Virtual Reality in MMOs

Virtual Reality in MMOs By JD Suddarth I'm JD, I'm a Game Designer. I'm 19 years old, and I love MMOs.

So, me and a friend were having a huge discussion on the idea of Virtual Reality becoming possible in MMOs and games, and how it would be done. Now, when we talk about Virtual Reality, we think of being in the game, being able to visualize, and hear in the game, feeling like we are IN the game. However, we took it one step forward, what about being able to use your senses in the game? We started off talking about the technology required to use all five senses in the game. Science fiction films come to mind, with us seeing the stereotypical headset, and of course the suit, but what about something as simple as a headband? Or something that fixes to your temples as easily as your headphones going on your ears? What would this require? We've all seen the movie "The Matrix" I'm sure, and with Neo and all of them getting plugged into the system through a plug on their neck. Most people just viewed this as grotesque and unrealistic, but consider a crystalline electrode that can read and transmit minute neural impulses.

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With such a non-intrusive device, a completely interactive gaming experience is possible. It's just a matter of dampening the neural impulses so that they don't induce shock or too much pain into the body from the game. However, being able to smell, taste, feel, see, and hear everything as if it were reality, is very possible. Now you imagine sending the neural impulses would move your muscles, so you'd be moving around in real life, but we don't want it to be like Wii. This would not recognize your movement, it's to the point where it's brainwave recognition technology, to where you just give the command to your headset, or crystalline on your forehead. So say you're sitting at the computer, you hook up the headset to your temples, and you also have a vision ocular on your head, so you see everything in a 360 degree angle, and the crystalline on your head, which reads all your commands. There will most likely be a period of "Loading" which can induce a certain amount of vertigo, and as you adjust and the senses of the "reality" of the game filter in, so does your sense of control in it. This is kind of where it gets a bit futuristic, but this is where the biofeedback technology of the game will be able to read your projected actions and input them into the game. There has to be a kind of mental switch, that the game itself will provide.

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