Poll: So where have all the VR talk gone?

Jingle Fett

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Xprimentyl said:
I?ve never been interested in VR; I?m never interest in peripheral gaming at all. It?s gimmicky, adding an unnecessary layer of complexity between me and my sought enjoyment.

When Kinect 2.0 was announced as a definitive part of the Xbox One experience, I argued nonstop with my best friend that the Kinect would flop. He swore by all the ?improvements,? potential and promises all the talking heads at MS were selling, but I stuck to my intuition that Kinect did little more than solve invented problems. I was proven right almost immediately as by the time my buddy could command his Xbox One to do anything once with his voice, I could do the same thing with the traditional controller three times. Fast forward a couple years, and the Kinect is all but dead. I imagine VR going the same way. Outside of the novelty, it really doesn?t offer much that a traditional TV can?t do better, cheaper and with less hassle.

That being said, whenever I think of the inane gimmicks these companies have tried, I always thing back to this video and laugh!

With respect, but playing games with Kinect and Vive/Rift level VR isn't even remotely comparable. The reason is because Kinect and motion controls in general are just a small piece of the puzzle. They translate your movements to the virtual world but you're still viewing that world on a tiny 2 dimensional screen, you're not actually in the world so you're not getting the full picture, thus there's a disconnect. Being able to reach out and touch a jellyfish floating in front of you in The Blu isn't the same as poking an invisible object while you look at the 2d TV to see if you actually touched it. There's a big difference and I'm sure @Vigormortis can verify what I'm saying.

Interestingly enough, good motion controls are essential for VR. You just don't get the same experience in VR if you're not using Vive controllers or equivalent.

As to being cheap or less hassle, the price will go down with time and things will get streamlined. Hardware will improve to be lighter, higher resolution, wireless, etc. 5-10 years from now, even low end computers will be VR ready. Already today you can get used GTX 980s on ebay for less than $250.
 

Tukoevila

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I've tried it and I think it isn't worth now to get VR, when the technology will be better I'll consider to buy it but for now I don't think so
 

Jingle Fett

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votemarvel said:
I'm not sold on the gaming side of VR. For me it just isn't immersive. It starts out okay but I swiftly find myself realising that my other senses are not in tune with what I am seeing and hearing, when that happens I am pulled out of the game very quickly.

For passive experiences though, such as watching a movie, I confess I am sold on it. I use my GearVR to watch movies in the Oculus Theatre and I've honestly found myself forgetting that I am actually sitting in my bedroom.
Out of curiosity, do you also have a Vive/Rift, or only the GearVR? The reason I ask is because there's a big crucial difference between GearVR and Vive. It's not the controllers (although that's an obvious one), its the fact that GearVR doesn't do position tracking, only rotation.
I used GearVR before owning the Vive, also a couple friends of mine had GearVR for a long time. With the GearVR something always felt a little off and would leave me slightly disoriented after taking it off. After getting the Vive, I realized that the culprit was the lack of position tracking. Meaning, with GearVR if you were standing and then you leaned to the left to look around the corner of a wall, or you crouched to look at the ground, only the rotations get applied. Same happens if you try walking around. Because your head/body moved around but your view didn't match 100% it breaks the immersion and causes disorientation. This extends even to your tiny subtle head movements, leading to an overall sense of something being slightly "off".
Even just tilting your head to the side in real life, it results not just in your view rotating, but it gets positionally offset as well. Without that subtle shifting, everything feels slightly off.

It is because of this that passive experiences like the movie theater work great in GearVR because there's no position-based movement, you can just sit there and look around so there's little position movement to break the immersion. With Vive however, it's not an issue because it tracks both position and rotation and does it really accurately too. The ability to just walk around naturally without having to press any buttons or anything makes a huge difference.
 

votemarvel

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Personally I only own the GearVR. A friend of mine owns the full Rift.

What pulls me out is when encountering a fire for example. I can hear the fire, see it burning, but I can't experience the heat or smell of it. Even the Touch controllers don't add but subtract from the experience, with me being able to hold an item but not feel its texture or strength.

That's the problem with VR for me at the moment. It only serves two of the senses and as soon as the others catch up, I'm pulled out of the experience.
 

infohippie

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I've been wanting VR for pretty much my entire life. I don't mind strapping a box to my face, and the type of game that VR works best for - vehivle sims of various kinds - happen to be my favourite type of game. I still intent to get a VR setup eventually. The two reasons I haven't yet are cost and standardisation. VR is still way too expensive. I have a house to pay off, I have bills, I have all the ever-increasing costs of modern living. I can't justify spending a ridiculous amount on what is essentially a toy. I am also not going to risk buying an early generation device when technical standards are still in flux and I can't be guaranteed that what I buy now is going to remain fully compatible with future software. VR manufacturers need to get together and decide how they are all going to do motion tracking, or at least have a common API that different kinds of tracking hardware can all slot into equally.
 

Jingle Fett

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votemarvel said:
Personally I only own the GearVR. A friend of mine owns the full Rift.

What pulls me out is when encountering a fire for example. I can hear the fire, see it burning, but I can't experience the heat or smell of it. Even the Touch controllers don't add but subtract from the experience, with me being able to hold an item but not feel its texture or strength.

That's the problem with VR for me at the moment. It only serves two of the senses and as soon as the others catch up, I'm pulled out of the experience.
That's fair. But to be honest I don't see that as necessarily being VR's fault and maybe more about your own expectations because well, experiencing heat and smells would be extremely inconvenient. If you wanted those you could just go and make a real fire. Meaning it kind of defeats the purpose of VR and short of having a Matrix type system I don't see how it'd be possible/practical anyways. Personally I see VR as sort of like a theater stage--I know the fire is fake and made of paper, but that doesn't mean the play can't still be immersive (not much different from a regular videogame on a regular TV). That's just me though.

And about the controllers, at least the Vive ones, my personal experience has been the complete opposite. I've used motion capture gloves in VR and those DO give the sensation you describe where you can hold an item but not feel its texture or strength because you're grabbing air, leading to an "uncanny valley" type effect. But when you're using the Vive controllers, the controllers themselves are the texture and strength so to me it's akin to using one of these [http://www.tgldirect.com/product_files/032100430000/032100430000-reach-20extender-20pick-up-20claw-20tool-20-28grabber-29-20-20stainless-20-2036-22-4-700.jpg] to interact with objects. Since you're not using your hands and fingers directly, there's less of the uncanny valley effect and it's more like you're using a tool. The Vive controllers have haptic feedback too, which makes touching stuff much more tangible (In Waltz of the Wizard you can actually feel the shape of objects this way, it's really trippy).

Again though, this is just my personal experience and I'm not trying to diminish your experiences in any way. If stuff like that is enough to pull you out then that's just how it is.
 

votemarvel

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I do think VR has potential. For the moments before the rest of my body catches up, I can be pulled in.

There is an app called Face Your Fears and for a moment, I did feel the sensation of falling. That was a quick experience though which didn't really give me time to get used to the environment I was in.

It sounds as if the Vive would be better at keeping me involved that the Oculus based systems. Sadly my pocket doesn't stretch to either of the full VR experiences at the moment.
 

sanquin

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-what happened to the VR talk?
The early hype just died down. Happens to everything, though maybe a bit quicker for VR.

-are you interested in VR?
Yes, but not at it's current price range and 'game' selection.

-have you tried VR?
I've tried the google cardboard thing for my phone. It's actually pretty neat. I really liked this tour through a cave system that I downloaded, as it did make it look like I was really there, even if it was pretty damn pixelated. I'd love to try a proper VR headset some time too.

-if you are not interested in VR gaming, what would it take to personally get you on board?
The price would have to go down first and foremost. I've never spent more than 250~300 euro on any upgrade for my PC. Even my video card or screen. And I don't plan to start paying more any time soon. Secondly, it needs to have games that are actual, proper, full games for it. The most you can get for VR right now is basically tech demos and minigames. Some games come close to being called full games in my book, but those are the type I'm not really interested in. They also need to start figuring out how to make controls for a VR game where you need to walk around. Using a 'teleport system' doesn't appeal to me at all. I prefer my normal mouse + keyboard over that.

-what is the game or kind of game you would want the most in VR?
A fantasy game like skyrim or some such. Sure, with some modifications you can play it in VR but it's clearly not originally meant to be played in VR. Exploration games with fantastical worlds (floating islands, massive fantasy structures, forests with giant trees, stuff like that) would also appeal quite a bit to me.

Overall, it's mostly the price which holds me back. I just don't have that kind of money to spend. And as said before, this is just the first generation of VR. Or rather, VR that actually has potential to last. With time, the technology will surely get better, game devs will become more used to working with it, and the price will probably also drop into affordable ranges for me eventually.
 

Proto Taco

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Right now VR is the brick phone from the 80s and 90s. Gesture controlled AR (without extra controller hardware) is the smartphone VR is going to turn into.

Most people don't want to blow two or three paychecks on tech that isn't even ready yet.
 

RobertEHouse

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When I saw what games were in development I had some hopes. Then as I saw how those games were implemented in their final version needless to say I was not impressed. Warping the player around is very jarring, there has to be a better way. Of course having a player just sit down and ride a rollercoaster and shoot at things seems just so trivial for the hardware. Sure, there are tech issues with the size of rooms and how a player can actually interact with the world, but it's just weak. Of course, it does not help to have the VR market getting filled up with what seemed like over hyped tech demos that had very little core game play.


Now think of this, a kid that saw the first VR demonstrations by SEGA years ago. Then had a chance to participate in an IBM test kit years later and later a college program. Is now disappointed how VR turned out in its current form. Something is either wrong with the software or the hardware implementation of VR. Now as a business man I can say this with confidence, the launch of VR headsets needed some time before launch. They needed to have developed a training program for developers to understand the hardware years before release. Without the simple concept of what causes motion sickness will set the VR train off the rails. Also the ability to wear the headsets for longer times will also set VR back for some time.


All of this that I state so far is with comparison to VR in video games, which has so far proven to have a complete lack of understanding of the tech. On the other hand, the technology could be helpful in the medical field and even the military, but still the simple problem of motion sickness and weight issues exist, even the prices of a VR system are not practical yet. Do I think we will get to a point where VR is widely accepted, no. Mainly because of the listed problems of development cost, software, weight and human ergonomics which are right now slow to change. Even with a few items like weight and software taken care of in later additions you still are dealing with the ergonomics of human beings and economics. Though it will not be widely accepted I do believe at some point you will see VR morph into something more efficient then a screen jammed to the end of your face.
 

laggyteabag

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I'd love to get a VR headset, but im still not all that convinced, to be honest.

Right now, it just looks to be A) Too expensive for the average consumer, and B) A little bit of a gimmick.

I'll probably look at getting one when it isn't ?500 for the Occulus, or ?700 for the Vive.

Besides, its not like there is anything out there right now that seems worth the price of admission.
 
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Jingle Fett said:
Plus a lot of VR related stuff is the sort of thing that people can't really appreciate until they've actually tried it. Watching videos of VR games simply does not do them justice and it's the sort of thing you usually have to experience for yourself in order to "get". In fact I've had many people admit as much (skeptics included) after I had them try out the Vive in the living room at proper full room-scale. Like, they've literally said "now I get what you've been talking about".
Absolutely.

Having people over to try VR has become something of a hobby. Nothing funnier than watching new people play Gorn.

I love that I can play games now without feeling like such a lazy fuck too. That moment when you take the sweaty headset off may not be the most pleasant, but it's worth it. You get so caught up in the task the game is giving you that you don't realise how active you're being.
 

Vigormortis

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CoCage said:
Vigormortis said:

To the average consumer, a near grand ain't cheap.
Never said it was. But again, there is a massive difference between expensive and overpriced.

A $90,000.00 car is expensive. A $30 burger is overpriced.

Words matter.

Plus, there is a lot of risk involved that comes with the cost.
That's true of any purchase, though.

The PC side may have something more, but it does not say much from what I see.
You've not looked very hard, then.

Don't even get me started on smartphones.
Not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Are you agreeing with my comparison or are you refuting it? I don't get this comment.

Besides, a majority of phones games are crap.
A few thoughts:

1: Majority of all games are crap.
2: What does that have to do with what I said?
3: This is all subjective.

I think we can agree to disagree,
"Agree to disagree" is code for "I don't have anything to refute your points with so I'mma just say we're both right, but I'm more right."

because my opinion is not going to change.
If you're unwilling to change your opinion, why offer it up for criticism on a public forum?

Thanks for the debate, because I am done.
That was a debate? <.<
 

BrawlMan

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Vigormortis said:
I was agreeing with you on the smartphone. Yes, 90% of anything is crap, but most phone games are even shittier. Once again, the average customer is not going to spend a near grand on a pair of fancy goggles. Enthusiast yes, or people with more money than they know what to do with.

I never claimed I was more right, or you were too. That's life dude; everybody has a different perspective. Just because someone is on a public forum, does not always mean the person or the person of the opposite arguement is going to change instantly. I don't know where you got that idea. I've been to many forums, where someone's opinion didn't change, but I am not going to bent out of shape about it.

You don't seem to really call out the guys and gals that made similar or the same statements I said about VR. I do find that a bit odd. I had fun with this debate, and now I am moving on to other subjects. Have a great one.
 

Jingle Fett

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Sexual Harassment Panda said:
Jingle Fett said:
Plus a lot of VR related stuff is the sort of thing that people can't really appreciate until they've actually tried it. Watching videos of VR games simply does not do them justice and it's the sort of thing you usually have to experience for yourself in order to "get". In fact I've had many people admit as much (skeptics included) after I had them try out the Vive in the living room at proper full room-scale. Like, they've literally said "now I get what you've been talking about".
Absolutely.

Having people over to try VR has become something of a hobby. Nothing funnier than watching new people play Gorn.

I love that I can play games now without feeling like such a lazy fuck too. That moment when you take the sweaty headset off may not be the most pleasant, but it's worth it. You get so caught up in the task the game is giving you that you don't realise how active you're being.
Ha it's funny you say that, it's become a bit of a hobby for me too! Seeing the reaction of someone trying out VR for the first time (especially someone who has never heard of it) is priceless. It's like a deaf person hearing sound for the first time.

One of my favorite moments so far was when I had my uncle and cousin try it out. My cousin is a doctor and my uncle works in the meat industry but has some medical knowledge too. They loved the VR in general, but what really blew their mind was the Human Body Scan in The Lab. When I tried it out I thought it was pretty cool, but they spent (literally) over two hours microanalyzing the bodyscan, studying it from every angle, diagnosing the person, and so on. They concluded that the person was a woman in her 40s or 50s, had her appendix removed, had children, a whole bunch of stuff. My cousin said that he was able to see stuff where when he was in medical school the only way to see it was by digging it out of a corpse, better than any textbook he said. One example was some tiny quarter inch sized bone in the ears and another was some bone in the spine or something. They were really impressed, even hours later they were still shaking their head.

I also agree about getting a workout while playing. It's real. I remember my arms being a little sore after a couple of hours of the archery demo in The Lab.
This guy lost over 50 pounds just by playing VR (no joke) [https://uploadvr.com/man-loses-50-pounds-playing-soundboxing/]
This guy too using VR bicycle [https://uploadvr.com/man-loses-50-pounds-using-virtual-reality-bicycle/]
 
Apr 24, 2008
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Jingle Fett said:
Sexual Harassment Panda said:
Jingle Fett said:
Plus a lot of VR related stuff is the sort of thing that people can't really appreciate until they've actually tried it. Watching videos of VR games simply does not do them justice and it's the sort of thing you usually have to experience for yourself in order to "get". In fact I've had many people admit as much (skeptics included) after I had them try out the Vive in the living room at proper full room-scale. Like, they've literally said "now I get what you've been talking about".
Absolutely.

Having people over to try VR has become something of a hobby. Nothing funnier than watching new people play Gorn.

I love that I can play games now without feeling like such a lazy fuck too. That moment when you take the sweaty headset off may not be the most pleasant, but it's worth it. You get so caught up in the task the game is giving you that you don't realise how active you're being.
Ha it's funny you say that, it's become a bit of a hobby for me too! Seeing the reaction of someone trying out VR for the first time (especially someone who has never heard of it) is priceless. It's like a deaf person hearing sound for the first time.

One of my favorite moments so far was when I had my uncle and cousin try it out. My cousin is a doctor and my uncle works in the meat industry but has some medical knowledge too. They loved the VR in general, but what really blew their mind was the Human Body Scan in The Lab. When I tried it out I thought it was pretty cool, but they spent (literally) over two hours microanalyzing the bodyscan, studying it from every angle, diagnosing the person, and so on. They concluded that the person was a woman in her 40s or 50s, had her appendix removed, had children, a whole bunch of stuff. My cousin said that he was able to see stuff where when he was in medical school the only way to see it was by digging it out of a corpse, better than any textbook he said. One example was some tiny quarter inch sized bone in the ears and another was some bone in the spine or something. They were really impressed, even hours later they were still shaking their head.

I also agree about getting a workout while playing. It's real. I remember my arms being a little sore after a couple of hours of the archery demo in The Lab.
This guy lost over 50 pounds just by playing VR (no joke) [https://uploadvr.com/man-loses-50-pounds-playing-soundboxing/]
This guy too using VR bicycle [https://uploadvr.com/man-loses-50-pounds-using-virtual-reality-bicycle/]
Oh, that's really cool.

I have been playing Soundboxing. It's limited in a lot of ways since it relies on the community (which is obviously fairly small) mapping out tracks rather than clever interpretive software solutions... But it's good fun. I can put in an hour here and there punching along to Metallica and Michael Jackson and get drenched in sweat, then go for a quick run before jumping in the shower. Feel good after. I was never one for boring gym environments. I always needed a bit of a distraction to get in good workouts, playing team sports or badminton where there's a goal, the goal being WINNING!

I really should invest in some of those washable face covers...

Do you get terribly sick in games that allow free movement with thumb stick (or I suppose track pad, since I think you said you have a vive)? I always got travel sickness and whatnot. I even still get sick in cars, but only when I'm not driving. I assumed that I would suffer in VR, but so far the only things that have got me are that adrift game (really didn't like that) and the disc throwing game on the rift where you lean to the sides to move laterally on this hovering platform. I've found I can play Pavlov or serious sam with the comfort settings turned off without any real problems. So I'm very excited for open worlds to get lost in. Bring on Fallout 4 VR.
 

Myria

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Jingle Fett said:
This guy lost over 50 pounds just by playing VR (no joke) [https://uploadvr.com/man-loses-50-pounds-playing-soundboxing/]
Sorry, that is a joke, and rather a bad one.

The article states that he played the game for about 20 minutes at first, then up to 90 minutes. Call it one hour per day for five months. Being generous, one hour of light aerobic activity like that might burn 150 kcal. So roughly 150 days times 150 calories is 22,500 kcal total. One pound of adipose tissue is roughly 3,500 kcal, coming out to around 6.4lbs. And that's assuming no compensatory reduction in NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogensis), which there almost certainly would be, no compensatory change in diet, and all the rest of that rot.

I'm a personal trainer by trade, and one of the first things I tell weight loss clients is that if they're in the gym to lose weight they're in the wrong place. The kitchen is where you lose or gain weight. Exercise has a host of benefits, but short of professional athletes or those who basically live at a gym its actual effect on your body's energy equation are fairly minimal. For the average person ~70% of your body's daily caloric burn is BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, just what it takes to keep you alive), ~10% is TEF (Thermic Effect of Food, what it costs to digest the food you eat), most of the rest is NEAT. You can move the equation around a few percentage points if you're really motivated, but in most instances you'll end up compensating (usually overcompensating) by subconsciously reducing NEAT, increasing caloric intake, or, most often, both.The comparative difference studies I've seen have generally shown nothing more (and often quite a lot less) than a 7-10% difference in loss rates between dieters in an exercise program and those not, with the only meaningful difference being that those in a program were more likely to keep it off (though, sadly, neither group was all that likely to).

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but this is a real pet peeve of mine since I deal with some variation of it darn near every day. I doubt it's even mathematically possible to lose ten pounds a month (a rate well above anything safe or sustainable, by the way, chances are depressingly high he'll put it back on and more ta' boot) by any form of exercise, let alone something as relatively mild as playing a VR game.

Unfortunately people have been sold the idea that obesity is a matter of lack of physical activity. At best that's a gross oversimplification, at worst it's flat out wrong. Fundamentally weight is a thermodynamics equation, calories in versus calories out. You have complete control over calories in, but only very minimal control over calories out.
 

Jingle Fett

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Sexual Harassment Panda said:
Jingle Fett said:
Oh, that's really cool.

I have been playing Soundboxing. It's limited in a lot of ways since it relies on the community (which is obviously fairly small) mapping out tracks rather than clever interpretive software solutions... But it's good fun. I can put in an hour here and there punching along to Metallica and Michael Jackson and get drenched in sweat, then go for a quick run before jumping in the shower. Feel good after. I was never one for boring gym environments. I always needed a bit of a distraction to get in good workouts, playing team sports or badminton where there's a goal, the goal being WINNING!

I really should invest in some of those washable face covers...

Do you get terribly sick in games that allow free movement with thumb stick (or I suppose track pad, since I think you said you have a vive)? I always got travel sickness and whatnot. I even still get sick in cars, but only when I'm not driving. I assumed that I would suffer in VR, but so far the only things that have got me are that adrift game (really didn't like that) and the disc throwing game on the rift where you lean to the sides to move laterally on this hovering platform. I've found I can play Pavlov or serious sam with the comfort settings turned off without any real problems. So I'm very excited for open worlds to get lost in. Bring on Fallout 4 VR.

Yes. So far, the only time I've ever really gotten motion sickness was while trying to play Half-Life 2, Dear Esther, and other "traditional" games in VR using VorpX. Absolutely horrendous experience, almost vomited. I also tried Adrift and didn't like it either. For the most part, traditional games with thumbstick style movement just don't work, but it's not because it can't be done. The problem is that you can't just convert a regular game to VR and expect it to work, the same way that you usually can't take a console game, put it on mobile, and call it a day. Different platform, different design principles, different constraints. That's why not all VR experiences are the same. And if that was a person's first experience with VR, it's no surprise they would get the wrong idea and write it off as a gimmick.

Surprisingly, Google Earth VR completely nails the free non-teleporting movement. In it, you aim in the direction you want to move with the Vive controller and then you press up or down on the track pad to move forward in that direction or backward (no strafing). It works really well and I wouldn't be surprised if in the future that becomes the standard approach for free movement in VR games. It also has a clever optional comfort feature that limits your peripheral vision while moving. Disabling that feature causes a tiny hint of dizziness but I found that my body got used to it and it went away after a couple of sessions so now I play it with it disabled.
 
Apr 24, 2008
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Jingle Fett said:
Sexual Harassment Panda said:
Jingle Fett said:
Oh, that's really cool.

I have been playing Soundboxing. It's limited in a lot of ways since it relies on the community (which is obviously fairly small) mapping out tracks rather than clever interpretive software solutions... But it's good fun. I can put in an hour here and there punching along to Metallica and Michael Jackson and get drenched in sweat, then go for a quick run before jumping in the shower. Feel good after. I was never one for boring gym environments. I always needed a bit of a distraction to get in good workouts, playing team sports or badminton where there's a goal, the goal being WINNING!

I really should invest in some of those washable face covers...

Do you get terribly sick in games that allow free movement with thumb stick (or I suppose track pad, since I think you said you have a vive)? I always got travel sickness and whatnot. I even still get sick in cars, but only when I'm not driving. I assumed that I would suffer in VR, but so far the only things that have got me are that adrift game (really didn't like that) and the disc throwing game on the rift where you lean to the sides to move laterally on this hovering platform. I've found I can play Pavlov or serious sam with the comfort settings turned off without any real problems. So I'm very excited for open worlds to get lost in. Bring on Fallout 4 VR.

Yes. So far, the only time I've ever really gotten motion sickness was while trying to play Half-Life 2, Dear Esther, and other "traditional" games in VR using VorpX. Absolutely horrendous experience, almost vomited. I also tried Adrift and didn't like it either. For the most part, traditional games with thumbstick style movement just don't work, but it's not because it can't be done. The problem is that you can't just convert a regular game to VR and expect it to work, the same way that you usually can't take a console game, put it on mobile, and call it a day. Different platform, different design principles, different constraints. That's why not all VR experiences are the same. And if that was a person's first experience with VR, it's no surprise they would get the wrong idea and write it off as a gimmick.

Surprisingly, Google Earth VR completely nails the free non-teleporting movement. In it, you aim in the direction you want to move with the Vive controller and then you press up or down on the track pad to move forward in that direction or backward (no strafing). It works really well and I wouldn't be surprised if in the future that becomes the standard approach for free movement in VR games. It also has a clever optional comfort feature that limits your peripheral vision while moving. Disabling that feature causes a tiny hint of dizziness but I found that my body got used to it and it went away after a couple of sessions so now I play it with it disabled.
The Serious Sam games have a similiar solution where it gives you tunnel vision whilst you're moving, and can also be turned off.

I still haven't tried Google Earth. I think it has Oculus support now, so I'll have to get on it.