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Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:36 am
by Unclebob
Not wanting to dampen anyones enthusiasm but perhaps a dose of realism should be expressed.

The Magic 5000
This is a number that people have made up based on a project planning chart on 12 days production yielding 6000 possible units.

Realistically guys this is the first run, of a unique product. New to the market. New to the factory. New to the workers assembling it. Is it reasonable to expect a 0 to full production figure in the first few days of production? Especially in a factory just before the major holidays of the year. I doubt it. I don't want to upset people but the "I'm in or out of the first 5000" is simply not realistic. If the first batch is a lot less than expected don't be upset or surprised. It will come when it comes.

Games out of the box
Mentioned several times. Guys, this is a Dev Kit. At the moment NOTHING works out of the box. I know people will go what about Doom but Doom was announced with a different hardware tracker... no word of it working with the new one yet.

3rd Part Drivers
Vorpx and Vireio are the ones I am hopeful about. I have used Vireio with some success on my DIY Rift - I will talk about performance below. These will probably yield some playable content when we get our rifts but they will involve some tinkering. Experience of several years stereoscopic 3d gaming tells me that hard coded stuff like HUDs, text, shadows and menus will be a pain in most games and lots of tinkering will be needed. iz3d also supports side by side if you can live with lens distortion.

Performance
I have an old rig. AMD X2 4600, with 4 gig of memory and HD 6850. With the Verio driver, Freepie (for tracking) and an ENB I could walk and look around Skyrim. Raft the guy building the Vorpx driver sees only a 10% to 40% hit on games performance. So if your rig eats 1260 by 800 you should be fine for when your Rift comes, and if not improve the bits that matter when using the Rift.

VSYNC
Many games have capped framerates which is a hold over to the fact they are multiplatform (PC, XBOX, PS3). Skyrim has a 60fps cap for instance. So does Vsync effect you? Well try turning Vsync off/on and play a game at max settings and see if you get any texture tearing? My guess is unless you have really really bad performance issues even if you do get it you won't notice it. Wait and see if it is an issue before spending hard earned on new kit.

New builds
I read about guys building monster rigs for the Rift. Hold off guys. At the moment we simply do not know what performance issues exist. Certainly avoid CROSSFIRE or SLI as although they give a 40% performance boost we do not yet know the cost of this using the 3rd party drivers or any game patches that will be necessary to use the Rift. Crossfire and SLI rely on good manufactures drivers and like or not Stereoscopic 3D is not mainstream and there are lot of micro stuttering issues that could ruin not enhance the RIFT experience.

The comments above are based on what we know at the moment.

The fact Oculus have a few more surprises to announce intrigues me and I am itching to find out.

Give the Oculus team and Palmer a fair chance. What they have done so far is amazing.

I can't wait. I am excited. We all are and when I get mine I am on the happy to demo map in Brighton England.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:45 am
by jaybug
I'm expecting 10000 rifts, 50 games out of the box, 3rd party drivers to work with ALL games, all of which will run on my macbook fine, and there's NOTHING YOU CAN SAY ABOUT IT! :P

I'm actually counting on Carmack to adapt Doom, if not by the first shipment then at least before my post-kickstarter european ass gets a Rift.
He's been the biggest proponent of VR ever, and he already referenced the 7inch model in the source code, so I think he's on top of it.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:49 am
by norgoth
jaybug wrote:I'm expecting 10000 rifts, 50 games out of the box, 3rd party drivers to work with ALL games, all of which will run on my macbook fine, and there's NOTHING YOU CAN SAY ABOUT IT! :P

I'm actually counting on Carmack to adapt Doom, if not by the first shipment then at least before my post-kickstarter european ass gets a Rift.
He's been the biggest proponent of VR ever, and he already referenced the 7inch model in the source code, so I think he's on top of it.
Great new for the 7" and doom but where have yon seen this info ?
I m a little scare about carmack and the rift because he is very discret since month about the rift ? No ?

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:52 am
by oculusfan
Why all the distrust of Carmack? He seems like a man of his word. He said Doom 3 BFG was going to support the rift. I seriously doubt he would just forget about it and hope that nobody notices.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:56 am
by twofoe
My guess is that he's being relatively quiet because he doesn't want journalists to mistake Oculus as his creation, like they did back at E3.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:58 am
by Tirregius
Thanks for your post, UncleBob.

I just tried running Half Life 2 with the VIREIO PERCEPTION drivers 1.04...

old E6750 core2duo@3.06GHz
ATI HD5850 1GB

appears to be pegged @ 60fps, obviously without the potential input overhead from the Rift. I realize this may be a depth buffer technique, but promising nonetheless.

Hoing to hold off upgrading ... My rig plays Skyrim @ 3840x1024 with high settings (FXAA, no MSAA, etc.) @ >30fps 95% of the time. Indoors usually pegged @ 60fps. I have a feeling that any GPU in this range is NOT going to be taxed in the least. There may be a CPU mem/bus bottleneck for some games, I'd imagine.

If you are close to those specs, I'd say sit tight.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:02 am
by PasticheDonkey
i don't consider the manufacture of the rift that more difficult than any other consumer electronics. it's about as complicated as a wii U controller. i don't think anything has ever been held back because of it's controller. so i trust their estimates on production somewhat. just depends on allowances they made for delays and if there were delays of a few days or not.

the later you can buy a new pc the better like always for performance for price.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:03 am
by IGameArt
Using Vireio I was able to run black mesa: source at a solid 60fps with stereoscopy and lens warping so i'm pretty confident that i will at least get to enjoy THAT with my rift, even if i have to wait for proper tracker support lol. Honestly i'm waiting to see how well the UDK handles the Rift, for me that will be the biggest deciding factor on whether i need an upgrade or not.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:04 am
by Tirregius
twofoe wrote:My guess is that he's being relatively quiet because he doesn't want journalists to mistake Oculus as his creation, like they did back at E3.
+1

JC strikes me as a very cool guy who loves games and tech much more than he loves the spotlight. I can relate to him wanting everyone to see just how cool Rift is. I'd say he wanted to give Oculus a shove and then get out of their way.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:09 am
by Unclebob
Tirregius wrote:Thanks for your post, UncleBob.

I just tried running Half Life 2 with the VIREIO PERCEPTION drivers 1.04...

old E6750 core2duo@3.06GHz
ATI HD5850 1GB

appears to be pegged @ 60fps, obviously without the potential input overhead from the Rift. I realize this may be a depth buffer technique, but promising nonetheless.

Hoing to hold off upgrading ... My rig plays Skyrim @ 3840x1024 with high settings (FXAA, no MSAA, etc.) @ >30fps 95% of the time. Indoors usually pegged @ 60fps. I have a feeling that any GPU in this range is NOT going to be taxed in the least. There may be a CPU mem/bus bottleneck for some games, I'd imagine.

If you are close to those specs, I'd say sit tight.
I think you are spot on. If you google skyrim and CPU performance, skyrim framerate is quite effected by the CPU with Intel beating out AMD.

In fact the sweet spot for your rig - if Toms hardware is to be believed would be an i5 as the perfect gaming chip.

I am sure we will have game threads and shared knowledge once the RIFT is in the wild.

Have you tried any of the ENB series mods? Make a huge difference in quality if you get the right one.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:15 am
by geekmaster
The Oculus Rift is just hardware. Any drivers or software are just bonus. Oculus even hired some people to help US get started with software. WE are the developers, for whom these Rift Developer Kits are being provided. It is up to US, the developers, to make VR all that it can be. There WILL be rough edges with these Developer Kits, which is no secret and no surprise. We must learn to work around any potential hardware deficiencies with SOFTWARE (or perhaps simple hardware hacks), until the consumer versions are ready. In fact, the consumer versions DEPEND on what we find while using these Dev Kits, and especially on what apps we create for it.

It is what it is, but it will BECOME whatever we WANT it to be, provided that we supply the imagination and the drive to make it so. This is a doorway to VR, so let's make sure VR becomes real this time.

Let's do it!

P.S. There is no need to wait for a Rift to get your knowledge base and your coding skills up to speed. Start with simple stuff, to prove that your tools are in order. Then work up to more interesting stuff. Remember that some simple stuff can still be great in VR. And not everything for the Rift needs to use a fancy high-end game API (such as Unity or UDK). There are smaller gaming APIs that work on smaller hardware. For example, Ogre with Ogrekit can (or soon will) run on Raspberry Pi. But these also run on older desktop PCs that may not be up to the task of modern gaming APIs.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:19 am
by Unclebob
oculusfan wrote:Why all the distrust of Carmack? He seems like a man of his word. He said Doom 3 BFG was going to support the rift. I seriously doubt he would just forget about it and hope that nobody notices.
No distrust intended.

I am sure that John, Palmer and the Oculus team will come through.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:21 am
by Dycus
This guy... I like this guy.

Unclebob, you're a cool guy.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:30 am
by Unclebob
geekmaster wrote:The Oculus Rift is just hardware. Any drivers or software are just bonus. Oculus even hired some people to help US get started with software. WE are the developers, for whom these Rift Developer Kits are being provided. It is up to US, the developers, to make VR all that it can be. There WILL be rough edges with these Developer Kits, which is no secret and no surprise. We must learn to work around any potential hardware deficiencies with SOFTWARE (or perhaps simple hardware hacks), until the consumer versions are ready. In fact, the consumer versions DEPEND on what we find while using these Dev Kits, and especially on what apps we create for it.

It is what it is, but it will BECOME whatever we WANT it to be, provided that we supply the imagination and the drive to make it so. This is a doorway to VR, so let's make sure VR becomes real this time.

Let's do it!

P.S. There is no need to wait for a Rift to get your knowledge base and your coding skills up to speed. Start with simple stuff, to prove that your tools are in order. Then work up to more interesting stuff. Remember that some simple stuff can still be great in VR. And not everything for the Rift needs to use a fancy high-end game API (such as Unity or UDK). There are smaller gaming APIs that work on smaller hardware. For example, Ogre with Ogrekit can (or soon will) run on Raspberry Pi. But these also run on older desktop PCs that may not be up to the task of modern gaming APIs.
Spot on geekmaster

A lot of the people here are not developers though...some are techie based geeky enthusiasts (like me) ... some are early adoptors that just want a matrix like VR experience... some are ordinary Joes caught up in the hype.

We need as many people as possible to have a positive experience and encourage people to get involved. Thats not going to helped if they think there is a "Magic 5000" and actually it turns out that many are not in the first batch or that they have spent £100s or £1000s on a rig that gives them more problems then benefits.

Just trying to bring a touch or realistic expectations to the table.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:31 am
by Marulu
geekmaster wrote:It is what it is, but it will BECOME whatever we WANT it to be, provided that we supply the imagination and the drive to make it so. This is a doorway to VR, so let's make sure VR becomes real this time.
+1

This!
This is exactly what I think about the future of VR.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:38 am
by Unclebob
Dycus wrote:This guy... I like this guy.

Unclebob, you're a cool guy.
Right back at you Dycus.

Hold on a sec and I'll remotely turn your lights on and off....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kzjqBacF1k

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:39 am
by nateight
People wrote:"John Carmack"
Palmer definitely deserves the lion's share of the credit for creating the Rift, but I'm of the opinion he'd still just be some (awesome) guy tinkering in his garage if Carmack hadn't gotten involved when and how he did. John Carmack is largely responsible for creating first-person games and he's also the guy who's been all but handing GPU manufacturers the spec sheets for each generation of their hardware for ~20 years. When some random guy you don't know says "I have the best VR demo on the planet!" it doesn't even matter if it's true because, well, who's this guy? But when the father of modern gaming says it? Suddenly the media gives a care - I know I did the same, and now here we are. He's such a mench he even got the hell out of the way as soon as Oculus had an appropriate amount of attention (and probably pitched in some much-needed capital besides); I'm confident he's hard at work behind the scenes and every bit as excited as the rest of us about this whole sequence of events. Thanks for everything, John! :D
geekmaster wrote:It is what it is, but it will BECOME whatever we WANT it to be, provided that we supply the imagination and the drive to make it so. This is a doorway to VR, so let's make sure VR becomes real this time.

Let's do it!
Right on! The minute I realized the Rift was going to be a real thing I was energized like never before, and I've been slowly honing my skillset ever since. I feel like there are tons of people in exactly this position around MTBS (alongside the people who already know their stuff, that is), and I think this next year of collaborative hacking, learning from one another, sharing the cool stuff we've made, and collectively shaping the consumer-model Rift is going to be a thrilling journey. And if a sudden influx of people show up thinking the current Rift is a consumer-grade product, and where are the launch titles, etc.? Unclebob, I heartily endorse you for Chief of Yelling at Idiots. :lol:

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:54 am
by geekmaster
Unclebob wrote:Spot on geekmaster

A lot of the people here are not developers though...some are techie based geeky enthusiasts (like me) ... some are early adoptors that just want a matrix like VR experience... some are ordinary Joes caught up in the hype.

We need as many people as possible to have a positive experience and encourage people to get involved. Thats not going to helped if they think there is a "Magic 5000" and actually it turns out that many are not in the first batch or that they have spent £100s or £1000s on a rig that gives them more problems then benefits.

Just trying to bring a touch or realistic expectations to the table.

UB
Why have a steep learning curve to separate VR Developer's from VR Enthusiasts?

I plan to make "programming" as easy as playing with Lego/Play-Doh/Tinkertoy/Erector/Eitech/K'NEX/Magnetix or other Construction Set toys.

It you look at the prices of some of those kits I linked, you may notice that the virtual versions will be MUCH easier on the pocketbook.
:D

For those who want to dig deeper, we can add simple scripting (Scratch/Logo/Lua/Python) and work up from there.

The VR Construction Kits we create can be great for non-technical adults and children alike. Some people will be content with games, but if we provide the educational tools/toys, there will certainly be those who want to play with them. We can do it! We must do it! We will do it!

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:00 am
by geekmaster
In VR, we do not have to be limited by Physics, or by Economics, or by Space or Time. In Real Life, to make a copy of something takes significant time and money. In VR, it is just a quick copy/paste. If we have nowhere to stick our virtual stuff, just stick a TARDIS in your closet, and you can stick all the virtual stuff you want in there. In fact, there are already a bunch of 3D models of the TARDIS vast interior spaces that we can import into the Rift:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... 9e18171e14

And we can program NPCs to be our servants in VR. More reason for the kids to WANT to learn programming skills.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:02 am
by Cromfel
Dycus wrote:This guy... I like this guy.

Unclebob, you're a cool guy.
This.

Edit: geekmaster I like your vision. I wish you very productive future with those ideas. Specially the coding part :)

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:06 am
by Unclebob
nateight wrote:
People wrote:"John Carmack"
Palmer definitely deserves the lion's share of the credit for creating the Rift, but I'm of the opinion he'd still just be some (awesome) guy tinkering in his garage if Carmack hadn't gotten involved when and how he did. John Carmack is largely responsible for creating first-person games and he's also the guy who's been all but handing GPU manufacturers the spec sheets for each generation of their hardware for ~20 years. When some random guy you don't know says "I have the best VR demo on the planet!" it doesn't even matter if it's true because, well, who's this guy? But when the father of modern gaming says it? Suddenly the media gives a care - I know I did the same, and now here we are. He's such a mench he even got the hell out of the way as soon as Oculus had an appropriate amount of attention (and probably pitched in some much-needed capital besides); I'm confident he's hard at work behind the scenes and every bit as excited as the rest of us about this whole sequence of events. Thanks for everything, John! :D
geekmaster wrote:It is what it is, but it will BECOME whatever we WANT it to be, provided that we supply the imagination and the drive to make it so. This is a doorway to VR, so let's make sure VR becomes real this time.

Let's do it!
Right on! The minute I realized the Rift was going to be a real thing I was energized like never before, and I've been slowly honing my skillset ever since. I feel like there are tons of people in exactly this position around MTBS (alongside the people who already know their stuff, that is), and I think this next year of collaborative hacking, learning from one another, sharing the cool stuff we've made, and collectively shaping the consumer-model Rift is going to be a thrilling journey. And if a sudden influx of people show up thinking the current Rift is a consumer-grade product, and where are the launch titles, etc.? Unclebob, I heartily endorse you for Chief of Yelling at Idiots. :lol:
LOL

Its not yelling I hope just trying to help people make better decisions and a more positive experience.

I am certain that this is the start of something quite special.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:35 am
by alexpez
"Doom was announced with a different hardware tracker... no word of it working with the new one yet."

But we do know he's tested it.

"The new Oculus head tracking sensor is the fastest responding sensor I have tested, and at 1khz updates, it is smooth without interpolation." - Mr. Carmack on Twitter.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:46 am
by 2EyeGuy
Dycus wrote:This guy... I like this guy.
Why? Don't get me wrong, I like the guy too, and I like his motives, but you're the ones who set the expectations in the first place.

Why are you (Oculus) delegating the task of letting us know what's going on, to someone who doesn't know what's going on?

If you've only made 3,000 Rifts you should be the ones saying: "Sorry, the factory didn't get up to speed as fast as we expected, so we'll only be able to send out 3,000 Rifts in the first batch."

Or if you decided to send them out in some other order you should be the ones saying "Sorry, we decided it wouldn't be fair to send them on a strict first-come first-serve basis when some people have been so much more supportive and generous, so we'll be prioritizing them first."
Or "Sorry, we know you are all desperate for out of the box game support, so we decided to ship to big game developers first. The rest of you will have to wait a little bit longer to get the hardware, but you would have had to wait even longer to be able to use it otherwise. This way you will have so much more software support ready when you get it."
Or "Sorry, we're going to send out the non-USA ones first, since otherwise they would have to wait the longest to get them." (we can dream :) )
Or just "Sorry, but we want to send some out to the developers we're most impressed with first."

Or if Doom 3 BFG isn't going to have Rift support ready in time for when the Rift ships you should be the ones saying "Sorry, we couldn't get a 7" Rift to John Carmack in time for him to have Rift support ready when the dev-kit ships. You might have to wait another week for Doom 3 BFG to support the Rift."

You know what we should be expecting, but you stubbornly won't tell us. It's really strange. Hopefully there's a good reason for your opacity, but I don't know what it is. But since we don't know, and we're all super excited about getting our Rifts (thanks for inventing them, BTW, you can't imagine how amazingly awesome you are for doing that), we understandably are trying to anxiously count down the days until our Rifts arrive, and planning what we are going to do with them, and who we're going to show them to, and what sort of computer we'll need, etc. Bad news is like a howler from Harry Potter, it gets worse the longer you wait to give it to us.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:22 am
by Parallaxis
2EyeGuy wrote:
Dycus wrote:This guy... I like this guy.
Why? Don't get me wrong, I like the guy too, and I like his motives, but you're the ones who set the expectations in the first place.

Why are you (Oculus) delegating the task of letting us know what's going on, to someone who doesn't know what's going on?

If you've only made 3,000 Rifts you should be the ones saying: "Sorry, the factory didn't get up to speed as fast as we expected, so we'll only be able to send out 3,000 Rifts in the first batch."

Or if you decided to send them out in some other order you should be the ones saying "Sorry, we decided it wouldn't be fair to send them on a strict first-come first-serve basis when some people have been so much more supportive and generous, so we'll be prioritizing them first."
Or "Sorry, we know you are all desperate for out of the box game support, so we decided to ship to big game developers first. The rest of you will have to wait a little bit longer to get the hardware, but you would have had to wait even longer to be able to use it otherwise. This way you will have so much more software support ready when you get it."
Or "Sorry, we're going to send out the non-USA ones first, since otherwise they would have to wait the longest to get them." (we can dream :) )
Or just "Sorry, but we want to send some out to the developers we're most impressed with first."

Or if Doom 3 BFG isn't going to have Rift support ready in time for when the Rift ships you should be the ones saying "Sorry, we couldn't get a 7" Rift to John Carmack in time for him to have Rift support ready when the dev-kit ships. You might have to wait another week for Doom 3 BFG to support the Rift."

You know what we should be expecting, but you stubbornly won't tell us. It's really strange. Hopefully there's a good reason for your opacity, but I don't know what it is. But since we don't know, and we're all super excited about getting our Rifts (thanks for inventing them, BTW, you can't imagine how amazingly awesome you are for doing that), we understandably are trying to anxiously count down the days until our Rifts arrive, and planning what we are going to do with them, and who we're going to show them to, and what sort of computer we'll need, etc. Bad news is like a howler from Harry Potter, it gets worse the longer you wait to give it to us.
While I do agree with most of this, I also know there is a bit of hype-control going on here.

I think Oculus VR is holding back some features and/or some demos for GDC to keep the press interested. They really need to WOW the press at GDC and again at e3. So it's really important to withhold some of the nicer features/demos.

I expect to see something like a racing sim/flying sim at GDC or at least at e3. If they can continue to hype the press at GDC and again at e3, they really have a fair chance at making VR happen. If they keep the hype train going, they will keep the investment train going too.

Oculus VR is becoming something much larger than MTBS3D and that great, but it also means that were are going to be left in the dark more than we used to be.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:29 am
by squibbfire
Image

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:37 am
by oculusfan
Early on Palmer was very transparent with his plans. Then the plans would change and he would have to tell everybody. Some would get mad. Others would understand.

Nowadays, all plans are kept secret. That should prevent the above problem. But now people will be left hanging for unknown periods of time for unknown reasons. Once again, some will understand while others are a bit annoyed.

The moral of the story? Welcome to celebrity life. Anytime you have large quantities of eyes on you, you are going to have a small section of people who are affected negatively no matter which method you choose. It is not possible to please everybody. The best you can do is choose the path where the least amount of people will be negatively affected.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:40 am
by zalo
I'm just hoping for the OculuSDK (it needs to be called this) to have a unity preset that contains configurable warp parameters, orients to configurable head tracking data, and maybe even has a configurable head-neck offset model.

Or maybe a basic demo even, from which I can reverse engineer these sorts of things ;)

I wrote this whole post just so I could say OculuSDK. MY EXPECTATIONS HAVE BEEN SET.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:01 am
by TheHolyChicken
You are really not coping well with the lack of transparency, are you 2Eye?

Some stuff they might be keeping quiet because they just don't know yet - think back to the initial delay due to the screens being unavailable. Instead of saying "there is going to be a delay, we have no idea how long, sorry!" they waited until they KNEW, and then they announced specific details. I imagine the Doom situation is comparable. With the move to the new screen, they're hardly going to tell us "yea, sorry, Doom 3 BFG support is broken now. Carmack will get around to fixing it at some point". I know that a lot of people would completely understand, but there's a lot of people who wouldn't and would go apeshit for absolutely no reason and start screaming doomsday. Remember that they're not only trying to satisfy us (the backers), but Oculus is under the scrutinous eye of the public now and so they must tread carefully to manage their reputation. For widespread adoption it's crucial that both developers and the public believe the Rift really is going to be big thing. A cockup could potentially set VR back years!

Things have been quiet recently, but I suspect GDC is going to be an explosion of new information. They'll also be announcing the commencement of the dev kit shipping any day now. Lack of information is frustrating, but the only reason they'd withhold information is because they feel it's beneficial to do so, and so it is in our best interests. I trust that they're doing what they feel is best for VR to be a success.

That said, OMFG I NEED MORE NEWS ALREADY

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:08 am
by oculusfan
TheHolyChicken wrote:You are really not coping well with the lack of transparency, are you 2Eye?

Some stuff they might be keeping quiet because they just don't know yet - think back to the initial delay due to the screens being unavailable. Instead of saying "there is going to be a delay, we have no idea how long, sorry!" they waited until they KNEW, and then they announced specific details. I imagine the Doom situation is comparable. With the move to the new screen, they're hardly going to tell us "yea, sorry, Doom 3 BFG support is broken now. Carmack will get around to fixing it at some point". I know that a lot of people would completely understand, but there's a lot of people who wouldn't and would go apeshit for absolutely no reason and start screaming doomsday. Remember that they're not only trying to satisfy us (the backers), but Oculus is under the scrutinous eye of the public now and so they must tread carefully to manage their reputation. For widespread adoption it's crucial that both developers and the public believe the Rift really is going to be big thing. A cockup could potentially set VR back years!

Things have been quiet recently, but I suspect GDC is going to be an explosion of new information. They'll also be announcing the commencement of the dev kit shipping any day now. Lack of information is frustrating, but the only reason they'd withhold information is because they feel it's beneficial to do so, and so it is in our best interests. I trust that they're doing what they feel is best for VR to be a success.

That said, OMFG I NEED MORE NEWS ALREADY
This was very well put, thanks for writing it. And I too am ready for some news! Any day now the "flurry of news" mentioned in the latest update should kick in.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:28 am
by GeraldT
TheHolyChicken wrote:...I imagine the Doom situation is comparable. With the move to the new screen, they're hardly going to tell us "yea, sorry, Doom 3 BFG support is broken now. Carmack will get around to fixing it at some point".
I have to say, that if that is the case I would blame them for not telling.
They are still selling the device, no matter what it is labeled, and they labeled Doom3 the "first oculus-ready game". So if a gamer buys the Rift NOW just to play this one game (and I would be stupid enough to do that after the videos), then he has every right to be very pissed off!

So far Oculus sucks pretty much as far as community and information handling goes.

e.g.

I wrote their support on the 7th an email "can you tell me if I qualify for a Doom 3 copy?" ... you know, if I don't I can buy and play it. I would have liked to, because I sold my 3D Vision monitor and would have liked to see how well it does. But I am not willing to buy it if I get a copy with my Rift.

Now an answer like "sorry, but in your case we just don't know yet" would be okay. Instead I got completely ignored.

Or you look at the Facebook page - one guy really complained and that led to an answer. But mostly they ignore people.

I love Oculus for the VR work, but their PR sucks big time.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:34 am
by TheHolyChicken
GeraldT wrote:e.g.

I wrote their support on the 7th an email "can you tell me if I qualify for a Doom 3 copy?" ... you know, if I don't I can buy and play it. I would have liked to, because I sold my 3D Vision monitor and would have liked to see how well it does. But I am not willing to buy it if I get a copy with my Rift.

Now an answer like "sorry, but in your case we just don't know yet" would be okay. Instead I got completely ignored.

Or you look at the Facebook page - one guy really complained and that led to an answer. But mostly they ignore people.

I love Oculus for the VR work, but their PR sucks big time.
I sent an email inquiring about the exact same thing and got a response in less than 24 hours from Nate (email was sent on 25th Jan). Perhaps you slipped through the net?

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:42 am
by GeraldT
TheHolyChicken wrote:
GeraldT wrote:e.g.

I wrote their support on the 7th an email "can you tell me if I qualify for a Doom 3 copy?" ... you know, if I don't I can buy and play it. I would have liked to, because I sold my 3D Vision monitor and would have liked to see how well it does. But I am not willing to buy it if I get a copy with my Rift.

Now an answer like "sorry, but in your case we just don't know yet" would be okay. Instead I got completely ignored.

Or you look at the Facebook page - one guy really complained and that led to an answer. But mostly they ignore people.

I love Oculus for the VR work, but their PR sucks big time.
I sent an email inquiring about the exact same thing and got a response in less than 24 hours from Nate (email was sent on 25th Jan). Perhaps you slipped through the net?
That is why there are ticket systems. In one of my old companies the boss looked a couple of times a day if there is an unanswered ticket that is older than 24h... and took care of it if there was.
PR is not magic, it just needs to be done right. And they suck at it if suchs slips happen.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:49 am
by jaybug
For what it's worth, you can probably deduce whether you get doom in the new order system, as the order number seems to be sequential.

So if you are within 201000, you get a copy.

I too asked per mail, and got an answer.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:54 am
by GeraldT
I don't want to deduce and read up etc. for a game that would cost me a couple of Euros. And now my monitor is gone - so I don't care anymore. I either will get one or don't ...

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:01 am
by KBK
It's official.

The natives are restless. (reading the 'tone' in several threads)

It's the point in time, after the players have walked of stage..and the crowd is still energetically cheering them to see if they come back for the encore.

The crowd is still cheering ...but it is noted that some are changing from cheering to being a touch miffed. The clapping is also starting to die off. They've cheered as long as they can. The unified crowd is starting to shift and break, just a bit....



Time for the band to come back on stage.

~~~~~~~~~~

As for doom, I flipped a nickel at one...I went out and bought a copy. :)

Someone should ask valve and john knock heads for a few seconds and come up with a 'doom promo', for verifiable rift owners.

That's probably the best way to handle it. A reduced price for verifiable Rift owners, or something like that.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:05 am
by MaterialDefender
It's quite obvious that Oculus strategy at this point differs heavily from what this project was when many of us spent our money half a year ago. And that is, of course, being reflected in the way they communicate. I would imagine that it's quite difficult to find the right level of transparency in such a situation.

What I'm a little bit concerned of is that they overdo the hype. From my experience I can safely say that headsets like the Rift really are a great thing and a whole lot of fun. And things will even get better with software designed for the device in mind, absolutely no doubt about that. But when the hype reaches a point where a majority of people starts expecting a revolution, or something that changes gaming forever, things are getting dangerous. That at least is my opinion.

The Rift will be a great product, the most interesting in gaming for quite some time. But please don't raise expectations so high that people get disappointed after trying it. While this might look easy and pretty tempting right now, in the long run it won't pay off.

My insigificant 2ct.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:16 am
by KBK
They are a new company and it takes time for all these things to take shape and unfold. I've been down this road three times now. The IP kernel, the creation of product, the beginnings of marketing and customer base establishment, the build of the employee base, the expenditure of time and funds allocation in the mix...and so on.

It's not as easy as it looks on paper. :)

I suspect that the world will be righted in the next few days. That the nervous child part of some of us will be picked up and stood ...and begin happily walking again, in the next few days.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:18 am
by mahler
2EyeGuy wrote:Hopefully there's a good reason for your opacity, but I don't know what it is.
There you have it. You don't know. Promises have been made, if they don't deliver you may complain all you want.
For now you'll have to decide if you want to trust them. Just make up your mind.

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:06 am
by Unclebob
2EyeGuy wrote:
Dycus wrote:This guy... I like this guy.
Why? Don't get me wrong, I like the guy too, and I like his motives, but you're the ones who set the expectations in the first place.

Why are you (Oculus) delegating the task of letting us know what's going on, to someone who doesn't know what's going on?
Hey 2EyeGuy

I feel your frustration mate but I feel obliged to make a couple of points clear.

I have NOTHING to do with Oculus.

Nothing was delegated to me.

My post was motivated only because people are starting to confuse speculation for facts.

Like it or not the "Magic 5000" was calculated by someone on the forums. Its not an official announcement.

People are worried by performance issues that at the moment that simply do not exist.

And as for DOOM, testing a tracker is not the same as announcing a game working with it - even if it was announced that the game worked with different hardware originally.

A realistic take on the situation is that some Rifts were made before the Chinese New Year, that the performance hit using the untested and unoptimised drivers does not warrant massive upgrades if you have a semi decent rig and that John Carmack is a good bloke and can be relied on.

That ultimately is all we know.

Here's looking forward to being one of the lucky 10000 odd that will own a Rift at some point in near the future.

So much better than the millions who won't.

UB

Re: Realistic Expectations Guys

Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:30 am
by geekmaster
I went though all this agony of speculation while my pre-ordered Amiga was delayed over and over, not knowing when they would finally ship. In fact, I bought an Atari ST when they first came out, to easy my wait for the Amiga. The few computer magazines there were at that time only served to stimulated conversation on the BBS systems, but nothing like in these forums. Those waits back then were the same as this this one now, but the only major news source was the magazines that came out ONCE PER MONTH (not unlike major official announcements from Oculus).

The wait may seem painful and difficult NOW, but I have been through this before, and it will all be COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN the moment you rip open the shipping package containing your shiny new tech toy, and hold it in your bare hands like a newborn child. I know, because I have done it before, multiple times (the tech toys and the children).

An anxious 9-month wait is not that unusual.