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Vendetta Online's upcoming VR Support!

As the first MMORPG to support the Oculus Rift, way back in 2013, we're happy to see VR finally coming of age as a consumer product. As a result, we've been ramping up development over the last six months to finalize the VR experience that can be expected from the game, with support for a broader range of head-mount displays, and the best possible visual quality and design.

Back in March we officially announced support for our initial VR platform targets: the Oculus Rift on Windows (a given), the HTC Vive on Windows, and the Samsung Gear VR on Android. That last device took a few people by surprise, a complex MMO like ourselves supporting a mobile-VR device, but honestly we're super excited about the Gear VR. It really provides a very high-quality experience to anyone with the right phone, at a relatively low cost of entry (assuming you already have the phone), and is likely the forerunner to the real mass-market VR accessibility we expect to evolve from the mobile industry.

How does VR impact the game, you might ask? For starters, you can freely look around the cockpit of your ship, even look "up" when strafing vertically, enhancing your sense of immersion. Similarly, docking to a station is now a more immersive experience, as you're placed in a station Hangar Bay like the one below:

Our VR releases are not yet formally launched, although the prototype has always been publicly available to Oculus users, and has been updated to support the Oculus 1.3 "retail" SDK back when the device started shipping to consumers. We are tentatively aiming to ship the "final" VR versions, across all targets, within the first half of this year. For Gear VR users, while there will be a limited way to play the game with only the headset, we recommend a bluetooth game controller for the best possible experience.

We're also occasionally asked about Google Cardboard support, and while this is something we find intriguing, Google currently only supports java-based applications. Vendetta Online is a "native" NDK application, due to the game's performance requirements. So, we can't support Cardboard until Google expands their API, but we are definitely keeping a close eye on this evolving situation.

Upcoming Game Events

Be sure and stop by for some of the upcoming player-organized Game Events, featuring races across the galaxy, nation-driven combat, and more.

• April 24th - NATION WARS #442, Time: 22:00:00 GMT, Location: Sedina
• April 30th - CORPORATE SECTOR RUN #10, Time: 17:00:00 GMT, Location: Odia M-14

Recap of Recent Updates

There have been a lot of changes since the last newsletter, especially given the VR development, but here are some others of interest:

• Group Missions of Border Patrol and Advanced Combat Training have been added back into the game.
• Furies have been added back into the game, and they no longer target players within a No Fire Zone.
• The Raptor UDV has been buffed to 12,000 armor, to put it on better PvP footing.
• The giant Latos M-7 station has been replaced with something more reasonably sized, to let capship owners get from place to place more quickly.
• Serco border defense turrets have been added to Geira Rutilus O-4, on the Serco-Deneb border.
• When a player gets kicked for logging in while already online, their ship now stays around for 1 minute instead of disappearing instantly.
• Major renderer improvements to both scene quality and speed. Enhanced effects, geometry instancing, background detail quality, etc. The game is appreciably faster now, especially on older PCs, and more changes are coming.
• Voice Chat has been significantly updated and includes improvements on both the server and client side. Voice quality is better, bandwidth usage is less, and the "channel leakage" problem has been greatly reduced. More enhancements to voice chat are coming.

Looking Ahead

The VO 1.9 release is still a major target, and one that may appear concurrently with the VR releases, although we can't promise that yet.

Updates to iOS and the launch on Steam are also likely in the not-too-distant future. iOS will hopefully also receive voice-chat support.

We're also aiming to do more server and gameplay improvements to foster more crazy battles like the one depicted below.

Keep in Touch

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