The (Second) Vive Report

So since my initial post, several things have changed:

1. My son built me a new windows PC with a 980Ti
2. My sons and I have spent many more hours in virtual reality

Thus, I wanted to provide an update on all things Vive.

Titles

I'm not terribly impressed with the titles available for the Vive so far.  There appear to be many on the horizon, but I'm not sure that the situation will be ideal until it is standard practice that all new first-person oriented games are released with VR support from the start.

I am in the camp that believes that VR will help usher in a new wave of puzzle-based games (a la Myst).  They will be fun to play (and likely quite challenging, too).

Gaming in VR

I love it.  Plain and simple, it is so much more engrossing to play a game like this than staring at a screen.  Vanishing Realms is probably a very mediocre game if on a screen, but it totally sucked me in.  I put my headset on in the morning to play and am suddenly transported to night.  The world is less interactive than I assume that they will be eventually, but it is still fun poking around and finding new bits lying around.  And swinging a sword through an ogre is great fun (and will elevate your heart rate).  I can't say that I've been reduced to a sweaty mess that others have, but it is still feels like good, active fun.  I have experienced a sense of vertigo standing on the ledge.

I'm looking forward to many more hours of gameplay.  Though, my youngest has so solidly run up the Space Pirate Trainer high score list that I'm not sure I'll be placing there any time soon.  Not to say that I won't be trying.

One Step Beyond

I still have a few things that I haven't tried yet and problems for the VR developer community to solve.

1. 360º videos:  Not expecting too much here, have watched a few on a flat screen and didn't think that they were that interesting.
2. Building something in VR:  I think the tools lag here.  Perhaps virtual graffiti will be my thing?  More interesting would be building 3D models with tools that are well-suited for the task.  I need to research this area further.
3. VR Tourism:  Looking forward to it, but need to find the right experiences.  Any recommendations?
4. Movement:  sticking a controller in my pants doesn't seem ideal.  But, then again, neither does instantly teleporting around a game area.  It's easy to dodge fire and the blows of ogres when using the teleportation method.  Also, Vive needs to figure out how to allow the playing area to be larger, or use tricks to make my brain think that it is bigger.  This is likely going to be a big challenge for all of the VR manufacturers.
5. Additional sensors:  HTC and Steam should let others build specific purpose sensors or gaming implements to be used.  An obvious first option - a gun (rifle not a pistol, the normal controller works well enough to fool me there).  Such things exist, but I'm looking forward to widespread usage and support in games.
6. Social VR: maybe this comes much, much later when households have 3 or 4 headsets, but it would be fantastic to play cooperative games in VR with friends and family.
7. 3D Sound: I'd love to be playing in VR with one of the Ossic headphones, but they are best case shipping them next February.  And I'm not sure that I'll be willing to pay $300.  But, I can imagine that they will matter in providing an even fuller experience.  You will be sucked into the other (VR) realm 100%.  At least I'm guessing here (I've not demo'd their headset).