The Beginnings
It was the year 2017, just a year later the release of HTC Vive, the long-awaited technology of Virtual Reality had already been released at a consumer level where people can just walk into a store and buy it (or just order it online and set it up.)
I was lucky and unlucky at the same time. HTC Vive was very, very expensive for me. I had absolutely no chance of affording it. However, a friend of mine decided to purchase it and gave it to me for a week to test it out. I was over the moon because it was possible for me to test basically a brand new technology that everyone dreamed of since reading Ready Player One and other Sci-Fi novels where Virtual Reality is the main driving factor.
Lo and behold, the HTC Vive arrived. I unpacked it. It was... an interesting experience to say the least. It was a hassle to set it up. Basically, there are 2 base stations that use infrared light to track the headset and the controllers around you. SteamVR and HTC recommend them to be set up at least a meter away from each other. In a small room, I had to improvise a lot.
You know how we call lots of cables and plugs tangled together behind our computers a "fire hazard"? This was that times three. Cables, everywhere. HTC Vive had a dongle itself that connected the base stations plus the headset, base stations themselves had power adapters that needed to be connected to the plugs, dongle needs to be connected to the power as well as behind the computer yada yada yada... too many cables! But I was done setting it up!
So... what happened afterwards?
Underwhelming. I was too excited, too hyped up but it was too early.
There were only a few games that had come out that you can actually call "games" and not "tech demos" not to mention that the headset itself was relatively low in resolution, blurry and very heavy. The cables making it super hard to move as well.
I barely played the VR for only a few hours, it was super taxing. Not because it requires movement and physical stuff, no. The fact that I had to remove most stuff on my desk, my chair out of my room, set up base stations and make sure they connect (every single time) and then play the 3 games I had on my computer in a very blurry manner wasn't nice.
So, in a sense, I only had a brief experience with VR that was relatively negative.
But why is there a VR headset photo up there?
Because I got into it, again!
Believe it or not, after Altspace Hivefest last year, I was really interested in trying out the VR technology again. After years of advancements, better resolutions, lighter headsets and controllers, less setup required, wireless VR and most importantly... more games!
Half-Life: Alyx, Boneworks, Onward, Blade & Sorcery, Ragnarock... tons of different games now available on the VR platform. Not to mention games that were released without any VR support but can now support VR with either an alternative patch or community mods. It looks amazing!
So I bit the bullet. I purchased an Oculus Quest 2. It's not too expensive, it's pretty much the best wireless headset available on the market at the moment, requires little to no setup since all sensors are on the headset and no base stations are required... It's a dream come true.
I have been expecting it to arrive for the past couple of days. When it arrives, I am planning to write several more posts in terms of setting it up, my adventures with it and maybe footage of some gameplay!