It's been like a month since the last update and that was just some bug fixes. Inc said in another thread that you guys are super busy.

What're you working on? Anything cool?

Basically, there's a whole slew of work that's happening because of VR development. Some of it has narrow appeal, some of it broader. We've had some external deadlines get kind of messed up and moved around by other parties (not our fault), so things are kind of uhh.. "intensely focused" recently, which means I haven't had time for newsletters or talking about it even.

I also hate to "bury the lead" in the list below, as I know there are some more major things we've done that will be exciting to people, but I can't remember them right now.. I'm running around putting out fires and.. stuff.

Off the top of my head, from the last week-ish?:

- Further work on the cockpit-mode for VR (will be an option for non-VR too, but haven't done that yet).
- First-person station launches, first-person jump / wormhole effects, and the effects are different.
- Some subtle effects, like engaging turbo causes a little initial shake in the cockpit, etc.
- New tutorials, re-working existing tutorials, more and newer voiceover recordings, etc.
- Multiple font options in the UI.
- Multiple skin options in the UI.
- A whole lot of UI tweaks and changes, some VR-specific and some not.
- Further gamepad tweaks, like a "chord" button combo for the Jettison menu, etc.

That's like a week, so there's just a crap-ton of kinda fiddley stuff like that, some of which is small, and some has been a pain in the ass. There's also been some really major, fundamental changes that are technically live in production but aren't really "enabled" yet, like the instanced-rendering stuff on PC will probably make a big framerate impact.. as soon as we can release re-worked assets that use it.

There's actually a few months of changes that need to be back-propagated onto non-VR, or onto PC, or various other cases. Right now we're just trying to push to hit some external deadlines. Once this thing ships, we can re-converge the features across all other builds and add a lot of new Options stuff.

FYI, aside from our core VR-focus, I have also had some work done on updating Trident assets a bit, with the goal of the long-awaited Trident release. But, it's been sporadic, in between other critical priorities.

"- Further gamepad tweaks, like a "chord" button combo for the Jettison menu, etc."

Cool! Will that be available as a generic thing, so that I could set up combos on my joystick or keyboard?

It isn't a generic thing right now, but I agree that's something we should add, so people can re-define them however they want. Although that might also include a need for re-doing the catastrophically awful input/control options interface.

Right now I'm just trying to hit the best set of defaults for an Xbox/PS4 style controller, as quickly as I can.

Hmm.

Trident release......
:)

- New tutorials, re-working existing tutorials, more and newer voiceover recordings, etc.

Make sure they know how to effectively /givemoney to a character with a space in the name...I'm getting tired of noobs rage quitting when they can't pay and I won't give them a pass.

A training mission to explain the Mentor system available from the training sector threw gaining your first level 3 licence could be a good addition. New players progress to a level 3 licence very fast, many before they realize the mentor program exists. Mentor badges and the associated items made available once gained are sought after, but very much an undue challenge to obtain.

Making the key / command map for each control - OS available would be help. Some time can be spend just figuring out how each button is named and what commands are available to bind.

https://www.vendetta-online.com/manual/app_faq.html is a great page, but some info needs to be updated, does not have correct format and is not easy to find with web page navigation tab.

I know these are suggestions, but it is directly related to this thread.

I'll see what I can do. For the moment though, the main goal is just to make the tutorial missions less of a TERRIFYING WALL OF TEXT.

Also, we added text-to-speech tonight, albeit only on Android because it uses the built-in Android stuff. Still, kinda neat, it can read you mission stuff, and we can potentially bind "Continue" to Activate or something (when there isn't some other Activate-relevant task, like a nav route set) so people can like.. just be playing and actually listening to missions and continuing through things without having to flip back to the PDA/Mission interface all the time.

Goal/idea anyway. We'll see how it goes.

multiple font options

will we also be able to set different font sizes for HUD and the PDA? just cause I like huge fonts normally, but don't need them blocking my pilot's view.

I was considering getting an Android tablet since my iPad is old and you don't seem to be releasing an iPhone version soon... Not even Soon(TM)... But VR would probably be better than a little tablet screen anyways.

Which VR are you developing for? Or is that a secret? And would that then be usable on mobile (assuming it was new and beefy) or would it require a computer? Because a VR headset running off my iPhone 6s+ would be ideal, but... I'm guessing it's gonna require Android or a computer?

And glad to see you all are still here. Even if the pace of change is slow, good job keeping the servers up and running. How many devs you have these days, anyways? Not as many as you'd like I'm sure. There's still something about this game... Even after 11 years, I still keep coming back... Periodically anyways.

The currently announced mobile-VR target is GearVR, which will work on a Samsung Galaxy S6, S7 or Note 5.

Do we have a target date for VR release? Ive gotten away from VO since my Vive arrived at my door ;)

Not really. I mean, it's playable on the retail Rift right now, but with a much older version of our VR implementation that hasn't been updated in months. Hopefully in the next month or two?

GearVR is the current focus, we're trying to get that out the door. The upside is, the changes we're making for GearVR will back-propagate across all other VR as well.

Once Gear is launched, we'll do some housekeeping and updates to the main versions, and then Rift will probably be next target, because doing one store-release with Oculus kind of lends itself to doing another store-release with Oculus.

Vive support will come, although that may involve a Steam release too, which has a different set of challenges. If I can release Vive support into open testing without being on Steam (as we've done with the Rift), then we'll try to do that, so people can give us feedback.

For those who read this and go "OH GOD YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT".. no, not really. The actual support of the different headsets (at least in Vive/Rift/Gear specific cases) is not that time consuming. Probably a couple of days to get Vive up and running, if I had to guess?

What is time-consuming is all the other "VR" stuff required to make the user experience enjoyable. That's what we've been spending the last few months building. There are lots of usability tweaks, and performance changes. Performance is a huge factor. Even for Rift/Vive, we're probably going to need to re-tool some assets to get instancing fully working in DX11, to maintain 90fps at all times (90fps stereoscopic is much harder than 90fps on your monitor).

And, upside, all of this stuff does make the game much better and faster for everyone else. It may not be the features that non-VR people want the most, but it does make the game better overall.

(It also lets us take advantage of all the time-sensitive marketing opportunities, development seed money and grants available to those early-mover developers doing VR, right now. This is great for the company and long-term game as a whole).

I have a question:

How many people play Vendetta Online, using VR? Is there a way for you to see this?
I assume you expect the numbers to rise drastically, given that you invest so much time into it.

The actual support of the different headsets (at least in Vive/Rift/Gear specific cases) is not that time consuming.

So, any chance of something with Linux support being on the table?

How many people play Vendetta Online, using VR? Is there a way for you to see this?
I assume you expect the numbers to rise drastically, given that you invest so much time into it.

Actually, we aren't tracking that yet. It's on the list, just hasn't been very high priority. I would expect very few, though, because we aren't launched in the Oculus Store yet. There's been some discussion on Reddit and elsewhere about our Oculus support, but it isn't really mass-market in terms of press awareness.

VR people will show up more with the GearVR launch, which probably has the biggest population of any VR platform so far.

I don't expect the Rift or Vive to drive real mass-market adoption, they're too expensive at the moment (although the users they do drive will probably stick around more than average). But I do suspect that the Daydream launch and other upcoming systems to probably drive much higher numbers of people into trying VR.

As I mentioned though, a lot of this is about timing and positioning. Oculus, HTC, Razer and many other companies have (respectively) set aside millions of dollars to promote VR development. There have also been billions invested by the venture capital world, all of which creates a situation with a lot of opportunities for early-movers.

Without getting too far into it, if I can save up some cash from a number of different "grant" deals, that could give me enough headroom to try switching the whole game to fully hybrid/F2P across all platforms, and other potentially risky choices that may also yield a high reward. Or, I might be able to afford a big marketing push.. or even hiring another developer.

So, right now, the business case is.. it's a good long-term play, because VR is awesome and will eventually be mass-market (and we'll be well positioned when it is); and a good short-term play because there's money around that may give us flexibility to do other important things with VO that are risky, or we can't currently afford.

Plus, we are getting paid (basically) to do a bunch of things we wanted to do anyway, including a lot of user interface and engine optimization work (much needed, even if not the most popular development targets).

So, any chance of something with Linux support being on the table?

Linux was never off the table, really? I think every major HMD company (at least Oculus and HTC/Valve) have said they will support it, but not out of the gate. Just getting these devices out the door.. on time.. has obviously been a big problem. There are signs that people are working on Linux support.

We will support Linux VR, but it isn't going to be on my radar for launch. Plus, we need to back-propagate some of our instancing improvements into the GL4 driver as well. Anyway, I think the OSVR guys are a bit further along with their Linux support. I haven't officially announced anything related to them, but I'll say support is probably likely.

Linux and Mac support are basically inevitable, but it's really early yet, and will probably take a little while.

Cool. I like the idea behind the OSVR project, so I'm glad to hear that it's now a "probably likely" instead of just a "that wouldn't be too hard".