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Oculus Rift Launch Thread: Ballpark 2016

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There must be some psychological word for the frustration that is caused by going from a nebulous wait time prior to release date announcement to specific wait after the announcement back to nebulous wait now that there is an obvious delay of unknown cause or duration.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
There must be some psychological word for the frustration that is caused by going from a nebulous wait time prior to release date announcement to specific wait after the announcement back to nebulous wait now that there is an obvious delay of unknown cause or duration.

I bet the Germans have a word for it.
 
There must be some psychological word for the frustration that is caused by going from a nebulous wait time prior to release date announcement to specific wait after the announcement back to nebulous wait now that there is an obvious delay of unknown cause or duration.

My current concern is that the amount of orders between the 5 minute mark to 6 minute mark might actually be the same or greater than all the previous minutes combined. Looking at the spreadsheet on Reddit has me concerned that my 1-3 week order may fall outside that time frame at 6 minutes and 4 seconds.

Keeping positive, maybe they anticipated all of this and we are going to see big allocations in the next few days.
 

TheRed

Member
I remember taking my time putting the order in. If only I knew the difference of ordering 1 minute after vs 6 after would be weeks.
 

Enordash

Member
My current concern is that the amount of orders between the 5 minute mark to 6 minute mark might actually be the same or greater than all the previous minutes combined. Looking at the spreadsheet on Reddit has me concerned that my 1-3 week order may fall outside that time frame at 6 minutes and 4 seconds.

Keeping positive, maybe they anticipated all of this and we are going to see big allocations in the next few days.

Well I suppose it's lucky for them that I also can't get any other HMD right now.
 
TheTwistgibber on reddit said:
Trust me, I can empathize, I really do. It's extremely complicated, more so than you can imagine. We'll have more information on April 12th as stated. We aren't holding back the info, there's still work to be done. We're frustrated too. I could say, "thanks for your patience" but let's just be real, people have waited a while. We just want to make sure we have the most accurate information, and that takes extra effort.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/com...yment_attempt_failed_please/d1sx2xd?context=3

That April 12th announcement may be interesting and crushing at the same time.
 
Pretty much this. If I had any other option right now I would go for it.

I did look into ordering a Vive last week. Only two things that held me back was the shipping issues and the fact that I have a slight preference for the look of the Oculus Touch controllers.

I think if I could have ordered one right away and had it shipped I would have though.
 

Enordash

Member
I did look into ordering a Vive last week. Only two things that held me back was the shipping issues and the fact that I have a slight preference for the look of the Oculus Touch controllers.

I think if I could have ordered one right away and had it shipped I would have though.

I initially preordered one when the Rift launch debacle happened, but it wouldn't ship out until May. I should have had the foresight to preorder both when they opened. I've since cancelled the Vive preorder since I SHOULD get the Rift before May and I don't really have room for the Vive's room-scale functionality anyway. We'll see if I regret that choice. Part of me wants to cancel out of spite, but that's rather childish for someone my age.
 

TheRed

Member
I was tempted to go for a Vive and even placed an order but I'm not gonna keep it. I decided the Rift is the headset I want, looks more comfortable and I like the integrated headphones and I'm perfectly happy with the experiences I can get on the Rift and I'll have money to actually buy some games, the Vive would be almost $300 more for me,and I just wouldn't be able to afford that and all the cool games. I'm more than happy with what the Rift will give me now and then if motion control games prove to be super worthwhile in the long run I'll be able to decide if I want to get Touch or sell my Rift for Vive if it still looks like Vive is the best at it.
 

Enordash

Member
I was tempted to go for a Vive and even placed an order but I'm not gonna keep it. I decided the Rift is the headset I want, looks more comfortable and I like the integrated headphones and I'm perfectly happy with the experiences I can get on the Rift and I'll have money to actually buy some games, the Vive would be almost $300 more for me,and I just wouldn't be able to afford that and all the cool games. I'm more than happy with what the Rift will give me now and then if motion control games prove to be super worthwhile in the long run I'll be able to decide if I want to get Touch or sell my Rift for Vive if it still looks like Vive is the best at it.

The Rift does seem more comfortable and convenient. If I had a large space to work with, I'm sure the Vive would be worth the hassle, but it'd be very difficult for me to even squeeze out the minimum required space. I think I'll be incredibly happy with the Rift once I get it in my hands. All of the negativity is spawning from my absolute hatred of waiting.
 

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
I remember taking my time putting the order in. If only I knew the difference of ordering 1 minute after vs 6 after would be weeks.

I had an order in that wouldn't accept payment at 1 minute past the hour.

I ended up restarting the checkout with a new order that finally accepted me somewhere 25 mins past.

Imagine my frustration. :p
 
I had an order in that wouldn't accept payment at 1 minute past the hour.

I ended up restarting the checkout with a new order that finally accepted me somewhere 25 mins past.

Imagine my frustration. :p

Placed an order right at the start and still ended up with a six minute order.

Frustrations seem to be high today due to the lack of any shipping in North America for over 24 hours.
 
Time to put hope away for another week for the :06's in NA?

I am still feeling like I will get my order in by Wednesday next week. We are at 5:17 right now. They need to ship at some point today though. If they can get from 5:17 to 5: 35 today I will consider that an achievement. I am at 6:04.
 

Durante

Member
I have to say, the lens bloom / radial blur effect is rather distracting in almost everything which has bright lights on a darker background. The first thing I tried on CV1 was Lucky's Tale so I didn't notice it, but for many other games/scenarios it's quite bad.
 

LaneDS

Member
I have to say, the lens bloom / radial blur effect is rather distracting in almost everything which has bright lights on a darker background. The first thing I tried on CV1 was Lucky's Tale so I didn't notice it, but for many other games/scenarios it's quite bad.

You've got the Vive as well, right? Any plans to do a detailed comparison between the two after you've spent more time with both?
 
I honestly don't think any of us, no matter what time we ordered are going to get a Rift anytime before the 13th. I've given up all hope of checking, it's way too nerve racking. The complete silence speaks too loud. I had a order at the 5 min mark and order status hasn't changed since Jan 6th. Sorry guys,I just don't think its gonna happen at this point. This isn't a launch, I don't care what anyone at Oculus says.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
I'm kinda glad I ended up with an April ship estimate at pre-order. As long as they sort out the issues and I get something before the end of the month, I don't feel like I should waste energy worrying for now.
 

Durante

Member
You've got the Vive as well, right? Any plans to do a detailed comparison between the two after you've spent more time with both?
I don't have the Vive yet, but I'm getting one (hopefully tomorrow).

I do have a vague plan of writing up a comparison on my blog.
 

Wallach

Member
I have to say, the lens bloom / radial blur effect is rather distracting in almost everything which has bright lights on a darker background. The first thing I tried on CV1 was Lucky's Tale so I didn't notice it, but for many other games/scenarios it's quite bad.

This is definitely one of the bigger bummers of first gen VR, and one I hope they can sort out before new headsets come around.
 

Enordash

Member
Wooow april will turn to may. Wish this could have gone so much better. Fn sucks hoping this thing is coming everyday.

This is definitely the worst of it. Every day I wake up hoping to have that processing email. Every day I hope units are being pushed at a faster rate. We still have almost a week to wait before the next planned announcement too.
 

spannicus

Member
This is definitely the worst of it. Every day I wake up hoping to have that processing email. Every day I hope units are being pushed at a faster rate. We still have almost a week to wait before the next planned announcement too.
Yeah it sucks, crazy how both headsets are experiencing problems.
 

Dineren

Banned
I'm kinda glad I ended up with an April ship estimate at pre-order. As long as they sort out the issues and I get something before the end of the month, I don't feel like I should waste energy worrying for now.

I wish I had your willpower, I can't stop checking my email. Hopefully some Hyper Light Drifter will distract me tonight.
 

pj

Banned
This is definitely one of the bigger bummers of first gen VR, and one I hope they can sort out before new headsets come around.

This is one of the things that worries me most. VR is new but lenses have been around for hundreds of years.

What if this is close to as good as it gets, lens wise? Lenses are so well understood that it seems like if there was a (not insanely expensive) better solution, it would have been used.

Maybe curved screens are needed?
 

Wollan

Member
There is no doubt in my mind that Lucky's Tale is the best game on Oculus Rift right now.
They have really gone a long way to make this shine in virtual reality but it's fundamentally (and most importantly) a very good platformer. If this was released as a 2D monitor game I feel that this would have landed on a very solid 8 though I need to see how they up the challenge later on.

But the game doesn't just slap VR on top and call it a day. How they have implemented the extra dimension is probably the most impressive work. The camera rail is lined up very well and it feels like it was properly directed with curiosity in mind. It feels semi-sentient and is clearly a step above God of War which is already really good. It goes really close in when there's reason to while later on zooming out for a larger vista shot. It shifts and turns and lines itself up without provoking any nausea. It crawls near the ground when you are climbing a hill with timber rolling down. When you are underground all the characters and world space is miniaturized like a diorama while the overworld is much larger scale.
It's very well done and really lifts the game to a new level from an already well made foundation.
 

Enordash

Member
There is no doubt in my mind that Lucky's Tale is the best game on Oculus Rift right now.
They have really gone a long way to make this shine in virtual reality but it's fundamentally (and most importantly) a very good platformer. If this was released as a 2D monitor game I feel that this would have landed on a very solid 8 though I need to see how they up the challenge later on.

But the game doesn't just slap VR on top and call it a day. How they have implemented the extra dimension is probably the most impressive work. The camera rail is lined up very well and it feels like it was properly directed with curiosity in mind. It feels semi-sentient and is clearly a step above God of War which is already really good. It goes really close in when there's reason to while later on zooming out for a larger vista shot. It shifts and turns and lines itself up without provoking any nausea. It crawls near the ground when you are climbing a hill with timber rolling down. When you are underground all the characters and world space is miniaturized like a diorama while the overworld is much larger scale.
It's very well done and really lifts the game to a new level from an already well made foundation.

Dude, the hype is real!
 

Zalusithix

Member
This is one of the things that worries me most. VR is new but lenses have been around for hundreds of years.

What if this is close to as good as it gets, lens wise? Lenses are so well understood that it seems like if there was a (not insanely expensive) better solution, it would have been used.

Maybe curved screens are needed?
The lenses could easily be better. The thing is everything comes with its own set of trade-offs. Weight, physical volume taken up, cost, etc. There is no free lunch. The question becomes where do you make the sacrifice.
 

Wollan

Member
The quality of Lucky's Tale is probably the biggest surprise of the Oculus Launch for me personally (besides massive logistics problems I guess). It kinda looked like one of those games ported from an iPad and I guess it was always going to be okayish and when it was picked up as a pack in it sort of enforced that impression for me ('probably didn't cost much, will probably receive middling reviews'). I was wrong.
 

LordCanti

Member
I finally got to spend a decent amount of time with my Rift. I'll try to summarize my impressions (new-ish computer with GTX 970):

Pros:

- The tracking is spot on. The camera provides a wide enough field of view that it never lost me no matter how fast I whipped my head around in Eve Valkyrie. The tracking is night and day compared to DK2 and it's at a point now that I think everyone will be happy with it for seated experiences (stood up in a few things I tried and that worked great as well, but I can't say how well it does a full room). The higher refresh rate (compared to DK2) and the improved tracking combine to make the experience as smooth as I could have hoped for.

- The screen is much improved from DK2 but there are shafts of light from bright objects like you guys have mentioned. I'm guessing the Fresnel lenses are to blame and that both Vive and Rift probably have the same issue, but it's distracting in some menu's and games. The resolution is improved from DK2 by a lot but you can still see the SDE if you look for it. Having said that, it really is at a point where you'd have to be focusing on it to notice it during gameplay at all. Hopefully devs will account for the light shafts going forward. Colors have a tendency to wash out at times but I'm almost certain it's the lenses/those light shafts and not the panels themselves.

- The comfort is much improved from DK2. Getting the proper fit was quick and I didn't notice any fatigue from a few hours of playing (other than my poor neck from the aforementioned head whipping in Eve Valkyrie). The cloth wrap is a nice touch and the placement of the headphones is spot on.

- The built in audio is greatly appreciated. Having to mess with a separate pair of headphones is a hassle and it's nice that they've incorporated it into the design. It's not going to match a pair of audiophile headphones in terms of sound quality but the convenience factor makes it worth it.

- The Oculus Home software itself seems well made and I like how it comes up when you put the headset on automatically. I know people are concerned about the services always running but man... compared to what you had to do to even get a game to run on DK2, this is such an improved experience. I'd still like to see them add a services toggle button but the user experience is greatly improved. What I didn't like was having to take the headset off to "finish installation on the desktop" in a few things. Need to figure out how to make that more seamless.

- I had been worried about the FOV because of differing opinions I had been hearing. Having said that, to my eye, the FOV is bigger than DK2 and also rounded with no hard edges on the side like DK2. Your mileage may vary if you have a wildly different IPD than me, but I enjoyed the return to a FOV that isn't square. Seeing that hard edge on the side in DK2 was a bummer.

- I'm writing this while Oculus Home takes an unfortunate amount of time to download more games. Eve Valkyrie (5gb download) took like half an hour on a gigabit connection so that definitely needs to get better. This isn't exactly peak usage time.

Eve Valkyrie is like a real version of what must have been going through my head as I played X-Wing vs Tie Fighter with a joystick as a kid. I don't know what kind of legs it has, how many modes, etc, but what I did get to play (finding players is hard right now since few people have Rifts) was fantastic. Tracking an opponent with your head while pulling your ship around to get a shot is intuitive and they've done a good job with the HUD design so that you know where enemies are at any given time. I look forward to playing a whole lot more of this when there are more players to be found.

The other game I tried (boy...I can't stress this enough, the download speeds have got to improve) is Lucky's Tale. I'd have liked the camera to be zoomed out a bit (Lucky was capable of going out of my FOV at the bottom at times) but other than that the 3D platforming is a lot of fun. I can see why they picked this as a launch pack-in for sure since it's probably very unlikely to make someone sick (I've never been nauseous in a VR headset so it's hard for me to give impressions of that).

The two real downsides to this headset for me right now are the lack of motion controls and the light shafts I mentioned. One will be fixed with the arrival of Oculus Touch but I don't know what they're going to do about the light shafts. It can be avoided by not putting bright objects against a darker background to some degree, but if it's a physical property of the lenses, that's unfortunate. Trade-offs had to be made for V1 I suppose.

My impressions are obviously colored by the fact that Oculus gave me a free Rift, but I'm pretty happy with what they've managed to build in such a short amount of time. I'm really looking forward to playing Adrift and Chronos shortly.

The quality of Lucky's Tale is probably the biggest surprise of the Oculus Launch for me personally (besides massive logistics problems I guess). It kinda looked like one of those games ported from an iPad and I guess it was always going to be okayish and when it was picked up as a pack in it sort of enforced that impression for me ('probably didn't cost much, will probably receive middling reviews'). I was wrong.

I definitely thought it was going to be a short little thing designed mainly for kids and I was pleasantly surprised.
 
Hey guys, I don't know if this is the place to do this or the B/S/T thread, but I was probably going to just cancel my pre-order, but I wanted to throw the opportunity out there to anyone who wanted to grab my spot in line.

My order was in from 1/6/2016, and I was a late April ship. If someone wants to respond here or PM me and I can shoot you the details or we can work something out, that's cool by me.

Probably just gonna be Vive only for now until the I can spare the extra dough, but the delay and some extraneous circumstances have changed things.
 
There is no doubt in my mind that Lucky's Tale is the best game on Oculus Rift right now.
They have really gone a long way to make this shine in virtual reality but it's fundamentally (and most importantly) a very good platformer. If this was released as a 2D monitor game I feel that this would have landed on a very solid 8 though I need to see how they up the challenge later on.

But the game doesn't just slap VR on top and call it a day. How they have implemented the extra dimension is probably the most impressive work. The camera rail is lined up very well and it feels like it was properly directed with curiosity in mind. It feels semi-sentient and is clearly a step above God of War which is already really good. It goes really close in when there's reason to while later on zooming out for a larger vista shot. It shifts and turns and lines itself up without provoking any nausea. It crawls near the ground when you are climbing a hill with timber rolling down. When you are underground all the characters and world space is miniaturized like a diorama while the overworld is much larger scale.
It's very well done and really lifts the game to a new level from an already well made foundation.

This shit right here is why my Rift will be my primary gaming VR. Oculus has done a really nice job with their first party lineup from impressions.

I'm still going to invest in a Vive for my business ventures though and games that utilize room-scale well.

Luckily, most of the stuff I'll be doing won't need low-latency so I'll be able to utilize OpenVR. Hopefully, transitioning that stuff over to Vive and incorporating the lighthouse stuff to ultimately complete my ideas won't add too much time. It would allow me to build the base out with the Rift and go from there.
 

Durante

Member
The lenses could easily be better. The thing is everything comes with its own set of trade-offs. Weight, physical volume taken up, cost, etc. There is no free lunch. The question becomes where do you make the sacrifice.
I have yet to see the Vive lenses, but if the Rift ones are an indication I'd rather have the weight, volume and cost.

(ultimately just another reason to hope for a VR ecosystem in which you can select your preference from a large number of HW types and manufacturers)
 

Wollan

Member
My 2 cents on EVE Valkyrie is that it is so so. Maybe the most divisive title.
It's not badly executed mind you as the controls are very responsive and it ticks many sci-fi boxes but from the hours played in Alpha/Beta and now the final game I just find the gameplay a bit boring frankly. I love the EVE universe and had a lot of fun with the MMO so I want to like it but the relatively thin dog-fighting combat of Valkyrie is not winning me over. Menus are a bit messy and the sense of VR is not that strong (has more to do with everything being space-distance away that). However, I need to spend more time with the final game but there's more alluring games in Lucky's Tale and Chronos right now.
I guess it depends on how much you enjoy dog-fighting MP games though there's no gravity to battle against here. Movement doesn't feel challenging as you can hault to complete stop or go lighting fast and take super sharp turns. Actual combat is a bit chaotic as well with most deaths being surprise attacks hard to defend against.

edit: I'm thinking something like Descent is more appropriate for fun space-ship MP fighting as you would be navigating dangerous labyrinths underground with FPS tropes like chokepoints, cover and camping being more of an element.
 

Wallach

Member
I have yet to see the Vive lenses, but if the Rift ones are an indication I'd rather have the weight, volume and cost.

(ultimately just another reason to hope for a VR ecosystem in which you can select your preference from a large number of HW types and manufacturers)

The effect is pretty similar, but the slight differences in the lenses make it look a bit more... sharp, I guess. The effect in the Rift's lenses seems to be more diffused from what I've seen in peoples' images. From the folks that I actually listen to it sounds a little more noticeable on the Vive, but I haven't seen the effect on the Rift CV for myself yet. Some games are naturally going to have more issues than others I'm sure, I mainly just hope it isn't that distracting in Elite (and other future space games) what with the space backdrop and bright UI elements.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I have yet to see the Vive lenses, but if the Rift ones are an indication I'd rather have the weight, volume and cost.

(ultimately just another reason to hope for a VR ecosystem in which you can select your preference from a large number of HW types and manufacturers)

Increased weight, volume, and cost would end up being a multi element lens solution. OSVR actually takes this route. The thing is, you can't take it too far to the extreme because as the headset becomes bigger and heavier, it also becomes more limiting to movement.

It's one thing if all you're ever targeting is seated experiences. A larger headset with a bit more weight isn't a deal breaker there. Once you throw tracked controllers and standing / room scale stuff into the equation, the physical package matters more and more. In those situations your body movement in tandem with head movement will be subjecting the headset to more inertial forces. Once those forces exceed a certain amount, the headset will shift on the head - which we obviously don't want. Additional weight magnifies those forces. A larger volume means the weight is creating a greater cantilevering force which requires a more robust mechanism to support the headset, lest it create uncomfortable pressure spots on the face.

It's all a delicate balancing act. Hopefully in the second gen more can be spared on the lens front by advances elsewhere.
 
What are the main differences between the DK2 and the release version?

Can I play any of the games out now on the DK2? I ask because I have one at work and would like to set some of the new stuff up for people to try out an some open days we have coming up however we don't have room in the current budget to buy the release model.

We have a computer that easily meets the specs so that's no issue just wondered what issues games will have with non final hardware.
 

Wollan

Member
I play any of the games out now on the DK2? I ask because I have one at work and would like to set some of the new stuff up for people to try out an some open days we have coming up however we don't have room in the current budget to buy the release model.
Lucky's Tale is playable on DK2 I believe. And it's free.
 

Wallach

Member
For those of you lucky enough to already have the damned thing, have you played with the sensor placement at all? I'd like to put my first sensor to the right and fairly high up from where I'll be sitting/standing. Just wondering if folks have had any issues with higher sensor placement.
 
What are the main differences between the DK2 and the release version?

Can I play any of the games out now on the DK2? I ask because I have one at work and would like to set some of the new stuff up for people to try out an some open days we have coming up however we don't have room in the current budget to buy the release model.

We have a computer that easily meets the specs so that's no issue just wondered what issues games will have with non final hardware.


Yeah, anything in the Oculus store is playable with the DK2 (as far as I've seen so far) and some of the SteamVR stuff works too. I've played around with a few games and stuff, just to test it out for when I actually do get the CV1. But so far out of the 10 or so games and apps, they all work fine.
 
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