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Valve: Consumer-priced virtual reality headsets feasible for 2015
During a Steam Dev Days talk last week, Valve Research and Development leader Michael Abrash said he expects virtual reality to hit big in the coming years, and that it "could transform the entire entertainment industry," USA Today reported. "Compelling consumer-priced VR hardware is coming, probably within two years," Abrash said. With Oculus VR leading the way, virtual reality headsets aren't anything new to those that have been watching their growth in recent years. The key words here are "compelling consumer-priced VR hardware" then, which Abrash thinks can be built to the following specs in 2015, per a slide (PDF) in his presentation: 110-degree field of vision, 95 Hz refresh rate, 1K x 1K resolution per eye, three millisecond pixel persistence and 20 millisecond latency. Abrash said a VR headset with those specs is "doable with relatively minor tweaks of existing technology; no breakthroughs or miracles are needed, just solid engineering." In fact, Valve has built prototypes of head-mounted displays with those specifications already, and will "share what we've found with PC companies that want to develop VR hardware." Valve has already built a working relationship with VR hardware manufacturers, working directly with Oculus VR on consumer-level virtual reality options and launched its SteamVR beta just ahead of its Steam Dev Days conference. We went hands-on with Oculus VR's latest internal prototype hardware "Crystal Cove" at CES 2014.
Testing the 'huge breakthrough' in new Oculus Rift VR prototype
The newest internal prototype of the Oculus Rift, codenamed Crystal Cove, adds positional tracking, low persistence and an OLED screen, iterating on the 1080p HD developer model out in the wild. Positional tracking is a straightforward addition that players have been looking out for, and the Oculus achieves this with an external camera that faces the player and watches a series of LEDs on the front of the headset. With positional tracking, players are able to lean down and read text or get a closer look at objects in front of them. Low persistence is a trickier beast to tackle, but it basically means the Oculus Rift has erased motion blur, allowing the player to move his head and keep his eyes fixed on one point, as humans do in reality. The Crystal Cove prototype reduces latency to 30 milliseconds from 60 milliseconds in the HD dev kit, though Oculus VR's goal for a consumer product is 16 to 20 milliseconds. "You want to be able to stay focused on something," Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said during a hands-on demo at CES. "If there's text in the world and you're looking at it, you want to be able to move while you stare at that text. Your head is always moving. So it actually ends up being really key – it's a breakthrough. This is a huge breakthrough." The Oculus Rift team works with Valve to solve some of the headset's technical issues, and the low persistence solution spawned in part from Valve R&D man Michael Abrash. Abrash previously co-created Quake at id Software with John Carmack, who is Chief Technology Officer at Oculus VR.
Exploring Eberron: Of crafting, guild runs, and Crystal Cove
We've had several exciting pieces of news in Dungeons and Dragons Online this week! New details on Update 9 came from PAX East, and an encore of our most recent game event is here. I've got the details on those and my thoughts on what they'll bring to the player community, but before we get to that, I want to take a quick look at what OnedAwesome has been up to. The guild has moved to a more casual schedule over the past few months, still maintaining informal Wednesday night adventures but generally playing at any day and time that works for members in various time zones. Wednesday night, six members of OnedAwesome revisited Stormcleave Outpost, a House Deneith fortress that's been overrun by enemy giants (and other ill-tempered creatures). The adventure was such fun, and not just for the great company -- although that was definitely the highlight! It's a great illustration of the replayability of DDO content. It's a level 8 adventure that we've all been through before, and all of our characters last night were in the 10-11 level range. We simply pushed it up to elite difficulty and still found a challenge. We've still got room in Massively's official DDO guild, so if you've got questions about joining us on the Cannith server, feel free to send a tell or in-game mail to my character Rubialina, or simply shoot me an email at rubi@massively.com. Now, on to the updates!
Exploring Eberron: One isn't the loneliest number
Two weeks ago on Exploring Eberron, I talked about my preview of the Crystal Cove event in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Design director Ian Currie and producer Eric Boyer joined me on the Lamannia server to show me around the upcoming event. It was a great time, but I was still very curious about how the event would go once it arrived on the live servers. The thing about a developer tour is that you get to see the best of everything -- and that is both a blessing and a curse. It's great on one hand, because I can see the event and have the details explained to me without my having to navigate the hectic and busy aspect of a crowd of players all participating at once. On the other hand, there was an important question that I really couldn't find the answer to until the event was live and I tried it on my own. One of the things I love about DDO is that it acknowledges and provides for the solo player. Right from character creation, the game tells you which classes are and are not good for soloing, and the addition of casual mode offered even more options. It seemed that a server-wide event like this might have a harder time keeping up that tradition, and I wanted to find out for myself. So how did it go? Follow along after the jump and see!
Exploring Eberron: Turbine is having a birthday party, Kobold-style
Dungeons and Dragons Online is celebrating its fifth birthday at the end of this month, and while we've assumed some sort of event was in the works, it wasn't until Wednesday that we all got to experience the details. I spent some time with design director Ian Currie and producer Eric Boyer in a trip through an area that will be very familiar to veteran DDO players. It's a fun, fast-paced event that introduces some new features and guarantees that player groups will need to think fast, so without further ado, follow along after the jump and let's look at this new event! %Gallery-116266%
