VR ready

I reckon that VR SotA will happen, but give it a few years.
The framework is there, including the targeting cursor system.
This is also a social text based game, where you need to keyboard type to interact with players and NPCs.
VR is not capable of that yet, no matter what Facebook thinks.
It will happen, but you have to bide your time.
Try playing Chronos, an excellent VR RPG game, and you will be awestruck but lonely - unable to share your awe.

Basically, the grass is greener behind you.

 

This will never happen. They need a constant source of income to continue to develop this game, and as such, anything that will sell in the store will always be a priority. If you aren't happy with the game's direction or feel that you haven't gotten your money's worth PLEASE STOP GIVING THEM MORE OF IT.

 

I understand that. But being in business for many years (Manufacturing) You need to keep your customer base happy. This includes not only events they can attend but most important of all a product they can be happy with.

 

But like I said before, I will give them the benefit of doubt . I will plug along until they are done, but my money input will be reduced until they deliver their product.

 

What if I told you that the customer base actually WANTS more eye-candy month-on-month, to spend cash on?

Did you hear and read the questions for Hangouts and/or Telethons? A good half of the most pressing issues are eye-candy related ones. When we will see dance XYZ, what about house ABC, did you think of wall made of JKL, and so on and so forth.

In a way, the customer base IS shaping this into a dollhouse simulator, by asking time and again such trivialities like "more robes" or "richer decorations".

And Portalarium, courteously, obliges.

 

That is soooo very sad. And these are adults?

 

At Sotatcon, both Starr and Richard were adamant disbelievers in VR technology for gaming. The one exception is the Void.

 

I've got a Vive. From what I'm reading here, it seems that there's a bit of a misconception as to how VR is best handled.

I was playing a few games the other day with some other people I know who also have Vives; we played two rounds of Rec Room paintball, about 5 minutes per round. We played a round of Charades, about another 5 minutes, and we played 9 holes of Cloudlands minigolf. By the end of that, all of us were pretty wrecked from standing up so long. I don't know about the others, but I was getting pretty hot as well, and my apartment isn't hot, and there wasn't as much movement as you'd think - just my arms for the most part. Moving around in most games is done by short-range teleporting (though some games use "sliding", which is moving by pressing a button).

In a game like SotA, you would probably only be able to take short stints; you couldn't play for hours. For combat, you wouldn't just swing the controller to swing a sword, because the game isn't built that way. If you pressed a button to go into combat mode, it wouldn't feel natural. Would it be first person? Then the game has to be rebalanced and the mechanics re-thought. If it were the same over the shoulder third person view we have now, the only benefit to VR is that you could look all around you from the camera's point of view, not your character's point of view.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but there's a lot to take into consideration. There's a VR version of Minecraft called Vivecraft; that's first person (but so is Minecraft) and in a game like that, there's not really any strategy, so swinging your pickaxe or sword quickly works. You can press a button instead to do the same thing, and that works as well (and works better).

I will say that even though I spent my life savings on the Vive, it's the best purchase I've made in my life, and you don't know what you're in for until you've put on your headset yourself.

 

Yep, from what they said I doubt SOTA will ever be VR inclusive.

@psteg customer bases and what they are looking for are totally different for any business out there. I'll base that on 40 years of retail/business experience, 30 of them in a upper management position. The team here IS catering to the majority of their current player base.

Are most adults? Yep, previous polls here show active players are probably trending in the 35-45 range. And I'm sure they know what they are throwing THEIR money at. Nothing sad about it. At 63 I enjoy the hell out of my gaming time and adding "eye candy" to my character and to the towns he is involved in. No sadness involved.

 

I owned a manufacturing company for many years. The eye candy my customers were looking for was a clean well lit and organized shop. With that they knew they were getting a quality product. I am 66 years old this month and old school. And I like some of the eye candy such as housing, accessories for the housing and things like that. But wings, and some of the emotes and hand fans or pipes etc. seem a bit childish to me and the thrill lasts only a few minutes, if there is a thrill. But I am only one man with an opinion. Like a previous poster stated, if I am unhappy with the current situation, then stop giving them money. I am doing that.

 

Happy Bday non the less.

 

Wishing a very Happy Birthday this month!

 

I do nto think the VR is quite there. From what I have experienced with thee recent "3D" stereoscopic revival followed with VR hype, the technology is closer than before, but not quite here.

3D requires you to wear annoying glasses, but it works, and it is quite good for third person games actually, though there are some serious issues when it comes to actually preventing you see "ghost" image intended for the other eye.

The VR is at much worse state, the FOV is much bigger, or should be, but not quite big enough so oyu would feel fully in the world. The resolution is plain terrible at that FOV though. Also you do not see your keyboard and cannot type quite well. Drinking during gaming is an adventure of itself. Also the VR experience is bad when you are not sitting in VR (or not moving in omnidirectional treadmill). It is really bad for anything in thirdperson.

I think the VR is quite cool for some demos, and maybe for few games designed specifically for it, but it is not quite ready for home use. It is best to watch someone trying it for the first or even second time, there is some novelty to it, but if this game is not VR ready I do not mind, most "VR-ready" games are not really that good in VR let alone without it.

I mean, it should not be that hard to make sure everything is rendered properly in 3D, but that in itself will not make VR experience any good.

 

Thank you for the Birthday wishes. I found this community to be very kind, generous and open to discussions. Main reason I am still and will be here.

 

Some valid points to ponder.

 

As a day one adopter of the Vive upon it's retail release. I can tell you there are some amazingly interactive/fun adventure style games out there already (real games, not "tech demos") for instance, The Gallery: Call of the Starseed and Vanishing Realms. NOW they are both only 2-4 hour experiences from start to finish and represent an "epsiode one" installment type of game. This is due to many factors, not withstanding the amount of time you really want to be standing and walking around and swinging a sword in game is quite TIRING after a few hours straight.

One game that I just picked up and have not tried yet is YoreVR, I got it on sale (early access) on Steam for $11. But all initial reviews look pretty damn good for a medieval life simulator

On to the original topic specifically. I think SotA could be adapted to VR, but it would take some industry leaders (of which there are only a few) coming in and tweaking combat, and movement systems at a minimum to fully support and allow for VR controls within SotA. I too share the dream of some day walking down the streets of Owl's Head and gazing up at the stars and the buildings towering over me, tripping over a sheep or two, opening the gate to the inner city and watching it rise in front of my eyes, clanging the whole way, knowing that I am really part of the world... it will be glorious, but not counting on it for at least a couple of years. :-/

 

From the Steam hardware statistics we can see the level of VR adoption:

HTC Vive: 0.21%
Oculus Rift: 0.10%
Oculus Rift DK2: 0.03%
Oculus Rift DK1: 0.00%

That gives a total of 0.34%. The amount of effort required to attract that 0.34% (VR changes to UI display, changes to input since keyboard is invisible, increasing optimisation to achieve consistent 90 fps at high resolution, etc.) would be enormous. Supporting VR in SotA would therefore not be a rational economic decision at this time.