I've been harping on about this for the longest time, but the article's right: AR is more important than VR, and LARP is the ideal platform to test it against. To the people further up the thread discussing "how do you simulate walking", it's dead easy: YOU WALK. An AR system is about taking a real-world setup (ie. a room, a field, etc.) and 're-skinning it'. The camera system and motion sensor system would be built into the game device.
The plastic collapsible table you set up? Now it looks like an oak table from a tavern. The beanbags used to physically represent spells? Appear to be a flaming ball. You physically act, and anyone looking at this scenario "unaugmented" sees a bunch of people running around in silly costumes, perhaps tagged with small digital sensors, and wearing glasses/headsets/contacts. Anyone wearing the augments sees a fantasy world appropriate to the scenario they're sharing with everyone else in the game.
Now, a system like this isn't perfect - you still feel a beanbag when you get hit with a fireball, you still have to wear some kind of headgear and system, and there's gonna be errors, glitches, and problems, but it's an interesting step forward. Perhaps, eventually, we'll have total sensory immersion... that's when it'll get equally interesting and alarming.
The plastic collapsible table you set up? Now it looks like an oak table from a tavern. The beanbags used to physically represent spells? Appear to be a flaming ball. You physically act, and anyone looking at this scenario "unaugmented" sees a bunch of people running around in silly costumes, perhaps tagged with small digital sensors, and wearing glasses/headsets/contacts. Anyone wearing the augments sees a fantasy world appropriate to the scenario they're sharing with everyone else in the game.
Now, a system like this isn't perfect - you still feel a beanbag when you get hit with a fireball, you still have to wear some kind of headgear and system, and there's gonna be errors, glitches, and problems, but it's an interesting step forward. Perhaps, eventually, we'll have total sensory immersion... that's when it'll get equally interesting and alarming.
