Impact of VR on exploration-based rewards

[Mystify]

It is fairly common for games to reward exploring an area more than is strictly necessary to complete it. Half life had health and ammo stashes hidden about, RPGs put in hidden loot, Portal had the back rooms whose reward was purely their own interest. Hoe do you expect VR to interact with such things? It seems like a very compatible game element. VR works great for exploration, so building games that can be explored seems obvious. However, I would also think it makes it easier. If you can properly look around and explore an area, it seems like you are much more likely to notice that grate in the corner or the side door that is ajar. That is all fine and well, but does it mean that there will need to be even more subtle things now? If you have a greater sense of immersion, which leads to a greater attention to detail, does that mean finer levels of detail can hold meaning?

[cybereality]

It doesn't have to be anything complicated. Just having hidden items scattered about should promote exploration. Like in Crackdown they had those orbs, which really had no purpose other than to collect them. In Saints Row : The Third they had money and bonus items (blow-up dolls) hidden throughout and you had to explore to find them. They gave you money and also after collecting all of them you got an achievement. I think stuff like that could work.

[DeeKej]

Short answer: Of course.

A new way to interact with the enviroment will open up new ways to implement things, it's what happens with better hardware and performance all the time. Different devs will make different solutions. Time will tell what those solutions will be.

Though I'm not sure it will be "easier" by default, it will open up more possibilities. I for one would want to make subtle cracks in the walls for secret doors if I implemented some exploratory content in a game.

[Omarzuqo]

Metroid Prime.

Most of that game was exploration and backtracking and it was one of the best games ever made.

[Mystify]

The question isn't "Is exploration good" or "how do you reward it". The question is "How does VR impact it?"

[TheHolyChicken]

The question isn't "Is exploration good" or "how do you reward it". The question is "How does VR impact it?"

My thoughts are that players will be far more adept at exploring, and spotting subtle hints or irregularities (for those secret areas!), for two reasons:
A) Headtracking. With a more natural way to look around the environment, I think this will entice players to pay more attention to it.
B) Slower player movement speeds. This I believe will happen if VR takes off. There have been many comments that, in most games, you are permanently sprinting around at superhuman speeds. In a standard game this feels fine, but with VR it feels unnatural. If the player is slowed down, he will see more!

[2EyeGuy]

The question isn't "Is exploration good" or "how do you reward it". The question is "How does VR impact it?"

Still, Metroid Prime's a good example, since it was originally a 2D exploration game and they had to work out how to translate that into a 3D first person game, and in the case of Metroid Prime 3, with some virtual reality elements.

I think one thing is probably that in VR you should have exploration that takes you somewhere high up so you get a good vantage point to see the view. But that might also be hard to do at a high frame rate.

Also, although this doesn't apply to Metroid Prime, people like the 3D, so I'd make rewarding exploration areas that particularly focus on great 3D, like the snow, or spears sticking out at eye level, or good parallax effects on the architecture.

With the Oculus Rift you can also have more vertical exploration. In the developer commentary on Portal 1, they talk about how hard it is to get the player to look up. With a 110 degree vertical FOV and head tracking, that's not going to be a problem.