That's pretty cool. The sphere would have to be pretty big to accommodate for jumps and stuff i feel. and what happens when you run into walls? does the sphere stop correcting itself? and what about swimming?

The sphere had a diameter of about 7-9 feet from what I could tell from the documentary. And you're completely right to wonder about running into walls - but I would imagine that you can keep walking away, but the game will refuse to move your character into or past the wall. Or at least that's how I would solve that issue.

Swimming, haha, is likewise another interesting issue with the sphere tech. The only thing I can really think of is that you only move your arms to swim - something which the kinect would handle well. It could interpret motions and translate them to forward or backward impulses in the water.

The size of the sphere is another worry, but it probably wouldn't take up more room than a pool table, and would be an order of magnitude more entertaining than a pool table, lol.

This is interesting... I wonder when this technology will be affordable enough... Do you have a link to any of this info by any chance?

I saw it a while ago - I'll try to dig up a link if I can.

This technology is impressive when you are a kid in the 80s.

The problem with such a system is that even a minor mistake could cause the game to not recognize what you say or recognize it as wrong. When you type something for a reel humen to read, it czan be expetced that people wil be able to tell what your saying even if you maek a few mis takes, even if you spell a word wrong or use the wrong word, if it's close enough, one can usually guess what it's supposed to be from the context. However, a computer could end up failing to recognize what you're saying simply because you wrote "There" instead of "they're. Now, while it's normal to fail for making mistakes in a game, these are usually mistakes you could conceivably make in real life and add a reasonable challenge to the game, like say, failing to dodge an attack and taking damage, but here, we're talking about a problem that wouldn't be present in real life and happens only due to problems with game design, namely, the AI not being able to recognize misspelled words or grammatically incorrect sentences. Besides, the real benefit I could see for something like this, if it were done well, would be to allow the player to have actual conversations with NPCs, and by that I mean, you can actually type in a response, and have the NPC respond like a real person would (And I mean having a dynamic response, not a pre-recorded one.) but since at this time, I'm pretty sure there's no way a game can do that, trying to do it would be pointless.

I think it would work great if it was optional, especially together with overhearing rumours. It never really worked for me in Oblivion, when 'my character overheard a rumour' which hadn't heard at all and suddenly it was a quest or a topic! Maybe having an 'ask about' button which would allow you to type something in, like if your overhear 'dragon' you type 'dragon' and the guy will tell you about, and also having the standard ones simply asking rumours, directions, uhm... Well that was really all there was in Oblivion, but you get the point I'm sure..

"True but irrelevant." I've been saying for years that when (not if) the Matrix neck-socket goes on sale, I'll elbow my way to the head of the line. But that's even more "couch potato" than current controllers, pretty much removing any movement whatsoever from the equation.




Well, you're correct- though in all fairness coming from me it's something of a trick question. I'm in the "If I want to walk around, there's a whole world outside for me to do it in" category of people. I like my computer gaming chair-bound and non-arm-waving, at least until we get Holodecks, insertion into the Matrix, or Better than Life.

The sphere system described is quite interesting, to be sure- but for my tastes it's still in Move/Kinect territory, as in "great for things I might play for half an hour at a time, but TES ain't that by several hours."

I think we can both agree that Matrix-TES is the point where heaven has been created on Earth


The main point of control systems for games is to feel that you're actually in control of your character - which is one of the reasons TES games are so popular. Go anywhere, do anything - hop over waist-high fences that would flummex you in a bioware game. An npc mouthing off at you? You can attack - or cast a frenzy spell and watch the guards take him out while you cackle manically.

A future TES where you can dynamically talk to npc's would add another degree of freedom, as you can say whatever you want. For instance, tell the adoring fan to go jump off Dive Rock, or you'll do that for him. But, that sort of thing is best left out until they can really do it right, and that won't be for some time. TES VX, anyone?

No Everquest uses this and all it results in is people randomly spouting off words to try and get the npc to do what they want or update their task etc with the [keyword].

Worse even, many skip the lore simply saying the [keywords] as fast as possible. Since that's an MMORPG it makes sense since it takes time to do things and people want to get moving, but in general no I don't want to see that in TES.

This man Liu Bei knows the secrets of the world i approve of this idea! :turtle:

In pittsburg we have something like this. it is a robot you type in a question and it will answer it so this isn't something new that they will just try out randomly it has been done before (VOTE YES :foodndrink: )

This. :sick: