I threw down $40-50 on SC a long time ago. A few months ago I played through some of the new sections of the alpha and they were pretty awesome for an alpha. The little bit of alpha I played was more immersive than anything I played in Elite (of which I paid $75 for).

One of the coolest things I did in the SC alpha was stowing away on a huge ship. I mean these vessels are massive. Now, if they didn't fly like pieces of cardboard - that would be nice.

I really don't care how long it takes.

It reminded me of Half-Life 1 when they did that face reveal. All that build-up and I was expecting something amazing. Then, bam! That unholy abomination. It's hardly even recognizable as humanoid. Holy shit, how is this considered a finished product?

Yeah I get it. Graphics don't make the game. But they do help you to get more immersed in the world and lose yourself in the lore. Something this dated coming out in 2016 just feels rushed and lazy.

Prior to that face, the walking animation was really bugging me especially with the way the legs moved once the feet hit the ground. Just totally unnatural.

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 4:54pm PDT - promote requested by ChaosEngine.

The Comeback of the Immersive Sim has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

you know what... this needs to be more popular!

*promote

also...
*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Comeback-of-the-Immersive-Sim

The reason it's breath taking is that there's no background music. Even parts of this that gets a music tone for a bit makes it less immersive. This is my own jihad, but I seriously don't understand why everything needs a soundtrack.

*quality Quake is a game I will never forget and always appreciate. New Doom is awesome, but still - no where as immersive as Quake was when it was first released.

I never got sold on motion control. It just has never been precise enough to feel like anything more than a gimmick to me. Maybe just confirmation bias, but everything I tried on Wii just felt really weird, clunky, and plasticky. I'll admit that I haven't really tried much of anything since then (and Wii is really old news by now).

Anyway, all the demos here looked cool for their 3D immersion, but my old bias against motion control kind of put a bit of an unfavorable spin on everything -- at least to me. Fine, small-scale motor skills are just going to be really hard to simulate with two wand-like things, even when they have multiple degrees of freedom and seemingly pretty solid accuracy.

...But, I'll admit that the archery mini-game looked like a really fun adaptation of that that wouldn't necessarily require *extremely* accurate fine control. Moving out of gimmick territory and into "ok, that could actually be extremely entertaining".

It's also worth noting that dreads have been a part of pot culture for at least 3 decades now. That's long enough that you can't actually deny it's a valid expression of that culture.

The mistake she's making is to assume that dreads are exclusive to black culture. As is pointed out in the video, the hair style has existed since recorded time. In fact, it's more accurate to say it represents carribean culture, so unless she was raised in that particular region, she would also be guilty of cultural appropriation of she wore dreads.

The bottom line is, no one can define someone else's culture or decide whose culture is valid. Cultures are fluid and evolving and cannot be constricted by anyone not immersed in that culture.

Oh wait! I meant to say, she's wearing a hooded windbreaker. She's clearly appropriating my eastern Anglo American culture.

The game was too immersive for you?

I guess for the genre it didn't seem too bad. There is some really awful Christian music videos I was exposed to as a kid that apparently set the bar high enough that this one didn't bother me.

I'm guessing immersion bias was likely at play here. Thanks for the response.

there many forms of enslavement,to wit most people are wholly unaware,either unwittingly or unwillingly.

"none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" van goethe.

consider this my friends:
if you accept currency for your labors,where you toil for anothers financial gain.you are literally renting yourself.trading your time,creativity and labors for coin.you are a wage slave and a hundred years ago our ancestors were very aware of this and found it detestable.they literally saw it as a form of slavery.

now as @Lawdeedaw pointed out,there are some protections put forth by our government,along with other governments,but those were not just handed out.they had to be fought for,and many died for those protections.by whom? wage slaves,but in those days they KNEW thats what they were,and proceeded from that premise.

the philosophy of the matrix even addressed this very idea of slavery (yep,i went there).that the majority of the people had become so entrenched and immersed in the system,that to even question the system would illicit a violent and defensive response.they would fight to remain in the system.

just look at our friend @Barbar 's reaction.
even the term "slave" was enough for a visceral reaction.

i am reminded of a doug stanhope routine in where he states " at least i KNOW i am a slave,YOU,however..remain clueless".

so let us take the term "slave" off the table and instead use the dynamic of "power vs powerlessness".

the current systems of power have the majority of people running on hamster wheel of desperation.may it be "pay check to paycheck" or "mortgage and credit cards" or the subtle doctrine of "conform and obey".this could also be "all of the above".

the real question is this:
do you consider yourself free?
because a comfortable slave.....is still a slave.
the term may be dramatic,but it is accurate.

Problem 1: The scale will tilt towards the lead block. It's the same principle as Archimedes, except using air instead of water. When there is air, there is a buoyant force exerted on any object immersed in it. Remove the air, and the weight of the object goes up, by the weight of the same volume of air.

Problem 2: 20*pi meters. I'm not sure how extreme physics is involved in this one at all. It's trivially derived from the definition of circumference.

You may not have words, but the youtube link has PLU-ENTY:

www.snuffpuppets.com

Everybody’s born

Everybody cries

Everybody shits

Everybody dies

Conceived in 2012, Everybody is a giant 26.5m human puppet with articulated, detachable and interactive body parts and organs. Ambitious in scope and subject, it is the largest human puppet on the planet and represents the essential humanness of everybody.

Everybody‘s build is experimental; it’s kind of unimaginable, so big and complex but without high-tech design. Its creation is brute, rough, handmade. Everybody is all genders and multi-racial.

Everybody lies down indoors in theatres, outdoors in parks and in open public spaces. In repose, Everybody sleeps, breaths and stirs. Everybody is not just one puppet but a multitude of independent, roaming human body parts and organs; they are characters in their own epic tale of human existence.

Everybody is an immersive experience. Audiences can walk around, sit on, lie against, get inside, and cuddle up to Everybody and all its beautiful body parts. The giant human puppet is viewed in 360 degrees. Everybody, the experience, is a six-hour interactive art installation, or a 90-minute stage show.

The piece begins with the death of the giant human puppet via a brick thrown at Everybody’s head. The head cracks and its brain oozes out. Everybody watches its life flash before its eyes, from birth through life and ultimately death. Everybody’s now independent body parts and organs perform the journey of its life stages. Everybody is in 4 Acts: Everybody’s Born, Everybody Cries, Everybody Shits, Everybody Dies.

Human performers play audience members or passers-by who find themselves transported into, then flung out of, the brain of Everybody. Everybody is made up of: Mouth, Eye, Poo, Foot, Ear, Nose, Brain, Lungs, Baby, Penis, Vagina, Bum, Skin, Heart, Hand, Guts, Breast and Hair. And with guests, Pig and Brick.

I don't think i've done a very good job of explaining my point, because:
1) I do not believe in the god of the gaps in any sense, i reject the notion.
2) I didn't ask for a "reason"; this is a subtle point that i'll try to make clearer.
3) I don't hold any "supernatural" beliefs in the sense you mean - not a single one.
4) I believe firmly in things that i can prove to myself, and am uncertain about things that i cannot supply any proof or reason for.

Why are we here? When i ask that question, i am not asking for a reason for our existence; a goal that humanity collectively must achieve. I am asking why do we find ourselves and our reality as we find it? We use science to describe it and become nonplussed by these amazing things but fundamentally, what is charge? Why do opposites attract? Why does mass attract mass, etc.? Isn't it all a bit weird and wonderful?

There is no answer to that question in physics. To use the term "supernatural" to describe a discussion of why/how (which lies beyond the jurisdiction of physics) is either naive or derogatory because the term is philosophy.

You reject the notion that you could go from not existing to existing, finding yourself in a world of things you don't understand. Yet you seem to find it unremarkable that at one point you went from not existing to existing, finding yourself in a world of things you didn't understand. If i put you in a fully immersive Skyrim game, unconscious and without memory, you'd play that game and think it was real. You may even believe that, once you died, you'd cease to exist. But one day, you die in Skyrim and everything ceases to be, before you're transported to a world of things you don't understand. Yet there were no mechanisms within the Skyrim universe to allow for that! In other words, what about things that exist or take place outside of our 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimensions, or perhaps beyond even our understanding of dimensions?

"There has to be a mechanism" is idle speculation on your part, and demonstrates your closedness to anything that might exist beyond our perspective of 3 dimensional space (which might be behind the "why?" and god of the gaps misunderstanding) - for which there is evidence and on which there is active and significant research. Besides, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is not the god of the gaps, this is acknowledging our limitations and constraining our certainty accordingly.

It's odd that you quote Sagan, because he often spoke about the spiritual and the unknowable/ineffable. I think he would be more aligned with my assessment than yours, as he was an agnostic and rejected the label atheist.

Possibly we continue to exist, perhaps we don't. Perhaps 'exist' and 'not exist' are human concepts that don't mean anything in the bigger picture, and the parts of us that exist outside of 3 dimensions bathe forever in rivers of custard (or something really weird that can't be explained in english). Nobody knows and no guess is less likely or less educated, in my opinion, which is based on my lack of certainty and absolute bewilderment that we did the not-exist->exist cycle in the first place - but i welcome any argument or evidence you can provide counter to this, and my mind is open to them.

Another awesome example of creative and unique gameplay that only really makes sense when you have that level of immersion. I can't wait to see how gaming changes once VR becomes mainstream.