Isn''t the next step in games the ressurection of Glide?

What is this... Gl..i..de?

COOLNESS!

Without getting too pie in the sky, I think the next level of gaming will be augmented reality gaming. In this you will put on a headset that look somewhat like glasses. You see the world as it normally is, but the game renders monsters to display over the real world. In this way you can actually battle zombies in your house. Work is already being done on this to help with position information and architectural modelling. If it is ever to be accepted by the general public, it will need a killer app. Seeing as gaming has been the main driving force behind the constant consumer PC upgrading craze, it seems like games would be the perfect demo to push the technology into the public realm.

Ut

There is already at least one version of AR Quake. I haven''t seen it in person, but it looks fairly interesting. There are other AR games as well. Look up papers from past IWARs (now ISMAR).

I have a very high res head mounted display and a very good tracker system that I used for AR projects. I always wanted to throw together an AR game, but I never had the spare cycles. I did get far enough to notice great potential.

About VR/AR/ and HMDs... The problem with these things is that the tracker must be pretty accurate, otherwise your eye registers one motion (virtual) and your inner ear registers another (real) motion. For even very slight mismatches, the effect gets you very nauseous very quickly. You also get all sorts of interesting effects on your depth perception. It will be awhile before HMDs/trackers can be made to appeal to the mass market.

The fourth dimension. Hypercubes everywhere. (Level design would be impossible, and playing would be even harder).

Like asking, "what''s after death?"

quote: Original post by kenwi
Like asking, "what''s after death?"

Or it becomes the new Jules Verne. You don''t predict the future, but your predictions BECOMES the future.

One have to ask oneself it it just was luck that the things Verne wrote (like man walking on moon or saling under the water) happend alot later, or is it so that scientists have looked at Verne when they decided what to do.

Maby the same is true here. Maby scientists will look at Gibson or other writers when they want to do something new, who knows?

I´d like to think in a gaming future where the fun factor and the simplicity of the game are important, rather than the tech factor, the "awesome" graphics, and the complex controls...

The history of the human being is always a cycle, I wouldn´t doubt that people will get bored of 3d games, and return to 2d games, with simple controls...

I think also that today´s games are annoyingly complex, we parted from a control that consisted of one directional pad, and two buttos: A and B. Today, we have controls that have ten buttons: A, B, Z, C up, C down, C left, C right, L, F, two directional buttons, and a horrible layout of all them (just thinking that I must get that control on the center handle and from there can´t reach comfortably the directional pad makes me sick :-P)...

In 3D shooters like the latest: Alien vs. Predator 2, Wolfie, we had to change our way of playing from the trusty directional keys, control for shooting, alt for strafing... to a combination of mouse, and the keyboard: we move with the A D W S keys, we crouch with control, we jump with space, in the mouse we shoot with the left button, and shoot the secondary mode of shooting with the right button. I had the same immersive experience with directional keys, A, and Z with some kind of car driving game... :-)

These games always awe us at first, but because we tire of so much immersion in the complex games, we always return to the simple ones: people still play Tetris, Collapse in games.yahoo.com is one of the most popular single online games there, along with Text Twist...

In the end, only time will tell if one of us is right :-)...

Just my two cents there :-D

i think the future of games is virtual reality. after they have reached this super wonderful 3d graphics on screen, they will make that becomes even more real by "placing" you inside that 3d scene.

a more advanced is (this is completely my imagination):
your skill of playing games is not just a skill of controlling mouse or pressing keys on keyboard/gamepad, but the actual battle skill.
if you play an aircraft simulation game, your skill is controlling the airplane from the cockpit (of course, in the game context, not real airplane, unless they make it so real).
if you play an FPS game, your skill is how to act in a battlefield with weapons in your hands.
in an rpg game? no need to ask. imagine fighting with real monsters and dragons with sword in your hands! you actually swing that sword! oh i''m so badly want to play that game.

but i believe this is still way far to the future because this requires body movements, so imagine what your mom will say if you rolling, jumping, and kicking her expensive vases in your house. but i think they will make a big playground for this (like paintball or that laser game).

also, i''ll expect a more better communicative computer, a highly intelligent computer AI that can communicate with you just like you communicate with normal human beings.

Life is fair.
-Albert Tedja-

We already have VR u fool!

COOLNESS!