This gets one thread, and I probably won't reply for discussion.
If you want to add anything, feel free. If you want my followup, contact me in game to get my info so you can email me.

I put a lot of thought into this, and it wouldn't make sense to split it up across posts.

I include several scholarly and well-peer-reviewed articles, and a few glorified blog posts, to validate the assertions in my claims.

Vendetta Online is quite literally the perfect Virtual Reality universe.

With that being said, there are a number of significant frictions that make presence and persistence in world irritating to deal with over time.

First, a short yet important discussion about what Presence and Persistence really are, what it means for VR, and why it matters more than any other aspect of the philosophy of game design, especially as it pertains to player psychology;

Presence refers to the sensation of "being there" in a virtual environment, where the user’s senses and cognitive processes accept the simulated world as reality. This immersive quality is crucial in VR because it deepens emotional engagement and can directly influence user behavior.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451958821000415

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169260724001202

Persistence, on the other hand, describes the continuity of the virtual world. It means that the environment remains consistent and evolves over time, regardless of individual user sessions. This gives players the sense that their actions have lasting impacts and that the world is alive, much like a real-world ecosystem. In VR, persistence transforms static experiences into dynamic ones, where the narrative and gameplay can change in response to player choices.

Presence and persistence in VR transcend the notion of merely “tricking the brain.” Instead, they forge a new dimension of identity by manifesting form that is tangible and enduring. Presence is not just an illusion to be accepted; it is the creation of an embodied state where users experience a real connection to a virtual world. This connection is achieved through a harmonious integration of sensory, cognitive, and emotional inputs, which collectively allow an individual to feel their identity taking physical shape within an alternate reality.

Persistence further elevates this concept by ensuring that the virtual environment remains coherent and evolves over time, independent of any single interaction. It provides a framework where the actions and identities of users have lasting consequences. In this way, persistence transforms the virtual space into a living, breathing ecosystem that continually recognizes and adapts to the user’s manifested identity, reinforcing the idea that their presence is not ephemeral but a substantial, ongoing part of the world.

Together, these elements define the essence of VR. They are not about creating a temporary, fictional narrative, but about establishing a tangible existence where identity is dynamically constructed and continually validated. This shift from superficial illusion to a robust, enduring identity is what ultimately sets VR apart as a medium capable of offering experiences that are both materially significant and deeply transformative.

When Presence and Persistence falter, the very foundation of VR's immersive power begins to crumble. Without a strong sense of presence, users lose that critical embodied connection to the virtual environment. The experience shifts from being a realm where identity is actively constructed and validated into one where the user feels detached—a spectator rather than a participant. This breakdown not only undermines emotional engagement but also disrupts the cognitive synthesis of self and space.

Similarly, when persistence is absent or poorly executed, the virtual world becomes a series of static, disconnected moments. Actions lack continuity, stripping away any lasting impact that might contribute to a meaningful identity formation. Without an evolving, responsive environment, the illusion of a living ecosystem dissipates, and with it, the potential for a VR experience that mirrors the rich complexity of real-world existence.

When presence and persistence falter, the immersive bond between the user and the virtual environment is compromised. The experience becomes disjointed, and the tangible manifestation of identity is disrupted, leading to detachment and a sense of alienation from the digital realm. As a consequence, the environment devolves into a collection of isolated, transient moments rather than a coherent, evolving space where user actions matter.

More importantly, breaking the experience breaks commitment. When users encounter gaps in presence or persistence, their trust in the virtual world is undermined, directly contributing to user fall-off. Without a reliable, consistently engaging environment, users are less likely to invest emotionally or continue exploring, making these failures the number one contributor to disengagement and attrition in VR experiences.

When the seamless integration of presence and persistence in VR is compromised, it creates a state of dissonance—a break in the expected pattern of sensory and cognitive input. This pattern disruption unsettles the user's deeply ingrained expectations of consistency and continuity. When the experience deviates from the established rhythm, it forces users into a cognitive conflict where the virtual world no longer aligns with their internal model of reality.

This disruption is more than a momentary glitch; it undermines the core of commitment. The human brain thrives on predictable patterns that foster a sense of trust and security in the environment. When these patterns are broken, the resulting dissonance erodes that trust. Users begin to perceive the virtual world as unreliable, leading to disengagement and ultimately, user fall-off. In essence, maintaining a continuous, coherent experience is critical not just for immersion, but also for preserving the user's commitment to the virtual environment.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/virtual-reality/articles/10.3389/frvir.2022.880634/full

Vendetta currently suffers from a lack of BOTH presence AND persistence.

Let's address presence first, because in my mind it is arguably the easiest to tackle;

Presence:

As it stands: VO has No presence whatsoever.
You ARE your ship, detatched and removed from any semblance of interaction with another pilot in their cockpit.
Proximity voice chat does not exist, teamspeak is somewhat unreliable and also detatched, and text input is simply not enjoyable in VR.
You don't get hands... your controllers don't even show up unless you're targetting something or docked inside a station, so you just hover in a floating chair in your empty cockpit: a ghost in the machine.

This make comittment hard when we're expected to practically live inside of our cockpits.

No amount of modification to the game's core experience can or should alter this deficiency.

I think the solutions to this, given the limited development team, are rather simple:
- If you're using quest controllers, your controllers should be on the screen, always.
- We don't need hands or bodies in our cockpits, but that means you could stand to remove the chairs: we arent sitting on anything in VR here, it's dissonant world building merely for the sake of it.
- Provide us a place for embodied interactions. For instance: while docked in stations or capships.
There is already a semblance of a 3d 'world' built as illusion within the station interface for vr.
Making every station a VR space isn't even required: simply allowing the bars to become an instanced location with avatar presence, proximity voice chat and basic user interaction would go an EXTREMELY long way.
Most users are perfectly accepting of subpar assets and avatars as long as the EXPERIENCE is there: people want to be able to stand next to their friends in VR and have a conversation that feels real, not have a disjointed experience spread across six technology stacks barely playing nicely with one another.
Never let a VR user tell you that graphics or immersion are the only thing that matters when millions of us put up with Meta slop and the trashbin multiverse-of-assets that is VRChat and Banter.

The game simply will not survive in VR without some form of enhancement to its embodied interaction and presence: it is counter to user expectations of the medium.

As an additional note: I know for a fact that the meta SDK provides tools which make adding these features a breeze, even for non-programmers, pretty much no matter the game engine you're using. This includes tools for layering instancing features within preexisting infrastructure.
I don't know if it's as easy with naos, but I do know you have a team here smart enough to figure it out, even if that means doing something insane and loading a lightweight unity launcher within the VR client exclusively for handling embodied presence instances.

Persistence:

Persistence is on the opposite side of the spectrum here: VO is usually very good at making the universe feel 'lived in' by its players, right from the start.
The ability to put a bunch of your junk in any station in the 'verse and call that place home does wonders for player psychology.

Weirdly enough though, the frictions caused by moving the medium to VR has almost undone much of what I feel made VO a place I can live in alongside my physical world, and made it a lot more difficult to solve;

Timeouts:

Timing out of a server is a relic of the days when PC players would AFK while running lua bots gunking up the economy and slowing server infrastructure.
For one, bots are apparently allowed now, if we go by Gonzo multibotting across six accounts simultaneously on a daily basis, the LLM in 100, GreyShop, etc.

More importantly: YOU LITERALLY CANNOT AFK IN VR ON A QUEST.
If you take your headset off, the display turns off. If you disable that setting, the display still turns off on a timeout, which cannot be disabled.
If your display turns off, your quest enters sleep mode, at which point it boots you from all apps and shuts down your network connection.

There is absolutely no excuse that VR players are getting timed out like desktop players after SIXTY SECONDS of not touching something on their screen.
I had to log back in 12 different times while taking what should've been two minutes worth of notes in my mission log, because the server kept kicking me (since I was docked and not using game menus, just keyboard). It reset my text continually, causing what should've been an extremely simple housekeeping chore to become a teeth pulling exercise in patience and willpower.

Most Quest users are not running scripts: if we're being honest, most Quest users don't even *know how* to unlock their quest, plug it into a computer to access its files, or acquire or write bots that will help them cheat in their games.

On top of that, some people like to literally sleep in VR, and I personally think that should be allowed, even encouraged: more individual choice, empowerment and freedom are ALWAYS good things, objectively and under every longterm context of scientific evaluation.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270879840_User_Empowerment_in_Technology_Enabled_Work_Systems

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27475732_User_Empowerment_An_Enabler_of_Enterprise_Systems_Success

(Non-Scholarly assertive article)
https://www.pubnub.com/blog/understanding-user-generated-content-in-gaming/

(Business-focused article)
https://www.uroboro.ca/blog/user-empowerment-benefits-trends-futures

Menu / Multitasking Issues:

Opening the Oculus menu should NOT stop your ship in a dead halt. Multitasking using the rest of the operating system is a core selling point of VR, you don't ban anyone else on any other client from flying just because they had to check a message or change their music, and it serves no true function beyond arbitrarily limiting user freedom, likely outdated methodology for combatting bots.
As it stands, doing anything except playing VO while in VR is a great way to get yourself killed, a problem no other game I've ever played on this device has had.
I could ride a motorcycle in vr at 600 mph while watching youtube videos while talking to chatgpt and talking to my friends in a voice call in another game, but here?
Just TRY to answer a call and you're PK'd or killed by bots before the game can catch up.

This isn' the "Stop Ship while in PDA" setting, which I immediately turned off upon seeing it: this happens regardless, and there seems to be no setting to alter it.

This may have something to do with the insanely weird fact that the game has to launch itself 3 different times every time you start it.
This quirk has led to the game failing to launch at all if you're in a meta call without locking the room: because VO keeps trying to force the user into the call room rather than just booting itself like every other software is capable of doing; it's like your client is handing over priority back to the OS, when at first load it should be taking it for itself.
This causes the call to take priority in queu and doesn't let VO finish booting.
That's just my guess, anyway.

The way you seemingly lock users out of their device and then trap them in your app is honestly one of the worst contributing factors to what may come off as my loathing and anger with my content here lately.
I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed access to tools that rightfully belong to me and my computational system, like my web browser and music player, as a means of limiting what I assume to be automation access; which is now allowed or overlooked.
If this happens for some other reason that isn't unintentional: even worse.

Answering calls is hell, replying to messages is hell, checking my email is hell, checking notifications is hell, and this is still operating under the implication that I have yet to explain how many times the game just crashes, for no apparent reason at all.

As someone who spends upwards of 18 hours a day in a headset both for work and casual enjoyment, it makes me not want to even open the game.
Under normal circumstances I'd much rather be spending all of my time there otherwise, even using it as ancillary to my current comms solutions.

Analog Controls:

I have been under the implication that one can control their ship with text commands alone for the past several years.
I'm pretty sure I've even done it, back before I forgot my account credentials on my old character.

None of that works in VR.
On the site, on the commands page, it says analog commands are supposed to take parameters from -1000 to +1000.

The ONLY text command for flight that works is +Turbo.

I was seriously looking forward to programming maneuvers with sequential aliases and binds that let my guild perform coordibated stunts during combat.
The programmability of VO is 100% of what I've been selling it as to my friends, because that's what I remember it being: your cockpit is YOURS and you get to do what you want when it comes to altering how your ship operating system handles your presence within the world.

If that was taken out, I lost well over a majority of my reason for being here.
I can play literally any spaceship game that gives me a cockpit of the developers design and function.
I only play VO because that tiny part of what you give me: you make it feel like it is mine.

I'd like to assume this is oversight, or I'm just too stupid to enter commands in properly, because without text commands to assist in controlling my future goliath in VR, I genuinely don't want to fly it, I don't want to bother paying a sub for a ship I can't truly call my own.
I had expected to be able to fly my ship from the command line while managing a dozen or more other players and their target acquisitions and flight paths without ever leaving my PDA in space. The whole goal of this was to remove mental burden and ensure I could multitask how I want, not act how the game wants me to act.

This is anscillary to the persistence discussions: You have built an image of VO of being a certain kind of experience, and at every point it seems the last few years of design philosophy and progression have been somewhat counter to that image.
You allow plugins, but immediately blame them as issue and don't 'support' them officially, you give us sequential alias capability but try (at least in the past) to limit what we can automate, for how long and why.

VO is not and will never be No Man's Sky, or Eve, or Star Citizen.
No one wants VO to be like those games anyway.
If I wanted an immaculately beutiful and realistic space shooter, I'd play modded NMS on pc in VR.
Here, I want a programmable spaceship that I 'own' in silico which is always with me, so my mates have a consistent anchor of virtual presence which becomes associated with us as a group in fleet activities: we WANT a new world to live in alongside our own; Let us.

It already becomes harder by the day to educate users about the technology they use, depend on and take for granted on a daily basis.
VO acts as the last entry level to a terminal for those who have never had it.
Some of my younger members have been tremendously confused and learned a significant amount just being forced to use commands, rather than having a gui for every little interaction.

As a note, it's 2025, servers are monsters of computational power, and hatred towards automation is outdated.

If the lack of scripting input is to stop bots or AI: please don't.
Why?

We've spent years building the net to block AI access to everything and now all of a sudden we are capable of making intelligent agents which can pass your current captcha system without even using machine vision, and people still hate on it.
At this rate, bots need to just be treated like users and applied the same scrutiny in their design as player actions.

If it's a matter of advantage: again; Gonzo runs six accounts worth of mining bots feeding his one-person guild constant wealth. You can actively see up to four of them online at a time most days. All of the rest of us are already behind the curve.
I'm not asking you to drag Gonzo down: just let the rest of us catch up.
I shouldn't need plugins for my aliases and analog commands to operate according to how your website claims they operate.

These may seem like disparate topics of complaint, but they all lead back to the same conclusion:
A current lack of forethough has gone into the process of embodying user identity manifestation within VO once translated to the medium of VR.

These aren't bugs, or problems, or glitches: they are fundamental frictions, experiences that grind against the user to create dissonance, and which feels in an attempt to push them OUT of the world, rather than deeper into it.
It is a design philosophy, most likely built upon due to the fact that few developers are also gamers to the extent one would expect for such an intensive hobby, and they often do not experience the same ground level interactions that their players do on a daily basis.

Even when the devs log in, rare as it has been lately, they often fly an unkillable UFO, further distancing themselves from the true, lived player experience, creating a dissonance that places them at odds with what (especially newer) players come to expect from VO.

Do you want to be Eve, and milk your whales until they no longer produce?
Or do you want to widen the net, attract more types of players than those who already love VO, and expand the world into something more?

Eve is happy to stay stagnant indefinitely: they LIKE their game as it is, they don't WANT more players, and they don't see change as needed.
According to anecdotal exposition from third parties, the Eve devs have outright stated as much.

Is VO happy in a static existence?

Personally, I love this world and I want to see it continuing to evolve.
It feels like VO is barely starting its life by this point, and has a lot more left to offer us in the years to come.

Without solutions to these frictions irritating player experience, she'll just fall tragedy to the same digital tide that consumes much of the promise in novel systems at their inception.

Just play your own game again.
Seriously.
Spend 20 hours sitting in a cockpit as an actual player in VR, and tell me you would continue doing so as it is.
I think you'll find yourself rather pissed off after a couple hours too.
Take some missions, fight some bots and players, chat in 100 and see what we actually have to go through, without considering infrastructure and development needs.
It'll help more than you think.

I should note that while they don't share my tone or emotion, most of my guild members, all brought to VO by me from another VR game we played together, DO share my opinions and experiences as it pertains to in game frictions.
You'll be hard-pressed to have any of them make the time to log in on the forums and post here, so I speak on their behalf when it comes to making bug reports, and we all speak as one even when in game.
We have 8 people so far on various quest models each with similar irritations, and we are still recruiting players from our other game.

I believe I've said everything I have to say, but I have in NO WAY listed every minor irritation and friction I've come across: only the grander patterns that lead to apparent negligence.
I have also not outlined any extensive bug reports here, my concerns being mostly systemic rather than emergent.

If anyone needs more detail and exposition, feel free to follow up in my email.

Some Philosophy:

The advent of Virtual Reality (VR) has significantly reshaped the game, game development, and player dynamics, fundamentally altering how players interact with digital environments, developers create experiences, and communities evolve. This transformation is most noticeable in the shifting roles of commitment and investment, particularly within the context of long-term digital connections and the growing importance of VR as an emergent "third space."

1. The Role of Immersion and Presence

VR's primary draw is its ability to immerse players in a digital world that feels tangible. Unlike traditional gaming, which often relies on abstract interfaces (like screens and controllers), VR provides a sense of presence. Players no longer just observe a world; they inhabit it. This immersion fosters a deeper emotional connection to the virtual environment, characters, and objects within it. The tangible nature of VR world-building compels players to invest not only their time but also their attention, effort, and energy, as they become physically engaged in these spaces. This shift enhances the emotional stakes and the perception of these worlds as "real" or meaningful extensions of one's identity and community.

2. Emergence of VR as a "Third Space"

Historically, "third spaces" referred to physical locations—cafés, parks, libraries, etc.—where people could engage socially outside of home or work. With VR, these digital environments are now emerging as the new third spaces, especially for individuals who seek meaningful digital connections. VR environments provide an outlet for socialization, collaboration, and creativity that transcends geographical limitations. These spaces are not just for entertainment; they often become integral parts of people's social lives, offering opportunities to form and maintain long-term relationships. VR's potential as a third space enhances the sense of belonging and commitment, giving individuals a place to feel connected with others in ways that traditional online spaces like forums or social media could never match.

3. Evolving Player Commitment and Investment

As VR environments evolve into long-term digital spaces, players are increasingly drawn to the notion of investment—not just in terms of financial investment (e.g., purchasing virtual goods or subscriptions) but also in terms of emotional and time-based commitments. The experience of living in or interacting with a VR world for extended periods can create strong attachments. This is a direct consequence of the embodied, interactive nature of VR gaming, where players can directly influence their surroundings, interact with others in real-time, and experience the world from a first-person perspective. The result is that VR games and worlds have transitioned from short, episodic engagements to ongoing, evolving experiences. These shifts encourage players to think of VR spaces as evolving communities where their actions have lasting impacts, fostering a deeper sense of agency and attachment.

4. Game Development and Long-Term Engagement

For developers, VR has demanded a rethinking of how games are designed and maintained. VR’s immersive nature requires continuous development to sustain long-term engagement. Early VR games often suffered from limited content and shallow mechanics, but as VR technology has matured, developers now face the challenge of creating worlds that are not only engaging but also dynamic, persistent, and evolving. These games often include community-driven elements, player-created content, and ever-expanding environments. Developers must now design worlds that foster long-term player investment through systems of progression, personalization, and meaningful player interactions. As VR becomes a key space for digital social life, developers are tasked with ensuring these worlds stay relevant, offering experiences that feel personalized and ongoing rather than static or episodic.

5. The Shift to Social and Collaborative Play

VR's immersive nature encourages a shift from solo, narrative-driven experiences to collaborative, social gameplay. Players are more likely to remain in worlds where they can meet others, collaborate on tasks, and experience a sense of co-presence. The dynamic nature of these worlds means players often engage in persistent worlds that require cooperation, shared goals, and long-term investment in community building. Social interactions in VR have a sense of immediacy and tangibility due to the shared embodied experience. This gives rise to new forms of gameplay, such as group quests, virtual events, and long-term challenges, that bind players together in new and exciting ways. The social dynamics of VR worlds can lead to the formation of tight-knit communities that extend beyond the game itself, affecting how players interact both in and out of the game environment.

6. Digital Ownership and Persistence

One of the most profound impacts of VR as a third space is the idea of digital ownership and persistence. In traditional online environments, a player's investment often feels ephemeral—characters, assets, and progress can be wiped with a server reset or game shutdown. In VR, however, there is a growing emphasis on creating persistent worlds where player contributions, achievements, and possessions have lasting value. This has led to the rise of virtual economies, user-generated content, and player-owned assets. With VR, there is a greater sense of permanence and ownership, where players can establish identities, properties, and legacies in virtual spaces that may remain intact and evolve over time. This persistence fosters deeper investment, as players are less likely to feel their contributions will be lost or irrelevant in the future.

7. Shift in Developer-Player Relationships

As VR gaming and worlds become more complex and immersive, the relationship between developers and players is evolving. No longer are developers merely creators of content; they are curators of ongoing experiences. Players become active participants in shaping the world, often through feedback, suggestions, and content creation. This shift gives rise to a more collaborative dynamic, where players and developers are co-creators of the experience. The developer's role becomes more about maintaining the world, responding to player needs, and ensuring the long-term health of the ecosystem. In this way, VR development mirrors real-world city-building and urban planning, where ongoing interaction with residents (players) is essential to the survival and success of the world.

8. The Psychological Impact of VR Worlds

The deeply immersive nature of VR can also have psychological implications for players. As VR environments become the center of digital socialization, players may invest substantial portions of their identity, social life, and time into these spaces. VR experiences can lead to stronger attachments to virtual avatars, environments, and even other players. This presents challenges and opportunities for mental health, as players may increasingly rely on VR as a refuge or primary mode of social interaction. In this context, the nature of these VR worlds becomes even more crucial, as they can either provide a supportive, nurturing space or exacerbate feelings of isolation if not thoughtfully designed. Developers must balance these aspects to ensure the longevity and well-being of their player communities.

Conclusion

The introduction of VR as a medium for gaming has fundamentally shifted the way players engage with digital spaces, developers create experiences, and communities form. VR transforms gaming into a medium that blends immersion, socialization, and long-term investment, fostering deeper connections and emotional attachments. This shift has made VR worlds more than just temporary escapes; they are becoming integral parts of people's digital lives, functioning as third spaces that nurture relationships, creativity, and shared experiences. As this dynamic continues to evolve, the boundaries between the physical and digital realms will blur, making VR a cornerstone of long-term, meaningful engagement in digital environments.

-written by an AI.

A bug is something that is "not functioning as intended".

A bug is not something "that you don't like" or "wish was different". Therefore, this content is not related to Bugs.

I'm moving this to Suggestions, although it isn't really appropriate there either, since it isn't broken up by topic.

Cry more, old man.

These are, in fact, PROBLEMS.

Not things I simply dislike.

You're objectively bleeding players wih this stupid and shitty attitude of yours, feeding your outdated mindset.

There's nothing "Shitty" about my above post. All I did was briefly explain exactly why I needed to move your thread, while I was in the middle of managing fallout from a @#$ing fiber cut outage. I was terse and to the point, in explaining your error.

I had already previously told you, via email, to explicitly read the instructions for both Bugs and Suggestions, and that we needed things broken down to make them parseable, and so the community could respond. Which you refused to do.

You simply cannot comprehend that "functioning as intended, but flawed in design" is still NOT A BUG. Or that different people (and developers) might read BUGS vs SUGGESTIONS.

Or that a small dev studio would possibly have careful rules about posts, because we have such limited time to read them and do anything about them.

You also seem to be a self-important, arrogant ass. You have no qualms about breaching Section 7 of the Rules of Conduct:

You will follow the instructions of authorized personnel while in Vendetta Online or on the Official Forums.

So, at this point, I'm terminating your posting on here.

I heard a massive "SLAP!!!", and it was beautiful.
ROFLMAO
Bravo!