AR, VR, haptics Options

[Chrysalis]

I recently got hooked on Imvu and Second Life and I was wondering if anyone else is on?

In addition I was thinking of Shadowrun. Let's face it the writers of Shadowrun do not skate the edge of virtual media reality. It unfortunately means that RL technology has already in some ways surpassed that of Unwired. Good book, but this is a usual problem in any gaming book.


Of course when you are standing outside of xDanse's club in line in imvu, it may be raining outside the club, but you can be safely at home in front of your computer.

But suppose that we fast forward to 2070, would that mean that you could actually be standing outside the actual club and that the layers of not-polygons of AR surround you? But what of the great equalizer of VR?

My idea is that AR can be used to layer yourself if you want as your avatar, but it also gives me haptics enough to feel the AR shell around me and other AR shells. It means that when you look without AR you see distinctive spots in the dance floor, this is because AR haptics means the brain believes your touch that the person is actually there. Very rude to walk through someone in AR. While haptics can be scaled from wisp to rock hard the default would be like pushing against taut paper.

So that red skinned devil you maybe dancing with may send a quick request to turn haptics on your AR so that when you two grind together you both feel it, right down to his chest hairs rubbing against you, his brimstone breath curling around you. Of course you are physically in the club and he is taking a JAL flight from Hong Kong to Neo-Edo.

Different clubs, different rules on AR, same as with dress in current clubs. AR is an assistive form of altered reality. It means that while you can wear a mask in AR or your whole simsense avatar, it's considered gauche like going out in a bathrobe. Even emperors have to wear clothes.

While in simsense of course you wear your avatar. Who cares if you are in a towel or not on the other side. Unless you hack her or strip her avatar. Avatars are as expensive as you want them to be and people have multiples of ready bundles.

Clothing is the big thing. Some designer clothing come with VR clothing, so you can dress your avatar exactly as you would dress. Others are AR assisted, meaning that your jeans glitter more than it could normally. However AR is purely the icing on the cake.

VR gives you the whole cake icing and all.


cut.rate.box - Brittle

False face
Hollywood slips undercover
Giving way to something real
Slow pace understood a severed brother
Getting back a sense of feel

I break myself again
Head into heavy water
I've given in to my darkest dear

Tail spin ritalin
Get it down on paper
Pushers of the possessed pill
Old skin vinyl thin
Too strong to taper
Weaker than the weekend
Will I break myself again

Head into heady water
I've given in to my darkest dear

Drown in 'never again'
Never again

[hobgoblin]

poked around with both. second life i gave up on as i could not find a interesting place to stay. imvu i have kept, but my activity there is so-so...

[CanRay]

I'd have to get a First Life to get a Second Life. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hobgoblin]

and i totally forgot, dressing pr avatar to go clubbing makes me think of something in blue planet.

there one would have clubs in the bigger cities set up specifically for people that would want to wear a "face".

[Chrysalis]

ooh! Linkie please Hobgoblin.

I have to say that I find that AR is very hard to play while it is possible to describe.

Unless we are really going to describe the vinyl miniskirt down to how its corseted laces creak with every move, the wings accompanied by swirls of lilies in their artificial AR light as you move across the dancefloor to the sound of an ambient technical beat, the strobes picking out the glitter in the hair; descriptions I like, but most players are more interested in finding the task, finding out when the double-cross comes and all this social nonsense can then done off-screen.

After all how I perceive that most play Shadowrun is not about what you wear or who you know and how, but its ninja in the shadows, motorcycles and killing things. Mostly killing things.

While roleplaying allows you vast grasp of possibilities only limited by your imagination, few people would want to play boi/grrl dramas.

[hobgoblin]

as the game is out of print right now, this is the best i can do:
http://www.blueplanet-rpg.com/

dont recall what book it was that mentioned it, and i think it was only in passing...

[Blade]

I have to say that I find that AR is very hard to play while it is possible to describe.

Unless we are really going to describe the vinyl miniskirt down to how its corseted laces creak with every move, the wings accompanied by swirls of lilies in their artificial AR light as you move across the dancefloor to the sound of an ambient technical beat, the strobes picking out the glitter in the hair; descriptions I like, but most players are more interested in finding the task, finding out when the double-cross comes and all this social nonsense can then done off-screen.

After all how I perceive that most play Shadowrun is not about what you wear or who you know and how, but its ninja in the shadows, motorcycles and killing things. Mostly killing things.

While roleplaying allows you vast grasp of possibilities only limited by your imagination, few people would want to play boi/grrl dramas.

From my personal experience, describing such details is often better to set the mood than to give a simple overall description of the situation that'll have the player switch to common imagery. You don't have to read a lengthy description, just give a few details. For example instead of saying that the players are in a seedy bar with bad lightning, a grumpy old ork bartender and bad soybeer, just tell them that they're in a bar where the floor and tables are sticky and blackened and where you can't see through empty glasses. That'll give food to their imagination but will force them to use it to paint the whole picture, including what you've spoken about, themselves.