Comment on Elite Dangerous studio Frontier Developments announce layoffs and "organisational review"
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 8 months agoYeah, it was amazing. I still haven’t bought the expansion since I only play the game in VR and there was so much reason not to buy it for VR. They have fixed some of it, but even if the original game isn’t really ruined at all, it’s just tough to play now knowing the expansion is out there. So it kinda tainted the whole game even if technically nothing changed for me.
I still have no idea why they decided not to do VR for the on-foot stuff. I don’t know if it was just a cost cutting measure, or if there was some problem they couldn’t sort out. If it was for motion sickness reasons, like not being able to support teleport to move or something, they should probably know motion sickness susceptible people already couldn’t really play the rest of the game. There were some parts that worked ok, their VR demo was ok for most people, but alot of the actual game wasn’t. And even with all the motion sickness reduction options on, driving the SRV didn’t go well for any people I know with motion sickness issues. If it was motion controls they couldn’t support, we have plenty of games with face aim, sure it’s not ideal, but it’s still an upgrade from flat games.
NeryK@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
The lack of VR support for in Odyssey, on top of numerous issues at launch, soured me on the whole thing. I know VR is a niche that did not take off so it likely did not make sense for them to prioritize it ; but Elite was the quintessential early killer app for VR, so it stings. Shame, I spent hundred of hours in Elite and would have liked to spend more.
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I suppose PC VR can be said to have not really taken off, but there are over 50 million VR headset sales in general so far, that’s pretty good. VR in general is taking off just fine. And PC VR is mostly only suffering from the technical barrier of wireless streaming. Which is clearing up bit by bit, but could be solved with a wireless dongle instead of needing the user to properly configure their router. But newer routers are more and more being able to support VR streaming with their default settings.
NeryK@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
The early times of this wave of VR (which really started with the commercial launch of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive) were very exciting. Lots of “experiences” back then: sometimes mindblowing, often half-baked, always interesting. After a couple of years people realized there was no money in it and lots of them moved on.
7 years in, I’m pretty much over early access promising prototypes and flat screen games being modded to support VR. I want VR-native games-ass games of the caliber of Half-Life: Alyx, or Moss. I want VR support to be a standard feature of any new cockpit-based driving or flying game, not an afterthought. We are not getting the former, and slowly maybe getting there for the latter.
Elite Dangerous is the perfect illustration of this cycle: Frontier started supporting VR very early. My first VR experience was Elite Dangerous on a loaned Oculus DK1. It was mind-blowing ! It was also very very puke-inducing ! Then proper hardware came with the Rift and Vive, Elite had full VR support, and it was fucking great. And now, well VR support is still there, but it’s no longer first class, and slowly decaying.