Not so much a suggestion as a question. Has Riley said anything about the potential for integrating the Virtuix Omni or the new vive pucks into the game. I’m interested to hear a VR developer’s thoughts on these new technologies.
Personally I could see the Virtuix Omni as not being too difficult to integrate. If you simply assign its movement to the track pad and make it’s speed indicate how far from the centre it is (I speak from the position of having no knowledge of coding or game development whatsoever).
And if you had the option to integrate it, the game could start to become very immersive. I know they’re going to cost a lot when they come out, but it could be very interesting to play on one without giving an actual gameplay advantage over people without one.
Has anyone both backed the kickstarter and own/going to own an Omni?
We’ve had a couple of requests for the Omni so I’ll be looking at the SDK to see what it takes to get it to work with our existing locomotion system. Not currently planning anything with the pucks but if they become popular and there’s a demand there to support them we’ll certainly consider it.
This is just a question out of curiosity more than anything, but how would you balance that with the other locomotion options available in game? I know figuring out a way to balance room-scale movement for things like PvP was a concern. Would any movement in a direction on the Omni result in upper limit movement speed in game or is there a way to cap the speed at the upper limit but allow for more accurate speed in between the cap and no movement?
The OMNI uses low friction shoes to allow you to “walk”, “run”, etc. Probably it would just move as fast as you could run in room scale would be my guess…
I think he knows what it does, the question is more of a balancing issue…
How do you implement this without giving players with an OMNI an advantage or disadvantage in PVP combat? The OMNI is cool and having it work with the game is awesome, but just because you have the cash to spend doesn’t mean you should have an advantage for it, but at the same time, you don’t want to discourage people using it because they’re actually at a disadvantage with how the OMNI works with the game.
Right, but my concern with that is the same as with room-scale movement. It could allow people who use it to move faster than the locomotion limit on teleportation and sliding. I’m wondering if there is a way to limit the maximum speed using the Omni regardless of the actual speed input. For example, if you’re running at 7m/s, would that transfer into the game or would it be capped at 5m/s? If it isn’t capped it creates balance issues.
I’m sure this is something that has been identified already, as Riley and the team seem very focused on balance. I’m just curious what the implementation would look like.
Yeah, I just want to add that this is exactly the kind of game I would be hoping to have Omni support for. I don’t actually have an Omni because I’ve been waiting for games to have SDK support for it. The out of the box controller stuff is just not worth it.
Having just ordered tracking pucks today, I would love to see at least one additional puck integrated further down the development road. Obviously there are no feet in this game. But just one belt-clip puck could make a big difference in player interaction… dodging projectiles… etc. At the very least, I’m speaking up so that the devs know that some in the community would be able to test implementation for them.
How does the vive puck cooperate with the games related to immersion? as you walk in the game the vive puck would follow right? If the puck is on the ground it would break immersion as its floating around you.
What if you only use the puck at specific occasions?
Wouldnt you have to take off the HMD and find it and turn it on?
The puck is cool tho and i most certainly am looking forward to see what the developers will do with it.
From what I’ve seen so far the Vive pucks are widely being used to improve immersion either in allowing you to map more of your body in to the game or allowing you to bring a real world object into the game.
Thanks!
I havent looked much into it since the concept is kind of self-explanatory. But this combined with HardlightVR would give (in my opinion) the best immersive gameplay without having a huge rig in the home.
Or you know you could use a puck like I plan to and attach it to your belt so you dont have to pants a vive controller and dont need stupid space taking expensive hardware.
There are some workarounds for walk-in-place locomotion that work whether or not the game supports it, though maybe not with a Vive Puck. One example is an iphone app called PocketStrafe. Basically open the app and put your phone in your pocket and when you run in place it keys “w” on your computer making you run in the game. Not a perfect solution, but if you don’t mind only being able to go one speed it works well enough.
I guess my understanding was that combat is teleport only. If this is still the case, then walking backwards and strafing are not essential. If you can move via smooth locomotion during combat however, strafing and backing up are definitely important.
I’m doing it whether or not the game supports it. As this isn’t the only game out there. My point is they should support things like this before $700 treadmills that further price more players out of reasonable locomotion options.
My point here is the entry cost for real VR is still very high we need movement options to be affordable not double the cost of the base VR system. As it is now you pay $800 for a vive and then go get a $700 treadmill that’s like buying a ps4 and an xbox one then being told you need to own 2 of each if you want to move around reasonably in game.
Right now the VR market suffers from lack of content this will change. However if you launch a system which VR headsets are similar to consoles, as the games made for them u have to have a headset to play. Then you have to have content for them to break into the market.
Sony made this mistake with the psp go launched a console that content wise was DOA and it was too shortly after, and It was a quarter of the price of the vive.
HTC and Valve are now scrambling to create content because of this.
Supporting unnecessary expensive peripherals first further delays adoption of the new technology due to price of entry.
