VR Megathread: Meta Support Refuses To Help Hide Anne Frank

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > VR Megathread: Meta Support Refuses To Help Hide Anne Frank

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

So I am confused. Meta Cambria is releasing later this year. But its not quest 3, and that is coming in 2023? Is meta cambria just like the quest 2 pro then?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 21:25

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:37

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

So I've been holding off on the quest for a while thinking the next good one is right around the corner so it's exciting to hear Q2 2022. Safe to assume the meta will be wireless too?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 23:17

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Variable 5 posted:

What was the game where you were, like, riding on a rolling platform through the desert shooting at other rolling platforms and their people?

Hover junkers?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 19:09

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

When the hell are we getting quest 3?

# ¿ May 22, 2022 00:01

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

What are poeple's go to games? For me its just beat saber really, I've played the good experiences like alyx but beat saber is the only thign I keep going back to. What about you guys?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2022 02:13

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Beer_Suitcase posted:

For me it's Echo Arena, I have the advantage of a big play space so that is a bonus. On the weekend I'll get 20 games in

Had Pistol Whip for about a week and I will play that every day on lunch break

And finally KingsprayVR it's a Graffiti sim that is a nice chill way for me to be creative and listen to podcasts

I wanna try echo arena but its not on steam

Thanks for all the suggestions, just picked up a few more titles becuase of it!

# ¿ Jul 24, 2022 06:08

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Does revive still work for the index? I really don't want to support Oculus but there are some titles that are only there.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2022 19:50

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

TIP posted:

Yeah, that's the one, part of my issue may have come from the fact that I had covid but was determined to play the game despite being unable to stand. It kept requiring to my put my hand through my own torso to move the turret into the positions I needed, if I'd been standing then repositioning my body might have been a bit easier.

Also possible that they've patched that part, I remember seeing other people complain at the time.

Honestly the covid sounds like the real problem lol. I had zero issues with either part.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2022 00:09

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Turin Turambar posted:

https://twitter.com/BitPlanetGames/status/1551304760652873728

What a crock of poo poo. These two things aren't mutually exclusive. They only are because Oculus paid them to be exclusive.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2022 16:19

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Lemming posted:

Yeah, those numbers are not what I'd expect. I share the total number of online players for Gorilla Tag, and right now the total CCU is about 21,000 (a bot lists those numbers here https://data.gorillatag.co.uk/?stats=1). On Steam, you can see that there are about 500 people (https://vrlfg.net/players/1533390) total playing right now.

I leave the possible difference in income as a purely theoretical exercise because there are various restrictions on what you're allowed to share.

You completely missed the point of my post in order to use it as a jumping off point to humble brag. Impressive.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 01:07

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Lemming posted:

Dude, you were explicitly accusing them of misrepresenting their income and attributing the differential to being paid by Oculus to make something exclusive. I'm giving you a concrete example (as concrete as I can, anyway) of a case where you can interpret what is probably going on, and the only reason I'm using my game is because I'm not aware of any other game that shares their player counts like I do, which gives you the best apples to apples comparison

I'm not nor have I ever said that steam VR outsells or performs better than Oculus. My point is a developer can and should release on both platforms. OpenXR makes development for VR agnostic and easy. Sure developing for different controller inputs is non zero work but the only reason devs are releasing solely on Oculus and not on both platforms isn't because Oculus sells more, because the gain from both platforms is more than either alone but it's because Oculus is paying for exclusivity.

Yes vr sales on steam are low compared to the Oculus store. So low it's pretty easy for Oculus to just cut a check that is probably much more than steam sales could ever make.

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jul 26, 2022

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 05:00

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

TIP posted:

Are you a VR developer? Or a developer of any kind? There's a lot more involved in supporting multiple platforms than just developing for different controller inputs.

Most VR developers are doing this all on their own and supporting Steam means extra testing, extra support needs, extra menus for graphic settings, and on and on and on. It's even more of a pain if you're doing multiplayer.

I'm planning to support Steam and Quest in my upcoming release but I don't have anything against developers who choose to support only the Quest store. It simplifies many things.

And very few developers are being paid to be exclusive.

Yes I have done VR development. Yes I understand wanting to start a project targetting one store only. And yes that one store would make more sense to be Oculus. That being said if your title is then successful and there is demand on other platforms, the investment to do that development is fairly trivial once the product is released (assuming you structured it well and didn't just hamfist it for the one VR headset you were developing for) and you would be a fool not to. The only reason successful titles that were released on Oculus aren't coming to other platforms is because the developers either developed themselves into a corner headset support wise, or they have incentives to not release elsewhere.

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jul 26, 2022

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 05:34

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

mutata posted:

I would like them to lose even more money, tbh.

Not an empty quote

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 20:49

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

wolrah posted:

You're not wrong that with a modern cross-platform engine if you haven't done anything particularly weird you can generally produce a functional build on any platform your engine supports with relatively little effort.

The issue is not getting it working, it's performance optimizations, compatibility, troubleshooting, etc. A game that's exclusive to Quest has one or two hardware configurations and a limited range of software environments to support. Same for PSVR. If you wanted to buy all possible hardware configurations for both major "console VR" platforms you're in for around $2000, where a single PC VR configuration can easily be the same and to even cover the top 80% you're looking at four different headsets, a half dozen major families of CPU and GPU each, and around a dozen major OS environments without even getting in to third party software that may be directly or indirectly interfering with your application.

I'm a PC diehard, my Xbox Series X and Switch have both seen less combined use than I have recorded in single PC games, but it's undeniable that it's a much harder platform to support than any kind of console. From a business perspective it's easy to see how it could be considered a losing proposition unless the developer believed the word-of-mouth from enthusiasts and potentially modders was worth it.

Think about it similarly to a Windows game developer being asked to support Linux.

You are somewhat off base though. Typically from most powerful to least powerful is PCVR -> PSVR -> Oculus. If you start off targetting Oculus, you are targetting the lowend. We have never had performance issues transitioning a Oculus targeted product to PCVR. (this targets a minimum of a 970, the HTC Vive's min recommended)

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 21:26

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

Literally the only reason we're using Steam/PCVR right now with our game is quick build testing and promotional recording in higher resolutions. If oculus had better capture tools we'd be native quest only right now and poo poo out a port later.

We're also creating a poo poo ton of work doing it this way.

In the end though, we're targeting quest specifically and we're finding that while the actual game code and the porting process wasn't a huge deal (in fact the team built a working quest port off our old build in a weekend, so whatever), but its incredible unoptimized at this point and THAT is the huge work. We're finding supporting pcvr is actually going to be a little bit of a headache with that specifically. Having to have multiple LODs for every single cosmetic and texture takes work and slapping everything with the decimate tool wont cut it.

We seriously wouldn't even be touching PCVR at this point if we were not working with content teams for capture and what not. Theres just no money in it. The player base for PCVR just don't exist to make it worth it out of the gate.

What is your workflow/assets such that your LODs for Oculus are more performant than the same LODs for pcvr? I suppose I don't follow.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 21:44

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

Because they arent the same LODs?

We want PCVR to actually be high poly good fun times which means some of the assets we're using have to be redone or scaled down from the orig. The assets we're using are insane high res on top of them being cosmetics which also have to scale for each graphic setting and what have you. We're not just taking a wall texture or something, we're talking all kinds of stuff that needs to be scaled, some more than others, etc. Hell we're still just test fitting a lot of things and that alone is heaps of work, then scaling it for multiple platforms and hardware? Woof! Just as an example, thers 86k polys in this one model. That clearly wont work with 6 of them in a lobby together on the quest. XD

Its just more art work at the end of the day and we're not trying to poo poo out the quest assets directly to pcvr and have people bummed out that its not "any better" ya know? More so if people are grinding out cosmetics to play barbie dress up.

You don't need to do this though. My point is, if you just want to port your Oculus title, it generally isn't much work. Sure, if you give yourself more work to do, there will be more work...

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:39

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

Without actually discussing the plans for our game, I think you vastly underestimate the manpower required for cosmetic artists and time consumed flopping things around for multiple LODs. Again we can't just shove all this poo poo into blender and hit decimate, and the assets we're using are not drag and drop, We have to rip them entirely apart, cut off huge sections of them, and reshape almost everything. This is BEFORE tearing them apart for individual parts for cosmetic slots. Some of these initial assets have upwards of 6+ pieces of cosmetics not counting the base skins for said model. This at a minimum of 3 LODs on 60+ Models isn't quick work.

Yep!

I didn't play super long so I may have missed some critical thing that didn't work but nothing prevented me from playing while I did.

I believe you,. I'm just saying not every port needs to up the fidelity for pcvr. Either you have a style (flat graphics for example, think super hot) that translates well without needing to upgrade fidelity, or you just say gently caress it. I'd much rather see more titles coming straight from Oculus without any upgrades than devs saying "well upgrading the fidelity is too costly so we won't port it"

poo poo most pcvr titles look like poo poo AND perform like poo poo lol

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jul 26, 2022

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:46

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

Yeah our maps/worlds will be much lower poly/texture wise and thats a pretty much copy pasta move to pcvr. Its just the models themselves for us that are the biggest issue.

When we first discussed this stuff none of us realized how much of a pain in the dick cosmetics are going to be. XD

There's a reason I don't gently caress with modeling and just handle the code and functional components. I don't envy solving that problem

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:50

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

TIP posted:

All this talk of optimizations reminds me that I really wish Meta would drop the Quest 1 requirement for AppLab like they've dropped it for mainstream releases.

loving sucks that I'm forced to make my game run on an underpowered device that's not even available for purchase just because I'm an unknown studio. We're already handicapped by no store exposure, why make everything else harder too?

FaCeBoOk

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:54

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

To be honest?

Its not complicated in process, its just time consumer as gently caress. Like this one model I'm screwing with atm. Its 144,684 polys. It has 5 pieces of cosmetics on it.

Really, its yank off the 5 things, cut down the body a bit, move the hands off the arms, chop the legs, Lower poly count (however many times for each whatever), then make it fit to the hitbox.

Its just sooooo time consuming.

I'm ignorant as hell when it comes to the actual work but im tinkering a bit to help the guys with manpower and lol, yeah, I get why dude sighs when I'm like "ok we need to add another one".

Yeah it's doable but when you see an actual modeler using the programs like a true power user it's impressive, and also something I don't have a desire to learn

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:55

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Alctel posted:

Lol

Dude people aren't not porting over oculus stuff to PCVR because they are lazy, it's because it's a lot of work and they make multiple times more money releasing stuff on the quest ecosystem (10x to 30x as much apparently, which is a ridiculous amount)

On a finished product? It took us about a month of working half time with half the team (the other half were taking a well deserved vacation).

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 23:12

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Alctel posted:

Yeah and that's a month you could have spent working on something that will bring in 10x to 30x the amount of money.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that teams port over stuff to PCVR (it's a good thing), I'm just saying it's not some huge conspiracy when they don't.

No its not this is a stupid argument. You are porting over a finished product. Look at it through Jira points because I am broke brained.

Yes we could spend another 5000 jira points to work on a new project to go on the oculus store (or lets say 2000 points to add content to the game for increased oculus sales post launch).

Compare that to 150 points to just port the game to pcvr (yes this is variable depending on title and LOE). Sure the oculus front will net more sales buts much more work. If I were trying to get bridge funding I would absolutely focus on porting, furhtermore after a title is finished there are oftne a surplus of engineers whose skills aren't being immediately put to good use (unless you are a churn factory) until a new project is fully fledged enough to have runway for them to ramp up. So might as well put them to work porting (in this case, this was me)

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 00:31

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Lemming posted:

I feel like coming back to this post the conclusions that people are disagreeing with are highlighted here. One clear counterexample is any multiplayer game; on PC, hacking and cheating is going to be a significantly larger problem than on any other platform (not that it can't/won't happen on other platforms, but it's way way easier to do it on PC). If you aren't making enough money on PC, there's a good chance you are hurting yourself financially by opening yourself up to that, which will require a lot of updates and maintenance focused on that.

My point isn't to say that it never makes sense to PC, I think that would be a silly thing to argue (and some people especially on Twitter have made it), but I don't think people are arguing that here. I think the main point is just that there are legitimate reasons beyond incompetence or being paid off that you would rationally choose not to release on PC.

Multiplayer is the one carve out I will grant, especially since (though I haven't personally touched it) I hear oculus online integration is pretty seamless. However I think there are a lot of bad actors claiming porting is not possible for hand waivey reasons and to think Oculus isn't paying for exlcusives (when, especially in the early days, a lot of titles were previously announced for PCVR, then went silent, then announced they were on Oculus and dropped PCVR support) is naive to say the least. Facebook has almost unlimited money, they have no goodness or merit to them above trying to eek out their market, they will do whatever they can to leverage that advantage, and my team has certainly been offered "Oculus support" for our titles but they came with too many caveats which are exactly what you might expect them to be.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 00:46

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Just implement easy anti cheat and piss off your playerbase

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 01:54

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

I can kind of get it. I want my cool toys but I also loving hate that privacy infringing "capital-makes-right" alt-right pipeline hellscape that is Faceboo-, wait sorry, Meta.

Like seriously, it loving sucks so god drat much that Meta is the company doing the most with VR. It really really really sucks.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 02:40

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Inner Light posted:

I like Rec Room instead. It's still mostly little kids but it's fun to encourage them to succeed at their goals and play paintball.

Did rec room ever get rid of teleport being the main way you could play "competiive game modes"? Playing against people who could, at any time warp somewhere else was insanely unfun.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 05:08

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Jim Silly-Balls posted:

Two things. The player has to point where they want to go, so most people tend to telegraph their moves, you can predict them if you watch their hands (sometimes easier said than done in a fire (paint) fight)

The teleport has a cooldown where the player is just stuck in place. After they teleport they can�t move, and you can, so hit them hard during the cooldown.

Still not really interested. Games aren't even remotely competitive when someone can just pop out of existance when danger happens.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 17:21

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

I'll believe true foveated rendering when I see it.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 02:06

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

I haven't been playing much vr lately but decided to dust off my Index. Have there been any block buster VR titles I should check out? Obviously I am still playing beat saber, synth riders, walkabout VR, and mucking about in some of the shooters including into the radius but wondering if anything dropped in the last year that was really really great? Its hard sometimes to sift through all the bad titles.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 02:43

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iQlgE-TlvA

The map is insane!

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 19:37

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Turin Turambar posted:

I think it's more about being in flow with the music than being hard and needing skill.

Yeah this for me. A lot of people I guess when it comes to beat saber just want the hardest thing ever. Calling that map boring as hell means I guess you need just nonsense technical maps that are artificially challenging because the map to me looks A) hard as gently caress and B) fun as hell. No way I can do that though I am still in expert territory.

EbolaIvory posted:

This is fair.

Guess its right in line then.

For an actual fun map, Here ya'll go.

https://beatsaver.com/maps/25e40

Oh lol then he unironically posted that. Yeah man, I am guessing you have thousands of hours in beat saber or some poo poo. LOL

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 20:39

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

EbolaIvory posted:

I did indeed unironically post that.

Why? Because its actually interesting and not just recycled 2 year old notes for nearly 9 min.

It also has multiple difficulties that are in fact, not boring. Not sure what hours played here has to do with anything. The maps approachable if you think freebird looks "insane and fun".

And yes, Beat saber was my full time job for like,2-3 years? IT don't change the fact freebird looks boring as poo poo.

I wish I could frame a post.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 20:48

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Gatekeeping what looks fun to someone because playing a video game was your literal job may just be the gooniest take I've ever seen.

My favorite song in beat saber is blinding lights on Expert. I've also never used custom songs because the songs provided in game as more than enough and I have a ton of fun with it.

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Dec 13, 2022

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 20:53

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Chin Strap posted:

Freebird is like 5 minutes of boring assed repetitive poo poo and 3 minutes of higher intensity guitar solo stuff afterwards. This is bad rhythm game pacing. It works differently when just listening as a song because there is no way to fail at listening to the hard parts causing you to have to go back and listen to the slow poo poo again.

There's loads of "fun" maps that are "not insanely hard" and loads of "hard" maps that are "boring dogshit". For non-custom song examples of the former I think the 2 Monstercat packs are mainly full of great dancy EDM stuff that feels fun to play. For the latter I would say most of the Camellia songs feel like loving chores to try and beat.

Just played freebird on expert and I found it very fun :shrug:

Camellia songs do in fact suck though. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty is not engaging to me.

Free bird felt flowy and then the guitar solo just felt like the beat saber equivalent to guitar licks. I dunno I liked it in guitar hero too back in the day so maybe I am damaged.

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Dec 13, 2022

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 21:11

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Yeah I haven't played into the radius for a really long time. I should reset my save and get started again, the first time I played I was a bit overwhelmed.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 21:54

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Ever my vr headset zuck Daddy. and my brain Elon senpai.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 00:49

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Does into the radius support arm swinging movement? It's literally the best movement out there

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 18:03

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Is supernatural really that good of a workout game? I like beatsaber, and synth riders but they don't really work up a huge sweat. I don't want to buy poo poo on the meta store for obvious reasons but it seems like people really like supernatural....

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 19:11

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Alright thanks for the suggestions guys, maybe I'll look into a weighted vest. Supernatural is cool but buying things on meta is super duper meh to me.

I'm not sure what weight would be a good idea to try. I weight ~135 so I imagine 16 lbs should be good. No clue what I'm doing lol

Kwolok fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Dec 16, 2022

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 22:29

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:37

Kwolok: Jan 4, 2022

Does there exist a way to get arm swinging locomotion in a game thar doesn't natively support it?

# ¿ Dec 20, 2022 23:19

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