Hey everyone. I am writing here to ask that 4A games considers making a VR patch for Metro 2033 and Last Light. I personally liked 2033 just a tad bit better than Last Light, so i hope they don't just make it for their most recent game. I genuinely think Metro 2033 stands a chance to be THE BEST VR experience for a short (maybe even a long) time after the Oculus Rift launches. We all know how amazing these games are and i think we all realize that some people just don't "get it" when it comes to Metro games. Im guessing many people's life backgrounds just don't give the Metro landscapes and subject matter much appeal, causing many people who do play Metro to focus only on the gameplay/challenge while missing out the immersion: Like, for example, a genuine feeling of safely/security in the stations, of celebration of safely getting to Market Station and trepidation/fear/wonder when leaving Market with Bourbon debarking into the lost tunnels. I think VR will really help bring the experience you and I probably had in Metro games to more people who are more casual players helping them focus on the more immersive aspects of the game. I loved the fact that DayZ helped bring the beautiful landscapes of Chernarus to millions of people who would have probably never seen it and i hope that a VR patch does the same for the in-fucking-credible landscape 4A games made in 2033 and LL. As a 3D gamer, i can tell you that the realistic 3D provided by the VR headset will help you "feel" the realistically massive expanses of the environments, like Polis Station interior, the impressive height of the ceiling of the area in Frontlines, the dangerous height of the many dangerous drop-offs, like off the edges of the bridge, the end tower and others. For me, the realism of the landscape looking out at the end tower was wonderous and haunting in 3D, with the bars of the tower contrasting the difference in spacial distance. It might make you feel like you might bump your head in the ventilation tunnel with Bourbon. :lol: The 3rd dimensional information lends a feeling of size and space to everything, such that those big red automated tunnel doors feels big and thick and the everything in your cozy "apartment" in the beginning of the game looks so real like you could reach out and touch it (same with everything thats in front of you! ) Anyway, i played 2033 slowly through 2 times before i playing in 3D 2 more times im happy to say that was my experience. It was just a massive boost to immersion, even despite already playing it through twice. I hope you all get to enjoy that. ................ CONCERNS With both games i have some concerns about how the game plays with VR, but mainly with Metro 2033. The walk speed is too high IMO (far above reality) and there is no acceleration to stopping and starting walking. So if you are near something and you try to "inch closer" (English term meaning to very slowing move closer) and tap the forward key a few times, like you might to try and look over the edge of a drop-off, when you do this you instantly begin to move fast, then stop, start, stop, start, stop. It jarring. The other problem is that, since the FOV is high, the player can see more to his/her sides and can see the world go by at the speed at which it normally does when running or sprinting in real life. It my belief as a long time gamer, having experimented with wider FOVs over a long period of time, that fast walk speeds can be immersion breaking, since 99% most of us move, its at a walking pace and i think we get used to having the world pass us by at a certain speed. Not a big deal, just something to consider IMO. One thought would be to at least lower it to match Bourbon's (all NPCs?) walkspeed, since that frequently causes me to stop/start/stop/start just behind Bourbon because the player's walk speed is slightly faster. ........... Anybody also have thoughts on this? I can't wait to try it personally. If you have an electronics store near you demoing the Samsung Gear VR unit, i believe that will be almost the same as the Rift/Morpheus so you can see what its like. I was VERY impressed with the Gear VR. VERY! Good things are coming guys!
Honestly, it all (both 3D and VR) seems like just a nice gimmick to me, but nothing groundbreaking. However, I don't have the hardware to try either with gaming, and I'm aware that this is something you have to experience for yourself to really know what it's like and potentially have it win you over. The way you describe it does make it sound appealing. I've also heard some other people give their impressions and it seemed interesting. All I have from personal experience is watching 3 or 4 movies in 3D. Some of them were very well shot with that kind of experience in mind, in others it was barely noticeable - both were enjoyable, but nothing groundbreaking and it gets a bit unpleasant for your eyes after a while. Still, I know VR and 3D in gaming is something else entirely and has the potential for much more immersion. I guess I will reserve my excitement for when or if I actually try it myself. It's interesting how the FOV is too high for 3D. When you play it on a normal display and you sit fairly close to it if you're playing it on a PC, it always seems a bit too low (I got used to it with each game after a few hours of gameplay, but for some it even causes headaches). Of course, when you play it on a larger TV screen or monitor and see it further away from it then it's not much of a problem at all. Though I can definitely see how the binary walking control input could be really immersion-breaking in a VR scenario.
Wait a minute.... You're saying you can actually play Metro2033 and Last Light with VR goggles like Occulus Rift? I thought you couldn't!! :shocked: I feel stupid now, but these are amazing news!!! That settles it then... I shall get a better gaming computer and VR goggles. (I've been considering it for a while, but it'll be a lot of money). Welcome, and thank you very much for your post! Just for the record, this is the official Metro-forum, endorsed by Deep Silver (-Metro Last Light publisher), but unfortunately they have just about nothing to do with this forum practically; the fans/players (us) are the only ones roaming this forum. So what I'm trying to say is that 4A Games will unfortunately most likely not ever read this post :sad: But we do highly appreciate your post none the less I see what you mean, but I think that this matter is mainly personal preference; I like to have a very very small "latency" to my acceleration, but I want it to be very sudden and quick. It's because I'm a kind of "stressed" gamer. If my character used quite some time to accelerate every time I would start walking, I'd get pretty stressed and tired of it. But I still understand and agree that it could be very good for the immersion with VR goggles. I wish there was a way to adjust the acceleration-speed in the game's settings. Oh, the pain.... the pain! :rant: I hate it when characters move smoothly in games, while I'm left tapping my WASD buttons so much that I'd might as well just put on some stepping-shoes and start stepping for them The Witcher 3 did this perfectly with the NPCs that are going at the same speed as you are; If you walk, they walk too so they won't outrun you. If you run, they will run at the same speed so you won't be able to catch up with them, but will always stay a couple meters behind them. Perfect. :thumb: I visited my brother a couple months ago, and he had bought a really cheap black plastic-box with a separation-wall in the middle, and a strap for your head. They resemble VR goggles, but at the end is only a hatch. You put your phone into the hatch, with a VR-application playing a video, and you close the hatch with a lock. Then you can move your head and look around. First I was in Google Street-view, looking from the perspective of a 3D photographer that had taken a picture in the middle of some desert-canyon somewhere in the US I think, it was really awesome. Next, I was looking from a 3D-camera standing high up amongst the audience at a concert. Right below me was a really pretty girl jumping up and down with.. so they.. you get what I mean My point is, anyway, that despite the horrible resolution on a cellphone-screen, it was really really awesome. But we can't know for sure yet that there won't be problems with it, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'll join you in being one of those who waits to see if it's actually worth spending a ton of money for. (flashbacks to AC Unity... dark times :tsk I found this strange too, considering how low the FOV is in the Metro-games. I know some people have adjusted it with some tweaks or a mod though, so perhaps it could be tweaked with that to make it smaller for the VR? Just a thought. EDIT: [YOUTUBE]?v=-RehCTRrWM0[/YOUTUBE] Far from perfect, but imagine being able to actually do that! Crowbar simulator! It's what I've dreamt of for years! :dance:
No stress, man. We're all pretty laid back, and most often use a day or two or more to respond each other.
I think the eye strain people were complaining about when 3D movies first became popular was the result of the dimensionality of the 3D scenes changing from shot to shot. So in one camera view of a scene, a kitchen was put in a shallow dimension, then in the next shot, the same kitchen and the kids playing in the backyard were put in the same shallow dimension. Something like that. A lot of work for the brain because the "size" of your surrounding is imparted from the 3D and in movies they change that around all the time. Not in games. Luckily 3D and VR has much more 3D then movies (ie, can look like real life), but thats not the best part. What makes VR and 3D gaming(mainly on a big screen) is that while the 3D puts each object correctly positioned in the 3rd dimension, then, if you have VR googles or a high FOV display like a cheap 46" 3DTV, the 3D size and the "fov size" match up to real life. By FOV size i mean the amount of your FOV an object takes up. Like a human is "big" (in your FOV) when standing next to you and just a tiny dot when your looking out of a plane. You need a high FOV display for this, because for things to be the correct size, the FOV setting (in game FOV setting) can't be cranked up like your playing Quake 3 at 120 fov shrinking everything down on the screen, at 120 fov, 3D can still put things in the right place on the 3rd axis, but the high FOV will makes everything look small and not very impressive. Seeing Polis in 3rd and the right size (on my cheap 46 3DTV) was amazing after being in those cramped tunnels. I actually reached out to touch the shimmering walls underneath the lamp light at the start of The Bridge, twice... Another thing i remember, on my fourth playthrough of Metro (2nd time in 3D), the Nosolis that jumps at you as you walk through the door from outside, scared the absolute shit out of me, i actually dodged back in my chair while having a heart attack. Just staring off of the bridge down around the water areas was mezmerizing for me.
I would really love to see what hardcore Metro fans think of seeing Metro in VR, even just in really good 3D! There is a person working on a program called VorpX, which makes all games work with "VR" (3D and headtracking), so im sure you all will eventually be able to see it. I hope you record yourselves and put it on youtube or something
I'm a little confused though; do VR goggles actually work with Metro, or do they not? If I've understood you correctly, the goggles work as a 3D screen, but the head-movement thing doesn't work, it doesn't sync with the game because the game doesn't have that ability? If that is the case, I wanna start a petition or something for 4A Games to patch at least the Redux versions to be able to work with VRgoggles. (I doubt they'd bother to do it with the original games). And yes, I will most likely record myself playing the game with VR goggles when the time comes, though I'm not very good at "being a youtuber"
I haven't paid much attention to VorpX as my free time is completely taken up the last year or so, so i honestly don't know how well it stacks up to native supported head tracking. Metro was built with 3D in mind, so the 3D is fine and the 3D community paid some fixes for what the redux versions broke. Its just the head tracking that is unknown to me, but i guess it works in almost any game. I've only tried the Samsung gadget at a electronics store, but i was blown away at how smooth and accurate it was. The Rift and Morpheus (for Sony Playstation) must be incredibly smooth then. Rest assured, somebody will get it working so we can all try it eventually, just not sure how well the experience will be without proper dev support.
