[siekmanj]

I was always very unimpressed with VR until I borrowed a headset to play Half Life Alyx. That game convinced me VR is the inevitable future of gaming. The rest of the industry may not be there yet, but it is an obviously superior experience.

[Sohcahtoa82]

As a Valve Index owner myself, I will actually disagree with VR being "THE future".

Not all games work well in VR. For example, I would not want to play World of Warcraft in VR. Your character has too many abilities that you couldn't possibly map them out on a VR controller, and even if you could, it'd be immersion breaking.

Games played from a top-down view like RTS or colony/base/city builders, or games that might involve looking at a lot of text, would probably not work well either.

[lovecg]

I beg to differ. The major problem with VR for me is fatigue - can’t wear the headset for more than about an hour. If that was solved I’d never leave.

> you couldn't possibly map them out on a VR controller

Hand tracking + 10 fingers, possibilities are endless! Like casting spells for real.

> Games played from a top-down view like RTS or colony/base/city builders

Fly over the map like some kind of a demigod and manipulate cities directly? Sign me up.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Index controller's individual finger tracking isn't good enough for it to be a critical game function. If I try to fold in just my middle finger (ie, to make "The shocker" gesture), it often detects my ring finger being slightly in as well.

Gestures in general just might not work well, especially using the same gesture over and over. Have you played WoW? If you're a caster, you're casting a spell every 1-3 seconds, and targeting as a healer might not work well, not to mention seeing all the health bars.

Also, I don't know how it would work for melee abilities at all.

Sure, you could do an RPG with gestures and the like for spell casting, and make melee combat interesting, but it wouldn't be WoW.

> Fly over the map like some kind of a demigod and manipulate cities directly? Sign me up.

The problem is the UI. Graphical UIs in VR are very limited since motion controls are not nearly as precise as a mouse, so buttons have to be big. Cities: Skylines would certainly look cool in VR, but the actual gameplay would suffer.

[JKCalhoun]

> I was always very unimpressed with VR until I borrowed a headset to play Half Life Alyx.

The word "borrowed" stands out for me: I also tried a cutting edge VR headset loaned from a co-worker but did not then rush out and buy one. Because the experience felt like more of a "novelty", not a day-to-day thing that I would switch over to.

[faeyanpiraat]

One of the problems is that competitive fps gaming probably not going to move away from the mouse/keyboard inputs in the short term.

And sitting down looking forward in a vr goggle, and turning your character around with a mouse induces wild nausea for a number* of people.

*I’m unfamiliar with the exact ratio.

[hervature]

“The future” != “future of gaming”

[psychiatrist24]

Actually, it may be.

[otabdeveloper4]

The future of gaming is already here; it's called "pay to win mobile multiplayer shooter".

Video games are only a way to get a quick dopanine rush, and that's the local optimum that gets you your rush quickest and easiest.

VR is not needed.