Editor's note: HTC has only set up four HTC Vive X accelerators in the world, which are located in San Francisco, Taipei, Beijing and Shenzhen- Love to play computer games Come to the HTC Vive X accelerator located in Shenzhen Nanshan Science Park to experience the call of the Holy Spirit of this highly completed VRMMORPG (virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game). Holy Spirit Call is a VRMMORPG game with the background of Sword Art Online animation, developed and produced by Dream Interactive.

Actually, in the original Sword Art Online Among them, the equipment and control used by the protagonist are very similar to today's VR. However, due to the needs of the market and content, the head display in the original animation is directly connected to the brain neurons, giving five sensory feedback directly from the neural layer. Therefore, the protagonist and others can play in sleep, and the real limbs do not need movement The technology used will be too advanced, and the experience will be very immersive, which is impossible to achieve with the current technology level. However, the rise of the VR market gives us hope, and many content merchants are working hard for it. The first thing we learned about the VR version of Sword Art Online: The Beginning is Sword Art Online: The Beginning.

Play the internal test of Sword Art Online: The Beginning

Sword Art Online: The Beginning It is a "real" version of "Sword Realm" game based on Oculus VR jointly developed by Japanese IBM and the producer of "Sword Realm". The game is still in the internal test. From the test video released by the official before, this game has been able to directly locate the hand space through the image recognition of the camera without the need for handle keys, and experience is close to reality, At the same time, in order to break away from the restrictions of wire material and space, this game is equipped with a dedicated VR treadmill for long-distance movement in the game. The shape of Oculus's VR head display is modeled as much as possible on the nerve connected helmet NevGear in the animation of Sword Paradise. The UI in the game is similar to the original, and the main content of the game is still life and monster fighting, which is no different from most online games.

Holy Spirit Call

Note: The following game experiences are all conducted using HTC Vive. The screen only captures 1080P images on the computer. The combined image resolution in HTV Vive is 2160 * 1200.

At the beginning of the game, players come down from the sky to the world of the Sword Kingdom through a tunnel.

After the player lands, you will be greeted by Jieyi. At the same time, Silika, Yasina, Tongren and Lifa will stand behind you.

The Call of the Holy Spirit is still in the testing stage. The testing version of the Call of the Holy Spirit provides four scenes for experience, namely, character interaction, ball throwing game, weapon practice, and replica monster fighting.

Character interaction

In this scene, we forget that we can interact by touching NPC with our hands, such as touching the chest, lifting the group, lifting the hand, etc. At the same time, NPC will also give corresponding feedback. For example, when you touch the chest, NPC's chest will shake, and when you lift the skirt, the skirt will rise.

Lost ball game

Weapon training

Although weapon training and ball throwing game are simple game scenes, you can still feel the sense of realism in the experience process, which is brought by the feedback of the game through vibration, sound and vision. For example, when we use bow and arrow weapons to draw the bow, the bow string will make different stretching sounds because of different relaxation degrees.

Weapon selection

As a VRMMORPG, it is a must to fight against monsters. However, as it is a beta version, it does not have networking function for the time being, so it can only fight with NPC teammates. There are two weapons to choose from in the beta version, one is shield+staff, and the other is bow and arrow. Due to the ballistic system of the bow and arrow, it is difficult to aim. When using the bow and arrow, you must stretch through the handle. After playing for a long time, your arm may even feel sore. There are many immersive details in the game. For example, when the flying dragon approaches the player, the player will hear the sound of the dragon's wings flapping and the roar of the dragon getting louder and louder, slowly approaching, and running to avoid Boss's attack.

Call of the Holy Spirit game screen

Viewing players from the perspective of normal people

According to Jooo, a staff member of HTC Vive X accelerator, Call of the Holy Spirit is one of the few mature VRMMORPG in the market at present, and he also likes playing this game very much. Jooo also said that Call of the Holy Spirit will officially launch the online version at the end of the year. As it is still in the testing stage and limited by the cable, the walking distance of Call of the Holy Spirit is limited. However, Yuan Jingyi, CEO of Dream Interactive (the developer of Call of the Holy Spirit), told the author that they have started to cooperate with some mobile VR space equipment manufacturers and will launch a mobile VR space solution for Call of the Holy Spirit in the future.

In fact, the author has played HTC Vive many times before, but even the games used for display rarely have this kind of VRMMORPG. Unlike most trial games, MMORPG is more likely to make game players addicted because of its large content, high special effects, and strong sense of substitution, while the immersion experience combined with VR is better. The original intention of RPG games is to hope that players can devote themselves to the game wholeheartedly. For this reason, many RPG games (including stand-alone games and online games) achieve this effect through various ways, such as ancient scroll 5: Sky, wizard 3: Hunting, etc. These large RPG stand-alone games use lifelike special effects, huge maps, variable character operations The open plot immerses players in the game world, as do online games such as World of Warcraft and Swordnet 3. But in front of VR, a 360 ° full space immersive experience, the large screen desktop display really looks old. Due to the difficulty in developing and producing VRMMORPG and the need for high bandwidth, there is no real VRMMORPG (virtual reality large-scale multiplayer online role-playing game) on the market, But like all players, we are looking forward to the day when it will come.