Virtual Reality Potential

[Niall Webb 7]

Sup Folks,

Been binging on this game in between work with the HTC Vive and I don't know if it's the excessive binging of both but I feel like down the line this game could really suit VR, to some degree.

I myself like playing in the first person viewpoint and I feel like creative mode would be a perfect fit. Teleporting around and in air as you fly around terraforming, and help you get close and nitty gritty for those extra details in your level. Plus with the seemingly endless potential of the game modes you can make you could get a tonne of new VR experiences from one game. Shoot outs, castle sieges, pirate battles. I feel theres a whole host of things that could be done!

What do you guys think? Would you play it? Those who play VR do you agree, disagree?

-Niall (Hoolio Redwood)

[Michael Dorland 0]

As a big evangelical of Virtual Reality, I fully agree with you. The mobility issue is the biggest limiting factor to implementation in a game like this but it is getting better, and some other games have got some clever solutions to this. If things like the Kat Walk or the Virtuix Omni ever come down to a reasonable price, games of this nature will have to move to Virtual Reality to be competitive.

This weekend I just got my Vive rig (previously I’ve been using the Oculus rig for work I’m doing at my company) and got a chance to use Vivecraft, a third party plugin that uses the normal Javascript Minecraft and can utilize shaders and optifine. Totally blown away, much better than the VR Minecraft that is being sold in the Oculus store by Microsoft. I’m not sure if it would work the way Ylands is programed, but I’m sure if it was possible for someone to make a third party plugin to support this (so it doesn’t take time away from the design team) it would push the market shares of this game. It would make things like Google Blocks seems so simplistic in comparison. It may even be a viable design tool in ways. Figure out how to natively export a .stl file and 3-d print your creations. People would love that.

Again, the movement is probably the biggest limiting factor in importance in determining if you want to invest in this aspect, as players need to be able to move around the locations in VR as easily and detailed on the desktop. I think Vivecraft’s system is a good example of how a solid movement system could be implemented. Sansar also has a good system in this respect. Once we start having Keyboards and mice that can be viewable in the VR environment (I know Logitech is working on these), this will be a minor issue and should make moving a game like this to Virtual Reality a no-brainer and very desired.

Ylands is a more complicated and detailed version of Minecraft on many levels. But it’s also much much more. Having a quality VR implementation for the company, or opening that area of it for third-party development might give it an edge over Minecraft regarding future marketability. It would at least put them close to on par with Project Sansar if not ahead as far as kids are concerned. And those kids are the ones growing up and will be the ones that determine how the Virtual Reality landscape is developed. Having a say and being a leader in that arena is something these guys should not miss out.