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How can VR be successful?

Jarrett

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
It's been called the ISIS of theme parks on here. Every time it comes up everybody shudders in fear. It has just about as much stigma as a Trump 2016 bumper sticker. VR might be one of the most hated ideas we enthusiasts have come across. But does it have to be? What could be done to make virtual reality regarded as a successful technology with a place in the amusement industry?

To me, VR has had its share of issues and I will completely acknowledge that some of the VR-related stuff I've seen is unacceptable and ridiculous. The lines for Superman: The Ride, the lack of sound on an otherwise highly immersive experience, the fifteen degree horizontal shift I had at the end of Iron Dragon VR, I'll definitely admit it has its share of problems. But I also think it can be worked around. To do so, I would give parks these guidelines:

*Pick the right ride. Don't put it on a popular coaster or one with crap capacity. Or one that's so rough it'll crack the screen if you look to the side just in time for a Vekoma restraint to slam the headset into your face. It needs to go on a ride that can provide a lot of people with a mild ride experience that isn't exactly popular. Not every park has a coaster like this and that's okay, that's what ground up VR coasters will be. But if a park doesn't have a coaster like this, they don't have a coaster compatible with VR.
*Find a better headset. The Samsung Gear worked fairly well but at the end of the day it was still a smartphone held up to your face, and you could see the individual light cells of the phone. Iron Dragon VR had substantial graphics so that's not the issue, but maybe something a bit more dedicated to VR like an Oculus Rift would be more appropriate?
*Add sound. This is the one thing both need to take away from what I'm saying. Superman and Lex were dead silent while fighting in front of me. The dragon carrying me around those gorgeous mountains was mute. For something that immersive, something as basic as sound is a must.
*Better loading system. I would advise having riders board the coaster first and then using 3D cameras on the headset to allow them to board. Have a ride op on the platform helping riders get them on so that that's done by the time they have to board.

To me, if a park follows all of this, I could see their VR coaster making the shirt with the same big bad B&M flagships around the park. To have a thematic coaster dedicated to virtual reality would really be a good addition to any lineup lacking an otherwise themed coaster, possibly for the fraction of the cost of heavy immersive theming.
 
Haven't ridden one yet, but I can totally sympathise with the whole 'ISIS of theme parks', as to me, they defeat the point of a conventional roller coaster. To me, part of the thrill of a coaster come from the experience being very much 'real' - and as soon as you put a headset on, an element of that gets removed. You won't secrete any adrenaline by playing a video game.
The other cataclysmic problems with it are of course, capacity and maintenance.

Is it completely on obsolete though? I don't think so, since like you said Jarrett, almost all technology is a bit **** when it comes out and subsequently improves over time. But even with flawless VR, I just don't think it can work with more thrilling coasters, or even any existing coasters at all.

But it can certainly have a niche - I think VR would be perfect on a purpose built dark ride, as a central part of the experience. I think it's made mode for immersive experiences - like the apparently fantastic first half of DBGT's VR. Something like an SFX coaster would be perfect as you could make it into a proper story/journey rather than simply the lame 'err...flying round a city aimlessly shooting at gargoyles...?' Maybe pop in a few 4D cinema effects in too and it would be brilliant fun, with a much improved capacity from designing from scratch.
 
^ This.

LISTEN TO THE CONSTANT COMPLAINTS FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS AND STAFF AND DITCH IT!!!!!!
 
I rode Pegasus with "Coastiality" as Europa-Park calls it. They also used Samsung VR, and they attached "Beats Pill"s wireless speakers for the sound. The rollercoaster is more of a family/children's coaster (one drop, a banked turn and a few helices.) So far, this already addresses most of your points. Still. It was crap. Even though boardingtakes so much time already with VR, I still didn't have enough time/I didn't manage to adjust the headset properly, so it was a bit blurry. On the drop, I didn't really see what ist happening, which confused me and I didn't even realize the drop. After that, there were a few cool moments with the VR where I saw what is going on, but then the ride was already over. The coaster isn't really intense or long, but with VR, it felt even less intense and much shorter. It almost felt a bit like I was sedated, I didn't fully realize I'm in a roller coaster. It really felt mor like a motion simulator/4D Movie. VR might me.nice for children and families who also enjoy the funny short movie, but if you rode a roller coaster because you like the thrill (and you don't even have to be a coaster enthusiast like us here), VR is the wrong choice. My conclusion: Makes tame rides more interesting for children and families.
But I still hate it. It's not like I really love family rides, and if I'm queueing for one I don't want to spend all my time on it because they need eternities for boarding.
 
I've never been on a VR ride (should do soon, need to stop wimping out of Derren Brown :p), but I really hate the idea of VR on rides, especially when it's ungracefully forced onto an already decent coaster.

"Hey kids, stop looking at your screens all day! We're going for a family day out ... to look at screens."
 
VR would have to be done in a way that doesn't slow loading times. This is the biggest obstacle I see, and I don't know a way around it.

As far as the experience goes, I think VR might not be the way to go. I think "augmented reality" (like Pokemon Go) would usually be the better option. In this situation, you can keep coasters in their natural environments and retain the ability for riders to look at their friends, but then you could have the Green Goblin flying around the train as you turn and dive to get away.
 
My answer is quite straightforward: Integrate the VR with the ride, instead of applying it to it.

Guess I'll have to explain more in-depth. In the solar power industry, a distinction is made between Building-Applied and Building Integrated photovoltaics (BAPV/BIPV). BAPV consists of a solar power system attached to an already-functional building. BIPV is using solar panels as building elements, such as roof tiles and facade plates. In that case, you plan the solar array as part of the building, so the two will influence each other's design (material choices, roof angles, etc), rather than designing them separately and then slapping them together. That's the closest analogy I can think of right now, since it's midnight and I'm a little too tired to be CF-ing properly.

So with "Integrated VR" (IVR) the VR experience is designed in the same process as the coaster itself. The coaster is not designed to deliver an experience of its own, that the VR will have to be adapted to. An IVR ride would feel incomplete without VR, since the two would be made to fit together.

I believe this could create amazing experiences. You could use launches and drops to simulate extreme velocity changes. When your eyes see that you fall off a hundred-metre cliff, and your balance organs confirm that you're indeed falling, you will not notice that the fall is actually less than ten metres. When you experience soft acceleration for several seconds, your brain can believe you're being catapulted out of the atmosphere, rather than going down a slight incline. The VR can exaggerate the motions of the ride, or rather the motions of the ride is used to reinforce the VR experience. The ride would have to be created to match the VR story, with drops and turns in appropriate places, and (gasp!) flat, boring and slow sections between the highlights of the story, when motion isn't important. Mid-course lift hills, meandering sections, wrongly banked turns... unforgivable sins in a non-VR coaster, but mere tools of opportunity for the IVR designer. It would be tricky to pull off correctly, but I believe it would be really good if done well.
 
^ This exactly. Coasters need to be designed for VR, rather than VR adapting to existing coasters. It's like a 2D film being screened using 3D technology, it undervalues the original 2D film and won't give as good an experience as films designed to be 3D.
 
How I imagine "proper VR": Everything Pokemaniac said, and the VR headsets are not phones in front of your head, inestad, something like Oculus Rift. Or like Microsoft Hololens. But even if the screens are good, the graphics which the tiny mobile graphic chips (which are used in phones or HoloLens) deliver just suck. A VR-Coaster should have a small but powerful computer somewhere beneath the seat. Without a disk drive, just a small SSD as storage you could build such a computer really small and and light. You probably could also skimp on big cooling systems and just use the airstream of the ride. I know this sounds a bit utopic, but for me VR is pointless as it exists right now.
 
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