the VR "war" starts to take shape - Project Cars multiplayer

[zMeul]

source: http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?43740-Oculus-Rift-CV1-Discussion&p=1260029&viewfull=1#post1260029

 

the game director for Project Cars, Stephen Viljoen, had this to say when talking about incompatibility between the STEAM and Oculus stores

Quote

Hey guys. Regarding MP and the various platforms, they are indeed separate platforms and we cannot support MP matchmaking between these two platforms. It's not ideal, but that's just how this platform separation works.

 

STEAM is pretty much hardware agnostic (VR) and will let you access it with any HMD other than HTC Vive; whereas, Oculus Sore works exclusively with the Rift

so, if two friends have one Rift and one Vive they can start a versus match on STEAM, but they can't do so with a Oculus store game

 

and this is how "console wars" made it to the PC ... what a shame

 

as time passes, the rift will grow as developers will be forced to support a single platform via exclusive deals or just financial reasons

due to their prices, owning both HMD systems is out of the question for a lot of people and they probably will settle with the most "open" one

and this will create yet another problem, since the player base will be so small and divided, most developers won't even develop a VR game

 

ps: if I recall right, SONY have stated that "Morpheus" would work (some day) on PC - that's another point for STEAM 

[Ginka]

I am not really surprised, but it saddens me anyway T.T

[Lethal Seraph]

It's like how Microsoft tries to fit in EVERYWHERE.

[Humbug]

I'm buying the Vive anyway. Not only do I like the direction they are taking and the hardware... But also I can have the same seated experience as the Rift playing stuff like Elite Dangerous in addition to having more movement flexibility in purpose built VR games like budget cuts out of the box without having to buy additional hardware. Not to mention the fact that the HTC Vive front camera let's me switch to real world view at the click of a button if I want to drink water, check my phone, talk to somebody etc... With the Rift I would have to take off my headset which is just a pain.

 

since both are selling so well on PC I'm pretty sure that once the dust settles in a few month almost all VR PC games will support both headsets.

[ivan134]

32 minutes ago, Humbug said:

I'm buying the Vive anyway. Not only do I like the direction they are taking and the hardware... But also I can have the same seated experience as the Rift playing stuff like Elite Dangerous in addition to having more movement flexibility in purpose built VR games like budget cuts out of the box without having to buy additional hardware. Not to mention the fact that the HTC Vive front camera let's me switch to real world view at the click of a button if I want to drink water, check my phone, talk to somebody etc... With the Rift I would have to take off my headset which is just a pain.

 

since both are selling so well on PC I'm pretty sure that once the dust settles in a few month almost all VR PC games will support both headsets.

Well, its not really about supporting games, but segmentation. Like stated above, Project CARS is supported by both the Rift and Vive, but because  of Rift having its own platform, people cant play against each other.

[TrigrH]

inb4 nvidia makes gameworks VR oh wait...

[WolfDeville]

Assuming VR makes it to another generation, and Oculus Rift is more open - I will be buying the Vive 2.

[LAwLz]

Doesn't surprise me. This is the price we customers have to pay since Oculus allowed themselves to be bought by Facebook.

The Rift has been sounding worse and worse every time I hear about it. You can't even change location for installing games with it. You have to install them on C:. On top of that, their bullshit policy basically means that they can block any content they feel like from their store, and it is not possible to run things outside the store by default. It's like taking the worst parts about the mobile industry, the worst part from the console industry, and then jam it into the PC space.

 

I really hope the Vive wins the "VR wars". Seems like a much better platform both hardware and software wise.

[Humbug]

38 minutes ago, TehStranger? said:

Assuming VR makes it to another generation, and Oculus Rift is more open - I will be buying the Vive 2.

VR will make it to another generation obviously. Considering how well the preorders have gone for both the Rift and the Vive...

as the tech matures, prices come down, resolutions go up, GPUs become more powerful, devs start to figure out how to use it, non-gaming applications come along etc over the next few years it will slowly start to appeal to a bigger audience. As far as this gen is concerned when it comes to pc the focus is more on enthusiasts.

[Sky Daddy]

the game uses steamworks, buy the game on steam and there you go 

 

buy the game on oculus home and your playerbase gets smaller though

 

other games that use their own service don't suffer this fate like elite dangerous

[Humbug]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

The Rift has been sounding worse and worse every time I hear about it. You can't even change location for installing games with it. You have to install them on C:.

 

wow really? That's hard to believe. Palmer Luckey is a pc enthusiast guy after all.

[Nexxus]

*raises hand* called this years ago and its why I dont have a rift or vive on preorder yet.

[Sakkura]

Actually the problem is with the devs choosing Steamworks. So it's DRM on the developer (and Steam) side that's causing this, not anything Oculus is doing.

 

Also, Oculus has every incentive to open up the Oculus Store to other VR HMDs, but it requires the Oculus SDK which Valve and HTC are not keen on.

[Teddy07]

That is why i am waiting some time before i decide which device to buy (Maybe)

[Humbug]

Am I correct in assuming that the Project Cars devs could make this work if they code in their own custom matchmaking system like many devs do? Rather than relying 100% on the Oculus Store or Steam matchmaking, they can use those but also do what needs to be done from their end.

 

I don't think it's impossibly hard. See below. GOG galaxy and steamworks players playing multiplayer together. But of course the dev needs to do the work..

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2x82fa/steam_and_gog_crossplatform_multiplayer_added_to/?sort=new

 

[zMeul]

55 minutes ago, Sky Daddy said:

the game uses steamworks, buy the game on steam and there you go 

afaik, STEAMWorks doesn't restrict the use to the STEAM store

 

and doesn't the Oculus version uses the same STEAMWorks, so .. what's the problem?! the problem is FaceBook

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Humbug said:

wow really? That's hard to believe. Palmer Luckey is a pc enthusiast guy after all.

There is a workaround for it posted by a person working for Oculus, and they are working on official support, but as of right now you can only install Oculus programs on C:.

Here is the workaround posted on the forum, but some people have problems with it.

[ApolloFury]

Well, I am sticking with Steam on this one. So RIP Oculus for me.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

afaik, STEAMWorks doesn't restrict the use to the STEAM store

 

and doesn't the Oculus version uses the same STEAMWorks, so .. what's the problem?! the problem is FaceBook

It's not about restricting the game to one store, it's about preventing cross-platform multiplayer for a game that is available on multiple stores. And Steamworks matchmaking is exclusive. So the blame falls on the devs (and Steamworks) here.

[WiiManic]

Like its already been said, this is on the Project Cars devs.

 

Elite: Dangerous manages to work fine across Oculus Home/Steam/The normal launcher.

The problem is that Project Cars relies exclusively on steamworks for multiplayer, so this isn't Oculus forcing anything on Home, rather Project Cars relying on Steam, since Steamworks can only do matchmaking in Steam.

 

They have 2 real options if they wanted to make Home/Steam work together. 

 - Take the Elite route and do the entirety of the match making themselves, now its platform agnostic. 

 - Take the Rocket League route. Rocket  League uses Steamworks/PSN/XBL on its respective platforms and then has some intermediary to connect them all up.

[Humbug]

32 minutes ago, WiiManic said:

They have 2 real options if they wanted to make Home/Steam work together. 

 - Take the Elite route and do the entirety of the match making themselves, now its platform agnostic. 

 - Take the Rocket League route. Rocket  League uses Steamworks/PSN/XBL on its respective platforms and then has some intermediary to connect them all up.

This.

 

If they put in the work they can make it happen.

Because i'm pretty sure Oculus Store and Steam don't have any TOS that prevents them from doing so...

[Starelementpoke]

All Nintendo has to do is make a Pokemon VR game and they´ve won...

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, WiiManic said:

The problem is that Project Cars relies exclusively on steamworks for multiplayer, so this isn't Oculus forcing anything on Home, rather Project Cars relying on Steam, since Steamworks can only do matchmaking in Steam.

Are you sure about that? Because I don't think you can use Steamworks for multiplayer unless the game is also using Steam.

Does Oculus Home have some similar matchmaking feature that the Rift version uses?

[Doobeedoo]

But of course, expected... For now HTC Vive looks to be a better option. Ocolus and FB just...

[werto165]

Personally I think that the launch lineup for the Rift is better. (this could change come Monday as chat falisek said they've yet to announce two big games.) Probably only going to be playing cockpit based games like pcars and Eve perhaps elite (might consider getting a hot as for that)  rift is more console like but you still have the option to mess around. Plus it's £250 cheaper at this point. Rift has the better optics in the way that it has a smaller fov so it effectively has a higher resolution as there are more pixels per degree. I'm sure it's not too noticeable. A bit bummed over the lens flares you get on both, direct negative of using fresnel lenses however I'm sure it's a compromise as it's the best optics we have at the minute for VR in terms of size and weight. 

Room scale is probably awesome, I'm just going with a gut feeling that touch will be be better, most people have said it is. 

Oculus why didn't you include touch?!? 

Sure devs had been working on controller based games for a while, Palmer said himself controllers suck for an input method in VR. This possibly could make or break VR. It wholly depends on the pricing of touch, if it's too much then the adoption is going to be quite small. I feel like £100-150 is the sweet spot for it. It could go the way of the kinetic v2 when it was removed from the xb1 it completely died, I haven't used my xbox one with the kinetic for a while. I guess people would argue that touch, motion tracked controllers in general are much more compelling in the way that it actually works.. The kinect was great tech but not nearly enough accurate to be brilliant.