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RE: Half-Life: Alyx Announcement Trailer
It's about bloody time ;). Amazing games in their day and even now I am still playing original. This looks amazing and could be the killer app for VR. When Valve do something to do it well.
12 years since the last Half Life game, and 3 years, 7 months since I bought a Vive. Before I even heard of Steem. The first real AAA game in that time...
It would be a big investment for me to have a Vive and powerful computer, which is not possible these days. I hope that very soon VR setups will be be a cheap as a phone Looking forward to seeing how the actual game plays. Full movement freedom in the environment will be a difficult thing to crack, even with room scale.
The trailer didn't show any actual locomotion, and the infographic they released doesn't make it look great:
Locomotion in VR is IMO still not well solved. It actually works best in confined spaces where you only need to travel within your playspace. eg. Space Pirate Trainer.
I think a way to solve it is to use gestures rather than buttons. Moving your upper body left and right or something like that but the problem will always be the feeling of inertia. Maybe tapping into the motion part of the brain could be the only answer.
That has been tried, there are games where you swing your arms or bob your head (as in running in place) to move. It works well enough for some purposes. There's one game where you put out your hands like superman to move forward (you are also flying like superman).
They work well enough for the games they're in, but aren't generalized solutions. There probably isn't a general solution, but that in itself is a problem because it means you have to relearn the basics of motion for every game.
If you're ever in the Isle of Man you're welcome to come and try out my VR system. I have a whole room set up for it.