Instead of Teleport Movement, take a page from Runescape

[Judge_D]

I’ve noticed that a lot of VR games give you a magic wand where you can click and teleport to a location. It really breaks immersion for me when shit like that happens.

Runescape is one of the few active MMO’s left where you click to move. They have good pathfinding code and your character maneuvers around objects to get to where you clicked.

So instead of click to teleport, I recommend click to move. Possibly a minimap where you can click on the minimap to make locomotion easier.

With an actual locomotion system, you can have stuff like hasten spells or slow spells, too. Teleportation for movement feels bad.

My next point is a bit off-topic from movement, but I really think something like Runescape Examine text system is an easy way to make a gameworld feel more alive without much effort. Just a bit of literary imagination.

[Evan_B]

The problem is the artificial movement makes about 1/3rd of people sick, that is why we have teleports.

Clicking to have your avatar move without the camera and then clicking again to teleport into, and stop the ragdoll might work for most people though, as long as the avatar kept miming what you were doing so, lets say, as a warrior you could wade through the middle of a bunch of enemies swinging still without the sickness.

I’m personally one of the 1/3 who has the iron gut where I don’t get sick or uncomfortable with any artificial locomotion, but we cannot ignore such a large chunk of people who cannot handle it.

[Archie_B]

While I like the idea of an alternate locomotion type, I think having your body dissociate from your position would be horribly disorienting, especially if there is any IRL walking around happening.
EDIT: That said, I agree that auto-pathing would be WAY more disorienting and nausea inducing. Even in elite dangerous, where half of your FOV is a stationary reference frame, when unexpected movement occurs it is jarring (E.g. auto docking, or if your cat steps on a second controller you have plugged in). I never get motion sickness, but both of those cases were hard for me to adjust to, I can’t imagine how bad it would be if you were sensitive to it.

In addition to the disorientation, how would this work with ranged classes (which as of right now, includes all but one of them)? Aiming from first person is hard enough, could you imagine trying to shoot something by trying to guess the relative position of your avatar to the enemy? I think it would be tough…

I do like the idea of projecting a version of yourself to attack as a melee character, however. Like a spirit-double skill to toss out and deal damage from a distance? Just my two cents.

[Vulcan]

Point and click from my perspective can’t really work in VR due to as others have stated before the user experiencing disorientation and being basically on a ride is how I imagine it would feel, taking away immersion from the game. I do really like the sliding locomotion that utilizes the touch pad.

Examine text sounds really good I hope they implement it in some shape/form!

Really looking forward to the development of this game.

P.S. I’m an old time RuneScape player

[Archie_B]

Hah, I forgot to touch on the runescape mention!

Old-time runescape player here as well, and I second that examine text would be neat

It might be worth looking at runescape for inspiration in other ways as well (types of skills? skill ceiling? payment model?). I can’t say exactly what makes runescape click, but you don’t keep that size of player base around for THAT long without doing something right.

[Vulcan]

I agree on the inspiration point, RuneScape at the moment is slowly declining due to all the new micro transactions and cosmetics instead of real content though, their formula of simplicity a few years back was perfect. Now, give new players too many complicated choices from the get go and they will get frustrated and leave. In my opinion a simple start and let it complicate as you advance, similar to RuneScape in the early 2000’s (2004-2009).

The variety of skills makes it quite impressive and entertained something to keep in mind for the future, right now Orbus VR still has a lot of work ahead of it (awesome work though :P) later all those details can be figured out, but as said by Archie a couple notes from the early success of RuneScape could benefit Orbus. Questing is also something that is unique to RuneScape quests with lore and humor, something different from the common get this for me and come back for a reward, kill this and come back with no apparent purpose or influence in the game world. Proximity voice chat is a neat idea I believe I read on one of the Dev Blogs looking forward to that.

[Kacey_S]

to be fair the movement system really needs to be decided mainly one way or the other. The thing about motion sickness is that its physiological. Its the same thing as seasick. However, with enough enduring and practicing. The same way sailors (who got seasick) get their sea legs, is the same way people who get motion sick in VR stop getting motion sick. For me im also part of the group (and most people i know) they dont get motion sick from VR and when we did, its was only the first 15 hours or so(over the course of a few days). Now its not a problem at all. To be fair i would recommend people try Google Earth VR, then The Lab, then Subnautica. In that order. First ones stationary and moving the world around you, second one is teleporting with being able to walk around, and third one is locomotion, but swimming which makes it a lot easier to get used to, not only that but the game includes places you can walk. So trying them in that order and not giving in to the nausea is one of the best ways to overcome motion sickness for anyone struggling.

Perhaps a little VR training mode in the game to help people adjust through those steps? But if not, you can try the viveports option where instead of instanatious teleport, its a very quick movement, i tried this earlier on and it actually is so similar to teleporting, for motionsick users it works very well, but also with this it would help with pve and pvp as the character wont just disappear instantly when someone is trying to attack them. This may make it more fair and would be a healthy medium between teleportation and the runescape method. But obviously, i really think for future VR MMO’s people are going to need to get use to VR locomotion, but as this is one of the first ones ive seen being worked and the audience for VR is pretty young i guess you can make compromises.

[Sinon]

It would be awesome to have an artificial movement method, but only if teleportation is still an option. I cannot handle artificial movement as it makes me very sick and I know a lot of people who are the same way.