Occulus VR's Planned Billion User MMOG

Quaid

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Not many details yet, but apparently it's in the works. Obviously the platform has enormous potential for interactivity. What form that takes is anyone's guess.

Oculus VR has big plans for its future, including the possibility of a massively multiplayer online game that can simultaneously support one billion people, CEO Brendan Iribe announced during technology conference TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2014.

According to Iribe, the VR MMO would require "a bigger network than exists in the world today," but Facebook is a good start. The outlandish goal would be possible in part thanks to Oculus' deal with Facebook; Facebook acquired the company in March for $2 billion. At the time, founder Palmer Luckey told Polygon the product would be of higher quality and at a better price as a result.

Before the MMO is possible, however, Oculus wants to convince people they're having "real" conversations with people ? it's the company's "holy grail," he said.

Oculus will remain committed to games, Iribe said, but doesn't want to limit its potential reach.

"Do you want to build a platform that has a billion users on it, or only 10, 20, or 50 million?" he said.

You can watch the full stream from Disrupt NY on TechCrunch.


Source:Oculus has its eye on building an MMO with one billion people | Polygon
 

spronk

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we'll all be senile and/or dead
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Ryanz

<Banned>
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The robots are slowly implementing their plan for world domination. Soon we'll be born into having the occulus attached to us at birth, and then a Matrix like scenario will play out.
 

Tuco

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This is more of a "Sure, we've talked about having a 3d world built around the facebook user database, much like everyone else that talks about VR + facebook" than anything else.

The big question I've had for Facebook's Rift acquisition is what does Facebook get out of it? Every other acquisition they've gotten has been directly related to their business of connecting people on facebook. From what I've read there are three options:
1. Zuckerburg and shareholders want to branch out from social media into satellite technologies and they see VR as an emerging tech they can get invested into early.
2. They want to be the Valve of VR games. They want to have a Steam like storefront for VR stuff. This makes the least sense to me but ther'es been a few mentions of this as being their plan. I don't think they'll be able to compete with Steam, especially given Valve's interest in VR.
3. They want to create a Facebook MMO. The reason this never made sense to me is the need to buy Oculus to do it. It'd be better to keep it separate and try to maintain multiple-HMD compatibility than anything. Plus I don't even know if a VR-only Facebook MMO makes sense. With the # of users on different devices I'd think a web-app MMO would be more appropriate.
 

gogojira_sl

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I know I'm pathetic but high fantasy or bust (lol). I've always saw Oculus as the perfect fit for MMOs. Just let my kids grow up first and then I'll latch this thing on to my face and never come back. It'll be like Wall-E: Real Ediiton.
 

Vitality

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I hope they release a usb dongle for my dingle so when I eRP in these games I get fully immersed.
 

Treesong

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I still have two of these lying in a closet:http://www.digibarn.com/collections/...ear-vr-system/
I played Hexen 2 with it for a bit, and came to the conclusion that having to turn your head to look around was already too much trouble. The 3D view I totally understand, this was already awesome with that ancient device but not the moving around with your head, let alone standing on a pad like the guy in the vid. It's tiring and annoying.

I would use an Oculus for the 3D view but definately would use my mouse and keyboard for all the navigating. To be honest, I think that would mimick being "logged into the grid as Neo" better then the gymnastics the guy in the vid has to do.
 

Void

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I know that tons of books have already dealt with this sort of thing, but this really sounds a lot like the beginnings of the system used in Ready Player One, OASIS. The nice things about that one was that it was free, you could log in from public terminals with generic avatars (I think? could be confusing that with another book) or from your personal setup with more customized stuff, you could create buildings, vehicles, worlds, etc., and eventually they even moved shit like the Library of Congress there, so eventually everything digital was available through the VR world. If you wanted to watch old episodes of Dukes of Hazzard, you could. You could even set up a viewing room and invite others to watch, like you were all in a movie theater, if you really wanted to. Hell, kids even went to school in virtual schools, not just classrooms. You could walk around between classes, etc. not just teleport into a fixed spot in the class and never move from there.

The problem is, it was made free because of a billionaire philanthropist. Without someone like that, it would turn into a giant ad-splattered shitfest, or a monthly access fee on top of your internet bill, etc. This is what someone like Bill Gates needs to do with his money.

I know nothing like that will happen anytime soon, maybe not even before I die, but I can hope. Of course, the rest of the world turned into mostly a pile of shit, but that's a separate issue. Something like this IS coming, it is just a matter of time, so dealing with it in the real world will have to happen no matter what. I just hope it doesn't turn into ONLY fucking Virtual Facebook. I want OASIS, and I won't be happy with anything less.