Haptics Tech

[perilisk]

After reading this article I immeditately started thinking about TDM (ok, to be fair I started thinking about Thief, but I'm not too hopeful about revolutionary gameplay advances in that series after the last outing) -- I'm not suggesting that it's actually worth the effort to implement something like a haptics interface right now, particularly when the mod isn't going to be ready for months and probably no one in the target audience actually owns one of these $200 controllers.

 

But purely for the sake of speculation -- could it add to the gameplay in more than just a gimmicky fashion? Thief, for instance, was one of the first games to really make sound more than just an atmospheric effect -- listening to the sounds you made, and to NPC barks, was a critical gameplay mechanic.

 

Random thoughts:

* Could this be used to clearly and effectively manipulate (say, set down gently) and/or freely toss junk objects -- and flash/gas bombs -- instead of relying on a hardcoded trajectory?

* Could you create a lockpicking mechanism where you can literally feel the tumblers inside a lock as if it was right in front of you?

* Could it be used to finely control the power you put behind a bowstring draw?

* Could it be used to feel your way across a dark passage, or tell whether a floor is carpet or marble by touch, or even just a get a good sense of whether you're up against something or not -- for example, could you "feel" a ledge or rope in front of you to know you're in the right position for mantling/climbing?

* Could it be used to replace the frob effect, but without any sparkly HUD nonsense? Instead of having a button or item flash in front of you, could you just "feel" it in the world?

* Along the same lines, could the touch effect be effective enough that you tell the difference between a loot item and a similar looking junk item in poor lighting, without relying on a magical loot glint or risking having to drop a junk object and make a sound?

* Could you add wall climbing where you actually need to feel for grip points in the wall? (And would you want to? Implemented poorly, I could see it being obnoxious.)

* Could you get a good sense of where you're grabbing a body, the better to drag it around like a stealthy Achilles?

 

I haven't tried it out personally, and I don't have anything to go on concerning the accuracy or the technical limitations of the controller other than the article, but it sounds like using their haptics SDK could open up some exciting possibilities once TDM tech is basically stable and in the mission-editing phase, if there's an audience that actually has access to the controller (it could also theoretically increase the audience for TDM, given their game-locating software, but given the superficial similarities to a commercial property, I don't know if that's a good thing or not).

 

The series that inspired TDM has always relied very heavily on touch and texture in its mechanics, without having any way other than graphics and sound for clueing the player in about the textures in question. This could really bridge that gap, and let designers make more challenging environments to compensate for improved player senses.

 

Anyhow, thoughts? Next Big Thing? Cheesy gimmick?

[New Horizon]

The mod will only be going Beta in a few months. Just wanted to clarify.

[Dram]

The mod will only be going Beta in a few months. Just wanted to clarify.

 

Indeed, taking into account all the stuff we plan on implementing

[bardic]

Good article, kinda tempting to get one some day.

 

As for the mod, People have already made Haptics mods for Halflife, and it sounds like some are planned for Quake4 and QuakeWars. I think somone else will get one made for the Doom3 engine eventually, and then anyone who wanted it badly enough could add the extra tactile responses for TDM and make it a separate download for people who could use it. It would be pretty cool, and I don't know that the Dark Mod team would need to do anything extra for it to work.

[Ishtvan]

I saw a post on the Doom3World forums from someone claiming to represent one of those haptic controller companies. They were trying to assess whether there was demand for making their controller work with Doom/Quake. So it might be happening. As for it being added to the mod, that sounds like something a dedicated third-party person could do once we've released the source.