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Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences. Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a game that can immerse two different people at the same time.

It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games.

My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new house -- she already has an Index and some other high end headset. I asked "But why?" and we couldn't think of a good reason.

Maybe the epitome of VR is always going to be a bunch of friends sitting around watching one person play it, but it felt like there could be something more. Something like a Star Trek bridge experience or... something.

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I play Walkabout Mini Golf weekly with a group of far-flung friends. The courses are interesting, the physics feel right, and the audio is good enough it feels like we're standing around a course having drinks and goofing off. It saved my pandemic, and has been a great way to keep in touch with folks on a regular basis.

[1] https://www.mightycoconut.com/minigolf

That is exactly what I do. It's a great experience.

My brother and I do the same. We live 500 miles away from each other, but in mini-golf it feels like we're just hanging out.

I have a Vive and have played a decent number of hours in VR, and overall like it quite a lot. It's really amazing how readily our brain will "adopt" two floating hands as your own body. I'm bullish on the future of VR gaming.

But I do think there's a big hurdle, and that's our inner ear. Teleport-based controls are jank but it seems really difficult to prevent motion sickness when using any kind of movement that translates the camera in 3d space.

I tried to play Subnautica in VR, and literally only made it about 10 seconds before I had to pull the headset off and sit on the cool tile floor for a bit.

I figured - well, maybe I shouldn't be surprised a sea game gives me motion sickness. And it's not even built for VR anyway.

So I tried - I can't remember the name, but it's a game where you fly around building a base in space. Sounded like an awesome idea.

I forced myself to play for about 5-10 minutes despite feeling ill almost immediately, and regretted it immensely when I did finally bail out.

It seems like this happens to a decent number of people? And why teleport movement is so common?

FWIW I don't get particularly bad motion sickness in other, traditional settings. Being a passenger in a car on a windy road will definitely mess me up, but I don't get seasickness, for instance, and also don't mind roller coasters at all.

Was the space game Adr1ft? One of my favorite VR experiences, and the only one where I was willing to take motion sickness medication to finish the game.

My experience is the same. I thought it would be no problem considering my extensive history with FPS gaming, but my early attempts at joystick navigation within VR were pretty stomach-churning. I'm hoping I can grow accustomed to it, but I doubt we could ever ask this of the more casual crowd. The masses will need to be fed simpler VR-centric games rather than the many hoped-for FPS conversions and sequels.

This.

For the good of humanity, I plead with Meta, Valve, Neuralink and whoever it was that just beat Neualink, to join forces to defeat the scourge of mankind - motion sickness!

Please!

There are some techniques. Vignetting the borders of the screen when moving/turning seems to help for some people.

I've noticed newer games increasingly have free movement as an option, or no teleport at all, so I think for a lot of people it is possible to get used to it if you play enough. Some percentage will never get used to it though, which sucks.

The VR enthusiast/dev community has gotten caught in a death spiral when it comes to simulation sickness.. They encourage each other to "get your VR legs" and play/demand/make nausea-inducing games, and it just chases away all the normal human beings who don't want to spend months gently training their bodies to become immune to it

(FYI, the way it works is you play until you start to feel a hint of nausea, and stop for an hour or more. If you try to fight through it, you'll just condition yourself to feel sick when you even look at/think about a VR headset)

When it comes to nausea, it’s once and done for me. Wtf would I ever put myself through that again, for a game? I’d rather go outside, thanks.

I want to love VR, but I can't help but agree. I can't think of a time a walk through the neighborhood woods has made me nauseous :)

I get where you are coming from but:

> I’d rather go outside, thanks

It's not like VR isn't actually awesome once you get everything to work reasonably well. I can't just "go outside" and storm the beach of Normandy, or "go outside" and throw fireball/duel with swords in medieval settings. The appeal of VR is that it's something else entirely, it's not a video game replacement, I can't play Pavlov for more than 1-2 hours but when I do play it, after a while I forget that I'm in a game. I am under MG40 fire with my squad in Normandy and I hear the bullets fly right next to me I get the rush that I only get in paintball.

And I say all of that as someone who used their Quest 2 for about 45 minutes the day they received it and spent the next 24 hours feeling dizzy.

That doesn’t sound appealing to me. To each their own, I guess!

(Don't mean to pile-on so sorry if it comes off that way, text is hard.) I use VR in very different way. I either use it to socialize when I'm too pooped to leave the house or to do things I just couldn't do outside. Nothing can replace an epic bikepacking trip or a scenic hike for me. Outside and VR are both different ways for me to enjoy my time.

FWIW once I stopped riding around in cars much I started getting a ton of nausea riding in a passenger seat of the car, but I put up with it because society has a lot of car travel. VR also took a bit, but I like what I get out of it.

I wonder if becoming used to disagreement between the eye and inner ear in other situations transfers to easier adaptation to VR.

When I was little, I'd often attempt to read while in moving vehicles, which quickly and reliably brought on severe motion sickness. I can longer remember the last time that's happened. Cured by repeated exposure? Simply growing up? Maybe because of both at once, involving neuroplasticity somehow.

I've only experienced VR through brief tech demos, so I guess I'll get the datum when the time comes.

PS: A search for online anecdotes finds contradictory accounts from people reporting acquiring motion sickness in such situations as adults

For me it’s the opposite. When I was younger I had no problems reading in a moving vehicle. I can no longer do that without getting motion sick. Not sure what changed.

Anecdotally it feels potentially related to caffeine intake or something else during the day. Because I noticed it tends to be fine in the morning and a problem in the afternoon. Or maybe it’s related to spending 8 hours a day staring at a screen for work.

I got this feeling my parents were bad drivers and did not let go off the gas in cornering. Me and my brother felt ill on all trips. But we both feel fine traveling by car today. Dunno why really, though.

I fought through boneworks, which is stick based movement and heavy physics climbing and falling and, worst of all, jumping. I got sick a bunch. I did get over it. But by the time I did it was just more and more apparent that it was a screen in front of my face. You can't both feel like you're there and have no nausea while jumping on a button press.

Most VR devs are making games that they want to play themselves, or for their community. So it's not surprising that they don't want to compromise. Teleport works on some games but can utterly ruin others and there isn't a good solution to that.

Then again I've never got sick. If I got nausea when playing I doubt I would have bothered to invest time getting used to it - VR is good but not that good!

From what I know, inner ear stimulation (to manipulate perception of balance) is non-invasive, relatively simple, and well understood. But I haven't seen anyone try combining it with VR yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulatio...

This would probably result in you actually falling over.

You can develop a bit of a tolerance to it over time.

Personally, I used to get instantly motion sick and now I can stomach games where I walk around freely, at least for half a hour or so. Actual flying or swimming wont ever be in the cards though, I fear.

So yeah, if you develop a game, you absolute need to offer teleport style controls or some people will not be able to play it. I guess this is also a hurdle with just adopting existing games/genre to VR as they often rely on fast dynamic movement which would make people puke in VR.

Same here, I can definitely handle games in which objects move towards you like Beat Saber or Thrill of Fight.

However, if I am moving through environment, I end up becoming motion sick very quickly. In some games like The Climb, I am actually okay with it. Because anytime I fall and forget to close my eyes, I will end up becoming motion sick. It sort of make me try harder to not make a mistake.

On other hand, I am tired of games that are rated comfortable but have too much motion. Like Until You Fall, love it but cannot play for too long no matter what settings I use.

Also another issue is far too many VR videos have camera pans, zooms, and other motions that make me sick. I have stopped watching VR videos because of this. Videos should have comfort ratings too.

Really wonder if people who get motion sick is minority or people who are making VR experiences are minority but they somehow don't experience any motion sickness. Hence, they are into VR.

I'm not sure if this is what you were getting at with your last paragraph or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if people who get motion sickness from VR are less likely to want to be VR devs. And that would likely influence the type of content being made.

That's my case at least. I was so thrilled that VR was finally becoming somewhat practical now and I wanted to get into VR dev. I got an Oculus Go when they came out as a cheap test, and discovered that I get sick when my viewpoint moves in VR. That pretty much killed my desire to invest more time or money into VR development.

> So I tried - I can't remember the name, but it's a game where you fly around building a base in space. Sounded like an awesome idea.

Probably Space Engineers.

> I forced myself to play for about 5-10 minutes despite feeling ill almost immediately, and regretted it immensely when I did finally bail out.

I don't think that that is uncommon. I recently experienced a bit of that while playing Mechwarrior 5 without VR and not being too mindful of torso / walk centering while in first person and it got to me after a few missions.

The combination of a first person view without having the corresponding actual motion is what got to me.

As to its commonality and differences...

A comparative study of cybersickness during exposure to virtual reality and “classic” motion sickness: are they different? https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00338.2018

Subnautica is beautiful and immersive... and it's also a game that (in non-VR mode) makes my SO sick in mere moments. Maneuvering in 2D space using WASD is definitely a learned skill that many millennials take to easily after growing up on GoldenEye and the like - maneuvering in 3D space is a whole different ball game and feels intensely unnatural. As another good example Space Engineers and Hardspace: Shipbreaker are quite fun games but can really quickly disorientate me - in the later the stage is small enough that I can usually use landmarking to reorient myself - in the former it's just chaos whenever you're exploring low gravity.

There's a few tricks that VR games can do to handle motion sickness with free movement. Some have already mentioned the edge of screen effects, but another would be tying movement to the "running" arm movements. That, for some odd reason, significantly reduces motion sickness.

> Something like a Star Trek bridge experience or... something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Bridge_Crew

It's not great, but it exists and is a multi-player VR game. Fun with three other friends and I think it's cross platform (although do check).

Looks like a fun thing you do once and never play again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBk3LnIcRo

Spending hours in Echo VR[1] playing Zero-G Frisbee was partly what got me through the pandemic. My friends and sister would hang out in the lobby and just talk while throwing the frisbee around, or play competitive games together, and it felt like really radical and transformational gaming experience. I can't recommend it enough. It's even free-to-play.

1. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258

> I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences.

Interesting, I had the opposite experience. While browsing the Quest's store I kept feeling railroaded into multiplayer experiences. Huh.

One huge issue, however, is with local "multiplayer". If you've ever tried to observe someone playing Beat Saber on the Quest 2 you'll know what kind of letdown it is: the video stream is delayed, which completely destroys the ability to enjoy watching someone else play. It's impossible to get "pumped up" when someone is doing well. They reaaaally need to release some sort of dongle set to get low-latency observer streaming to the TV.

Additionally, watching someone else's VR POV on a standard flat TV can be pretty nauseating. It would be great if there was also a way to add motion stability to the TV feed.

That one "Keep talking and nobody explodes" game was pretty fun just as a regular planar projection game. I can see it being more fun in VR (and I think they have a VR edition)

[1] https://keeptalkinggame.com/

The VR version is one of my favourite party games to play with friends - It's intense.

Tangentially, there's Acron [1], which is an interesting mixed-mode multiplayer game, where the one VR player is the defender, and iOS/Android players are the attackers trying to steal from the defender.

It's a pretty fun party game, (though beginners get confused easily). I hope the concept gets expanded.

[1] https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron

Absolutely it should be. An VRMMORPG will definitely be the way of the future for these consoles

Pokerstars is pretty good as a social experience. Eleven table tennis can be fun too.

If you have any interest in flight simulators, VTOL VR is a fantastic multiplayer VR flight sim with large multiplayer lobbies. It strikes a good balance between arcade and realism too and is incredibly immersive. Unfortunately (maybe not?) its on steam VR so you will need a PC to handle the rendering but can stream it to a quest using link

This one looks like its going to take the cake:

Blade and Sorcery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ZDQnOCTVI

If they open it up a bit as a base platform for creators to make their own mods/rpgs, wow.

I play mini golf, regular golf, and poker with my brother in law, who's 2000 miles away.

Probably because relatively few people have access two VR headsets at the moment.

May I humbly recommend Phasmophobia - I haven't played it in VR (I don't have the gear) but it's primarily built for that setup, and even played without it is extremely compelling.

Gorilla tag is a great game, has over a million players. Movement is entirely by moving your arms and is really intuitive + immersive. Lots of games and many concurrent users

My friends and I got a lot of fun nights out of taking turns in beat saber, especially after mods. Not saying you're wrong, just a fun anecdote.

As someone who has little interest in multiplayer, I've always had the opposite impression - there's too many multiplayer VR titles.

>> It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games.

Echo VR.

It's early days. The same was true of the web in the early days.

The first VR headset I tried was over 30 years ago (I played Dactyl Nightmare). It was just before the release of NCSA Mosaic.

The first "smartphone" I tried was over 30 years ago (Apple Newton)

there’s a decent amount if you’re into sim-type games. vtol vr looks awesome, elite dangerous can get you that star trek-like experience, plus various racing games.

Eleven Table Tennis, Golf+, Demeo

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