's Sky and Elite Dangerous.2) Currently watching Criminal Minds series 10 on Amazon Prime Video, going to have to get a move on cos it's unavailable on 22nd.3) Not well enough to work unfortunately.4) Not hoarding anything, I've got 3 or 4 weeks of food available and 6 bog rolls, and a weeks worth of cat food. Have got some cat biscuits in my cupboard but will only feed those to her in an emergency because cat biscuits do their kidneys in.

We had a state of emergency declaration this morning in Ontario, so now bars and restaurants have been ordered to close, except for take-out. Still going to work, though.

Playing flight simulators all the way here. Stay home and be safe everyone.

snowdog said: There's one thing that's annoyed me about all of this, and it's the wording that's been used. It's as if they think that we can't handle the words quarantine and Coronavirus and everyone is using the words self Isolation and COVID-19 instead.I suppose it makes sense from a psychological point of view but I'm an adult. I can handle the proper names for these things ffs.The problem is that Coronavirus is just the name for a family of viruses, 7 of which can infect humans, and more that can't.229ENL63OC43HKU1MERS-CoVSARS-CoVSARS-CoV-2 (Covid19)The first 4 are common, you've probably had 1 or more of them already. The last 3 are the serious ones. SARS-CoV-2 is the one that is causing the problems right now. Saying Covid19 is more accurate since it's specific to just the current serious virus. (Covid19 is CoronaVirus Disease 2019)Edit: interestingly, the names for the virus and the disease it causes are picked by different organisations. The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses names the virus (SARS-CoV-2), while the World Health Organisation names the disease (Covid19).Apparently SARS-CoV also has several sub species: SARS-CoV_PC4-227 and SARSr-CoV-btKY72.

The "I'm effin Quarantined" Megathread | Meta Community Forums

155 Replies

saami81
Rising Star
5 years ago
I have been playing flight simulators mostly for sometime. In VR ofc. X plane 11 seems to be best, but Aerofly fs2 and Flyinside arent bad either. All three games supports touch controllers as "hands" to flip switches and controlling yoke.
kojack
MVP
5 years ago
I'm not in quarantine yet. My work is still going ahead. The aus government is pretty stubborn, and my work isn't shutting until told to.
Technically I don't meet my work's rules for working from home, I'm supposed to have a telephone on the left of my keyboard and nothing under my desk, but I've got no phone (besides mobile) and there's a subwoofer and rudder pedals under my desk. Then again in the office at work I also don't have a phone and there's boxes of arduino and arcade cabinet parts under my desk. :)

I'll be playing the same thing as usual: occasional audica and pistol whip. Boneworks was the last full experience I was in, but once you get the utility gun the game isn't a challenge and I'm mostly done with it. I do have an urge to get back into Euro Truck Sim 2, I still haven't tried it with the Rift-S yet. ETS2 requires too much setup though, I need to clamp boards to my table to make it compatible with my G27, and then my keyboard is obscured.
I really need to get back to work on Oculus Injector though.

Divinity Original Sin was awesome. The sequel was great too, but I didn't like the new health/armour system. Although in DOS1 most fights became "throw oil everywhere, set it on fire, watch the world burn". :)
Right now I'm replaying Tex Murphy The Pandora Directive. It's a game that is just begging for VR. Sadly the team making a VR Tex Murphy game have been silent for a while, their website still says due for release in 2019.

As a college teacher of game programming, there's two kinds of activities I do:
- resource development, marking, written feedback, lesson preparation. This can all be done at home (that's how I did it for 12 years before they forced me to be in the office)
- teaching classes. This one is harder without being present.
I definitely don't look forward to needing to teach online classes. I've taken part in them in the past and I didn't like them.
I
have small classes and we are very 1 on 1 and hands on. Being able to
judge how well everybody in a class is taking in what I'm saying is
important, and jumping around to help with compiler errors is hard if I
don't have remote desktop access.
Robert Yang did an
interesting experiment where he tried teaching a class using Twitch:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/03/professor-calls-students-idea-to-teach-class-on-twitch-terrible-does-it-anyway/
He's too well known though, too many non students joined in and made it a mess.

No hoarding here. If I get desperate, I've got two large bags of Aussielent (a food replacement powder like Soylent), that will keep me going for a bit.
kojack
MVP
5 years ago

kojack said:

The aus government is pretty stubborn, and my work isn't shutting until told to.
Argh, I really want to expand on this... but I'd break the no politics and no religion rules of the forum. Then I'd have to admonish myself.

Anyway... REMAIN INDOORS. It's the Quiz Broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28o6fJda1c
Zenbane
MVP
5 years ago

kojack said:

Divinity Original Sin was awesome. The sequel was great too, but I didn't like the new health/armour system. Although in DOS1 most fights became "throw oil everywhere, set it on fire, watch the world burn".

Yep, this is definitely quickly becoming a primary strategy. Although I do have other tricks up my sleeve. For example, everyone on my team has Teleportation, which is hilarious to use in battles. The oil/fire trick is no good when battling those fire elemental types though! Since it just heals them. At which point I rely on Knockdown/Freeze/Teleportation.

I'm very much addicted to DOS1, and put in several hours a day every day. With a self-imposed quarantine in full effect, I will likely beat it before the week is over. I also anticipate a government mandated quarantine very soon. We already have all major events cancelled, and store hours have changed.
Zenbane
MVP
5 years ago

Also, for those with a gaming rig, you may want to consider using your machine to help support research against diseases, including Coronavirus using Folding@home.

Full reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/fhb5e4/coronavirus_specific_gpu_projects_are_now/

I have it installed and I'm letting it run.
kojack
MVP
5 years ago

Zenbane said:

Also, for those with a gaming rig, you may want to consider using your machine to help support research against diseases, including Coronavirus using Folding@home.

Full reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/fhb5e4/coronavirus_specific_gpu_projects_are_now/

I have it installed and I'm letting it run.

Maybe Google can devote some of the gpus at their Stadia centre. I mean it's not like they are being used for games. :)

I've got 142 hours in DOS1 and 217 hours in DOS2.
DaftnDirect
MVP
5 years ago
I've got a mig welder on order and all the accoutrements... will be teaching myself welding over the next couple weeks. Nothing to do with covid-19 unless the mobile welder I booked didn't show up for that reason!
kojack
MVP
5 years ago

DaftnDirect said:

I've got a mig welder on order and all the accoutrements... will be teaching myself welding over the next couple weeks. Nothing to do with covid-19 unless the mobile welder I booked didn't show up for that reason!

Nice. I haven't tried mig, but I've done arc and oxy welding.
I'm more at home with soldering though.
(Electronics soldering, not sheet metal soldering, although I was ok at that too)

I'm currently cleaning up my pc table, I need to submit a photo of my desk to get approval to work from home when I don't have classes. I'm trying to think of how much bizarre stuff I can put on it without completely sabotaging my chances.
I have my grandfather's old rotary telephone from the CSIRO. The rules said I needed a phone, they didn't say it had to work. :)
I'll definitely have my space pilot pro and warthog throttle on the desk. Probably the Rift-S too (it looks newer than my CV1). Maybe my novint falcon? I used to have that at work, it was fun watching the double takes as people walking past tried to work out what it was.
Anonymous
5 years ago
Just thought i would come on and say i hope my favorite forum family are doing well in this trying times.

I know some of you either are older or suffer from illness as well so my thoughts go out to you all. It is loco how fast this situation has changed worldwide, we were put on alert this morning i think this is going to be around for a while.

My love to you all and be safe.

PS stop buying all the god damn toilet rolls!!!
pyroth309
Visionary
5 years ago
I've been on a self imposed VR hiatus due to having twin toddlers who are highly motivated to destroy everything including themselves. :D But I just dusted off my Quest yesterday to try and get back into the swing of it. We're down to only essential personnel at work and everyone else gets to "work from home" IE get paid for doing nothing. Sadly I'm deemed essential personnel so I'm still working like normal but at least I'm in there alone most of the time lol.

I just ordered a link cable and hoping that it will work good enough for me to jump into all of the titles I've missed over the last 6+ months. Asgard's Wrath, Stormlands etc.