Please just stop the begging. They are working on it. (pouring valuable development resources into it by the way)

1 hour ago, Scottoest said:

There are multiple dubious assumptions here.  One, that HL Alyx alone is going to lead to a massive surge of sales in VR headsets that, let us not forget, cost hundreds of dollars.  Two, that the game's existence is going to mark a "turning point' in VR development, despite being a single game, made by a company hawking their own VR headset.  Three,  it assumes that there's a massive Venn diagram overlap between people who are going to run out and buy headsets for HL Alyx, and people who are going to play a hardcore flight simulator.  Four, it assumes this VR "turning point" will take the place of a singular wave that it's possible to "miss", by not having VR available in 2020... a point which seems to conflict with the idea of this being a turning point for VR as a platform.

1. Not Alyx alone, but it's the representative of many AAA titles and some next generation VR headsets that have come or will be coming. Cutting edge games pushing the boundary of computer hardware and its sales, does this sounds unfamiliar?

2. Again, not Alyx alone, and it has nothing to do with a company hawking their own VR headset. Look at the official homepage. Valve lists all the PC headsets of this world as supported: https://www.half-life.com/us-en/alyx

3. It has nothing to do with the overlap between people who are going to run out and buy headsets for HL Alyx, and people who are going to play a hardcore flight simulator. It's all about a more profound link between the two faction of people connected by the general growing tide of VR.

4. By "miss" I obviously mean the loss of Microsoft and MSFS, and the loss of our (VR) simmers, not the miss or loss of the whole VR business, which is unstoppable, with or without MSFS.

Edited November 22, 20196 yr by yanfeng12342000

Gaming websites are reporting on it yes. But reading the comments, gamers in general are not really THAT excited about it being VR only. Not everyone likes a contraption on your head while gaming / flying.

1 hour ago, Scottoest said:

There are multiple dubious assumptions here.  One, that HL Alyx alone is going to lead to a massive surge of sales in VR headsets that, let us not forget, cost hundreds of dollars.  Two, that the game's existence is going to mark a "turning point' in VR development, despite being a single game, made by a company hawking their own VR headset.  Three,  it assumes that there's a massive Venn diagram overlap between people who are going to run out and buy headsets for HL Alyx, and people who are going to play a hardcore flight simulator.  Four, it assumes this VR "turning point" will take the place of a singular wave that it's possible to "miss", by not having VR available in 2020... a point which seems to conflict with the idea of this being a turning point for VR as a platform.

My company does VR application development as part of innovation initiatives in the federal space, and we are incredibly aware of the low consumer pickup of VR tech. The Steam hardware survey shows around 1% of users with a VR headset.

Scott makes the important point here that Alyx is not some ground breaking killer app, but is Valve pulling out an IP they've had nestled away for a decade in order to sell their VR equipment over the competition. Something like Beat Saber, which is much more accessible and relatable to a generalized, modern user base, is a better driver of adoption than Alyx will be.

Additional points:

- There is still a large amount of speculation over whether or not VR is actually something worth pursuing, or if the hardware is at a place where we'll see something closer to mass adoption. You can check out reviews over the past year on YouTube by big names like Linus Tech Tips for some of that skepticism.

- It is absolutely not true that "(t)he whole game world has gone crazy for the announcement."  There's a good deal of consternation and even anger over the fact that the game is not Half-Life 3 and instead is placed in between 1 and 2, and that after waiting for 12 years for a new game, it gets released on a platform that an unbelievable percentage of Half-Life fans do not own.

Here's an entire Kotaku article filled with a lot of mixed reactions about the announcement: https://kotaku.com/the-internet-reacts-to-the-announcement-of-a-new-half-l-1839941674

(My personal favorite: "Scorching hot take: Almost everyone who cares about Half-Life is close to or over 40 and the only valuable bit left of the franchise is the HL3 running gag")

Disappointing that the latest iteration of the Half Life saga is only for VR users (a tiny fraction of the gaming userbase). I have not played a first person shooter game in years, but I would have been interested in a new game set in the world of Half Life. Sadly, I will not be able to play it, as there is no way that I am shelling out for a VR headset.

47 minutes ago, NotASenator said:

My company does VR application development as part of innovation initiatives in the federal space, and we are incredibly aware of the low consumer pickup of VR tech. The Steam hardware survey shows around 1% of users with a VR headset.

Scott makes the important point here that Alyx is not some ground breaking killer app, but is Valve pulling out an IP they've had nestled away for a decade in order to sell their VR equipment over the competition. Something like Beat Saber, which is much more accessible and relatable to a generalized, modern user base, is a better driver of adoption than Alyx will be.

Additional points:

- There is still a large amount of speculation over whether or not VR is actually something worth pursuing, or if the hardware is at a place where we'll see something closer to mass adoption. You can check out reviews over the past year on YouTube by big names like Linus Tech Tips for some of that skepticism.

- It is absolutely not true that "(t)he whole game world has gone crazy for the announcement."  There's a good deal of consternation and even anger over the fact that the game is not Half-Life 3 and instead is placed in between 1 and 2, and that after waiting for 12 years for a new game, it gets released on a platform that an unbelievable percentage of Half-Life fans do not own.

Here's an entire Kotaku article filled with a lot of mixed reactions about the announcement: https://kotaku.com/the-internet-reacts-to-the-announcement-of-a-new-half-l-1839941674

(My personal favorite: "Scorching hot take: Almost everyone who cares about Half-Life is close to or over 40 and the only valuable bit left of the franchise is the HL3 running gag")

The steam survey is not the whole picture. There are other platforms that have much bigger user base: Oculus, PSVR, and Windows mixed reality. Well the last one is indeed a pity compared with other VR platforms, which might influence Microsoft's decision agains VR. But again, that's not the whole picture.

And from now on we have Oculus Link, which turns Quest into PC VR instantly. Quest is the first VR headset that has truly stepped into the public. Time magazine has just awarded Quest Best Invention of 2019: https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2019/5733051/oculus-quest/ 

Indeed VR is still of low adoption now, but it will be unstoppable as it's a strong desire deeply imbeded in human nature waiting to be unleashed by advancing technology. Now the technology has been steadily growing into maturity. 

Edited November 22, 20196 yr by yanfeng12342000

I don't mind a good thread about VR and FS20. But this one is (yet again! )  about how exciting VR is and how it will rule the game world and blah blah blah with a thin pretext to relate it to the new sim.   .

Asobo has given us a clear idea of what they are willing to do, not just the 3D vision but interaction with the cockpit. Comment at your heart content on that point. What Half Life has anything to do here ? 

Sounds to me you are some kind of VR lobbyist more than a simmer, frankly speaking   ! 

 

 

3 hours ago, nickhod said:

There's some debate whether foveated rendering with eye tracking will ever be worth the hardware cost vs just throwing more pixels at the problem.

The very area where it's needed; mobile VR headsets, is the area where it would add too much cost and complexity to the system.

On the PC side, an RTX 2080 can already drive a  2160 x 2160 per eye (4k) headset. The screen door effect is almost gone at that resolution. In 5 years time, high end cards might be able to drive 6k or 8k headsets natively.

Fixed foveated rendering is already seen on the Oculus Quest when using the PC link.

Given current hardware trends, I'm actually expecting that hardware to come out next year. A GTX 1080 TI can drive a Reverb headset at ~70fps. With each card generation being about 30% faster than the last, we can expect next year's 3080 TI to be about 70% faster than the 1080 ti, so it should be able to drive an 8k by 2k display at around 60fps. 

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for early adopters, and if AMD is able to offer something comparable thins cycle, we may see prices come back down from the current insanity. 

As to whether HL: A is going to be the 'killer app', I'd rather doubt it. Personally I'd expect MSFS2020 to be a more likely killer app for VR. To be a killer app for new hardware, the game needs to be an excellent game on the old hardware, you need to be able to play it both with, and without the new hardware, and the new hardware needs to offer something that makes the game even better. A VR only game isn't going to do it.

I suspect it's going to be flight or driving game a that do it, because everyone I've put in a VR flight sim has had an immediate emotional reaction to it, even people who do not normally play games. Honestly, I've generally found the impact to be bigger on people who have never gamed or flown before. I'll stick someone in who's familiar will flying or flight sims, and I'll get an "Ooo, this is like you're really there." but if I'm able to talk their girlfriend into trying it, the response is more like "Oh my god! I'm way up in the air! How do I control this thing?!? I don't want to crash!!" These are the ones who don't understand why their boyfriends like videogames. 

1 hour ago, Vlooi said:

Gaming websites are reporting on it yes. But reading the comments, gamers in general are not really THAT excited about it being VR only. Not everyone likes a contraption on your head while gaming / flying.

You mean like trackIR? 😺

49 minutes ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

The steam survey is not the whole picture. There are other platforms that have much bigger user base: Oculus, PSVR, and Windows mixed reality. Well the last one is indeed a pity compared with other VR platforms, which might influence Microsoft's decision agains VR. But again, that's not the whole picture.

And from now on we have Oculus Link, which turns Quest into PC VR instantly. Quest is the first VR headset that has truly stepped into the public. Time magazine has just awarded Quest Best Invention of 2019: https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2019/5733051/oculus-quest/ 

Indeed VR is still of low adoption now, but it will be unstoppable as it's a strong desire deeply imbeded in human nature waiting to be unleashed by advancing technology. Now the technology has been steadily growing into maturity. 

The Steam Survey is a single data point, but an important one when talking about a game that is going to be released exclusively on SteamVR.

I believe that eventually VR/AR will reach a point where the technology is ubiquitous, but I don't know if I agree with your last two sentences, and I definitely disagree, as hopeful as I am, that we are on the edge of a massive surge in adoption.

21 minutes ago, NotASenator said:

And I definitely disagree, as hopeful as I am, that we are on the edge of a massive surge in adoption.

We shall see.

https://qz.com/1739575/strong-oculus-quest-sales-boost-facebooks-non-advertising-revenue/

46 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

You mean like trackIR? 😺

Yes.

VR smells too much like the 3D craze the world had some years ago. 3D TV's, this, that... And just like now with VR, proponents called it the second coming of graphics.

1 hour ago, Vlooi said:

VR smells too much like the 3D craze the world had some years ago. 3D TV's, this, that... And just like now with VR, proponents called it the second coming of graphics.

JFYI VR have nothing to do with 3D TV's, can we go back to topic?

With 0.2% of steam users using VR this may be a push by manufactures to get Valve to get VR more into gaming only playable with VR hardware.

 https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/a-confirms-new-half-life-but-only-or-vr-half-life-alyx.html