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OrbusVR - a 'Room Scale' VR MMORPG Hits KickStarter - General News

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
edited March 2017 in News & Features Discussion

imageOrbusVR - a 'Room Scale' VR MMORPG Hits KickStarter - General News

Ad Alternum has announced that its Kickstarter funding campaign for OrbusVR has exceeded its funding goal of $10,000 in under 24-hours. Originally seeking to secure $10,000, fans have already pledged over $22,000 with five days to go. The campaign was slated to run for only a week in an

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Comments

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    Looks cool makes me want an oculus now :-/

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  • PhaserlightPhaserlight Member EpicPosts: 3,079
    First sentence looks impressive until you realize they were planning to build a MMORPG on a budget of $10,000. At least another VR MMORPG I shall not name in this post body had the decency to ask for $100,000 back in 2013.

    Towards the bottom of this bid:

    "The largest risk that typically comes from an MMO project is simple: will it ever come to fruition?"

    Indeed.

    As a fan of VR tech I wish the team all the best.

    "The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance

  • apolloblakeapolloblake Member UncommonPosts: 1
    Phaserlight- the game was already fully funded by the dev before the kickstarter which was just a way of people who played pre-alpha stress tests to be rewarded for supporting the game. I believe it states this on the kickstarter, so no need to cast those doubts on the game. I played the most recent stress test and it is already a fun functioning game as is.
  • BellomoBellomo Member UncommonPosts: 184
    I will for sure give this game a go.
  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787
    edited March 2017
    If you have played it, what does "Room Scale' VR MMORPG" mean. 


    Also they did not show what people were physically doing while playing the game.  What do you actually do when playing?  Are you standing, running around, sitting down, ect?

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • maskedweaselmaskedweasel Member LegendaryPosts: 12,198
    edited March 2017
    MMOman101 said:
    If you have played it, what does "Room Scale' VR MMORPG" mean. 


    Also they did not show what people were physically doing while playing the game.  What do you actually do when playing?  Are you standing, running around, sitting down, ect?
    It's "room scale" so that means that you stand and move and it tracks you.  Room scale in general is a neat addition but largely problematic in its current iterations.  The new headsets hitting the market this year are supposed to fix that by utilizing roomscale from the headset instead of utilizing room scale from external sensors.  

    I haven't played this, but, I do question MMORPG tropes in the VR space.  Can you imagine swinging your arms back and forth for several minutes to kill a single monster?   Think about a world boss.




  • PhaserlightPhaserlight Member EpicPosts: 3,079
    edited March 2017


    Phaserlight- the game was already fully funded by the dev before the kickstarter which was just a way of people who played pre-alpha stress tests to be rewarded for supporting the game. I believe it states this on the kickstarter, so no need to cast those doubts on the game. I played the most recent stress test and it is already a fun functioning game as is.



    Perhaps you can spell it out for me; I can be relatively obtuse at times.

    My "problem" with KS projects like this is that you are supposed to set a reasonable budget for what it is you hope to accomplish... at least it used to be this way in the early days of KS.

    However, being an "all or nothing" platform, project designers have come to realize that the lower you set the bar the more likely you are to see at least some cash inflow. This tends to leave backers holding the stick when a project takes in enough to "succeed" on KS, but not enough to deliver all that is promised or envisioned.

    Given a typical top tier MMO takes 50-100 million USD to make, and that any dev will tell you VR has its own added challenges (read: expenses) a KS project promising to deliver a VR MMO for a paltry $10,000 seems... odd.

    That's all. As I mentioned above, I wish the devs (dev?) all the best, and I am a big believer in VR tech in general.

    edit:

    After some minimal digging I found under the FAQ that the creator feels $10k is "barely [] enough to make a Flappy Bird clone" but "represents an amount we think will make a materially positive impact on the game's development".

    Draw from this what you will.

    Hopefully Riley Dutton exhibits better mores than Ethan Casner.

    edit2:

    So... I get that PC VR has too limited an audience right now to warrant building a 100M dollar MMO from the "ground up"... maybe this project will turn out to be a golden egg after all.  Just wanted to end on a positive note.
    Post edited by Phaserlight on

    "The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance

  • LokeroLokero Member RarePosts: 1,514

    edit2:

    So... I get that PC VR has too limited an audience right now to warrant building a 100M dollar MMO from the "ground up"... maybe this project will turn out to be a golden egg after all.  Just wanted to end on a positive note.
    @Phaserlight ; This is sort of the assumption I was going on.  The audience for both VR and PC MMOs built on it is miniscule, at best.

    I imagine they were simply afraid to ask for very much, given how few followers they actually have.  I'm sure they took a basic measure from forum/website visits and attention paid to articles on gaming sites and decided to lowball it.
    While I think asking $10k was incredibly low, and probably a bit too conservative, I think it's working out alright.  I think they should have gone for a longer duration on the KS, though, and advertised it a bit more.

    Still, $30k+ in a week for such a tiny, tiny obscure game isn't a bad boost for them, especially if we consider that they really weren't desperately seeking funding.

    The game won't be super deep and complex.  But, it'll hit a nice empty void in the market for people who want a VR MMO.

    My biggest gripe with this, and most VR games still, is the horrible movement schemes everyone is still using.  By that, I mean the teleporting around to move.
  • PhaserlightPhaserlight Member EpicPosts: 3,079
    edited March 2017
    Lokero said:

    edit2:

    So... I get that PC VR has too limited an audience right now to warrant building a 100M dollar MMO from the "ground up"... maybe this project will turn out to be a golden egg after all.  Just wanted to end on a positive note.
    @Phaserlight ; This is sort of the assumption I was going on.  The audience for both VR and PC MMOs built on it is miniscule, at best.

    I imagine they were simply afraid to ask for very much, given how few followers they actually have.  I'm sure they took a basic measure from forum/website visits and attention paid to articles on gaming sites and decided to lowball it.
    While I think asking $10k was incredibly low, and probably a bit too conservative, I think it's working out alright.  I think they should have gone for a longer duration on the KS, though, and advertised it a bit more.

    Still, $30k+ in a week for such a tiny, tiny obscure game isn't a bad boost for them, especially if we consider that they really weren't desperately seeking funding.

    The game won't be super deep and complex.  But, it'll hit a nice empty void in the market for people who want a VR MMO.

    My biggest gripe with this, and most VR games still, is the horrible movement schemes everyone is still using.  By that, I mean the teleporting around to move.
    Unless you count several others that have VR support.  This actually highlights nicely something I'm not so sure of about this project; its fans seem to cling to the fact that 'it's built for VR from the ground up': I'm not convinced that really is the massive benefit some seem to think it is. 

    Success stories in VR so far have been cases where games will add in VR support (eg RE7) alongside marketing to the traditional PC gaming segment.  Some games seem to have done really well with this model. 

    So... at this point in time, while I agree that yes a room scale VR MMO built from the ground up for VR could be a very cool thing, the end result may not be what many people are hoping for.

    Other games that already have a significant content base seem to be doing just fine in VR, including at least one MMO.  We'll see what an exclusive PC VR MMO title brings at this juncture, I suppose.

    "The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance

  • TalemireTalemire Member UncommonPosts: 844
    Why isn't this game on the game list yet?
    Love the sinner, hate the sin.
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