VR Week 1 in Review

So it's finally time to enjoy my new toy! What do I do first? How should I start.

Well, the Mixed Reality Portal is my "home" in virtual reality and its fun to teleport around in it while fully anticipating the "real" experiences to come. The home is an open air house surrounded by a lake and mountains. There are several screens there to be used, such as the internet browser "edge" and a video player. The most useful screen I can summon is the "Desktop" screen which essentially lets you see your desktop in virtual reality.

This means that I can run games on my desktop and open netflix in a large screen right next to it. This is perfect for playing grinding games that don't require my full attention, such as Final Fantasy XI Nasomi Server. It's fun to do that, and once in a while I get the itch to play some FFXI so using my headset is definitely the best way to do it considering I only have one small screen IRL.

But I don't start there. No, I start off looking in the Steam Store for those free games/experiences that I can have with a single click. Stuff like Accounting, The Cubicle, Found, and In Cell. I loved how I used my head to control my movement in In Cell and the feeling of motion in that game was amazing.

After trying out a few free experiences, I wonder where this motion sickness that everyone always talks of is. And truth be told, I felt none whatsoever. What I did feel, though, coming out of VR, was that every once in a while in real life, I would have a moment where I'd feel like I was actually in VR. For example, since I can only move around so much in VR due to the cable length, I got used to moving quite carefully about my in game environments. One morning I woke up and for the life of me I could hardly walk past my bedroom door for fear of hitting an invisible wall.

Fortunately, most of those strange feelings are beginning to subside with continued VR usage. I think it just took a bit of time for my brain to learn how to differentiate between the two.

At any rate, back to those free experiences/games. They are usually really short and probably serve only to show off what the tech and the developers working with the tech can do. And when you first enter VR and see what can be done, you will feel at awe. The best part of VR seems to be interaction. In one such free experience I start inside a rock egg which I must break piece by piece to reveal that I am indeed in space, with meteors flying by and fragments of them flying towards me for me to smash. It all feels very real. The physics are convincing. At this early stage in my VR life I am at awe at almost anything anyone can throw at me. Particularly giving me the ability to grab things and throw them.

But enough of the free experiences. Let's see how this game I bought on sale a while ago but never played, plays in VR. It's called Subnautica and it's a survival game based on a water covered planet which my spaceship has crashed onto.

Well, to be honest, it's hard to put into words the awe I was in when I jumped out of my life-pod and into the wavy ocean. I could not believe how realistic and beautiful it felt to dive under the water on an alien planet. It was almost by itself worth the price of admission. Over my first week of VR I got to learn more about Subnautica's world, and every time I hop onto the headset for another session, I learn new and more interesting things.

Honestly I can't say enough good things about this game. It takes forever to load (a downside of VR) but when it does, my goodness does it deliver.

Anyway, nuff said. Next week I'll start paying for some actual VR games and see what they are like. And one of these posts will be about VR Social Applications/Worlds such as Altspace and Recroom.

Top 10 Titles I want to see in VR

I'm going to break the chronological order of these blogs to bring to you a standard top 10 list. This list will go over the dream games I'd like to see ported or brought over to VR in some manner. This comes after playing VR for just over a week now.

These do not come in any particular order.

10. Papers, Please VR

Paper's, Please is a 2D game that I think would make for a great VR game. The game puts you in the shoes of a border officer in charge of letting people into your fictional country. Every aspect of this game I think would work great in 3D with motion controls. I also think it would be great if the game could go further and include a VR recreation of your home and other locations in the game. VR Papers, PLEASE!

9. Megaman Legends VR

There's something about the graphics of Legends that I think would translate extremely well in VR. It would have to change from 3rd person to 1st person perspective so that motion controls could make use of turning your arm into an actual arm cannon. The RPG elements are something that are currently extremely lacking in VR (as are any progression systems) so a game like this would breathe a huge breath of fresh air into a stagnating VR scene.

8. Silent Hill VR

I have to say that the Horror genre would work excellently in VR. A version of silent hill focused on immersion and less lengthy puzzle sections would be excellent. That one Silent Hill game that you start off in your apartment would make for a really compelling experience. I'd love to actually peek through a hole in my wall to see what my neighbor is up to. Or to look out my window to see what people outside are doing.

7. FTL VR

Alright, this one would take a lot of work to make it playable in VR. I see this one working as a multiplayer coop game. The ship would have different stations, each one offering varying functions to the player. One person would be working on the weapons, another as a pilot and etc. The captain would determine where to go next, relay important information to their crew, and dole out orders. I'm drooling just thinking about this.

6. The Sims VR

I want to be a sim in The Sims. You could still suggest other characters in your household do certain things, but for the most part they would take care of themselves and have their own minds. But what you do would be entirely up to you. The difficulty I can see here is that the Sims is a complex game, and VR by itself requires a lot of computing power. The game would have to be a lot simpler, with maybe a cap on characters in a house and a lot few interactive items to introduce to your house. Where the game would do well not to sacrifice is in sim to sim interaction. Honestly, I just would like to interact with the other sims in interesting ways.

5. Pokemon VR

The VR system is lacking in good RPGs and a great Pokemon game would work so amazingly. It would also work amazingly as a kind of MMO with different servers and everyone training and finding pokemons at the same time. I really wish pokemon could be recreated in VR somehow, and to keep its scale. Lots of monsters and lots of locations to visit.

4. No Man's Sky VR

I think this game is suited to being played in VR, much the same way Subnautica is. I don't even think that it would need a separate version to work in VR. Like Subnautica, I think this one would work best with a standard controllers over motions controls.

3. The Long Dark VR

Another survival game that I think would translate easily and amazingly into VR. This one might even make good use of motion controls.

2.  Mario Kart VR

Personally, the original MK for SNES is my favorite, so I'd love to see a VR mario kart game inspired by that one. I'd like to throw bananas and shells with one hand and hold the wheel and control the gas/break with the other.

1. Chat Bot VR

Honestly I'd love to chat it up with a custom AI bot. I would like to be able to customize how it looks and also what it says (even up to entering text myself for responses to specific questions). This is flowing into sims territory, but what would make chat bot unique is the breadth of its communication potential. It would also be great if one could introduce their bot to other humans. \

Well what do you think? Do any of these interest you? Would they fall on your own wish list?

Setting Up the Acer WMR Headset

Plug and Play... Plug and Play it said. Just plug it in and play.

There was no chance it would be that simple!

For starters, I first would have to plug in the new GPU and connect the new Hard Drive. Luckily I found a connection cable for the HD in my suitcase full of old computer stuff (I knew there was a reason for hoarding all that old shit)

Once I got that done I would also have to upgrade my OS to Windows 10 (from Win 7), the only OS that WMR would run on.

Well, I figured it would take a few hours to complete all that. I figured I could get in a virtual space by early evening at the latest (we'd just arrived home after a 3 hour trip from BKK in the morning)

Well, after putting the new parts into the tower, the computer beeped repeatedly at me in response to my pushing of the power button. Nothing came on. It just beeped. It's fine, I thought, I'll make sure everything is connected right. Everything looks good. I try unplugging the new HD. Doesn't make a difference. I take out and put back in the new GPU. Still nothing.

I figure its the RAM. It's always the RAM. It's happened before. Just need to take them out and put them in again. Still no. Try the RAM one more time. Still no. I'm a sweaty mess and nearly at the end of my rope. I look over to my wife and say, "I think we need to take it to the shop."

I'm loathe to take it to the shop because the last time I did that, they proclaimed that I would need a new mother board when actually, the problem was that the CMOS battery had somehow been dislodged (i had a cat at the time and didn't keep the tower case closed.) Thankfully by being vigilant, I saved myself having to purchase a motherboard only 6 months after buying the last one (or get a new one via the warranty).

But I'm at my wit's end and so off we go to the mall, basement floor. I carry the tower in to the shop and the first thing the big guy there does is take out the RAM. . . . He takes them both out and puts one back in. He pushes the power button and lo and behold, it boots! Then he puts in the second card and it beeps. He takes it out and cleans it with some cloth and puts it back in and badaboom badabing, the machine is purring like it should. How much for your time? 100 baht? Ok. Fine.

Go back home. At least that didn't take a long time. But I still have to install Windows 10. How much does that cost? 5500 baht!? WTF? I won't go into details pertaining the solution I came to for obtaining Windows 10, but suffice it to say it was a royal pain in the arse and come 2AM the next day, I fell asleep on the floor waiting for Windows 10 to update.

I woke up around 6.30 AM and the computer seems to be on. I try on the headset and breathe a huge sigh of relief. It works! It finally works. Well, too bad I'm too pooped to give it a real whirl. I head up the stairs to bed and plop down. I'm going to get some sleep and hopefully be able to enjoy a well earned virtual world once I wake up again.

How the Universe Gave me VR

I get nervous whenever I'm about to buy something expensive.

I start to second guess my commitment to purchasing something so outrageously expensive. I consider turning around. My feet grow cold.

It was nearly the same feeling I had when I was on my way to purchasing my first car. Only, in that instance fate would force me to turn away from that opportunity. Oh how I wanted that classic Mitsubishi Lancer.

Would the same thing happen on this day? Would an event transpire that would warn me of the foolishness of spending around 25,000 baht on a VR headset + GPU + hard drive? It nearly did.

Walking around Pantip plaza in Bangkok I only found one shop that had a headset on display for passer-byes (passers bye?). It seemed to me that it was the only place in the whole shopping complex that had it for sale. It was the Acer MR head set.

MR stands for Mixed Reality, which is strange because the head set really only functions as a virtual reality headset. It would be pretty sweet if at some point some Alternate Reality functions would be introduced for it as well.

I wanted to purchase an Oculus Rift, and had almost decided to travel to Taiwan just so that I could save money and knock off one of the countries on my to-travel-to list at the same time. See, Thailand has outrageously high import duties on expensive electronics. Purchasing an imported Rift in Thailand cost nearly twice as much as the retail price on the American store site. I was looking at 22,000 baht to buy one in Thailand.

According to the Oculus website, the rift sold officially in Taiwan at a price point only 50 USD higher than the American price. So I nearly booked a super cheap flight when my wife told me her mom wanted to go to Taiwan with us.

Had nearly just paid for the flight. It's fine, I'll search again for 3 passengers this time. Found the same cheap flight, ready to book. Then WAIT! Her mom didn't want to go anymore. It was too soon.

OK, search again for two passengers. BUT WAIT! The flight isn't available at that price anymore? Huh? So I spend the next hour hitting refresh, hoping to get the same price I had on my browser just minutes ago. The price never comes. I back down in defeat. Guess it just wasn't meant to be.

But I wasn't going to give up on VR. The Acer headset was comparable and officially supported in Thailand. It retailed around 13,000-14,000 baht on Lazada.com, a Thai online shopping site. It lacked the accurate outside-in tracking of the Rift, but had its own inside out tracking that did not require any lighthouse installations. However, I didn't want to buy it without trying it. Hence, I am now at Pantip plaza, nervous about spending a fortune, but somewhat committed to the idea of owning a VR headset.

I go to that one shop. A lady working there explains to me how to put it on and activate the motion controls. The headset feels comfortable, and surprisingly, my glasses fit just fine inside. It's like I'm not even wearing glasses. That's a good sign. I walk around the virtual home. The lady is not very helpful, she moves onto other customers. I find that annoying. But I continue to explore this little virtual home and I am impressed. I want it.

The price is 15,000 baht for the headset. I know that it's cheaper online, so I figure I might be able to bargain down the price if I add that I want to also purchase a GPU.

So now I'm talking to a guy behind a counter about doing just that and he introduces me to GPU 1 and 2 and tells me the prices. They seem a bit high compared to what I'd seen online in my research. I ask how much he can discount. He says he can discount me 400 baht from the 14,400 baht GPU and can't discount the headset at all.

Welp.

I tell him that I can find a better price online. He tells me cheekily to buy it online then.

Woof.

Ok, I'm out of there. I know I can go to Banana IT. I always buy my computer parts from there. Only, they don't have VR. That's fine, I know they won't rip me off on the GPU and Hard Drive. And sure enough, they have the same GPU only its 2,000 baht cheaper there. Sweet. Buy it. Buy a 1 TB hard drive for only 1,100 baht. I ask if they know anywhere I can purchase an Acer MR headset.

No clue.

Ok, I wander off next door into JiB. It's pretty big. So I go deeper in hoping to find something. Lo and Behold I find the Acer MR headset sitting somewhere minding its own business. Then I look at the sticker price. 15,000 crossed out and just under that number is 9,990.

WHAT? Is that 5,000 off the sticker price for real?

Masking my excitement, I ask a staff member to show me the product. He opens the box and shows me the head set and motion controllers. It's the real deal. Doesn't take me long to tell him that I want it. After paying, I say to him that I had nearly paid 15,000 baht for the same product just minutes ago. He laughs. I pretend to wipe sweat from my brow.

Turns out on this day, the universe found it appropriate to gift me what I wanted it. Wait, it would be better to say, the universe pushed me into the right time to buy. And I'm glad I listened.

It pays to be patient.

Follow this blog to learn more about how I interact with Virtual Reality.

The Reality of Virtual Reality