Did you have trouble with nausea?
So much fun, though!
There were many 3D engines before Quake. You had a bunch of Micropose combat flight sims, a ton of 3d driving games, even Elite on the BBC micro.
Hell, I'd written some 3D graphics on the Atari ST before Quake.
Quake was the first 3D texture mapped, dynamically lit, first person shooter...maybe...depending on your definition. It was certainly one of the first to have that ran at frame rates around 30fps.
As others have said, Descent was also around the same time too.
If you don't have experience doing this yourself, watching such a player over the shoulder can be very nausea-inducing. I think to some extent this is innate, but I suspect for those who don't have a strongly pronounced response to begin with, playing such games (and doing those rapid turns yourself) desensitizes you over time. And I think that also transfers to VR to some extent; I've been playing first-person shooters with WASD+mouse for ~30 years now, and I had no nausea whatsoever the first time I tried VR.
Okay except that one time playing COMPOUND. By accident I moved the analog stick to the left while turning my head to the right, and the image moving the opposite of what I expected made me feel bad. I finished the level there, and then had to go rest for a couple of minutes and stop playing VR for the day.
tl;dr for some people it almost never happens, until it does.
No. It can actually get _worse_, as you get more sensitized to VR. The recommendation seems to be to _stop_ using VR if you get motion sick, rather than trying to power through it.
Could it be that you are both right? As in, you should stop right away when you start getting motion sick, but with time it will get better?
Something like: play 15 minutes everyday, stop as soon as you are sick, and after a while you will be able to play 30min, etc.
I have no idea, just asking for a friend :-).
You know, just to see that it has happened to someone :-)
Well here I am: I initially got queasy as soon as I moved, then I'd immediately stop and take a break, longer breaks in the beginning. Initially I got a strong sense of de-realization / depersonalization after getting out of the digital world (i.e. looking at your hands and your brain being confused if they're real) But that also went away very quickly. The nausea, and 'am I still in the matrix' feeling got better within days, and went away within weeks. Now I can stomach any crazy topsy-turvy locomotion in any game. But I still feel the sweat and excitement, when swinging off 1000 feet high cliffs in Jet Island, or diving hundreds of meters deep in Subnautica.
It's just amazing how immersive it can be. I think you can only get there by having it at home and really giving yourself the time to get into it.
It's also re-ignited my love for single player games, especially modded triple A titles like Dragon Quest XI, or Resident Evil 2 (Remake) for example.
And btw, I run all of this on (arch) linux, on a Valve Index kit, using both SteamVR and OpenXR through Envision (Monado). It's been a bit of tinkering but that's only made it more satisfying for me. Plus, there are great communities like the Linux VR Adventure group: https://lvra.gitlab.io/
There are still some sorts of games that will make me queasy (games that have a lot of uncontrollable-by-me jumping around (think "leaping ninja fighting games') for instance), but by and large, I've no trouble.
I also found Dramamine to be helpful during the intermediate period where I'd still otherwise get nauseous after a while. I find it continues to be helpful for things like those stupid "leaping ninja fighting games".
Nausea didn't get better and seemed to be present when my head was turning but the camera was moving either the opposite way or in the same direction but too fast.
I have some really good memories of spending hours inside of Obduction VR (highly recommended if you liked Myst / Riven / The Witness / etc), but the de-realization was so severe that I ended up abandoning that form of entertainment out of concern for my sanity.
I'm guessing it's easier to get used to the motion/display lag than the balance sence issues.
Maybe, but people who work on boats surely get used to it. So it seems like it is possible for some people to some extent :-).
The only experiences that made me nauseas were the ones that simulated movement of characters, where pressing a button would move the character and camera forwards. That was just too much of a disconnect. Movement by teleporting was not a problem.
It was worst the first few times, and I did not last long before I had to take a break, powering through was not possible. With experience it got better, the nausea/dizzyness was less intense and I could play longer sessions, but it never went away completely.
However, once I rented a plane to go over the Nazca lines, and it was in a tiny plane, that was capable of changing direction very easily.
That day I felt nausea. By this, I mean you can't ignore it, it is a strong sensation. So much, that the guides will advise to do the flight on an empty stomach. And it was overpowering, one girl in the plane did not watch anything because she was focused on a paper bag close to her mouth.
Not even fast turning karts or anything else has been able to reproduce that feeling.
In a small (3-4 seat) plane, I got a little nervous from the sudden changes in direction, but I didn't feel nauseated then either. I've been on one of those astronaut trainer 3-axis spinning chair contraptions a few times when I was younger and didn't feel any ill effects. I thought it was a fun experience.
I have gotten a weird variation on motion sickness a few times when I was on small boats. I'd be fine on the boat itself, but a day or two later, back on land, I'd feel like the surface of the Earth was bobbing up and down the way the boat had. It went away in a few hours or less, but it was hard to do anything productive while it lasted. I still didn't feel like I was going to vomit.