I Tried to Play VR With Friends on Quest and it was a Nightmare (Again)
The advent of Quest was supposed to streamline the usage of VR. But what was once friction of complicated hardware and requirements has been replaced with a mess of usability issues that make people not want to come back.
Something doesn't add up.
The author insists their friends aren't novices, that they've owned multiple consoles, built their own PCs, and regularly search for new games to play. This heavily implies that they're used to using an online store such as the Microsoft Store, PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop, or Steam.
Now with that in mind, re-read this quote from the article:
Now he needed to install the game. He had already purchased it online but couldn’t find it in his headset.
Fix: I told him to find the Store search and pull up the game and click the install button.
This was a quote about "Friend 1", who had supposedly owned multiple VR headsets before the Quest 2.
Sorry, but I don't buy that. How can you have so much experience with these types of platforms and not know how to install a game? It's not as if the way the Quest does it is unintuitive because the solution the author provided has literally been the standard for installing apps on your phone for as long as phone apps have existed.
I mean, I assume what happened was that the friend looked in their library, was surprised the game wasn't there after they bought it online, and since they were already chatting they just asked what to do rather than try to solve it alone. Opening a store is always a little slow just because it has to load ads and images and everything from online, so I can see why you wouldn't just rush to try that if your friends were waiting for you.
I know it's not rocket science but at the same time I played Horizon Worlds with my wife the other day and it was a nightmare getting it set up.
I couldn't see anything in the Quest guide on the headset to explain how to add friends. Friends are followers which if you're used to social media terminology is confusing. A follower isn't always the same as a friend. Very very minor hurdle.
The next thing was trying to meet her once she had managed to get into the app. She was put into the welcome world or somewhere that we couldn't join together.
Invited to Venues and then I couldn't hear her at all but she could hear me. Messed around with in app audio settings to no avail. Quit the app, 'called her' which I guess put us in a party. Had to set audio to party audio rather than app audio. So we still weren't entirely in the real experience.
I'm guessing she must have denied mic permissions without realizing it when she first opened the app so I'll have to either show her how to change that or do it for her.
I don't mind troubleshooting and tinkering with my experience (I enjoy it!) but she absolutely hates stuff like that and wants things to just work. I think that's probably the case for most people outside of gaming and tech.
I do partially agree ... I've had plenty of nights where someone voice chat isn't working or they can't find the notification to join. These little things do turn off your average user from VR. I wish all developers used the simple walkabout mini golf room codes - never an issue getting into that game.
Edit: Ah my apologies, for some reason I didn't see that this linked to an article. Thought it was a user here asking the question.
What sorts of issues? Did you try to meet up in game? Or form a party first outside of the game and bring that party into the game?
When forming a party first, you'll have to decide whether to keep the voice chat from the party or switch to the in-game chat. Generally only necessary if you need other people outside the group to hear you too. That part works alot like how it does on consoles.
I don't know what other issues there might be so I won't pre-respond any more until I know what troubles you actually had.
I will say I have not yet run into any issues that I can recall. But we do tend to group first and hold that group from game to game. So if anything did come up, we would already be talking through it and it wouldn't be super memorable.
Oh I see, after reading the article the problems were mostly from the headsets sitting un-used. My friends group plays pretty regularly, so it makes sense that we don't encounter that.
Also the game they played had broken friend invites at the time, patched recently.
Meta has irreparably screwed the pooch with their entire ecosystem and I will not be buying any more of their products. The UX is a major part of that, too.
Right now I’m hoping Valve re-enters the field at some point. I expect Apple Vision to be great, but it’s out of reach for most people and who knows how the walled garden will hamper key use-cases (like connecting to a PC).
This article had "hardcore gamers" struggle to use the headset but my 8 year old uses it just fine. I guess that's why this dude ended up writing opinion pieces that contribute nothing.
You just dissected this man's whole personality and career in two sentences.