Rise and shine, Mister Threeman
November 19, 2019 8:45 AM Subscribe
It's official: this Tuesday, Valve will announce Half-Life: Alyx, a new "flagship VR" game. Rumoured to launch March 2020, the game is thought to be a single-player story-driven, linear VR first-person shooter set in the Half-Life universe where you play as Alyx Vance, sometime in the 20-year time gap between Half-Life 1 and 2.
"We are never going to produce Half Life 3, but we'll tease you with new content on a platform that is largely inaccessible to you due to costs and your lousy old-person vision and is such a nascent technology that it will probably be unplayable 5 years from now! Pretty great huh?" -- Valve
posted by treepour at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by treepour at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2019 [12 favorites]
There are a ton of talented people at Valve and I'm sure this will be great.
For me... I had kind of a sad realization when I read this. It's just been too long for me, too many other games and other experiences, and Half Life just doesn't mean that much to me anymore. Even the humor in Portal feels weirdly of a certain time and place to me now.
I hope through VR and their own ingenuity they find a way to make it fresh and new.
(All that said, the idea of VR makes me really uncomfortable so I'll probably never play it)
posted by selfnoise at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
For me... I had kind of a sad realization when I read this. It's just been too long for me, too many other games and other experiences, and Half Life just doesn't mean that much to me anymore. Even the humor in Portal feels weirdly of a certain time and place to me now.
I hope through VR and their own ingenuity they find a way to make it fresh and new.
(All that said, the idea of VR makes me really uncomfortable so I'll probably never play it)
posted by selfnoise at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
Now that my brain has cooled down from the flurry of "HL1.5 Confirmed!1!lol!!1!" activity, I'm kind of back to where I was with Half-Life (and Valve more generally) before the announcement: this is probably 10 years too late for me to really care. It's been 15 years since a full Half-Life game was released, and 8 since Valve released a primarily single-player game. In that span of time, like pretty much every other tech company, Valve has slowly degraded my confidence in its products and interest in seeing them do more. It's been a long enough span that most other shooters have incorporated what was novel and good about Half-Life and Portal, so there's nothing left to look forward to beyond a tiny amount of lingering affection for some of the characters, and I think most of the people who originally wrote them to create that affection are long gone by now, not to mention that having nothing to care about for a decade means that my stores of lingering affection are pretty close to depleted.
Plus, I have zero interest in VR games at all, so I'd probably be giving this one a pass even if it turns out to be great. I guess I just hope that this stirs up something in the bowels of Valve that makes them want to work on games again and not just dick around with minor tweaks to Steam that improve nothing and are tweaked again within 6 months.
posted by Copronymus at 9:30 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Plus, I have zero interest in VR games at all, so I'd probably be giving this one a pass even if it turns out to be great. I guess I just hope that this stirs up something in the bowels of Valve that makes them want to work on games again and not just dick around with minor tweaks to Steam that improve nothing and are tweaked again within 6 months.
posted by Copronymus at 9:30 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
It seems like VR games have been the next big thing for the last thirty years but never actually happen.
posted by octothorpe at 9:41 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:41 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Unforeseen Consequences: A Half-Life Documentary by Noclip was a wonderful love letter to Half-Life's legacy. The documentary barely involves Valve at all -- they didn't respond to interview requests -- instead focusing on the people and communities still active 20+ years after the first game was released.
We'll probably never see Half-Life 3 from Valve, but in a way that's okay. During Valve's 12-year abdication of the franchise, the torch has been picked up and carried by the community. I'm actually relieved Valve isn't announcing Half-Life 3 today, because it turns out the real Half-Life 3 was the friends we made along the way.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 9:42 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
We'll probably never see Half-Life 3 from Valve, but in a way that's okay. During Valve's 12-year abdication of the franchise, the torch has been picked up and carried by the community. I'm actually relieved Valve isn't announcing Half-Life 3 today, because it turns out the real Half-Life 3 was the friends we made along the way.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 9:42 AM on November 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Will this be the thing that finally gets me to unbox and set up the HTC VIVE system I've had sitting for months? Yes. Yes, it will.
posted by hanov3r at 9:43 AM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hanov3r at 9:43 AM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
But it will given gaben money so, no.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:59 AM on November 19, 2019
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:59 AM on November 19, 2019
Half-Life 2 was much more recent for me than for the rest of you (I didn't play it for the first time until 2015; I am a very late adopter of . . . everything). I still really like it (2nd favorite game I've ever played, after Dishonored 2); I still replay it once or twice a year; I'm excited about this announcement.
And I'll find someone streaming it eventually and watch that, for the story. But I'm probably not going to buy or play Alyx unless there's a version that will work without VR, because I can't afford VR. Even if I could afford VR, I'm not sure it sounds appealing, even in theory.
So I feel simultaneously excited, crushed, and meh about this, all at extremely high intensities.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:02 AM on November 19, 2019
And I'll find someone streaming it eventually and watch that, for the story. But I'm probably not going to buy or play Alyx unless there's a version that will work without VR, because I can't afford VR. Even if I could afford VR, I'm not sure it sounds appealing, even in theory.
So I feel simultaneously excited, crushed, and meh about this, all at extremely high intensities.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:02 AM on November 19, 2019
If I find out “Alyx” means three in Sumerian or something I’m gonna be so mad.
posted by mhoye at 10:04 AM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 10:04 AM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
It's like, have no gamers ever read "The Monkey's Paw"? That's why Valve isn't supposed to make a third game in any of their series, the third wish is always for death.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:10 AM on November 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 10:10 AM on November 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
the game is gonna be 8 hours of boring physics puzzles
turns out, between hl1 and hl2, people spent all their time using barrels to weigh down levers and shit
posted by serif at 10:30 AM on November 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
turns out, between hl1 and hl2, people spent all their time using barrels to weigh down levers and shit
posted by serif at 10:30 AM on November 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
The wrong game in the wrong time won't make much difference.
I'd happily play a non-VR game starring Alyx. Or, y'know, Half-Life 3. Or Portal 3.
Or watch a movie about the resistance in the Half-Life 2 setting. Or a Portal musical. Or a Team Fortress 2 Saturday morning cartoon.
But it just had to be VR. Feh.
posted by Foosnark at 10:31 AM on November 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'd happily play a non-VR game starring Alyx. Or, y'know, Half-Life 3. Or Portal 3.
Or watch a movie about the resistance in the Half-Life 2 setting. Or a Portal musical. Or a Team Fortress 2 Saturday morning cartoon.
But it just had to be VR. Feh.
posted by Foosnark at 10:31 AM on November 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Half-Life 2 required Steam and was basically what got it off the ground. That worked out pretty well for Valve. Not surprising they'd try to make the next Half-Life game a gateway drug for something bigger.
When Half-Life 2 came out, I don't think I had a good enough internet connection to play it. I bought the Orange Box a year or two after it came out (so maybe five years after HL2 was released?), and it literally took me a week of downloading before I could play any of the games that supposedly came on the disc I had bought.
And of course now almost every game I play is downloaded on a then-unimaginably fast connection through Steam.
So yeah, I'm not gonna play this when it comes out or anytime soon after. But five years from now? Who knows?
posted by straight at 11:19 AM on November 19, 2019
When Half-Life 2 came out, I don't think I had a good enough internet connection to play it. I bought the Orange Box a year or two after it came out (so maybe five years after HL2 was released?), and it literally took me a week of downloading before I could play any of the games that supposedly came on the disc I had bought.
And of course now almost every game I play is downloaded on a then-unimaginably fast connection through Steam.
So yeah, I'm not gonna play this when it comes out or anytime soon after. But five years from now? Who knows?
posted by straight at 11:19 AM on November 19, 2019
The reason I will eventually buy a VR setup for personal use is Elite: Dangerous. I will probably check out No Man’s Sky VR and Star Citizen as well.
I’ve been fortunate in that a very large media company contracted me to prototype several approaches to VR FPS, and while I found a couple implementations that felt okay, either that feeling was pretty specific to me (judging from the feedback), or the industry came down firmly against implementing movement/player interface in VR FPS that way. Basically everybody went with something similar to my three least favorite prototypes, all of which profoundly compromised immersion.
Long story short: aside from (space)flight sims the way I want to play VR is not the way other people do. All of my paternal grandmother’s children/grandchildren are effectively immune to motion sickness, so I think this is like an inverse colorblindness: if you have those genes you can achieve stunning levels of immersion without nausea, but for 20% of people it’s barely tolerable and for >70% it’s puke city.
This was about four years ago when the original Vive was pre-release, so it’s possible that the latest hardware improvements would change my opinion (also Unreal having since added a separate forward renderer because holy dogshit implementing worldspace UI elements in a stereoscopic deferred renderer was a fucking dumpsterfire). For the time being I’ve just quietly turned down subsequent VR contract work. The whole thing left a vaguely sour taste, the additional implementation complications were a migraine and unless adoption picks up significantly I’m content to chalk it up as a learning experience.
Additional Half Life content being gated by VR after enormous emotional investment in their word and characters feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts. My investment isn’t their fault and I’m not really mad, just...disappointed.
posted by Ryvar at 11:53 AM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I’ve been fortunate in that a very large media company contracted me to prototype several approaches to VR FPS, and while I found a couple implementations that felt okay, either that feeling was pretty specific to me (judging from the feedback), or the industry came down firmly against implementing movement/player interface in VR FPS that way. Basically everybody went with something similar to my three least favorite prototypes, all of which profoundly compromised immersion.
Long story short: aside from (space)flight sims the way I want to play VR is not the way other people do. All of my paternal grandmother’s children/grandchildren are effectively immune to motion sickness, so I think this is like an inverse colorblindness: if you have those genes you can achieve stunning levels of immersion without nausea, but for 20% of people it’s barely tolerable and for >70% it’s puke city.
This was about four years ago when the original Vive was pre-release, so it’s possible that the latest hardware improvements would change my opinion (also Unreal having since added a separate forward renderer because holy dogshit implementing worldspace UI elements in a stereoscopic deferred renderer was a fucking dumpsterfire). For the time being I’ve just quietly turned down subsequent VR contract work. The whole thing left a vaguely sour taste, the additional implementation complications were a migraine and unless adoption picks up significantly I’m content to chalk it up as a learning experience.
Additional Half Life content being gated by VR after enormous emotional investment in their word and characters feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts. My investment isn’t their fault and I’m not really mad, just...disappointed.
posted by Ryvar at 11:53 AM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's official: this Tuesday
Today is Tuesday. The upcoming announcement is on Thursday.
posted by neckro23 at 12:14 PM on November 19, 2019
Today is Tuesday. The upcoming announcement is on Thursday.
posted by neckro23 at 12:14 PM on November 19, 2019
People really hate VR then? Lone Echo's the only non-cockpit based game that really came together for me; any walking around game just meant teleporting or bumping my head on the sloped ceiling in my office, but I'll be interested to see what Valve come up with.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2019
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2019
I'm very enthusiastic about VR. I think the current hardware is horrible. I'll be much more interested when the "headset" is about the size of a pair of sunglasses and an ultra high speed scanning microlaser paints the images right on my retina. Because I really don't want to wear a fucking motorcycle helmet (okay, a tiny bit exaggerated) to play a game.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:36 PM on November 19, 2019
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:36 PM on November 19, 2019
Thinking about the amazing motion-sickness disaster a Portal VR game would be.
posted by straight at 1:01 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by straight at 1:01 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
It seems like VR games have been the next big thing for the last thirty years but never actually happen.
I think VR/AR games certainly have a niche, but until you can perfect first person movement and exploration, it seems doomed to large-scale commercial failure. I've seen various work-arounds and tech demos of alternatives, but as Ryvar mentioned these tend to break immersion(teleporting), flow (move your pawn in a God's eye view then return to FPS to interact), or limit gameplay (stable shooting galleries). Sometimes all three at once. I used to have faith that if any developer could do it, then Valve could, but honestly everything I've heard about their dev process and experiencing it first hand with Steam has stopped any boosterism or enthusiasm I may once have had.
posted by codacorolla at 1:23 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think VR/AR games certainly have a niche, but until you can perfect first person movement and exploration, it seems doomed to large-scale commercial failure. I've seen various work-arounds and tech demos of alternatives, but as Ryvar mentioned these tend to break immersion(teleporting), flow (move your pawn in a God's eye view then return to FPS to interact), or limit gameplay (stable shooting galleries). Sometimes all three at once. I used to have faith that if any developer could do it, then Valve could, but honestly everything I've heard about their dev process and experiencing it first hand with Steam has stopped any boosterism or enthusiasm I may once have had.
posted by codacorolla at 1:23 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
People really hate VR then?
I don't hate it, but as long as VR is gated by a minimum $400 purchase, it's going to be a pretty niche product. Hard to justify developing VR-exclusives with a small target market like that, which means the appeal of making that purchase is hard to justify due to the lack of games, cue vicious cycle. I honestly don't expect a new Half-Life to change that either.
posted by Aleyn at 1:32 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't hate it, but as long as VR is gated by a minimum $400 purchase, it's going to be a pretty niche product. Hard to justify developing VR-exclusives with a small target market like that, which means the appeal of making that purchase is hard to justify due to the lack of games, cue vicious cycle. I honestly don't expect a new Half-Life to change that either.
posted by Aleyn at 1:32 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I’ve played a lot of VR games with a wireless Vive in one of the biggest roomscale setups possible (we were doing some VR work in the office) and the most engrossing experience was using Google Blocks to model stuff in 3D. I made a habit to see what I could make in just 20 minutes every lunchtime, and I got super into it - you can see all my models here.
I’ve never been a 3D modeller - I did a little bit in Truespace back in the day - and I never really felt comfortable with 3DS Max, not that I tried it much. But the ability to walk around and through my creations and zoom in and out felt incredible natural and joyful. I maintain that 3D modelling will be a killer app for VR, not so much for professionals but for amateurs and anyone starting out.
posted by adrianhon at 2:04 PM on November 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
I’ve never been a 3D modeller - I did a little bit in Truespace back in the day - and I never really felt comfortable with 3DS Max, not that I tried it much. But the ability to walk around and through my creations and zoom in and out felt incredible natural and joyful. I maintain that 3D modelling will be a killer app for VR, not so much for professionals but for amateurs and anyone starting out.
posted by adrianhon at 2:04 PM on November 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'm very enthusiastic about VR. I think the current hardware is horrible. I'll be much more interested when the "headset" is about the size of a pair of sunglasses and an ultra high speed scanning microlaser paints the images right on my retina.
I've been pleased to see current-gen headsets reduce the number of wired connections and ditch external sensors for "inside-out" head tracking. The really top-end ones have allegedly make good progress in eliminating the "screen door" effect, as well. I think the next gen will be fairly interesting, tech-wise...
But no matter what the tech does I don't think a form of entertaintainment that requires you to completely block out the outside world will have mainstream appeal outside a small group of enthusiasts who live alone and don't have pets. (Or hate their pets/cohabitants enough to not be bothered by the idea of not being able to see or hear them asking for attention.)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:06 PM on November 19, 2019
I've been pleased to see current-gen headsets reduce the number of wired connections and ditch external sensors for "inside-out" head tracking. The really top-end ones have allegedly make good progress in eliminating the "screen door" effect, as well. I think the next gen will be fairly interesting, tech-wise...
But no matter what the tech does I don't think a form of entertaintainment that requires you to completely block out the outside world will have mainstream appeal outside a small group of enthusiasts who live alone and don't have pets. (Or hate their pets/cohabitants enough to not be bothered by the idea of not being able to see or hear them asking for attention.)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:06 PM on November 19, 2019
I guess what I've noticed about VR is that the people who aren't interested are, like, extremely not interested. They are not necessarily waiting for revision 3.0.
I assume Facebook has done the market research to figure out if my anecdotal perception is reality based. But in my circle of the world, nobody seems to be on the edge of being really excited by VR. You're either really into it or you're focused on PS5 or whatever.
posted by selfnoise at 2:13 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I assume Facebook has done the market research to figure out if my anecdotal perception is reality based. But in my circle of the world, nobody seems to be on the edge of being really excited by VR. You're either really into it or you're focused on PS5 or whatever.
posted by selfnoise at 2:13 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I maintain that 3D modelling will be a killer app for VR, not so much for professionals but for amateurs and anyone starting out.
One of the core limitations on marching cubes/isosurfaces as a basic approach to voxels in games is that it’s fundamentally...messy. This applies to both user-generated content and professionally produced ingame assets. A lot of this has to do with the sculpting tools/verbs not working particularly well when the camera frame is relatively static (think the terrain laser in No Man’s Sky): if you move the camera, you can see from a new angle whether your additive/subtractive operation is going too far, but you also alter the relative vector of your add/subtract operation. Pretty much every tool anyone’s come up with for manipulating point clouds suffers analogous limitations (Inaccurate or tediously laborious or operant/viewpoint conflict), and is basically just inferior to the reality of shaping clay with your hands.
VR + extremely fine tracking of a pair of gloves with an order of magnitude more accuracy than we have and maybe 2~3x the sampling/refresh rate... that gets interesting. At that point VR enables content creation in a way that is fundamentally different and arguably superior to existing approaches. Prior to that...well, it’s great for Elite Dangerous.
posted by Ryvar at 2:22 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
One of the core limitations on marching cubes/isosurfaces as a basic approach to voxels in games is that it’s fundamentally...messy. This applies to both user-generated content and professionally produced ingame assets. A lot of this has to do with the sculpting tools/verbs not working particularly well when the camera frame is relatively static (think the terrain laser in No Man’s Sky): if you move the camera, you can see from a new angle whether your additive/subtractive operation is going too far, but you also alter the relative vector of your add/subtract operation. Pretty much every tool anyone’s come up with for manipulating point clouds suffers analogous limitations (Inaccurate or tediously laborious or operant/viewpoint conflict), and is basically just inferior to the reality of shaping clay with your hands.
VR + extremely fine tracking of a pair of gloves with an order of magnitude more accuracy than we have and maybe 2~3x the sampling/refresh rate... that gets interesting. At that point VR enables content creation in a way that is fundamentally different and arguably superior to existing approaches. Prior to that...well, it’s great for Elite Dangerous.
posted by Ryvar at 2:22 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
So, is this likely to be "Half Life: Lost Coast" for their VR engine?
posted by rmd1023 at 2:25 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 2:25 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
Campo Santo's In The Valley of Gods died so this could live, so I'm a little bitter.
posted by Merus at 3:06 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Merus at 3:06 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I guess what I've noticed about VR is that the people who aren't interested are, like, extremely not interested.
I think this is the key observation. Honestly I tend to think that statements about needing X times the resolution or refresh rate, or to get rid of all the wires, or to perfect inside-out tracking, or to find a way to have FPS movement, or that actually AR is what we want, that all of these are just-so stories to justify a visceral resistance to VR that hasn't been very well explored.
Cutting-edge game technology has always been very rough: Doom ran at a whopping 320x200 resolution, and yet became a sensation. The PS1 had a math processor so bad that the vertices of all the geometry visibly jiggled around, couldn't do perspective correct texturing so all the textures grotesquely warped as you moved, and yet that became one of the best-selling consoles of all time.
So I'm skeptical of the idea that if only VR completely perfected the hardware, then it would take off. I think the hardware is probably good enough already, and the issues are social and psychological rather than technical.
In particular, think back to when you first saw an FPS, or a 3d game, or a smartphone: it was probably with a friend or family member. A problem with VR is that you can't watch someone else in VR: they put on the headset and go into their virtual world, and you're left behind, watching them mime out reactions to a world you can't see. And similarly you can't stream VR; at best you can stream the first-person view, which is a disorienting and uniquely spectator-unfriendly experience. The typical avenues through which technology diffuses through society have been cut off.
posted by Pyry at 3:08 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think this is the key observation. Honestly I tend to think that statements about needing X times the resolution or refresh rate, or to get rid of all the wires, or to perfect inside-out tracking, or to find a way to have FPS movement, or that actually AR is what we want, that all of these are just-so stories to justify a visceral resistance to VR that hasn't been very well explored.
Cutting-edge game technology has always been very rough: Doom ran at a whopping 320x200 resolution, and yet became a sensation. The PS1 had a math processor so bad that the vertices of all the geometry visibly jiggled around, couldn't do perspective correct texturing so all the textures grotesquely warped as you moved, and yet that became one of the best-selling consoles of all time.
So I'm skeptical of the idea that if only VR completely perfected the hardware, then it would take off. I think the hardware is probably good enough already, and the issues are social and psychological rather than technical.
In particular, think back to when you first saw an FPS, or a 3d game, or a smartphone: it was probably with a friend or family member. A problem with VR is that you can't watch someone else in VR: they put on the headset and go into their virtual world, and you're left behind, watching them mime out reactions to a world you can't see. And similarly you can't stream VR; at best you can stream the first-person view, which is a disorienting and uniquely spectator-unfriendly experience. The typical avenues through which technology diffuses through society have been cut off.
posted by Pyry at 3:08 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Campo Santo's In The Valley of Gods died so this could live, so I'm a little bitter.
WHAT?! Say it ain't so, Remo!
posted by straight at 3:26 PM on November 19, 2019
WHAT?! Say it ain't so, Remo!
posted by straight at 3:26 PM on November 19, 2019
It's unclear what happened with that game, since Valve is apparently the nicest Kremlin to work in a person could ask for. But it disappeared from a bunch of people's Twitter bios recently. Not Chris Remo's, but he also has three defunct podcasts in his bio, so... Who knows.
posted by selfnoise at 3:40 PM on November 19, 2019
posted by selfnoise at 3:40 PM on November 19, 2019
Pyry:
Your second point is the stronger one: everyone looks like a bad joke when using a VR headset, and it’s impossible to demonstrate to someone else why an experience is fundamentally more compelling in VR without going through the laborious process of setting them up for VR themselves. This significantly slows the growth of VR as a culturally acceptable activity, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Your first point is based on a flawed premise, though: you’re comparing a technology that passed the inflection point to one that hasn’t yet.
Before processors capable of implementing the crude BSP of Doom we had the ray-traced axis-aligned hulls of Wolfenstein. Before that we had tile-based/90-degree turn “rat’s eye view” like Wizardry and Akalabeth. Textured versions like Phantasy Star inbetween. There was an inflection point in the technology where faster CPUs transformed the same fundamental premise from stupid nerd shit to immediately compelling experience. Five seconds of Doom were enough to convince everyone.
VR will never have a moment of looking like a compelling experience to a completely external user, true. But that’s not what VR delivers. What VR delivers when it’s working correctly is a sense of presence, of being in the space in a way that cannot possibly be replicated otherwise.
The fragility of presence is reduced by higher resolution and faster refresh and more precise tracking and better GPUs. The market friction is reduced by those things all becoming cheaper...but we haven’t even started on kinesthetic/vestibulary input, and I think that’s the main hangup. The Avatar ride at Disneyworld is so, so much more compelling than any VR experience because in addition to haptics and olfactory, the entire 3D Omnimax “theater” is able to freely move vertically and pitch/roll (and because it’s a massive >=180 degrees screen there’s absolutely zero lag while looking around). I have been to the mountain and it simply blows all foreseeable VR away. I don’t think the true magic of presence is going to be anything but soap-bubble fragile for the majority of users until we’re pulling some kind of neural induction override bullshit on the user’s inner ear.
But the fact that we’re currently at Akalabeth doesn’t mean Doom can never exist. It just means we have a lot further to go than people with a financial stake in VR are willing to admit. And that’s a big part of why I grew discouraged with it as a technology: it was pretty clear I will be retired before the hardware is capable of delivering on the promise.
Which reading between the lines is more or less the conclusion Carmack came to about three weeks ago before announcing his soft-retirement the following week.
posted by Ryvar at 4:03 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Your second point is the stronger one: everyone looks like a bad joke when using a VR headset, and it’s impossible to demonstrate to someone else why an experience is fundamentally more compelling in VR without going through the laborious process of setting them up for VR themselves. This significantly slows the growth of VR as a culturally acceptable activity, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Your first point is based on a flawed premise, though: you’re comparing a technology that passed the inflection point to one that hasn’t yet.
Before processors capable of implementing the crude BSP of Doom we had the ray-traced axis-aligned hulls of Wolfenstein. Before that we had tile-based/90-degree turn “rat’s eye view” like Wizardry and Akalabeth. Textured versions like Phantasy Star inbetween. There was an inflection point in the technology where faster CPUs transformed the same fundamental premise from stupid nerd shit to immediately compelling experience. Five seconds of Doom were enough to convince everyone.
VR will never have a moment of looking like a compelling experience to a completely external user, true. But that’s not what VR delivers. What VR delivers when it’s working correctly is a sense of presence, of being in the space in a way that cannot possibly be replicated otherwise.
The fragility of presence is reduced by higher resolution and faster refresh and more precise tracking and better GPUs. The market friction is reduced by those things all becoming cheaper...but we haven’t even started on kinesthetic/vestibulary input, and I think that’s the main hangup. The Avatar ride at Disneyworld is so, so much more compelling than any VR experience because in addition to haptics and olfactory, the entire 3D Omnimax “theater” is able to freely move vertically and pitch/roll (and because it’s a massive >=180 degrees screen there’s absolutely zero lag while looking around). I have been to the mountain and it simply blows all foreseeable VR away. I don’t think the true magic of presence is going to be anything but soap-bubble fragile for the majority of users until we’re pulling some kind of neural induction override bullshit on the user’s inner ear.
But the fact that we’re currently at Akalabeth doesn’t mean Doom can never exist. It just means we have a lot further to go than people with a financial stake in VR are willing to admit. And that’s a big part of why I grew discouraged with it as a technology: it was pretty clear I will be retired before the hardware is capable of delivering on the promise.
Which reading between the lines is more or less the conclusion Carmack came to about three weeks ago before announcing his soft-retirement the following week.
posted by Ryvar at 4:03 PM on November 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I don’t think the true magic of presence is going to be anything but soap-bubble fragile for the majority of users until we’re pulling some kind of neural induction override bullshit on the user’s inner ear.
Well, but this is what I mean: you think the inflection point for VR is technological perfection, in comparison to the inflection point for 3d which was 'barely functional'. I think we are past the technological inflection point for VR, which was roughly at the Vive / CV1 level, and since we're past the inflection point, improving the technology will not dramatically improve adoption, because technology is no longer the primary obstacle.
Like, for a couple of years everyone was obsessed with wires, and specifically getting rid of them. And now we have OK inside-out tracking and mobile platforms and... VR still has taken off. Now the big issue is [draws objection out of hat] that the resolution isn't high enough. These are post-hoc justifications, like a person coming out of a movie they hated for reasons they can't articulate and instead listing out all the little nit-picks they noticed.
posted by Pyry at 4:56 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Well, but this is what I mean: you think the inflection point for VR is technological perfection, in comparison to the inflection point for 3d which was 'barely functional'. I think we are past the technological inflection point for VR, which was roughly at the Vive / CV1 level, and since we're past the inflection point, improving the technology will not dramatically improve adoption, because technology is no longer the primary obstacle.
Like, for a couple of years everyone was obsessed with wires, and specifically getting rid of them. And now we have OK inside-out tracking and mobile platforms and... VR still has taken off. Now the big issue is [draws objection out of hat] that the resolution isn't high enough. These are post-hoc justifications, like a person coming out of a movie they hated for reasons they can't articulate and instead listing out all the little nit-picks they noticed.
posted by Pyry at 4:56 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
you think the inflection point for VR is technological perfection
That is the exact opposite of my point above:
we haven’t even started on kinesthetic/vestibulary input, and I think that’s the main hangup
You can’t completely fail to address the user’s kinesthetic sense and hope to convince a mainstream audience. That’s why I mentioned the Avatar ride: unlike VR, it works. They address this with a combination of Disney money and Cameron perfectionism: response time? Fuck it, envelop the riders in 4K or better 3D Omnimax so everywhere they look is three dimensional with zero headtracking lag because there is no headtracking. Kinesthetics? Fuck it, put the theater/screen on a massive elevator/vertical rail and raise/drop the entire goddamn room in sync with the video. Pitch and roll as well.
The Vive and future iterations eventually gets you the first of those. Nothing on the drawing boards even acknowledges the existence of the second problem, and bringing it up in VR circles amounts to proclaiming yourself a witch to a mob of angry villagers. This isn’t a resolution/response time/iteration claim, this is a claim that we are ignoring half the problem because we don’t have any good answers.
posted by Ryvar at 5:56 PM on November 19, 2019
That is the exact opposite of my point above:
we haven’t even started on kinesthetic/vestibulary input, and I think that’s the main hangup
You can’t completely fail to address the user’s kinesthetic sense and hope to convince a mainstream audience. That’s why I mentioned the Avatar ride: unlike VR, it works. They address this with a combination of Disney money and Cameron perfectionism: response time? Fuck it, envelop the riders in 4K or better 3D Omnimax so everywhere they look is three dimensional with zero headtracking lag because there is no headtracking. Kinesthetics? Fuck it, put the theater/screen on a massive elevator/vertical rail and raise/drop the entire goddamn room in sync with the video. Pitch and roll as well.
The Vive and future iterations eventually gets you the first of those. Nothing on the drawing boards even acknowledges the existence of the second problem, and bringing it up in VR circles amounts to proclaiming yourself a witch to a mob of angry villagers. This isn’t a resolution/response time/iteration claim, this is a claim that we are ignoring half the problem because we don’t have any good answers.
posted by Ryvar at 5:56 PM on November 19, 2019
Can’t wait to strap on my headset and watch Freeman’s Vance’s Mind 3.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:00 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by mbrubeck at 6:00 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
All games spaceship games now. Your guy is sitting in a comfy pilot's seat. Kinesthetics? I assure you the inertial dampers are fully functional.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 6:38 PM on November 19, 2019
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 6:38 PM on November 19, 2019
Roomscale Vive is the "barely functional" inflection point as far as kinesthetics go. But again, I suspect that even if absolutely nobody got motion sickness, VR would still not be an instant success, because that is not actually what's holding it back.
Like, I have a Vive, I don't get motion sickness in it, and yet I'm not actually using it that often. And this is borne out in depressing statistics like that headsets are only used six hour a month on average. Why? It's missing something, and that something isn't perfect hand tracking, or an omnidirectional treadmill, or throwing you around like a theme-park motion simulator. If anything, VR is already too much like James Cameron's Avatar: The Ride-- too focused on intense gee-whiz experiences that might amuse you for fifteen minutes but don't lead to longer-term enjoyment.
posted by Pyry at 8:12 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
Like, I have a Vive, I don't get motion sickness in it, and yet I'm not actually using it that often. And this is borne out in depressing statistics like that headsets are only used six hour a month on average. Why? It's missing something, and that something isn't perfect hand tracking, or an omnidirectional treadmill, or throwing you around like a theme-park motion simulator. If anything, VR is already too much like James Cameron's Avatar: The Ride-- too focused on intense gee-whiz experiences that might amuse you for fifteen minutes but don't lead to longer-term enjoyment.
posted by Pyry at 8:12 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
So what I'm getting from you guys is that I shouldn't buy an Oculus Quest.
posted by selfnoise at 8:53 PM on November 19, 2019
posted by selfnoise at 8:53 PM on November 19, 2019
The Oculus Quest actually finally lured me in to VR this year, and for me it’s been a really slick system for standalone VR with some great experiences. Things like Beat Saber have been a lot of fun for exercise games, and the sense of presence in something as simple looking as Rec Room is fascinating. They also just released Oculus Link for it a few days ago, so you can use it as a PC VR headset, and I’m definitely excited to do that with things like Elite Dangerous, the flight sim IL-2, and Fallout 4!
So while I never got that into Half Life, I’m definitely curious what Valve comes up with here as well. :)
Topically, there is also a fan port of the Half Life 1 engine to VR which runs on the Quest: https://www.lambda1vr.com
posted by savagerose at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
So while I never got that into Half Life, I’m definitely curious what Valve comes up with here as well. :)
Topically, there is also a fan port of the Half Life 1 engine to VR which runs on the Quest: https://www.lambda1vr.com
posted by savagerose at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's missing something
Completely agree with you on that much. Made seven FPS prototypes and the initial vertical slice for a mid-budget game for the Vive, yet never wanted to buy one personally. Kinda says it all.
I would commit bare-handed murder to have the Avatar ride at home, though, and I am not a fan of the film or broader IP.
Oh, and I was wrong about it not being on anybody’s drawing board, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
posted by Ryvar at 9:10 PM on November 19, 2019
Completely agree with you on that much. Made seven FPS prototypes and the initial vertical slice for a mid-budget game for the Vive, yet never wanted to buy one personally. Kinda says it all.
I would commit bare-handed murder to have the Avatar ride at home, though, and I am not a fan of the film or broader IP.
Oh, and I was wrong about it not being on anybody’s drawing board, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
posted by Ryvar at 9:10 PM on November 19, 2019
The reason I will eventually buy a VR setup for personal use is Elite: Dangerous
Me too, my Asp Explorer HMS Greasy Bastard is just sitting somewhere in the bubble collecting dust until I can afford a new PC though
posted by Chaffinch at 6:21 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Me too, my Asp Explorer HMS Greasy Bastard is just sitting somewhere in the bubble collecting dust until I can afford a new PC though
posted by Chaffinch at 6:21 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Aye, you definitely don't want to be lightheaded with a galvanic vestibular stimulator plugged in...
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:19 AM on November 20, 2019
Aye, you definitely don't want to be lightheaded with a galvanic vestibular stimulator plugged in...
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:19 AM on November 20, 2019
I am excited to see what Alyx is, especially since I'm lucky enough to have the hardware to make a go of it. But I admit my enthusiasm is somewhat contractual. I can't NOT play the next Half-Life, whatever it is, but I also don't really know what to expect and have zero idea of whether it'll be any good or not.
I know the joke is that Valve doesn't make games anymore, which isn't actually true. But it is kind of true that Valve doesn't make a lot of narrative-driven shooters anymore, and that a lot of the people who worked on the Half-Life and Portal series have left Valve in the meantime. The fact that this exists at all feels like a miracle, but it's not quite the thing we wanted all this time and even if we got that thing, I'm not sure anyone would be 100% confident it'll be amazing.
In some ways, this just makes me more curious. So yeah, I'm on board.
So what I'm getting from you guys is that I shouldn't buy an Oculus Quest.
I own an Oculus Rift (CV-1) and an Oculus Quest, and if you asked me to recommend one or the other today I would definitely say Quest. This is even more true now that the beta version of Oculus Link is out, which allows you to connect your Quest to a PC just like you would a Rift (though I haven't tried it yet myself, and USB-C cable length limitations make this a not-totally-awesome solution at the moment).
But even before that, the freedom of not having to manage cords or be tethered to a computer is lovely and amazing. If you have access to an indoor space of decent size, whether it's in your home or elsewhere, you can play stuff in VR. This is a massive improvement over "you need a PC and also you can't be further than maybe 10 feet from that PC." All the other issues with the Quest—diminished processing power, locked-down software ecosystem (that people have already cracked open a bit), needing to charge the damned thing—pale in comparison to that freedom.
Really, the main issue I have with the Quest is giving your money to Facebook (not to mention the company founded by a right-wing asshole that tried to help win the 2016 election for Trump with "meme magic," ugh). I decided at the time I could hold my nose on that stuff, especially since Palmer Luckey is no longer employed by Oculus/Facebook, but I'd totally understand if other people can't.
posted by chrominance at 11:21 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I know the joke is that Valve doesn't make games anymore, which isn't actually true. But it is kind of true that Valve doesn't make a lot of narrative-driven shooters anymore, and that a lot of the people who worked on the Half-Life and Portal series have left Valve in the meantime. The fact that this exists at all feels like a miracle, but it's not quite the thing we wanted all this time and even if we got that thing, I'm not sure anyone would be 100% confident it'll be amazing.
In some ways, this just makes me more curious. So yeah, I'm on board.
So what I'm getting from you guys is that I shouldn't buy an Oculus Quest.
I own an Oculus Rift (CV-1) and an Oculus Quest, and if you asked me to recommend one or the other today I would definitely say Quest. This is even more true now that the beta version of Oculus Link is out, which allows you to connect your Quest to a PC just like you would a Rift (though I haven't tried it yet myself, and USB-C cable length limitations make this a not-totally-awesome solution at the moment).
But even before that, the freedom of not having to manage cords or be tethered to a computer is lovely and amazing. If you have access to an indoor space of decent size, whether it's in your home or elsewhere, you can play stuff in VR. This is a massive improvement over "you need a PC and also you can't be further than maybe 10 feet from that PC." All the other issues with the Quest—diminished processing power, locked-down software ecosystem (that people have already cracked open a bit), needing to charge the damned thing—pale in comparison to that freedom.
Really, the main issue I have with the Quest is giving your money to Facebook (not to mention the company founded by a right-wing asshole that tried to help win the 2016 election for Trump with "meme magic," ugh). I decided at the time I could hold my nose on that stuff, especially since Palmer Luckey is no longer employed by Oculus/Facebook, but I'd totally understand if other people can't.
posted by chrominance at 11:21 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I take it back. My enthusiasm no longer feels vaguely obligatory. I'm totally in.
posted by chrominance at 10:21 AM on November 21, 2019
posted by chrominance at 10:21 AM on November 21, 2019
I'm not even watching the trailer because there's zero chance I'll ever buy a VR rig and don't want the FOMO. I hope it's good on principle, though!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:23 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:23 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Trailer is great. Definitely the most expensive looking VR game I've ever seen. Between the physics and detail and dual refresh, it looks like something that will need a hell of a machine. I guess we'll see.
posted by selfnoise at 11:13 AM on November 21, 2019
posted by selfnoise at 11:13 AM on November 21, 2019
Oh hey, speak of the devil.
Minimum specs:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM
Recommended:
Processor: Quad Core+
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or better
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:17 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Minimum specs:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM
Recommended:
Processor: Quad Core+
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or better
The minimum specs for Half-Life: Alyx are comparable to the recommended specs for the Valve Index, which means that a lot of people are going to have to upgrade their system, and probably purchase a VR headset, before being able to play the next chapter in the Half-Life story.Valve Index being Valve's proprietary VR setup.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:17 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah. I'm pretty undecided on buying a headset and I'm rocking the minimum requirements at the moment. I do have some upgrade money squirreled away, but I'm waiting for more of an actual video card upgrade from the Nvidia 10 series.
I dunno, it seems really dope but at the end of the day I don't see myself spending upwards of 1K to play it.
posted by selfnoise at 11:21 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I dunno, it seems really dope but at the end of the day I don't see myself spending upwards of 1K to play it.
posted by selfnoise at 11:21 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's unclear what happened with that game, since Valve is apparently the nicest Kremlin to work in a person could ask for. But it disappeared from a bunch of people's Twitter bios recently. Not Chris Remo's, but he also has three defunct podcasts in his bio, so... Who knows.
More of less confirmed by Olly Moss’s tweet.
posted by rodlymight at 11:57 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
More of less confirmed by Olly Moss’s tweet.
posted by rodlymight at 11:57 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
So when Campo Santo developed that next-gen natural black hair technology, it was secretly for Alyx's hair. (Which of course will only be seen when the player looks in a mirror.)
posted by straight at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I had to double check that Campo Santo started work on In The Valley of the Gods before being acquired and it wasn't a Blue Harvest style cover up all along.
posted by rodlymight at 7:22 PM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by rodlymight at 7:22 PM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
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YAY!
a new "flagship VR" game
oh.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 9:12 AM on November 19, 2019 [5 favorites]