MMOs, VR, the future

[$alvador]

What inspires this post is an official summary (link) of an internet spaceship fight in China, which lasted for 23 hours and involved at the peak 3000 players on the field of battle, breaking the record again for the largest single engagement in a video game.

A decade ago this would have been unimagineable, and at the height of the dotcom bubble it would have been entirely inconceivable in the context of the tech at the time. Now, with this, and particularly with Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus Rift, it made me think of what the future is going to look like.

Before you roll your eyes and go "psh, yeah, as if everyone will become an EvE player" consider this: in the 90s, you were a fucking geek nerd if you had a pocket PC and nobody else in their right mind would ever own one. Now step on a bus or subway and look around, EVERYONE has a pocket PC in their hand and there's a good chance they play a few games on it regularly.

So let's assume that everyone is on board with technology, and assume that what's driving this is social networking (let's be honest, Facebook is pretty far up there as a sole reason to buy a smartphone). Social is the primary driver, which is why everyone has smartphones intead of PSPs. With the rise of deployment, use and accessibility of cloud computing infrastructure, something that seems inevitable to me is a future in which we spend a significant amount of time not just in front of a computer screen but "inside" fully immersive, massively multiplayer environments where virtual architects create realistic environments for avatars of ourselves to socialize, work and play.

There's a lot of great literature that talks about this kind of future, notable example being Neuromancer, and now even Hollywood is getting on board with this new movie Johnny Depp is in where he uploads his consciousness. Oh, can't forget Sword Art Online which a strange phenomenon because I've never heard as many different people talk about anime before this, despite immersive MMO being a theme of anime way before Sword Art. So there's a definite cultural acceptance of this sort of future too.

We're heading in this direction, beyond a doubt. What do you think is going to be a significant technology, or what do you think will develop significantly? What do you think about the growing proliferation of cybernetics and remote warfare? What do you think of a future in which all this shit comes to a head and we find ourselves fighting each other in a virtual environment to earn cryptocurrency just to buy bread and water?

 

[Steve]

EVE battles are so overrated. Here's the thing about eve, those battles HAVE to last that long. The game literally slows down to frame by frame action with that many people. People who get engaged into those battles don't want to be playing for 23 hours THEY HAVE TOO. At risk of losing years worth of in game progress.

And no, not everyone is on board with technology. Case and point: Console plebeians who choose inferior hardware/game environment by choice.

 

[DJ PWN-3]

I can afford the Oculous Rift, but I'm just to lazy to buy one

 

[MetalLobster]

The driving force of technology is everyone's drive to hit the "next big thing", because history proves enormous time and invest in R&D can lead you dem profits. ATM it seems like the next big thing will be VR, but ten years from now? Who knows /.

 

[$alvador]

EVE battles are so overrated. Here's the thing about eve, those battles HAVE to last that long. The game literally slows down to frame by frame action with that many people. People who get engaged into those battles don't want to be playing for 23 hours THEY HAVE TOO. At risk of losing years worth of in game progress.

And no, not everyone is on board with technology. Case and point: Console plebeians who choose inferior hardware/game environment by choice.

I feel like you missed what I was saying altogether. so I clarify: the technicalities of EvE are not the point here, the point is that it's now possible to put a fucktonne of people into a shared space together and they can communicate and affect each other. So what happens when the infrastructure gets to the point where there's no need for time dilation? What happens when it's possible to fit the population of a town, or a city into a virtual environment that can function without noticeable latency?

VR is a fundamental piece to that puzzle because without it, nobody gives a fuck. It's funny how console users are plebs now, I clearly remember the days when playing with my buddy online was waaaaaay more hassle than just biking to his place, grabbing the second controller and duelling on a SNES.

What I'm looking for is the answer to what happens next. The generation growing up now has not known a world without internet, and that's crazy to me. There was a time when the "I have no bars" trope was big in TV and movies, and it's not even a thing anymore, because network proliferation has become so central to our reality that the idea of NOT having a connection to some sort of digital network is becoming alien.

In the context of all this, I think it's dumb as fuck to even think that "it'll never happen". Yeah, well nobody expected Google to go from shitty search engine to mapping the fucking arctic either, but it's happening.

 

[Leroy]

I'm half and half on this.

I think either it's going to catch on in a big big way, or else it'll fail in a big big way. It'll have to hit critical mass with the average joe. Master race like me will probably go buy it and have it sit on a shelf. Average joe buying power is very real.

Simplify in three categories:
Average day to day use (google glass): I get it, good idea. I don't want stupid dorky glasses on my face
Video Games: This is it. if it wins, it'll win here
Movies: This will be the maker/breaker. If they can figure out an method to immerse the viewer in the movie, that'll be it.
Two sub categories:
Static image: Watching a movie on your face. lame.
Immersed: The ability to pan. If they get it right, it works, however, the first time I miss a key sequence because I'm looking left and it happens right? ALL ABOARD THE FAILBOAT.

And keep in mind this technology has been out for YEARS. I played duke3d in 1996? in Victoria BC, using a VR headset.

 

[$alvador]

And keep in mind this technology has been out for YEARS. I played duke3d in 1996? in Victoria BC, using a VR headset.

that's exactly the thing though, the tech has been around for years but only now is there a serious effort to reinvigorate it because one company said fuck the corporations we're going to appeal directly to the market. the iphone technology had been around for years too, i remember in the very early 2000s i know someone who had a pocket PC that could play streaming videos and Quake even, but before the iphone came out nobody gave a flying fuck because it wasn't sleek or pretty.

i highly doubt the average joe will ever want an oculus rift, because it's NOT sleek, it's NOT pretty, it's cumbersome as fuck, but the fact of the matter is there is a serious effort underway to use the rift as a stepping stone to refine the software that will be necessary to display when a newer, better iteration of the VR headset comes along. It's setting the stage, in other words, for what's to come next.

what's next is probably going to be body augmentation a la deus ex or ghost in the shell. people are so busy thinking of the future in the context of what they know now, but often times everyone is ignorant even about what's possible and happening RIGHT. NOW. check this shit out. the article is a year old, so for a year already they've been collecting data on how to refine the translation of digital information to something your optic nerve can understand.

oculus rift is nothing compared to this, but it's a lot easier to develop the VR environment on a headset that shows what we want to see than on a brand new piece of tech that they're still figuring out. in a few years i bet everyone will be lining up to get bionic eyes. most people need some sort of visual corrective device as they get older anyway. why bother, if you could get new eyes? even people who have perfect vision would probably want to get these if it means that suddenly you NEVER need a screen to view information again, if it means that suddenly you can see all the augmented reality stuff around you, if it means that you can read text messages and surf the net or close your eyes and get immersed in a game without some lameass box you need to strap to your head. that's what's up