Author Topic: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser  (Read 6600 times)

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Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Hi all. Some friends and I have started a kickstarter fundraiser to raise funds for a "bounty" to incorporate Oculus support into the latest iteration of the Freespace Open and all mods and conversions of that game currently using the latest launcher. Here's the link to the fundraiser page:

(kickstarter closed)

I've already pledged $500 myself to get things rolling.

The intent of the fundraiser is to demonstrate to the hard-light coding community the considerable interest in VR support, to reward coders who successfully incorporate native oculus support into these games, and to help reimburse them for their time and cost of purchasing oculus headsets. The kickstarter ends in 59 days, and we'll know how much funding, if any, we have available then. In the meantime, might as well talk about it and maybe get a head start!

I thought it might be a good idea to give members of our coding community here at hard-light a place to gather, discuss, and possibly form a team. To be clear, I plan to give all proceeds from the fundraiser to those who can produce a working product with native oculus support. Meaning that my time here is entirely volunteered. I'll step up to a leadership position if noone else wants to, but I feel that someone with hands-on experience working with the programming is better suited to that role. So, I'll probably just be acting as a moderator here.

If we can get enough constructive conversation going on in this thread, I'll create a link to it in the Kickstarter page to demonstrate progress, transparency, and to drum up more funding. So please keep that in mind when you post. Trolling and non-constructive conversation may discourage funding. So try to keep it to a minimum please.

I'm posting the "bounty" rules below as well for easy access:

The first team to successfully incorporate native oculus support into the latest iteration of FSOpen will receive the entirety of the funds raised by this Kickstarter minus fees.

One person must claim the funds. That means that you must organize yourselves and assign a trustworthy leader to deliver the finished product and receive the reward for distribution as agreed upon by the team.

If the kickstarter doesn't reach it's $6,000 goal by day 60, no funding will be available from this fundraiser. However, we can reevaluate the fundraising objectives here based upon the support we've seen and relaunch a new campaign.

Under the current fundraiser, if no finished product is received by the goal on the first of 2017, funding will be returned to backers. Funding may be returned minus 8-10% in Kickstarter fees and whatever additional processing fees we need to get the backers' money returned to them. They may still opt to have their funding held to be given to the winning team upon delivery of a finished product or distributed to the freespace coding community working on the project as determined at that time by our kickstarter founders.

The terms of native oculus support being "successfully incorporated" into the game is one successful play-through of Freespace 2, the Descent: Freespace port, and the Diaspora total conversion mod without game-breaking bugs.

Good luck all and best wishes. Tell your friends!

« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 07:52:43 pm by RAddison »

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
A couple of points:

First, could you define who exactly your team represents? I mean absolutely no disrespect to you, but I don't know you, and I don't think that the community at large knows you. People might be more willing to get behind something like this if there was a familiar "face" - or at least user name - who has built a level of community trust.

Second, do you think that $6000 is a realistic goal? The FS community is relatively small, and the portion of that community that owns a VR headset is smaller still (I don't personally own one, so this Kickstarter doesn't really appeal to me personally at this point). Again, I mean no disrespect, and I understand the need to make the bounty a decent size to attract interest. I guess I'm curious about how you came to that particular large figure.
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Offline niffiwan

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the-rift/

eesh, so I haven't been keeping up with the OR, but it seems my computer & I strike out on numerous counts:

Linux, GTS 450, Phenom(tm) II X2 550

 :sigh:

Creating a fs2_open.log | Red Alert Bug = Hex Edit | MediaVPs 2014: Bigger HUD gauges | 32bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu
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m|m: I think I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Bmpman is starting to make sense and it's actually written reasonably well...

 

Offline The E

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
I will need a fair bit of convincing before I am willing to give my okay to this. For one, as BW pointed out, I do not know you. You have, to the best of my knowledge, never interacted with this community or its members. As such, it is hard for me to trust you as a steward and arbiter of this bounty thing.

Secondly, there are at this point only two members of the SCP who I deem to be capable of pulling this off on a purely technical basis; those members being Swifty and m|m, who I know are both relatively busy outside of their work for this project (And who both have long-running projects of their own that they are working on). Essentially, this means that whoever does the integration work will most likely come from outside of the team, which means that whoever does this will have to spend time getting used to the way our code works and then figure out how to change it so that VR integration can happen.

Thirdly, for obvious reasons, this touches on several key areas of the code, namely its input channels and the graphics code. Both are areas which will undergo major revisions once we release 3.7.4, and as such, cannot be considered "stable" right now. Any work done to integrate VR will have to wait until after the release of 3.8. Given that, the January 2017 deadline is completely unrealistic for a team of unpaid coders working in their spare time, even with the enticement of a bounty.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
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There must be changes, miss to feel strong
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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Okay. A few of things:

It's not my intent to form and head a team myself. My friends and I created the kickstarter page together so the "we" pronoun is used on the fundraiser page. Sorry if that was confusing. On here, I want to create a forum for the community to organize themselves into their own team. I completely agree that we need someone to head this project that is a familiar "face", as you say.

I just created this account today specifically to be transparent. If you notice, my username matches my name on Kickstarter. Kickstarter verifies me using my bank account information, even my social security number, so I am accountable on there as a steward. I've already gone way out on a limb here by using my real name as an identifier. That's how much this project means to me.

If you have someone in mind that could pull this off, and possibly head the project, I'd appreciate you reaching out to Swifty and mjm to see if they're interested.

I arrived at the $6000 figure because I know that required equipment to run an HMD is expensive, about $1000 for a pc and $600+ for the oculus itself, and I wanted to be able to mostly reimburse everyone for the cost of hardware and their time. The January 1, 2017 completion goal can be adjusted if I do so before too many backers jump on board. But, keep in mind that people are less likely to back the project if there's an extended period between when funding ends and when the product is delivered. It's a balancing act.

I've modified the fundraiser to specically state the goal to be incorporating oculus support into the lastest stable version. Given the limitations of the fundraiser, and the fact that there is already a stable version. I'd like to encourage developers to use the most recent stable version of the code that exists right now as a basis for Oculus support. Even the CV1 still has lower resolution than most modern monitors. With all that in mind, won't VR users continue to be able to use the previous stable iteration of the engine while regular users use 3.8?

Again, I'd like to emphasize the importance of phrasing in commentary so that this can be linked on the kickstarter page later if it gains momentum. Granted there are plenty of hurdles. I appreciate that, for the most part, they've been brought up in a "This is something that will need to be addressed ..." manner.

Try to remember that I'm doing this entirely to get financial support for developers because I'd like to see this done. I'm sure plenty of others want it too and that will be demonstrated by the kickstarter in the coming weeks. We got our first $20 backer just hours after the fundraiser was launched and before I even created links to it on hard-light forums, which I think bodes really well. I hope that the way in which we've constructed the fundraiser and my own fiscal backing and willingness to invest my own time demonstrates my magnanimity and puts some of your concerns to rest.





 
« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 08:32:35 am by RAddison »

 

Offline The E

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
It's not my intent to form and head a team myself. My friends and I created the kickstarter page together so the "we" pronoun is used on the fundraiser page. Sorry if that was confusing. On here, I want to create a forum for the community to organize themselves into their own team. I completely agree that we need someone to head this project that is a familiar "face", as you say.

I just created this account today specifically to be transparent. If you notice, my username matches my name on Kickstarter. Kickstarter verifies me using my bank account information, even my social security number, so I am accountable on there as a steward. I've already gone way out on a limb here by using my real name as an identifier. That's how much this project means to me.

Which is all admirable, but also largely irrelevant. Sorry. There are very few people I would trust to handle this correctly (Like Sandwich or Zacam or Goober), and you are not one of them.

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If you have someone in mind that could pull this off, and possibly head the project, I'd appreciate you reaching out to Swifty and mjm to see if they're interested.

I know that they're interested (Hell, I am interested in working on this). That's not the problem. The problem is that, as with every other feature we have ever added to the engine, we can't commit to a firm deadline, even with the promise of a payout at the end, because at the end of the day, we do this in our spare time for fun. We all have day jobs and other commitments that take precedence over our work here.

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I arrived at the $6000 figure because I know that required equipment to run an HMD is expensive, about $1000 for a pc and $600+ for the oculus itself, and I wanted to be able to mostly reimburse everyone for the cost of hardware and their time. The January 1, 2017 completion goal can be adjusted if I do so before too many backers jump on board. But, keep in mind that people are less likely to back the project if there's an extended period between when funding ends and when the product is delivered. It's a balancing act.

The problem with this Kickstarter is that you started it without checking back with me or the rest of the SCP team whether we can actually do this and if yes, what the timeframe looks like. In this paragraph, you're skirting the line to emotional blackmail ("I can change the deadline, but only if not a lot of people have decided to back the project yet"), which I really do not appreciate.

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The fundraiser specifically states the goal to be incorporating oculus support into the current version. Not the one in development. Given the limitations of the fundraiser, and the fact that there is already a stable version. I'd like to encourage developers to use the most recent stable version of the code that exists right now as a basis for Oculus support. Even the CV1 still has lower resolution than most modern monitors. With all that in mind, won't VR users continue to be able to use the previous stable iteration of the engine while regular users use 3.8?

That is not how we work. The SCP will only ever support one official line of builds, and we will not, under any circumstances, fork the engine into a VR and regular version. That is never going to happen.
Secondly, in order to be VR-ready, we need to work on the core rendering engine. A good VR experience requires a rock-solid framerate (I think the measure is something like 90 FPS at 1440p or something like that), and right now the engine cannot deliver that sort of performance except for very low-end situations, certainly not in anything using the MediaVPs. This is a really big problem that any VR project has to deal with, and it is just not doable within a definitive timeframe. It may be doable once all the improvements we have planned for 3.8 have been merged in, but certainly not before then.


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Again, I'd like to emphasize the importance of phrasing in commentary so that this can be linked on the kickstarter page later if it gains momentum. Granted there are plenty of hurdles. I appreciate them being brought up in a "This is something that will need to be addressed first..." manner rather than a "This won't work and here's why.." manner.

Which, and I cannot stress this enough, is why it was a really bad idea to start this kickstarter without checking with us first. We could have explained all these difficulties to you then, and if you still thought that you could get support for this project going, we could have worked on setting realistic goals and expectations. As it stands, this has gotten much harder now.

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Try to remember that I'm doing this entirely to get financial support for developers because I'd like to see this done. I'm sure plenty of others want it too and that will be demonstrated by the kickstarter in the coming weeks. We got our first $20 backer just hours after the fundraiser was launched and before I even created links to it on hard-light forums, which I think bodes really well. I hope that the way in which we've constructed the fundraiser and my own fiscal backing and willingness to invest my own time demonstrates my magnanimity and puts some of your concerns to rest.

And your enthusiasm is appreciated, it really is. But please understand that there are some concerns over the way in which this thing just happened out of the blue, with no warning or discussion beforehand. As large projects go, VR is certainly high on the list of things we would like to do eventually, but our experience with the engine also tells us that there's a lot of groundwork to be done first.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 
Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
The E: Right now, there is one backer besides me. What I was trying to communicate is that it's not a big deal to change the deadline at this point. However, the last post you made certainly stymied the possibility of using this thread the way I was hoping it could be. I understand you're doing your job as a moderator of this site.

I think that you're interpreting this as being dragged into commitments without prior consultation where there really are none. People certainly have a right to attempt to raise money for a cause with no guarantee of it being accomplished. If you look at the fundraiser page, it's made clear that we exert no control over the community here.

The way kickstarter works, we can cancel funding at any time before the 60 day period ends. If that's done, no fees will be incurred by kickstarter and I won't have to bother with returning funding if and when a deadline isn't met. It's certainly easier for me that way. Part of the goal of the fundraiser isn't just to raise money for funding, it's also to evaluate support and how much funding could be raised by a subsequent endeavor in the (likely) event that the $6,000 goal isn't met. Kickstarter doesn't allow for donations. So, the way in which the fundraiser is structured is to skirt that issue while still protecting this community from commitment. I am acting as that buffer by using my own accountability.

I can have this endeavor terminated immediately if it makes you uncomfortable. We can discuss it further before it's reopened, or leave it shut-down permanently. But, do you really want to close the door on this without exploring if it's possible? I know that you would've rather had someone with lots of previous involvement with the coding community involved with this. But, being a producer and writing script involve a completely separate skill sets.  I'm lucky enough to have some experience in both and I have stepped up as a liaison between our community here at hard-light and a crowd-funding operation. That's all I'm trying to be here. A liaison.   

 

Offline The E

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
The E: Right now, there is one backer besides me. What I was trying to communicate is that it's not a big deal to change the deadline at this point. However, the last post you made certainly stymied the possibility of using this thread the way I was hoping it could be. I understand you're doing your job as a moderator of this site.

No, I'm doing this as the designated Project Lead of the SCP. Just so we're clear.

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I think that you're interpreting this as being dragged into commitments without prior consultation where there really are none. People certainly have a right to attempt to raise money for a cause with no guarantee of it being accomplished. If you look at the fundraiser page, it's made clear that we exert no control over the community here.

The way kickstarter works, we can cancel funding at any time before the 60 day period ends. If that's done, no fees will be incurred by kickstarter and I won't have to bother with returning funding if and when a deadline isn't met. It's certainly easier for me that way. Part of the goal of the fundraiser isn't just to raise money for funding, it's also to evaluate support and how much funding could be raised by a subsequent endeavor in the (likely) event that the $6,000 goal isn't met. Kickstarter doesn't allow for donations. So, the way in which the fundraiser is structured is to skirt that issue while still protecting this community from commitment. I am acting as that buffer by using my own accountability.

I know how Kickstarter works. That's really not the issue at play here.

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I can have this this endeavor terminated immediately if it makes you uncomfortable. We can discuss it further before it's reopened, or leave it shut-down permanently. But, do you really want to close the door on this without exploring if it's possible?

I can say, with absolute confidence, that the project as described in that KS pitch will not work. No ifs or buts. Could something similar be made to work? Probably. I am somewhat open to that idea. But it will have to be something based on realistic expectations of the deliverables, which you did not have when you started this process.
There is also an issue of introducing monetary incentives into a team and process that has so far done well without them. There's potential for drama here that we all want to avoid very much.

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I know that you would've rather had someone with lots of previous involvement with the coding community involved with this. But, being a producer and writing script involve a completely separate skill sets.  I'm lucky enough to have some experience in both and I have stepped up as a liaison between our community here at hard-light and a crowd-funding operation. That's all I'm trying to be here. A liaison.   

Which still doesn't give me reason to trust you. I'm sorry but it is what it is: You do not have any sort of reputation here. I have no reasonable basis on which to assume that you are trustworthy. If we decide to do this, it will have to go through someone everyone here knows and trusts. Not, again sorry, some random person with 8 posts to their name.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Raddison, probably the most likely way this could work is to find and get the interest of another very talented graphics coder who loves Freespace and is willing to spend time familiarizing with the code and the team.

 
Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Okay. I've closed funding for the time being while this gets sorted. It seems like the prevalent issues here are :

My trustworthiness since I haven't been an active member under this username for very long.

Introducing monetary incentives and the drama it may cause.

This is somewhat besides the point, but I have been an active member, under various usernames, for a little over half a decade. I've never been very active on forums before. Most of my coding skills were acquired over the last few years at my current job and I only recently acquired a renewed interest in replaying these titles with the introduction of VR. Prior to that my involvement was minimal because I never had much to contribute. I was, primarily, an appreciative player. I know that doesn't really help us much here. I just wanted to give some background.

As far as my trustworthiness, I'm trying to consider what your concerns may be.

One could be delivery of the funds upon completion of a project. Theoretically, something could be done where funds are provided to purchase hardware and such prior to development. But there, we're running into issues with mistrust on the crowdfunding side as opposed to on the development side. Not to mention that I'd ultimately be liable if nothing was ever delivered, which wouldn't be the case if funds were delivered upon completion. I could just return the funds to the backers if there was no fruition to labors. I'd like to point out here that generating "bounties" for services is a valid model and has been done a lot in the past. Particularly with jail-breaking smartphones and other devices.

If my participation in running the community side is a concern, the involvement of someone who you deem trustworthy would certainly be welcome. On the crowdfunding operation as well. Help with networking would be greatly appreciated.

As far as introducing financial incentives into an environment that's been doing fine without it. I'm not really certain how to tackle that one. I think this is a special case because costs of hardware needed for development are prohibitive for most people. I have access to it, which would help with bug-testing. But bringing other people in who are already familiar with the script would be like coding blind if they don't also have the equipment.   



« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 10:24:03 am by RAddison »

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
I don't think you're likely to be An Internet Con Artist (there are much better ways to con people out of kickstarter money than Rift support for a nearly 20 year old game!)

 

Offline Swifty

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
I kind of thought about starting a Patreon to at least get reimbursement for some of the equipment I had to buy to support Freespace. I spent 200 dollars on a TrackIR when I was starting out on the project. I had to just purchase a 700 dollar Mac Mini to finally be able to take a look at OpenGL Core support on Mac which wasn't too kind on my wallet. And yeah, I was thinking about buying an OVR for myself as the DK1 I have is badly outdated.

Would people be open to donating to a patreon? I wouldn't mind getting a couple dollars here and there per month, no crazy amounts, just something to offset the costs of developing for this project.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 01:44:39 pm by Swifty »

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
I would gladly donate to something like that, swifty.
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Offline Goober5000

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
As an admin of this site, and a former Project Lead of the SCP, The E said everything I would have said, and probably said it better than I would have.

RAddison, what I would recommend for you right now is to put your crowdsourcing idea on the back burner, but not necessarily to jettison the entire idea.  Start participating in the community, start following along with what the SCP is doing, maybe start tackling some bugs if you're a programmer.  Our next major release (3.7.4) is coming up soon, and our major release after that (3.8) will cover merging SDL and the reworked game engine features that The E mentioned.  After 3.8 is released (which may well be a year or two in the future) would be a better time to think about potentially adding VR support.  At that time we can have a new conversation, and decide whether Kickstarter is appropriate.

In the meantime, a Patreon is worth considering, though as The E mentioned, it may lead to potential drama.  For one thing, graphical enhancements tend to be flashier and grab people's attention, but less visible features like scripting can be just as important.  The most important job is bug-fixing, but it's also unfortunately the least attractive from a Patreon perspective.

 

Offline Swifty

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Yeah that's a really good point. I kind of wonder if maybe a project-wide Patreon is worth considering? Then SCP members can make acquisition requests based on the funds available?

 

Offline The E

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
That is something I would definitely support.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
The Patreon idea in general seems good to me, and I'd also be happy to donate some cash to reimburse the costs of hardware bought for FSO dev purposes.
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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Having funds to purchase a VR headset would probably be the most likely way to see support for them, honestly; given that we're all volunteers doing this because we enjoy the game, if we had the hardware, we'd want to be able to use it with FSO. Buying a headset or two would also be cheaper than the bounty value, so if people were willing to give a few thousand dollars to see VR support, it would be more cost-efficient to just make sure devs had the hardware, than to try to hold it out as a reward for whoever implemented it first.
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(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
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(...)
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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Well, at least I got a conversation going about all this. I would give funds to a patreon. However, isn't the whole point of this discussion to obtain funding for developments of the project that would not normally be financially feasible? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that Goober5000 was advocating a project-wide patreon. Only warning that incentivizing certain "flashy" development directions could divert focus from less glamorous aspects of the project. It seems to me that a project-wide patreon might introduce even more complications and potential for drama. For example: How and where do funds get allocated? How would that be any better from a drama standpoint?

VR implementation is already something that SCP members have said they would like to do, but they lack the necessary hardware. I can't see the harm in providing them with that tool.

I've been reading some of the other threads that Swifty has been posting on and it seems like he's working on the renderer, which would need to be in a stable state before oculus support could be considered. Is that correct? If he's the primary guy working on this and he also has as much interest in oculus implementation as it seems, I'd certainly help sponsor his acquisition of an oculus CV1.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 11:28:43 pm by RAddison »

 

Offline jr2

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Re: Oculus/VR Support Fundraiser
Yeah that's a really good point. I kind of wonder if maybe a project-wide Patreon is worth considering? Then SCP members can make acquisition requests based on the funds available?
That is something I would definitely support.

Maybe with a disclaimer stating that anyone waving around their contribution efforts ("I'm a major backer! Listen to me or I'll take my marbles and go home!") will be banned for a month.  :lol:  Shouldn't be a problem with most people, but there's always bound to come a few rotten tomatoes.