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1994-08-01
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,alt.games.doom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc
Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uknet!festival!hwcee!mapleson
From: mapleson@cee.hw.ac.uk (Ian CR Mapleson)
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the meaning of Doom
Message-ID: <CtvI7q.9DD@cee.hw.ac.uk>
Sender: news@cee.hw.ac.uk (News Administrator)
Organization: Dept of Computing & Electrical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland
References: <Ctn01t.M8D@cee.hw.ac.uk> <cbarton.149.2E39104C@clark.dgim.doc.ca> <CtpJxp.GGx@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 20:28:37 GMT
Lines: 79
Xref: cdrom.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action:22925 alt.games.doom:25654 comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc:10222
In article <CtpJxp.GGx@dcs.gla.ac.uk> dam@dcs.gla.ac.uk (David Morning) writes:
>cbarton@clark.dgim.doc.ca (Casey Barton) writes:
>
>>mapleson@cee.hw.ac.uk (Ian CR Mapleson) writes:
>>>
>>>axg708@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Ashraf Ghebranious) writes:
>>>> ...the doom engines fails to offer VR in any form at all.
>>>> Look at Under World. They made more of an attempt to capture VR despite the
>>>> fact the graphics are poor in comparison...
>
>>>I wish people would stop calling these games VR this and VR that. They're
>>>*not*.
>
>>>For a system to be a virtual reality system, it *must* have head tracking
>>>and must be immersive. Personally, I'd also make the qualification of
>>>having a decent refresh rate, but that's just personal bias. But the first
>>>two criteria are internationally accepted definitions.
>
>> So when was this official standard established? "VR" means Virtual Reality.
>>That is, a reality that really isn't. It needn't have any specific level of
>>technology.
>
>So Pong and Space Invaders are virtual reality? How fascinating!!
>I always assumed the term 'virtual reality' meant 'close to, but not quite
>the real thing' and usually involved getting kitted out in rather bizzare
>garb culminating in what looked like two Gameboys glued to some spectacle
>frame.
>If 'virtual reality' meant a 'a reality that really isn't' wouldn't it make
>more sense to call it 'not reality'?
>
>I suspect the fuzzing if the issue by the likes of Sega in Virtua Racing
>has led to the definition of Virtual Reality meaning the opposite of what
>the words actually convey!!
>
>Next time I'm 'virtually' home, I'll remember I'm not home at all, rather than
>nearly home...
>
>What a silly discussion!!
>
It's not a silly discussion for one simple reason. When people keep using the
phrase to describe games as VR when they are not, it ups peoples'
expectations of what VR actually is and what current technology can really do.
Commercially, this is inadvisable as people will then be dissapointed when
they come face to face with proper VR system which are, at best, kinda jerky
and none too detailed at the moment without the use of OTT hardware.
To answer Casey's question, this 'official standard' was established, in a
semi-official way, about 2 years ago. Email me for info as I don't have the
conference paper to hand (I'm on campus writing this). The papers from the
conference have been collected into a book, published in 1992. Email me for
the name, etc.
On a similar theme, many people witter on about cyberspace and often refer to
the Internet by using the word. Yet another mistake. At present, there are
_no_ genuine environments that qualify as true cyberspace zones. There are 3
in the research phase, but none are publicly accessible to the world at large.
The Internet is not cyberpscae as W. Gibson defined the word 'cyberspace'.
My concern lies in the way the media, and people like ourselves, hype up what
games technology is capable of actually achieving.
I remember going into a computer store once and seeing an Archimedes doing a
'real time' wireframe (with hidden lines removed) animation. "Hey, cool!", I
thought. But on closer inspection... it was just reading in stored images off
a hard disk! :(
Using terms to describe things which don't fit the terms as defined will
affect people's perceptions of the technology in the same way my perception
of that Arc was affected by seeing a fake animation (the advertising was
clearly inferring that the animation was being done real time, which was just
a fudge).
Anybody wants to chat further about VR, then move this to email.
Ian.