‘Obduction’ Adds Motion Control, Coming to Vive and Oculus Touch This Month

Have we really settled on the term “full locomotion” to mean free movement using joysticks? It’s a terrible phrase for that. Being able to actually walk around in room scale is more what “full locomoation” sounds like it should mean.

Game ‘onward’ locomotion type is in my opinion the best solution available and makes you feel there…

Yeah, that’s a much better name. It actually describes the system, rather than just being an emotive term designed to make it sound like the best solution.

Full locomotion means being able to ambulate in-game:

1) Smoothly, i.e. not jumping between points
2) In any direction the player chooses
3) Only under player impetus, i.e. they start and continue at their intiative – not pick a destination and then drift towards it
4) For distances that are only limited by level design, where those levels’ expanses are not limited by the expected real-world space of the player’s room
5) At speeds not limited below normal human speeds for the purpose of reducing simulator sickness
6) Without visual effects imposed to reduce simulator sickness, e.g. narrowing the field of view during locomotion
7) With the use of the character’s legs, i.e. not dragging your character through the environment with their hands

A movement scheme could be called ‘free-roaming’ or ‘free-movement’ and satisfy some of the above criteria without satisfying all. Such a scheme is still gimped in my opinion. If a scheme satisfies all of the criteria I listed, then I consider that ‘full locomotion’. That’s not to say it couldn’t be improved upon – I think a time will come when we no longer consider coupled head and ambulatory direction to be ‘full locomotion’. However, under the circumstances (so many gimped locomotion schemes out there), I think coupled games deserve this allowance.

You’re right that ‘full’ by itself does not imply all the points I listed, but then it would be difficult for one word to encompass those seven characteristics. In comparison, terms like ‘on-rails locomotion’, and ‘teleport locomotion’ are more descriptive, because they’re just describing the one aspect that distinguishes them from other forms.

With ‘full locomotion’ however, what distinguishes it from other forms is that nothing has been removed – therefore it still has all the features that describe the way we naturally move. Rather than list those features every time, it’s easier just to say ‘full locomotion’. Hopefully the context of its use among VR enthusiasts means there’s no confusion with other types of free-roaming content, such as cockpit games. I don’t think many of us would refer to cockpit games as having full locomotion – we’d just call them cockpit games! The same goes for any type of locomotion that deviates from normal free-roaming content – if it’s dashing from one point to another then it’s ‘dash locomotion’, if there’s a narrowing FOV when you move then it’s ‘blinkered locomotion’, etc.

Full locomotion is basically what you get back once you deactivate all comfort modes!

Hoverboarding would be a good term for free-roaming joystick locomotion where the player is unable to strafe – as you can’t strafe on a hoverboard. For movement schemes where the player can strafe, this term is less descriptive.

LOL