I think you need to define "metaverse".
What is it, besides an ugly, much less functional Second Life? Who's launching it? What is it good for? Why would someone use it over...well, you have to define what it's good for before I can even ask that question.
- Work meetings
- Socializing
- Dating
- Creative endeavors
- Improved workspace
You'll be able to have work meetings at a virtual office. You can do that now, but the experience will be better. You'll be able to socialize with friends across the world, meet up at virtual replicated areas (like a rooftop bar in NYC..) and meet other people while you're there. You'll be able to go on virtual dates with a long-distance partner. You'll be able to put on your lightweight VR headset and be stationed at a better workstation, with larger monitors where you can manipulate the interface with movements of your hands without the cost of buying such a work set-up in real life. You'll be able to sit on your couch, put on your VR headset and watch movies on a 100 inch TV screen without having to furnish your home with a TV.
The possibilities are endless. Where's your imagination?
When I watch movies at home often I'm only halfway paying attention to the TV while simultaneously eating or talking to my family or working on my laptop. There's no way I'm going to wear a VR headset most of the time. The TV is hung on the wall so it takes literally zero space.
What's the status quo with VR problems?
- Price: This was fixed with Quest 2
- Complexity: This was also fixed with Quest.
- Socially acceptable: Nope. Even when you remove the issue of the toxicity surrounding Facebook's brand, most people refuse to either try or use VR regularly. Case in point, Meta is giving away Quest 2's to their employees and contractors. imo it's surprising to me that not all of them took the offer. One common answer I get is, "This is going to be as gimicky as the Wii right?". imo the form factor is what drives normal people away. It has to be smaller and closer to goggles before mass acceptance happens. Apple is most likely right on their approach, based on their patent submissions. Conversely, Apple's weakness will be price.
That highly depends on your setup. The more physical space you have, the better if you want to move.
> VR is gimmicky, like the Wii.
Have you even used modern VR yet before panning it? Google Cardboard is ancient and doesn't count as modern VR. I ask because this answer tends to come from people who haven't tried it.
If that's true, why? I'm especially curious about your complaint regarding "very limited freedom of movement" when you claim to have a large physical space for VR. VR has lot of problems, but that is a very strange complaint. Which games or apps did you experience this in?
Stationary games like beat saber don't count.
This is not an illusion of freedom of movement, but it's actually real freedom of movement vs sitting on a chair and getting an avatar to do it via a controller.
> Real movement happens on point and click teleportation or some of the other fake locomotion schemes.
I think this is your problem. Stop using teleport and actually move. You can get feet trackers to bring more immersion, but nothing kills immersion more than teleportation.
> Stationary games like beat saber don't count.
Why wouldn’t it count? I’m pretty sure it does just like ping pong and boxing.
> I don't think I've ever moved with any sort of... conviction. It's always just a couple steps in any direction, almost always fairly slowly.
I think it's highly dependent on your setup and game. imo playing Quest 2 wireless helps a lot. If you have a lot of physical space for VR, but you fail to actually use it; it defeats its purpose. It's akin to complaining about the lack of tactile feedback in a video game, when you have both vibration and sound turned off.
I still find this a really strange complaint.
Nope, that's not a real choice. I have 10m^2 of free space, which is far more than the average person has, but its still not enough. I also can't move very quickly. Running in VR is not advisable, but walking in video games sucks. Go to a VR warehouse and watch people play with a warehouse scale game with no physical limitations. They still just kind of walk around slowly.
> Why wouldn’t it count? I’m pretty sure it does just like ping pong and boxing.
I already got the standing still experience with the wii. I mean its fine, those games are among the best vr has to offer. Wii boxing and table tennis was also solid. But I'm not going to trick myself into believing that its substantially different than what we had before. Were it not for the head motion tracking, these games could be played on a TV. I can play beatsaber expert+ levels without wearing the headset so long as there aren't walls to dodge. The headset isn't adding much. It's just that motion detection remains a fun gimmick.
> I think it's highly dependent on your setup and game. imo playing Quest 2 wireless helps a lot. If you have a lot of physical space for VR, but you fail to actually use it; it defeats its purpose. It's akin to complaining about the lack of tactile feedback in a video game, when you have both vibration and sound turned off.
It's more like someone trying to convince you that video games are completely different with vibration, when in fact, they're more of a nice touch.
That sounds like a personal issue, and not a VR problem.
> Running in VR is not advisable, but walking in video games sucks.
There's obviously not enough space to run, but that's not to say that you can't move quickly within your designated physical space. It's not like you can't run in place, or buy a movement rig either.
> Go to a VR warehouse and watch people play with a warehouse scale game with no physical limitations. They still just kind of walk around slowly.
1. Those games usually have 1st time players or players not familiar with the levels. Of course, they're going to move with caution.
2. Run & gun doesn't work in reality. In real life, you can't effectively shoot while running or moving fast.
3. Contrary to your personal experience, people do run in those games when they have familiarity with everything.
> I already got the standing still experience with the wii. But I'm not going to trick myself into believing that its substantially different than what we had before.
I can't help to think that this is just disingenuous. 6DOF VR is no where near comparable to Wii games. With Wii, it doesn't track your position so you can play everything sitting on a couch; the amount of movement needed isn't as drastic. It also doesn't fully envelop you visually. This is just a really bad argument. Beat Saber and other VR "single room" games like ping pong still count for movement.
> It's more like someone trying to convince you that video games are completely different with vibration, when in fact, they're more of a nice touch.
That's a bad analogy to VR because vibration is no where near as immersive, which is why I mentioned sound in mine.
This is going no where. We'll just agree that we're probably never going to reach consensus. imo the issue is that for unknown reasons, that are likely personal, you have problems with moving your body which is the real underlying reason for your issues with VR.
I find its a tiring gimmick that is just being reused in every game. The novelty is less for every subsequent title. People like fast movement and action. Nobody walks in games. People won't like game design that encourages slow walking for long. Your human meatbag is not particular dexterous and it shows in the VR games coddle you with their enemy design. And the experience of shooting and taking cover is very hard to differentiate in VR across titles.
I think classic controller games will end up being a popular format for VR when the motion control gimmicks wear off.
You don't have to do "slow walking". By default the controller included in almost every VR platform allows you to move faster if you want within an VR FPS game. Anything available in a pancake game is also available for VR so I still don't understand this complaint. If you want more immersion, then you can get a movement rig like KatVR or run in place with Vive Sensors using NaLo.
> Your human meatbag is not particular dexterous and it shows in the VR games coddle you with their enemy design.
I would disagree. It works just fine, because it's actually easier to aim with a blaster in your hand vs indirectly with a mouse. If you have issues with hand eye coordination, that is not an issue with VR itself.
> And the experience of shooting and taking cover is very hard to differentiate in VR across titles.
Because the actual physical mechanics of taking cover doesn't change. The only reason it's different in 3rd person games is due to the controls. Again, I don't understand this complaint unless you just don't like physically moving.
> I think classic controller games will end up being a popular format for VR when the motion control gimmicks wear off.
I feel that this is only true for anyone who have issues with physically moving their body. I don't feel that this applies for most of the populace. Then again I could be wrong.
VR does have many issues and problems, but the issues you bring up seem more like personal ones.
You can but its not really advisable. Games are not designed to work like this. They might not break, but its contrary to the design of the game and will harm the experience in numerous little ways.
> I would disagree. It works just fine, because it's actually easier to aim with a blaster in your hand vs indirectly with a mouse. If you have issues with hand eye coordination, that is not an issue with VR itself.
It is undeniably easier to aim with a mouse. There's simply no question and you're fooling yourself if you think otherwise. As someone who can shoot decently irl and tap heads with a mouse. Alyx is yet again another example of this. Enemies don't move fast for the explicit reason that its pretty hard for most people to shoot a moving target with a gun. It's very easy for someone familiar with a mouse to do so. I would bet that most games adopt a heavy amount of aim assist in he near future.
> Because the actual physical mechanics of taking cover doesn't change. The only reason it's different in 3rd person games is due to the controls. Again, I don't understand this complaint unless you just don't like physically moving.
The controls are incredibly important. They are your interface to the game.
> I feel that this is only true for anyone who have issues with physically moving their body. I don't feel that this applies for most of the populace. Then again I could be wrong.
I think you are wrong, given the decline of health and fitness, but aside from that, we shall see again.
No, it won't. It works as designed in VR. This is a completely baseless claim.
> It is undeniably easier to aim with a mouse.
No, it isn't because it's not natural or intuitive compared to pointing a firearm with a laser pointer. There have man machine, industrial engineering studies surrounding this.
> The controls are incredibly important. They are your interface to the game.
Yes, and something to mirror real life's physical objects and environments is a lot more intuitive and natural. Again, you have a completely baseless claim.
I'm very confident that your opinion of VR highly tied to your personal dislike of physical movement. That is not an issue with VR, that is just your personal preference.
No one I personally know cares about Metaverse, including young people and Facebook users.
The comment that tells me facebook is on to something.
Metaverse is like a video game, except every time you play you are forced to have an awkward family and high school reunion (both at the same time).
Look at Microsoft. My bet is on big enterprise/cloud tech + video game companies.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway-technol...
But all 4 left pretty quickly. They all described the experience as good for their bank account but bad for their mental health. That's saying a lot coming from game devs.
And if they're basing it on VR they don't have to scale very fast either.
I'm guessing what will happen is that this will open enough doors and develop some early talent to go on to something worthwhile
I'm curious, how do you expect promotion to actually happen if you feel like "this" (this being a change in branding by a large company) is astroturfing? What is a non-astroturfing way to promote a new idea/product/thing? Or do you think any form of promotion is astroturfing?
If you but the whole amount, I'll write into my will that my decendant's also have to honor your claim. If any of them becomes king or queen of mars, could be quite lucrative!
You can't piss of the tech entusiasts, reviewers, podcasts and everyone in between by constantly exhibiting poor judgement, arrogant behavior and blatantly invading peoples privacy, and then expect them to be excited about your next venture.
Facebook has burned pretty much any goodwill it might have had, and now it want's you to emerge yourself in it's VR world? Zuckerberg has to be incredibly delusional if he think that's going to sell.
FB isn't betting on the metaverse existing. They are betting that they can make some new walled portion off it that will be so big that it will esentially be the whole thing.
Personally, I don't like their odds at all.