85 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

They will not have any role in the development of games for the device.

Of course they will. You dont spend 2 billion dollars to acquire a company to have no role in its development. Facebook is not only going to have a role in oculus rift but theyre going to develop it for social media moreso than for gaming. Theyre trying to compete with google glasses in the long term. Theres a tech coldwar going on between google and facebook right now.

[Bhael Fire]

Khobai, on 02 April 2014 - 05:18 PM, said:

Of course they will. You dont spend 2 billion dollars to acquire a company to have no role in its development. Facebook is not only going to have a role in oculus rift but theyre going to develop it for social media moreso than for gaming. Theyre trying to compete with google glasses in the long term. Theres a tech coldwar going on between google and facebook right now.

I think you misunderstood what I said; They will have no role in the development of third party GAMES for the Oculus Rift. The development of games (and software) for the device will remain strictly in the hands of third party developers. So...forget any weird paranoid delusions of facebook ads popping up when using the Rift, because that's never going to happen unless the software you're using was developed by a developer put them there.

Oculus Rift (and Oculus the company) itself will maintain its position as an independent platform and hardware developer; i.e. a tool to be used by third party developers of all kinds.

By acquiring Oculus, Facebook secures a nice slice of that AR/VR pie and the rights to use it for their own social media ventures without worrying about proprietary issues.

[DustySkunk]

As far as the display itself goes, one of the breakthoughs that Oculus made when working with Valve's R&D team is that motion sickness isn't tied to refresh rate. The short version is that by switching pixels on and then immediately off again rather than leaving them on constantly eliminates much of this issue due to the way we interpret images. That's what they are talking about when they say persistence. By all accounts, the DK2 is *light years* ahead of the DK1, and the DK2 itself isn't even up to par with what they plan to release with the consumer version.

In terms of orientation and positional tracking, for the DK2 The gyro, accelerometer, and magnetometer update at 1000Hz and the positional tracking provided by the camera updates at 60Hz. (http://tinyurl.com/q5f2ayy)

We won't know for sure until these devices end up in the hands of the general public, but I am optimistic. July of this year will be the real test, when DK2s are released to the development community.

[Bhael Fire]

DustySkunk, on 02 April 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

We won't know for sure until these devices end up in the hands of the general public, but I am optimistic. July of this year will be the real test, when DK2s are released to the development community.

Can't wait for ours to arrive. Not one to wish away time, but damn, really looking forward to July!

[PappySmurf]

I made my own unit its called the Oculus Drift.

[Moromillas]

DustySkunk, on 02 April 2014 - 07:32 AM, said:

I agree that FB is not the ideal company to have purchased Oculus. Like I said before, when I first found out about the purchase, I was raging. If a company like Valve or Epic had made the purchase, I think many people would be celebrating right now. However, all I'm been saying is that it doesn't necessarily mean that the Rift as we know it is dead, and big capital is not mutually exclusive with success.

Regardless of the company's ownership, can we agree that Rift (or more generally, VR) support for MWO is a good thing? At least until some revelation comes to light that proves otherwise? What I mean by revelation is that so far, there have been no changes announced to the development plan for the Rift, and FB has stated they aren't going to make any. A change would indicate bad faith, and reason to give up on the Rift as a platform; something I will readily do if that happens. What I'm saying is until we do hear something, it's premature to assume the company has gone down the toilet because of its new ownership.

Irrespective of what happens with the Rift, the market for VR has just been opened in a big way with a lot of heavy hitters throwing their towel's in the ring...

Really it boils down to the fact that I just want to be able to sit in the cockpit of my Battlemaster, be able to look around and feel like I'm actually there. Almost full immersion. VR can make that happen.

Unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn't make it succeed. The reality is it's just not viable to develop anymore for gaming. It's not enough to innovate and come up with a "good device." It needs to be a viable way to develop in the marketplace if you want 3rd parties to jump on board, it needs to be able to push copies without going in the red. When you have a company that has no idea how the industry works to begin with, and even less support and 3rd party input than Nintendo, its just a massive recipe for disaster. Basically, you can forget about devs jumping on board with this one.

[DustySkunk]

Moromillas, on 02 April 2014 - 11:44 PM, said:

Unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn't make it succeed. The reality is it's just not viable to develop anymore for gaming. It's not enough to innovate and come up with a "good device." It needs to be a viable way to develop in the marketplace if you want 3rd parties to jump on board, it needs to be able to push copies without going in the red. When you have a company that has no idea how the industry works to begin with, and even less support and 3rd party input than Nintendo, its just a massive recipe for disaster. Basically, you can forget about devs jumping on board with this one.

I hear you and generally I agree with your points, but I don't think they aren't applicable here. Oculus already had that momentum before the FB acquisition. If FB is telling the truth, they don't plan to take over or change anything that Oculus is doing- just support it.

3rd parties have already jumped on board in a big way. For instance, Valve already has made two of their most popular games Rift compatible (TF2, HL2) and Steam has a VR mode/marketplace which is in beta right now. There are a number of Rift exclusives that have been developed or are being developed as well. Eve Valkyrie is the one that has the most attention, but all you need to do is poke about the Occulus developer forums or Kickstarter to see that there are plenty of people/studios developing serious titles for the Rift. With Unity and UDK support (two of the most popular game engines at the moment) the number of software titles being developed is large and will continue to grow as news surrounding the platform grows. Granted, not everything you see is a full gameplay experience but for every ten Rift demos there's a full fledged game in the works.

Also, its quite easy to add Rift support to older games using TriDef of VorpX. Mirror's Edge on the Rift? Yup. Skyrim on the Rift? Yup. Minecraft on the Rift? Yup. Arma series? Yup. Also, older games are being modified to straight out support it where possible. One (two actually) of my personal favorites are Quake I/II which have been modified from source to have Rift support.

Finally, major F2P titles work well with the Rift. War Thunder on the Rift? Yup. Hawken on the Rift? Yup.

Let's not forget that Sony is rumored to have several in house titles they have developed for Project Morpheus as well as modifying older titles for VR support; Forza 4 and the Last of Us being two that "leaks" have confirmed. Granted, these are just rumors until we know for sure.

Microsoft has just confirmed that they have something in the works as well.

To say that 3rd parties are not on board for VR I think is just not an accurate statement.

Peruse this:

http://en.wikipedia....us_Rift_support

...which is not an exhaustive list by any means. It might have you think twice about there being no 3rd party developer support.

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention Star Citizen...

Edited by DustySkunk, 03 April 2014 - 06:03 AM.

[Bhael Fire]

Moromillas, on 02 April 2014 - 11:44 PM, said:

Basically, you can forget about devs jumping on board with this one.

I can't help but laugh at this. You have no idea how wrong you are.

EDIT: Unless you just meant PGI...because if so, I completely agree. I'm not expecting them to dedicate any time to developing support for the Rift any time soon...which is a complete shame.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 03 April 2014 - 10:17 AM.

[Moromillas]

Bhael Fire, on 03 April 2014 - 05:49 AM, said:

I can't help but laugh at this. You have no idea how wrong you are.

I can't help but laugh at everyone's magical thinking on this. No, good business decisions turn a profit, bad ones don't. It's that simple.

Edited by Moromillas, 03 April 2014 - 09:16 PM.

[Bhael Fire]

Moromillas, on 03 April 2014 - 09:16 PM, said:

I can't help but laugh at everyone's magical thinking on this. No, good business decisions turn a profit, bad ones don't. It's that simple.

You really have no idea what you're talking about on this specific topic. Not trying to "challenge" you or even debate; just pointing out that you are completely wrong about devs not "jumping on board with this one."

[DustySkunk]

Moromillas, on 03 April 2014 - 09:16 PM, said:

I can't help but laugh at everyone's magical thinking on this. No, good business decisions turn a profit, bad ones don't. It's that simple.

...pretty sure I've backed everything I have said on this thread with concrete examples (or explicitly stated when something I said was a rumor). I can provide sources for any facts I've said. Please point out what appears to be "wishful thinking."

We know what FB and Oculus has said about the direction company is going. FB's other two acquisitions are doing fine and have been left alone. Until we have evidence to the contrary, there's no reason to assume otherwise. It would certainly be wishful thinking if some evidence did surface and we kept our outlook anyway~ but that hasn't happened.

It's not like they are going to replace the Oculus staff or something. They have no reason to step in and do the jobs of the people that clearly know what they are doing. Carmack is still there. Palmer is still there. So is the rest of the team.

Some of the biggest names in the industry are developing for VR right now. Pretty sure that counts as 3rd party developer support.

By all accounts, the tech is nearly there. We won't know for sure until it ships, but everyone who has used the DK2 talks of the vast improvement over the DK1.


...am I missing something? Seems like an objective assessment. Nothing "wishful" about it.

[Khobai]

Quote

I can't help but laugh at this. You have no idea how wrong you are.

Hes actually right and youre wrong. Theres only about 500 rift enabled games. Less than 50 of them are actually commercially viable (and half of those are crappy indie games). Thats not enough to sustain the market. VR gaming headsets failed in the 90s for the same reason: no one wanted to pay $300 for a product which basically adds little or nothing to your gaming experience... its just a gimmicky way to free look and nothing more.

The real potential for a product like oculus rift isnt gaming but rather integration with smartphone technology. Theres far more potential in developing oculus rift into a social media tool to compete with google glasses. Which is exactly why facebook bought them, and why facebook overpayed so much to acquire them, because they see the potential for furthering social media.

Quote

Some of the biggest names in the industry are developing for VR right now. Pretty sure that counts as 3rd party developer support.

Not really. You can actually count the number of big budget games with confirmed development for oculus rift on one hand. Theres other games with planned development but that doesnt mean anything since a lot of those games will abandon it.

Edited by Khobai, 04 April 2014 - 05:54 AM.

[Roland]

Yeah, there really isn't any "real" Rift support.

At this point, even with games that "support" the Rift, it's just kind of bolted on junk, mainly put in there for marketing purposes (i.e. "We support the occulus rift!") rather than any REAL reason... because there is no real reason... because the Rift doesn't actually exist in a commerical form.

[Bhael Fire]

Khobai, on 04 April 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

no one wanted to pay $300 for a product which basically adds little or nothing to your gaming experience... its just a gimmicky way to free look and nothing more.

Saying that it's nothing more than a gimmicky way to "free look" is a gross understatement...along the lines of comparing the television to the radio as just a "gimmicky device" to see what you're hearing. This is not the so-called "VR" from the 90's; it's not even in the same world as that. The level of immersion is unlike anything that's been within consumers' grasps...ever.

The device has enormous potential across many different markets, the biggest of which being the entertainment (which includes games) and social media markets. To say that there's no devs on board for development is not just flat out false, it's delusional.

The device isn't even released yet and there's already a large amount of traction with dev studios of all sizes, some of which aren't even listed as being "officially" on board (like the studio I work for). Support for the device (and AR/VR in general) is only going to grow exponentially as the years pass, especially once it becomes even more affordable than it already is. Keep in mind, people pay WAY more than $350 for their monitors and other gaming gear now...this can be thought of as the evolution of the monitor in many ways.

But you don't have to take my word for it; a lot of people were skeptical when they introduced the television, too...until they experienced it for themselves.

[DustySkunk]

We may all have to agree to disagree here.

Some things to think about:

It isn't even a released product as Roland pointed out, so much of our discussion as to its future is speculation. A lot can change in between now and release day both for better or for worse. We won't know for sure until then. I personally am hopeful.

Khobai, you mentioned 50 commercially viable games. You mentioned that many were crappy... lets say half that number will actually be okay. How does that compare to a new console on release day? PS4 released with 23 games....Assuming the Rift was released tomorrow, we're still looking at a significant lineup. In all likelihood the earliest we would see a CV1 release would be fourth quarter of 2014 in time for the holidays. That is still many months away, and enough time for many games to be brought to light. Just food for thought.

Edited by DustySkunk, 04 April 2014 - 11:52 AM.

[Moromillas]

Bhael Fire, on 03 April 2014 - 10:13 PM, said:

You really have no idea what you're talking about on this specific topic. Not trying to "challenge" you or even debate; just pointing out that you are completely wrong about devs not "jumping on board with this one."

DustySkunk, on 04 April 2014 - 04:40 AM, said:

...pretty sure I've backed everything I have said on this thread with concrete examples (or explicitly stated when something I said was a rumor). I can provide sources for any facts I've said. Please point out what appears to be "wishful thinking."

Light's blade, I don't like repeating myself, just go ahead and read my other posts.

Really? It's viable because you say so and cite a bunch of circumstantial facts.

Ok, you go ahead and tell my why I should develop for the Oculus Rift. Lets hear your best pitch as to why we should spend millions, instead of Xbox or Playstation etc, that actually keep devs in the loop, and have been providing dev support for years. I don't think you realise just how much cost and risk comes with these sorts of things, how much money should we drop on a failed business venture do you think?

Hey if we need to get our techs some info, I'm sure we can just make a facebook status post about it right? I mean, **** me, maybe McDonald's would be better.

[DustySkunk]

Moromillas, on 04 April 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Light's blade, I don't like repeating myself, just go ahead and read my other posts.

Really? It's viable because you say so and cite a bunch of circumstantial facts.

Ok, you go ahead and tell my why I should develop for the Oculus Rift. Lets hear your best pitch as to why we should spend millions, instead of Xbox or Playstation etc, that actually keep devs in the loop, and have been providing dev support for years. I don't think you realise just how much cost and risk comes with these sorts of things, how much money should we drop on a failed business venture do you think?

Hey if we need to get our techs some info, I'm sure we can just make a facebook status post about it right? I mean, **** me, maybe McDonald's would be better.

Point out a "circumstantial" fact I've stated and I'll point you to my source that isn't circumstantial. I've clearly stated when I'm saying something is a rumor or not, and when something is a fact. Stats on the device? Facts. Developers currently involved? Facts. Past research? Facts. Whether it will be successful or not? Speculation. I've never pretended nor passed off anything as something that it wasn't. I've also been clear that I am optimistic, and that's my opinion. I can be accused of being an optimist in this thread and sharing my research on this device. Nothing more, nothing less. If things go south with the company after the FB deal I'll jump ship too-but nothing has come to light that would suggest that yet so my feelings haven't changed.

Also, about dropping money on a "failed business venture" - what are you basing that statement off of? Where has it failed exactly? I'd love to know.

[Impyrium]

For Christ's sake, what's done is done. You can't change it, so go with the flow. If it doesn't turn out... well, damn. I happen to have seen MW:O through an Oculus with third party software, it the immersion is surreal. Obviously not very playable with the DKI because of the resolution and UI, but if they added support to separate head movement from the mouse... well... DKII is here...

[Moromillas]

DustySkunk, on 05 April 2014 - 11:50 AM, said:

Point out a "circumstantial" fact I've stated and I'll point you to my source that isn't circumstantial. I've clearly stated when I'm saying something is a rumor or not, and when something is a fact. Stats on the device? Facts. Developers currently involved? Facts. Past research? Facts. Whether it will be successful or not? Speculation. I've never pretended nor passed off anything as something that it wasn't. I've also been clear that I am optimistic, and that's my opinion. I can be accused of being an optimist in this thread and sharing my research on this device. Nothing more, nothing less. If things go south with the company after the FB deal I'll jump ship too-but nothing has come to light that would suggest that yet so my feelings haven't changed.

Also, about dropping money on a "failed business venture" - what are you basing that statement off of? Where has it failed exactly? I'd love to know.

No one is saying you don't have the right to an opinion. You can have an opinion if you want. I still think it's a stupid opinion.

This and that, is not enough to go on, the answer is no.

[Bhael Fire]

Moromillas, on 04 April 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Ok, you go ahead and tell my why I should develop for the Oculus Rift. Lets hear your best pitch as to why we should spend millions, instead of Xbox or Playstation etc, that actually keep devs in the loop, and have been providing dev support for years.

I don't need to pitch anything to you; luckily there are already lots of developers (large and small) on board with the Rift and those numbers are growing. Naturally, the trailblazers and innovators will precede the imitators, but that is just the nature of this industry. The luddites always come kicking and screaming into the future...