Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
YouTube user machkun1 has shared footage of an amazing gaming setup that combines an Oculus Rift headset, a motion simulator, and several driving peripherals for the ultimate VR racing experience.
The post Got $25,000 lying around? This YouTuber built the ultimate VR racing rig appeared first on Digital Trends.
CCP Games are set to bring another new update to the hugely popular EVE Valkyrie next week, with ‘Groundrush’ offering, amongst other things, a brand new map. For the first time EVE Valkyrie’s space-based combat won’t be in space; coming down to planet-level in a unique arrangement known as ‘Solitude’.
A very narrow design, Solitude is more about the ability to evade than a head-on straight-shooting affair. It’s a chase map: players being tailed will do better with intricate knowledge of the layout than their opponent and weaving and diving provides many environmental obstacles with which to lose your pursuer. Towers rise high into the sky; a helipad provides an iron grid to weave through; below, trenches run deep into the snowy surface.
It’s this underground network that provides the most interesting aspect of bringing EVE Valkyrie’s combat down-to-earth. A tunnel gives access to an underground base with only one very tight exit directly into the centre of the map, a trench runs deep across one side allowing for surprise flanking and a low foundation surrounded by a low network of large pipes can provide cover as you wait for new enemy spawns. Solitude has the potential to bring brand new tactics to EVE Valkyrie along with the brand new aesthetic.
The team at CCP Newcastle are proud to have ‘solved’ the problem of high-speed travel with a horizon in view by all accounts here at EVE Fanfest 2017, though in truth it’s not that straightforward. Indeed, EVE Valkyrie remains one of the most comfortable fast-paced action videogames in virtual reality (VR), but it still has issues that may be obtrusive to some.
Speaking to a selection of players that had experienced the new map, most of which had already played a considerable amount of EVE Valkyrie, there were mixed feelings about the new map. Some stated they did indeed feel perfectly at ease with a horizon in view, even when flying at high speeds or unaligned with the ground’s surface. Others however, stated that they felt the map was almost unplayable; that it would take a considerable amount of practice to adapt their usual techniques to the new design not in terms of map arrangement, but simply due to their comfort level.
VRFocus found that Solitude was slightly uneasy in comparison to traditional outerspace level design, but it’s far from the intense challenge of Descent: Underground or even Omega Agent. Either way, you’d be hard pressed to bet against CCP Newcastle on getting it right, given the pedigree of the team piloting the VR mission behind EVE Valkyrie.
Despite the fact that it first released over a year ago on the Oculus Rift, EVE: Valkyrie continues to deliver high-quality updates completely for free. The space-based dogfighting shooter for Rift, Vive, and PlayStation VR (PSVR) continues to remain one of the most-played and most-rewarding VR games out there with incredible production values, tons of content, and an excellent sense of presence. It lacks the intense simulation components of games like Elite: Dangerous, but delivers on the thrills of flying a spaceship.
Today, we’ve learned about a new update that’s coming called Groundrush which will deliver a brand new map named Solitude as well as enhance the entire cooperative multiplayer game mode. What makes Solitude so noteworthy is that for the very first time the battle will be coming to the surface of a planet — all previous maps and game modes took place in outer space. This will introduce brand new gameplay elements and impressive new environment details.
Additionally, the game’s co-op mode has been expanded to also include Control and Carrier Assault game modes, letting players fight alongside friends against A.I. on virtually any piece of EVE: Valkyrie content instead of limiting the cooperative options.
The new update will also add avatar animations for celebrations, English subtitles for increased accessibility, and an assortment of bug and stability improvements. Finally, this update is coming to PSVR, Rift, and Vive all on April 11th with full cross-platform multiplayer, just like the rest of the game.
Correction: A previous version of this article said the update would hit PSVR first, but it’s actually coming to all three platforms at the same time.
David Jagneaux is UploadVR’s Games Editor. The first time he played EVE: Valkyrie three years ago was the moment he fell in love with VR.
Tagged with: CCP, EVE Valkyrie, PSVR
CCP Games’ annual EVE FanFest is now underway in Iceland and the first details have emerged of the next update to virtual reality (VR) multiplayer EVE: Valkyrie. The next instalment will be called Groundrush, marking the fifth update for the videogame.
Revealed via PlayStation.Blog, EVE: Valkyrie Groundrush will feature the titles first ground-based map, Solitude. It won’t feature ground combat though, despite what the title suggests, merely it’ll have a floor and horizon to contend with.
Other features in the update will include ‘even weirder and wilder Wormholes’ states the studio, an expanded co-op which will now include Control and Carrier Assault, official support for the Steam controller and improvements to the Valkyrie league scoring and pilot training comfort.
Since the launch of EVE: Valkyrie CCP Games has released four major updates. June 2016 saw the first arrive in the form of Carrier Assault, allowing players to attack flying fortresses for the first time over three stages. Then there was Joint Strike in early October, adding a giant list of new features and improvements, including cross-platform support with the arrival of the PlayStation VR version. Gatecrash landed in December, featuring a new map and PlayStation 4 Pro support, with Wormholes landing in February, seeing a new wormhole appear every weekend to offer further gameplay opportunities.
VRFocus caught up with CCP Games this week to find out how this first year had gone, with Ryan Geddes, Senior Brand Director across CCP’s VR titles saying ‘it’s been a wild ride’.
EVE: Valkyrie Groundrush has a scheduled release date on Tuesday 11th April 2017, for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. Checkout VRFocus‘ hands-on of the new level, and as further details from EVE FanFest 2017 emerge, VRFocus will keep you updated.
This past week has been a cause for celebration in the virtual reality (VR) industry. Both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have now hit their first anniversary, and many launch day developers have been doing the same. One of the biggest titles to arrive in the past year was CCP Games’ Eve: Valkyrie, and VRFocus caught up with some of the team to discuss everything that’s happened.
As most VRFocus readers should know, Eve: Valkyrie is a cross-platform sci-fi multiplayer set in the darkest reaches of space. It was a launch day title for Oculus Rift before heading to PlayStation VR and HTC Vive later on the same year. But CCP Games didn’t stop there releasing mobile titles Gunjack, Gunjack 2: End of Shift and its currently creating Sparc.
Being the global developer it is, VRFocus spoke with Ryan Geddes, Senior Brand Director across CCP’s VR titles, based out of CCP’s Newcastle studio; Morgan Godat, Executive Producer on Sparc, based at CCP’s Atlanta studio and Michael Lee, Senior Brand Manager for CCP’s mobile VR games, based out of CCP’s Shanghai studio to find out more about the last year and the studio’s future plans.
VR has become a big part of CCP with the launch of EVE: Valkyrie, Gunjack & Gunjack 2, and now the Sparc Was this growth organic or part of a long reaching plan?
Ryan Geddes: A lot of people don’t realize it, but some of the first CCP employees and founders were part of an earlier virtual reality movement in the late 1990s that was particularly active in Iceland. As VRFocus readers are no doubt aware, hardware limitations in ye olde ancient times prevented the medium from taking off like it has today. So VR has been this sort of dormant superpower within the company for quite some time now. When the technology finally caught up with our latent ambition, we were spiritually poised to capitalize on the moment.
That said, I would say our approach to VR development has been one of practical ambition. We began with EVE: Valkyrie and carefully watched the market develop. Our close relationship with market-making companies like Oculus, PlayStation, Google, and others has allowed us to anticipate trends and really understand what VR customers need. Our next VR title, Sparc, is a direct result of early virtual reality R&D efforts into full-body VR at a time when that hardware didn’t even exist yet. Our CCP Atlanta team were literally duct taping computers together and just basically freaking everyone out in VR for months before a game surfaced.
EVE: Valkyrie was a major standout title for the Oculus Rift launch. Now that its landed on three platforms what’s the community response been like?
Ryan Geddes: The Valkyrie community is incredible. They have responded to the game really well, and they push us to make the game better. We’ve released four major updates to the game so far, the latest being Wormholes, which introduced basically a whole new way to play the game. We do that because we want to make sure our community of pilots continues to have the best time possible in VR, and there’s more on the way.
How has the community responded to the cross-platform multiplayer in EVE: Valkyrie?
Ryan Geddes: Cross-platform VR play was our goal from the very beginning of development. We believed in the medium, and we always knew it would be a multiplatform play. So it was absolutely part of our strategy to chase that from the very beginning. We were the first in the world to pioneer cross-platform multiplayer in VR for EVE: Valkyrie, which was released as part of our Joint Strike update on October 7, 2016. We couldn’t have done that without beginning development with that functionality in mind. And the response from the community has been great. From my point of view, connecting people is almost always better. It’s a bigger pool to play in, and it makes everyone feel like they are part of something larger.
There’s been four major updates for EVE: Valkyrie thus far, how do you plan to expand the videogame further?
Ryan Geddes: I don’t have any specific announcements to make on that today, but I can say we will be sharing some news on that soon. Expect some info about our next free update in the weeks to come. In general, we are working on ways to expand the experience in as many ways as possible. That includes new maps, modes, gameplay features and improvements to the current game. We’ll be hosting a roundtable with Valkyrie pilots at our annual EVE: Fanfest celebration in Iceland next month where we’ll be asking our community for their feedback on how we prioritize those things. Also, we will drink schnapps. So much schnapps.
Sparc pushes the competitive edge within the sporting genre, what inspired this direction?
Morgan Godat: Since our early prototypes, we’ve been inspired by the technology’s capacity to immerse the player in a virtual space and to bring them together with other people. The ability to read another player’s intent through their physical motion and posture is impressive and opens up interesting avenues of design only possible in VR.
How has Sparc been tailored to suit gamers of all fitness levels?
Morgan Godat: We’ve designed Sparc around a few core verbs – block/deflect, throw and dodge – which we interweave with one another as the player learns the game. This allows players to increase the physicality of their play at their own pace. We’ve also tried to design a game where the level of action is driven by the players. As one player picks up the pace or pushes an advantage, the other player will feel the pressure to match or exceed that.
In terms of mobile VR will there be further Gunjack’s or can we expect something else?
Michael Lee: We currently have some very exciting mobile VR projects in the pipeline but are not ready to publicly discuss them at this time. Stay tuned!
With the anniversary of Oculus Rift’s launch how would you describe the first consumer year of VR, highs and lows?
Ryan Geddes: It’s been a wild ride. We consider ourselves fortunate to have been a part of this first wave of VR adoption, and we’re excited to be working on what comes next. It’s been a great year for CCP and for VR in general. We were pleasantly surprised at the volume of EVE: Valkyrie sales that we saw at retail, for example. Partnering with Sony to publish EVE: Valkyrie on PlayStation VR on disc turned out to be one of our smartest moves. And teaming up with Oculus to include EVE: Valkyrie in the Rift pre-order bundle helped set us up well for future success. I think everyone in the VR community would love for there to be an affordable, powerful VR headset in every living room. We’ll get there, but we’re not there yet, and CCP certainly didn’t expect that to happen in 2017. The magic and power of VR is undeniable, and it’s here to stay.
Where would you like to see VR head in the next 12 months?
Ryan Geddes: Our friends and partners in the hardware and platform worlds are working very hard to move the tech forward, and it’s simply incredible to watch the momentum. In November 2015 we had one consumer VR platform, the Samsung Gear VR. Fast forward less than a year and a half later, and we have Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Google Daydream, and more on the horizon. All these companies will revise and iterate on their hardware and software, and more players will enter the game. To see the market expand and grow like this is exciting, and the entire VR community benefits from that. Personally, I am most interested in seeing developers of all stripes innovate on the VR user experience. Hardware innovation is important and it will carry on unabated. But the thing I am watching most closely is the way users feel when they put on a headset and begin interacting. VR is the most intimate and vulnerable medium ever conceived. We need to make sure we’re taking care of people in there.
It may not seem like it but today marks one year since the launch of Oculus Rift and CCP Games’ multiplayer combat title, EVE: Valkyrie. To mark the event the developer has announced a double XP week, starting today.
Whether you’ve just started or have been playing from day one, this week pilots will gain double XP for every mission they fly. So Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR players have from 9:00 UTC/10:00am GMT, Tuesday 28th March to 9:00am UTC/10:00am GMT on Tuesday 4th April 2017, to make use of the offer.
Since the launch CCP Games has released four major updates for EVE: Valkyrie, greatly expanding the universe and playable scope of the title. June 2016 saw the first arrive Carrier Assault, allows players to attack these flying fortresses for the first time over three stages. Then there was Joint Strike in early October, adding a giant list of new features and improvements, including cross-platform support with the arrival of the PlayStation VR version.
Then Gatecrash landed in December, featuring a new map and PlayStation 4 Pro support. Lastly there was Wormholes in February, seeing a new wormhole appear every weekend to offer further gameplay opportunities.
CCP isn’t just known for EVE: Valkyrie, for mobile users the studio released Gunjack and Gunjack 2, with the latter exclusive to Google Daydream View.
Recently announced was Sparc, another multiplayer but this time with a sporty vibe. This mixes up tennis, squash, dodgeball and other sports into a fast paced experience for motion controllers.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of EVE: Valkyrie and CCP Games, reporting back with the latest announcement
At the Game Developers Conference last week, we sat down with CCP Games Atlanta executive producer Morgan Godat to find out how the developer is making its own sport specifically for VR.
The post Designing Sparc: How CCP Games went from making a space shooter to VR sports appeared first on Digital Trends.
There’s a decent chance that when you read the title of this article you were confused about what exactly a 6DOF mech shooter is. To explain simply, imagine all of the directions you can move your hand in the air. You can go forward, backward, left, right, up, and down — a total of six directions, not counting diagonally and other movements, or six degrees of freedom (6DOF). Most standard shooters, like Call of Duty or even Rigs, let you move forward, back, left, right, and only by jumping and down by crouching. Cockpit shooters usually don’t let you move backwards, at least not quickly, and you’re almost always thrusting forward, like in Eve: Valkyrie.
The best example for a modern 6DOF shooter would be something like Descent: Underground (which actually does have VR support). Nothing like that really exists on PlayStation VR (PSVR), at least not yet, until the release of StarBlood Arena on April 11th. StarBlood Arena is in development by Sony’s San Diego Studios and Whitemoon Dreams. It’s a fast-paced, frenetic, and intense 6DOF mech shooter with tons of customization, different classes to try, and game modes to enjoy. Earlier this month we visited Sony’s headquarters to demo upcoming PSVR titles — one of which was StarBlood Arena.
I got to play through a single round of Carnage, Starblood’s take on standard Deathmatch. The mech I chose had a focus on dealing damage with powerful rockets and lots of splash damage. With nine different characters to choose from, there’s plenty of diversity in the game right from the start.
The match started with each player in a different spawn point around the level (I was playing against other actual humans, one of which was UploadVR’s Editor-in-Chief, Tal Blevins) where we were free to move however we wanted. I could go forward, backward, left, and right using the thumbsticks, then increase or decrease my elevation using the L1 and R1 buttons. Since aiming was controlled via head movement, it was sort of like having a third analog stick. The control scheme is going to take some getting used to, but it felt a bit like a combination of Rigs and Eve: Valkyrie with a bit more freedom of movement.
It took me a minute or two to get the hang of everything, but before long I was blasting enemies out of the air with ease. I had a handful of different weapons I could toggle between using the DualShock 4’s face buttons, so it was easy to adapt to my situation. I’d open up my assault with a standard machine gun firing from a distance, then once their shields were down I’d finish them off with a barrage of rocket blasts. Any time an enemy was near a wall I focused on splash damage.
I only got to try this one character, but based on the descriptions and loadouts they all seem dramatically different. The character diversity isn’t as enormous as in a game like Overwatch, but it’s still a nice mixup when compared to other more traditional shooters. The sense of freedom and speed granted by the liberating 6DOF configuration gave StarBlood a unique feel that’s unlike anything else in VR right now — PSVR or otherwise.
When StarBlood Arena releases it won’t just be Carnage (deathmatch) multiplayer though. There will also be Team Carnage, Gridiron, which is a goal-based mode, similar to the matches in Rigs of the same name, and Invaders, which is a co-op wave-based survival mode. Multiplayer matches can be played privately and ranked. On top of all of that, each character has their own skirmish mode and you can engage in per-pilot tournaments.
All of the mechs (referred to as Battle Pods) are fully customizable as well with gear that can be unlocked through all of the multiplayer and single player game modes, including paint schemes, visual attachments, and gameplay-altering modifications.
StarBlood Arena releases exclusively for PSVR on April 11th for $39.99. For more information, make sure to watch the game’s trailer and our in-depth interview above. You can also find out more information on the game’s official website.
Tagged with: EVE Valkyrie, RIGS, Starblood Arena
The game formerly known as Project Arena is now known as Sparc. We had a chance to play the futuristic sports experience at this year’s GDC, and boy are our arms tired! Wait, is that how that old joke goes?
Having released EVE: Valkyrie and Gunjack last year, CCP is no stranger to VR, but this is its first foray into a new franchise outside of the EVE universe. The concept behind Sparc is simple enough: it’s an online 1-on-1 full-body Pong + Discs of Tron meets dodgeball of sorts. Two players face off against one another in a narrow 3D court. Each has a ball, and the ultimate goal is to hit the opposing player.
While Sparc may be simple to understand, I found the mechanics quite elegant and the tactics deeper than just “huck the ball as hard as you can.” For starters, you spawn a power shield while holding your own ball, making it easier to deflect incoming projectiles. In beginner mode you can also punch back opposing balls if you hit them directly with your knuckles. But that added security is gone in pro mode, where you either have to block with your shield – meaning you don’t have a ball in play at that time – or deftly dodge to avoid being hit. To make it more challenging, each time your opponent manages to hit your stroke zone – basically a box around where your player starts the match – their ball gets bigger, making it more difficult to dodge after successive stroke zone hits.
The ball reacts as you would expect a real ball to react, meaning you can put a little English on it with your wrist, giving it a nice curving arc, or even better yet making it behave rather erratically when it rebounds off a surface. Not surprisingly, you also see a marked increase in the speed of the ball if you do a full arm rotation and really put some pepper on it than if you do a piddly wrist-flick.
There’s also quite a bit of strategy to blocking, and after playing a few matches I was trying to deflect the opposing ball at a more shallow angle with as little rebound force as possible so I could then whip my ball faster than my opponent’s projectile would return so they wouldn’t have the benefit of a shield. Another tactic I picked up on was forcefully backhanding my opponent’s ball with my shield and letting go of the trigger directly after impact to send two projectiles down the court. Opposing players can score on themselves if they get hit by their own ball without catching it, so it was an effective strategy, albeit one that required perfect timing so as to not drop my own shield too quickly.
Games get pretty intense as you flail your arms around at high speed and jump and lean to dodge, and after three matches I was starting to break a sweat. But you don’t always have to be in the thick of the action as Sparc will also include a spectator mode where you can take a break and watch other players going at it in a mini arena. This is a great way to pick up strategies, especially if you join games with some of the top-ranked players on the leaderboard.
All in all, Sparc was a fun, intense experience, and I can’t wait to play more. Luckily none of us will have to wait too much longer as Sparc will be available later this year for PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Tagged with: CCP, EVE Valkyrie, GDC, Gunjack, sparc
When Oculus Rift launched back in March last year one of its standout titles for day one was EVE: Valkyrie from CCP Games. Only available through Oculus Home, EVE: Valkyrie then came to Steam in November, bringing with it support for HTC Vive and cross-platform functionality. But some Rift players wanted to access the title through Steam which would have meant purchasing another copy, today CCP Games has addressed the issue.
In a blog posting on Eve: Valkyrie’s community forums the studio has said the following: “We’ve had several requests from our existing Oculus Rift pilots who would like to be able to play EVE: Valkyrie via Steam. We’ve been working on a solution to this and I’m happy to confirm that we are in a position to provide complimentary Steam keys to owners of EVE: Valkyrie on Oculus Rift who got the game for that platform and created a pilot before we launched the game on HTC Vive/Steam (17 November, 2016).”
But players do need to be quick as it’s a limited time offer. Valid for 30 days beginning 23 February, 2017 until 24th March, 2017, eligible customers will need to contact the customer support team with proof of the original purchase.
While this may be beneficial to some players this offer does come with a caveat, “Players will not be able to play via Steam using their existing Oculus pilots. The code allows players to redeem the game through Steam and create a completely new character. We will not be able to transfer any assets (silver, gold, loadouts etc) from existing accounts,” states the terms and conditions. Adding: “Players’ callsigns will automatically be generated based on their Steam public profile names. This will not be able to be changed.” So if you’ve spent many an hour engaged in EVE: Valkyrie warfare you might not want to start all over again.
Last week CCP Games launched the next major update for the space combat multiplayer, Wormholes. This brought new gameplay modes and a new Leagues alpha feature to battle through.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of EVE: Valkyrie, reporting back with the latest updates.