Poll: Virtual Reality Gaming. Will it ever be?

[Scarletmarine]

Hey,
I have been talking to my friends about this recently(boys... what a surprise!). Since he recent gen consoles are looking at better graphics, gameplay, content, audio, etc... what's going to be the next big step? I have determinded that it should be virtual reality(forget the huge cost for a moment). Well the Wii is kinda on a track towads virtual reality gaming experience, although not much. I have been hoping that game developers would work on something like this because that would increase the gaming fun by 100 or even 1001.

Picture yourself being the star in the actual game. you can feel the gun in your hand and you can even see it. You ran/walk in a real sandbox enviroment. Your getting into vehicles(harder to put together but go with it) like cars, helicopters, motorcycles, etc... your not just playing the game. You are in the game!

Here's my thought on a room based prototype for this. You walk into the virtual room. On a manframe computer you select your game purchase to play. Then you wait for it to boot up. Once that's done and everythings ready you attach the sensores on many different body parts and put on the helmet. Then the room's walls(which are video screens) display your enviroment. As you move, the settings morph and move with you. If you want a gun or a vechicle, well i am working on how to get them.

Well I hope something like that puts you into the game. It would be so great to actually feel like your shooting someone, or punching them. Something like that. Multiplayer would be awesome
xoxo

 

[Graustein]

There's actually been some development on thought-controlled gaming, with things wired up to your head (I'm not sure on the details) and certain thought processes cause certain reactions in the game. The prototype played Pong (I think it was Pong), and it was found that the guy doing it could play much better via thought than he could with his hands.


Here's an article I found on the subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7254078.stm

It's still in its infancy, but it shows some promise

 

[Ralackk]

We are getting closer and closer to virtual reality gaming. There are a ton of different technologys currently in early stages of development that when combined would create a experiance pretty close to virtual reality.

They already have images being projected into a 3d space

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoxAHHX7jtA

Though this technology alone it doesn't appear that you could physically interact with the images.

There is something I saw that showed a very early stage of people using sound waves I think it was to create an invisible object in mid air. Unfortunatly I can't find the video now which would of tied in nicely with the above images being projected in 3d. If you could combine both these technologys you could potentionally make hollowgrams you could touch and interact with.

These videos show graustein's point of thought controlled motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-cpcoIJbOU&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK1WBA9Xl3c

These discoverys will of course effect other things other then video games. The second video basically show's what may be the future for people that require artifial limbs. Though of course if you can control a robot arm with your mind its not a far stretch to imagine controlling a computer program video game or otherwise.


Perhaps someone knows of the sound thing I was talking about and could post a link to it?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

No, and I really hope not. See any dysotopian future movie/anime/videogame ever for why.

Especially dotHACK

 

[The Wooster]

Yep and it's going to suck. I'm doing a Doctorpus M.D update on this subject as we speak.

 

[Robert0288]

I can only hope

 

[MSORPG pl4y3r]

I'd love tae see VR somday but I'm gonna rain on the parade and say; Imagine playing a horror game, It would be awesom and so scary but Imagine playing resident evil.........I dont know about you but I like my throat intact and where it is. And what if you get shot, I'v never been shot but I cant imagine it dosent hurt. Mind you I supose feeling the pain is part of the experiance and even if it was the most painful thing ever theres always a part of my mind that sees a fantasy warrior riding on the back of a dragon weiling a magic sword and wishes its ME on the back of that dragon and not the origonal protagonist. Or even better.......a VR erlder scrolls game!!! With dragons! And werewolves!

 

[Downside]

VR Would be cool but there would have to be limits. How would you play GTA VR if you dont know how to hot wire cars or even drive them?

Would it be physically draining or would you just use thoughts only?

Also if the VR takes up the entire room then it will only be available to the priveledged unless they have a commercial place for it e.g like the cinema.

Would be cool though being able to experience war in an almost real sense without the thought of being killed for real.

 

[AuntyEthel]

I've been gunning for VR since the early 90's when the craze started.

Of course, one of the first VR games out would be a pornographic venture. It would be similar to a Futurama episode, where men would cease to live their lives, and instead spend their whole life boning a Marilyn Monroe robot. So VR could wipe the whole population out. Theoretically.

 

[Vortigar]

Ah this takes me back to that day I played Magic Carpet with one of those 360 degree sight visors on my head. I've also played (tried to play) a game of Street Fighter in a motion-sensor-setup-ring-thing, which was incredibly wonky. This was almost 15 years ago, they simply forgot to follow-up on that stuff, which is a shame as it has so much potential.

There are those mech control pods out there. You sit down into a sort of mock cockpit with screens for windows and controls to rival a jet fighter and you and your team battle it out against an opposing team over a network.

Downside & MSORPG pl4y3r:
My first thought was how true VR could forever change adventure/puzzle games. They'd have to present you a dilemma and a world around it and you can literally do anything you can think of to try and solve it. Most of the genres of games we play now would become rather obsolete. Imagine a remake of the Journeyman Project in VR...

AuntyEthel:
Yes, the first VR game would be a teledildonics thing obviously, we're awfully close to perfecting that tech at the moment. You ever seen the French movie Thomas in Love [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262826/]? (For a depiction of future VR MMO gaming, try Oshii's Avalon [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267287/])

Humanity has about reached the point where it could survive without males. They can just tap the semen from the Marilyn droids. Yeah, we're about to make ourselves obsolete.

TsunamiWombat:
.Hack? You need to graduate to Ghost in the Shell (or the above mentioned Avalon, where people not only get lost in the game but actually come out incurably catatonic, yay for gaming). The idea of Brain hacking scares the crap out of me btw.

Aside:
The GitS manga simply assumes (without finding it a topic even worth discussing) that the sex industry to be one of the first to seize the potential of full size humanoid robots and following the current advancements it seems Shirow will definately be right.

 

[Flour]

I don't think Virtual Reality should ever become a possibility with most of the games we have today.
Do you really want children playing a realistic looking game where you can blow a leg off someone and then watch up close how that person is yelling in pain, struggling to stay alive while bleeding to death? Heck, most adults wouldn't even want to play such a game.. well, not unless that person already had some severe mental problems.
While the idea of virtual reality is good, it shouldn't be used for anything other than non-violent exploration/puzzle/adventure games or shooters in a way that the target disappears the moment it is killed.

While I would trust someone that enjoys going through Gears of War blowing random limbs off of enemies knowing it's just a game, I wouldn't trust anyone who spends a lot of time in a VR murder simulator with graphics almost as realistic as real life.

 

[Vortigar]

Flour:
Here, Avalon [http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=hvEB--Xyq6M], take note of the way they get killed at 0:30.

 

[C3rtainD3ath]

War would not be war if the prospect of death was not hanging ominously above your head. In real life, going slowly, covering your corners, watching everywhere is ESSENTIAL, if you want to stay alive. In a game however, even a VR game, people just run in go crazy waste all their bullets and die, maybe taking one or two of their players, but they run in with the knowledge that they WILL NOT BE HURT. they would not run in if they didnt think they could run out again.

The RAAF (royal australian air force) already uses a basic VR, as you have a cockpit which simulates a real fighter jet, with random simulated winds, sun (like time of day) and even simulates G-Force.

VR would be cool for some games though, but imagine the cost...

 

[KittywifaMohawk]

I personally this VR will come out, not soon though, I would have to say give another 15-20years. I'm quite positive that we have the technology to make it easily, it's just that we have no idea how to put it together. Let alone the cost of it all, the way the economic system is how it is, we don't have the money for it. So I wouldn't say that it will be coming out soon, but I'm positive that it will come out eventually.

 

[SmugFrog]

It's inevitable - but it will take a lot more technology for it to really happen and be affordable.

I love to compare the games we play today to those of 20 years ago. Imagine if you could take your PS3 / 360 / PC back in time and show those gamers what we have these days. It would be fun to watch a 1980's NES player try to get a grasp on so many buttons on a controller.

 

[Flour]

Flour:
Here, Avalon [http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=hvEB--Xyq6M], take note of the way they get killed at 0:30.

Damn, every time I think of something new, I find out it has been done before

 

[Scarletmarine]

hey,
Where there's a will, there's a way. Of course VR will be made and then sold to the general public. But the thrill of taking yourself out of the real world and it's problems to experinece another life, would cause almost an entire population want to purchase such an item. There will be interactive VR game enviorments made. If anyone has or can read the short story intitled, "The Veldt" this would give a smal insight into VR.

People tend to forget this one important point. Games are made for entertainment and creating exciting stories that take us from our dull lives, and placing us in someone else's great life. Games are to be mere distractions and sources of entertainment. About the GTA VR i say so what. Would blowing someone's head off and having their blood smeer you be scarring. At first, maybe. No one really suffers. I mean only alduts and older teens should have acccess to such violence because they understand the difference between game deaths and real death.

VR has so many possiblities that we cannot even begin to imagine the kinds of good it can achieve in a lifetime. Entertainment, yes but more, Education, Healthcare, Job placement, Survallience, the list can go on for along while. But we must take it one step at a time. Even if it is baby steps.

xoxo

 

[motokemu]

No way.
Most of the people who play games [I for one] play to escape reality, to be someone else for just awhile and do something outside of reality.
It will be fun and new and exciting but will get old very soon.

Why would you want to be yourself in a game?
Isn't that the point? Being in someone else's shoes? Someone else's situation and life, to be someone more exciting?

 

[Graustein]

No way.
Most of the people who play games [I for one] play to escape reality, to be someone else for just awhile and do something outside of reality.
It will be fun and new and exciting but will get old very soon.

Why would you want to be yourself in a game?
Isn't that the point? Being in someone else's shoes? Someone else's situation and life, to be someone more exciting?

You mean you don't want to imagine yourself doing awesome stuff? Instead of being Samus the bounty hunter or Master Chief the Spartan, you could be Motokemu kicking major ass. How can you not see the appeal of that?

 

[Scarletmarine]

Hey,
I meant you'd be in the game but you would be seen as a totally different person. Hell maybe even some games might have options to design and new virtual look for yourself. Think of how multiplayer gaming would and contacting friends. You'd be the game character as someone else but you'd be in the game inside of outside a t.v screen with a controller.

Just let reality go for a few mintues when thinking of this and imagine what you could do in a VR program that you can't do in life(Like in Matrix how you get the weapons racks and the kung-fu program room and bulding jump. creating a new reality). Go nuts with your throughts and ideas, because i'm sure a one point people would have thought that lightbulbs were far fetched ideas or the airplane.
xoxo