Musing on VR gaming in a general sense

A few months ago I wrote a post about how I had gone to Da Nang's first Virtual Reality gaming center and how great it was. Me and an ever-changing group of friends have been going there every single week for a few months now and the numbers of people that go are starting do dwindle for a couple of reasons. I still really enjoy going but I can understand why other people would lose interest after a while.

Lately we have been struggling to get even 4 people to go and this can be a problem because most of the games are PvP (person vs person or player vs player) and that just isn't very fun with such a small amount of people.

We make due though, and since it only costs about $8 per person for an hour, I think it is a good way to spend both time and money where booze cannot be involved.

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The place is called "Another World* and it is somewhat global and not limited to just Vietnam. I read there are locations in USA and Europe as well as Australia. I would be willing to bet that people in those areas will pay significantly more than $8 an hour though.

https://another-world.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/skyscrapers-4-1.webp
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one of the best games IMO is Shmooter and it can be PvP or PvE. The PvE kind of sucks because all the enemies just take a long time to kill and that's not really fun but in the PvP you have massive virtual arenas and it is pretty wild that they are able to pull this off considering that the group of people you are playing with are all standing in a grid area that is likely 5x5 meters or even smaller than that.

It's wild to me that you can be in two separate buildings on different floors when you are really IRL just standing a few feet from the other players.

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_{it's like half of this would be your area of play}

Now it's not terribly complicated. There is only one button that is used and that is the trigger of the gun or guns that you happen to be holding. There is no jump or walk or run button because that is controlled by the movement of your own body.

It's because of this simplicity that almost anyone can walk up and play and while there is a learning curve, especially if you are playing against or with someone like me that has some knowledge of the arena already, there are no combos or secret powerup buttons.

If you want to stand in one place and wait for someone to come down an elevator shaft the entire game you are welcome to do so. I prefer to wander and take the fight to the enemy since dying doesn't really have any penalty associated with it except losing your weapon that you had at the time. This isn't that big of a deal because those weapons are constantly spawning all over the place so you only need to walk for a bit and find another one.

Now, that simplicity being stated, I have encountered two types of players that come and do this.

• Laid back person that isn't overly concerned with winning and just enjoys themselves

• ultra-competitive people who will whine and complain and make claims about how the game is "unfair" if they don't win every time.

This last week there were 4 of us. Me and one girl who have been going for a while and are pretty adept at the game, another guy who has been going for a while but just simply isn't very good, and a new guy who had never done it before.

We kind of had our suspicions about the new guy being competitive because he is in other bar sports like pool and darts, but he was a serious pain in the ass to play with and while he was very vocal about how "VR SUCKS" and how he is not going to come back again that was fine because we had no intention of ever inviting him again.

When he and I were on a team things were fine because I was laying down some kills and supporting him for the first 30 minutes. I wouldn't say that he was terribly good at it but he was just fine and he was also having a good time.

However, after 30 minutes we changed the game to "everyone for themselves" because the play area is actually quite huge and in a team game you can end up spending an inordinate amount of time simply finding someone on the other team to shoot at when it is just 4 of you.

In the "free for all" game this is where the new guy turned into what I later described as a "little bitch."

When he died a few times in a row, often at the hands of the same person such as me or the girl that plays with us that is very good. I could hear him sighing or talking about how his gun "doesn't work." This of course is not true because I took damage from him but just not enough to actually kill me. Then he started behaving like a petulant child and just stood there with his arms outstretched not even trying to fight back for a while.

My response to this (in game) was to just not shoot him unless he shot me first. Which sometimes I guess he got bored of just standing there so he would shoot me. Then I would turn around and shoot back but with a better gun because I had been walking around looking for a better gun and not just standing in the middle of a room being intentional cannon fodder.

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By the time the game was over and scores are put into your display, he was of course in last place but much of this was because of his refusal to play and acting like a baby. This guy is in his early 50's too by the way.

After the game was over he was insistent that his equipment was faulty or that the game was broken to the point where the staff went and checked out his headset and controllers and it just made him more angry when they said that it is all fine... we all knew that this was already the case but just like a petulant child, he still refused to admit that maybe it was just a skill issue and that simply giving up is not the way forward.

So I can't believe that I have to do this considering that everyone that goes is an adult but now this is the 2nd person that has just rage-quit midway through the game. There is no prize here guys, this is just supposed to be a fun escape from reality to throw bombs at your friends and they watch their silly costumed body fly across the screen when you make a good shot.

I guess some people are just too serious for that sort of thing and I hope that if I ever encounter something that I am not immediately the best at that I will be a lot more laid back than this guy was. Later on at the pub he was still talking trash and claiming the game is broken and that it is stupid even though the rest of us had a great time.

He said i will NEVER go back and well, the other 3 of us that were there are perfectly OK with this and weren't going to invite him anyway.

Some people just can't be pleased I guess. If you do have a chance to play VR at some place near you I do highly suggest that you do so. It is a lot of fun and doesn't really require much in the way of any sort of skill. I suppose it does take some level of patience and maturity though and my friend (who will remain my friend!) just doesn't have great levels of either of those things.