vrchat is pretty cool.

[sanctumsys]

i've put literal hundreds of hours into vrchat the past few months just hanging with a bunch of friends and it's been great. kind of hard to explain how it feels, but i'll try
in the usual case it's basically like hanging out in the same room sometimes. you kind of forget about the HMD after a while (as in still aware of it in the back of your mind but not actively thinking about the screen strapped to your head) and just talk. the positional audio does a lot for this; even talking to people on desktop the ability to be to the side of or behind someone and have the audio reflect that does a lot that something like a discord call just doesn't
and that's to say nothing of the general head/hand presence. you know how like, a friend might sometimes use a * tag to emphasize something? like "high-fives" or a *hugs* or something. obviously you don't feel anything, but you feel the *intent* of the thing, right? vrchat high-fives and such are basically like that; you don't feel the hand, but it's close enough
i just thought that was interesting. i've had a lot of time the past almost year to unpack my thoughts about it and it's just kind of become a cool chill routine. cool software and cool hardware. it's just so cool in general that i can throw on a HMD and feel effectively like i'm right next to people a continent away
image semi-related because that's the avatar i use: [tom scott voice] i am at the large hadron collider

[RT-55J]

I've only messed with VRChat once when visiting my younger sister last year (she has a very nice setup). It was nice embodying my avatar for a bit, even if the VRoid shaders were broken.

[sanctumsys]

It was nice embodying my avatar for a bit, even if the VRoid shaders were broken.

yeah setting up avatars manually is probably the hardest part (i just bought two i liked off BOOTH and setting them up from there was still a bit of a pain). especially for VRoids i think you need shaders; the most popular seems to be the lilToon shader for anime styled ones
using a custom model sounds cool either way, though. maybe one of these days..

[neen]

the thought of being represented as something other than my meat-body is kind of intriguing. i am not too keen on buying the hardware, though.

[sanctumsys]

i am not too keen on buying the hardware, though.

it's actually playable in desktop mode; obviously it's not as immersive that way, but my non-VR friends and i hang out in it all the time on various platforms (it's even on mobile)
that said, yeah zuck's effective monopoly on new VR hardware sucks. good news is it doesn't have to be new; i got my HTC Vive back in march for a solid $150 (canadian) and it's served me well ever since. it was a top of the line setup at launch and it's still very good even in direct comparison with my secondary device of a modified quest 2
quest-equivalent or similar hardware minus the zuckerberg ties like the DPVR E4 are also getting within "consumer price range" reach, though they're still much more than a secondhand vive
(also, the vive is much more comfortable with the deluxe audio strap. the vive pro 1 has it built in and is effectively the same thing with higher resolution; the pro 2 has software caveats that make it hard to recommend over either the original or pro 1, though)

[RT-55J]

imagining if i was in vr...

(i don't have anything substantial to add with this post. just wanted to poast my vroid)

[neen]

sam is going to be on the ground
sam is there to sam you around

[chorus]
SAM in the place where you work, now here's sam
Sam: "Think about direction, wonder why you have it now"

[sanctumsys]

i was just listening to the weird al parody of that earlier today so reading this was kind of spooky

[neen]

i am not too keen on buying the hardware, though.

it's actually playable in desktop mode; obviously it's not as immersive that way, but my non-VR friends and i hang out in it all the time on various platforms (it's even on mobile)
that said, yeah zuck's effective monopoly on new VR hardware sucks. good news is it doesn't have to be new; i got my HTC Vive back in march for a solid $150 (canadian) and it's served me well ever since. it was a top of the line setup at launch and it's still very good even in direct comparison with my secondary device of a modified quest 2
quest-equivalent or similar hardware minus the zuckerberg ties like the DPVR E4 are also getting within "consumer price range" reach, though they're still much more than a secondhand vive
(also, the vive is much more comfortable with the deluxe audio strap. the vive pro 1 has it built in and is effectively the same thing with higher resolution; the pro 2 has software caveats that make it hard to recommend over either the original or pro 1, though)

$150 is not bad at all. maybe i will look into it. i always kinda forget about buying used things in certain circumstances, for some reason

[sanctumsys]

totally. let me know if you need additional help with research; i'm pretty deep into the rabbit hole now
another advantage of the vive setup is its upgrade path; the same steamvr base stations the vive uses can also be used with the vive pro, index and bigscreen beyond HMDs (head-mounted displays) and the index controllers can replace the vive controllers (which is what i did a day ago; keeping the old ones as backup though). so it's an easy, inexpensive way in with a solid upgrade path without having to replace the entire setup
some things don't support the vive controllers anymore (they have a comparatively weird layout to the quest/oculus or valve index controllers; giant trackpads instead of sticks, which i actually like better for some things) but many early-on games were made specifically with them in mind (my favorite is Budget Cuts, and SUPERHOT VR plays great on them; vrchat is also fine) and the vast majority of games even newer ones still have some kind of support for them
drawing's also pretty fun. Open Brush is free on steam and really a unique experience for creating art