a few weeks ago I received a CV1 after backing the early kickstarter and playing around with DK1. I tried a few games (mostly Lucky's Tale, Eve Valkyrie and Farlands), watched reviews, and I read online about existing apps and games.
I'm interested in what's going on in terms of supporting locomotion in games. With that, I refer the ability to move over large areas, which is something I'm traditionally used in most first person games (shooters primarily, but also others). I'm thinking specifically for games and apps where you are in control of your virtual avatar and things are up to IRL scale (and not for instance where you are a god floating above the world).
My understanding is that at the moment we have:
- Teleportation. It seems to sickness free, and suitable to achieve locomotion, but I wonder if it's really a viable option. Personally, find it clunky at best. I understand it's a solution to a problem, but it makes me feel trapped inside a transparent cage, and stresses the issue that I would like to run outside but I cannot.
- Room-Size. I've mostly read about this, but my understanding is that both oculus and vive allow some tracking within the room you're in, with the vive generally covering a larger area. While this is cool, I wonder how much that changes the issue at hand. Yes, the cage is larger, but it's still a cage.
- Hiding acceleration. It seems that if you only have sparse small objects around you, you can pretend it's them moving and not you. Space sim with just small ships would be a good example. Large stations/asteroids/wrecks however would still be a problem. I tried Eve, and it gave me sickness pretty fast when maneuvering near those objects.
- Enduring sickness. It seems some player are just getting used to the sickness and feel it less eventually? I haven't really tried so far. But is this really viable for the large market?
Have I missed anything? Are there good news on the horizon about this problem? What makes you stay confident about VR and first person games?
There is bunch of different ways to in the future to combat VR sickness, none is out yet. The one I am particular interesting is having electrodes behind the ear. That supposed to "simulate" motion within the ear canals
electrode approach might actually trick your brain to actually "feeling" different motions as well as gravity effect. However, this is probably needs FDA and all sorts of approval
All I can tell is, that I tried out The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR the first day I got the rift. Got very sick after just 5 minutes in "normal mode"
Then I used it about 2 weeks in Project Cars and Assetto Corsa, and I got used to it (only 15 minutes sessions the first day) then about 30-45 minutes the next few days and then I drove a 2 Hours LeMans Online race without any problems...
So I wanted to give it another try, and I thought about making the "turns" feels less sickening! I then tried standing up instead of sitting down and turn my body instead of using the thumbsticks for turning... that really helped out A LOT! When I got comfortable with it, I tried turning with the thumbstick while i was turning the body a little bit. It works really well for me without any nausea!
HL2 was the best (decoupled head & mouse rotation) but they have removed the support & not many people are playing it i guess.... I cant get it to work, tried numerous times.
Over on reddit we came to the conclusion that bad acceleration with thumbsticks can cause sickness whereas mouse & keyboard isnt as bad in certain games
try windlands with the rotate mode on - it is ok with me... its the edges of the cliffs that get me (vertigo) wheras rotating in EC makes me feel weird
First person movement is basically a no-go for current VR technology. You need a real movement system like an omnidirectional treadmill to make it work. Otherwise your vestibular system is like WTF IS THIS *puke*
Teleportation is not really a solution for FPS style games because it ruins time and prediction. I just don't see how you can engage with other players when they are unpredictably flickering into existence anywhere at anytime.
