if you could see any cosmere magic replicated in vr what would it be

[The Cardinal of Death]

im genuinly curious i was on the game vrchat and found a map that replictaed iron pulls and steel pushes and it was amazing to feel like a mistborn zipping around scadrial so if you could experience any magic of the cosmere in vr what would it be and why 

[FantasyFanatic]

I really would like to see Surgebinding (mainly Lashings), but Allomancy would be super cool.

[Karger]

I would love to be able to draw aons and have it work.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

Allomancy would certainly be the most dramatic, but I have a hard time choosing between it and surgebinding. 

[Honorless]

I'd like to try Sand Mastery and Yolish Lightweaving

They're old school and just closer to what I imagine when someone says 'magic'

I know, I know, this would need to be big production as this needs a lot of artwork but just imagine! 

Edited May 4, 2020 by R J

[+Artemos]

If anyone's looking for the world OP was talking about, I found it here. I don't have a VR setup so can't really play it myself, but it looks really cool.

[Zelly]

Will definitely check it out in VR, thanks. 

Oh man they could do some cool things. I love VR.

Nalthis would be fun.  Getting access to Breath for the first time could change the graphic saturation and music depth and using it would lessen the visuals.  Awakening objects with different voice commands and using them to solve puzzles. 

[The Cardinal of Death]

4 minutes ago, Zelly said:

Will definitely check it out in VR, thanks. 

Oh man they could do some cool things. I love VR.

Nalthis would be fun.  Getting access to Breath for the first time could change the graphic saturation and music depth and using it would lessen the visuals.  Awakening objects with different voice commands and using them to solve puzzles. 

man that sounds amazing a nalthis puzzle game is something i want to play now

[Dunkum]

2 hours ago, Zelly said:

Will definitely check it out in VR, thanks. 

Oh man they could do some cool things. I love VR.

Nalthis would be fun.  Getting access to Breath for the first time could change the graphic saturation and music depth and using it would lessen the visuals.  Awakening objects with different voice commands and using them to solve puzzles. 

that would be really cool, if they could get it right, but i think it would be really hard to manage.  In general I think Nalthis/awakening may be the most difficult cosmere magic to depict visually because it requires that level of visual and audio distinction that may not register correctly for everyone.

[+robardin]

On 4/19/2020 at 1:46 PM, Dunkum said:

that would be really cool, if they could get it right, but i think it would be really hard to manage.  In general I think Nalthis/awakening may be the most difficult cosmere magic to depict visually because it requires that level of visual and audio distinction that may not register correctly for everyone.

Indeed, and that's not to mention the free-form nature of Commands - some element of the phrasing, plus mental imagery and Intent, are all part of it. To be playable there would have to be some kind of menu or list of supported Commands, right? Which would be fun, but not really the "feel" of what Awakening is like.

Anything involving more subtle and less visible/tangible things, like Soothing/Rioting, would be hard to do in VR as well.

[Dunkum]

24 minutes ago, robardin said:

Indeed, and that's not to mention the free-form nature of Commands - some element of the phrasing, plus mental imagery and Intent, are all part of it. To be playable there would have to be some kind of menu or list of supported Commands, right? Which would be fun, but not really the "feel" of what Awakening is like.

Anything involving more subtle and less visible/tangible things, like Soothing/Rioting, would be hard to do in VR as well.

I think you could do some form of soothing/rioting in VR, but that it would be hard to show except under ideal conditions.  like its easy-ish for a computer to keep a score of mental state of various characters, including emotions that are soothable/riotable, but minor changes in those things wouldnt necessarily register visually.

I think the other big issue with tryign to depict cosmere magics (ore really most magics) in a vr or other gaming environment is that one of the most interesting things is how they interact with each other.  and unless you are planning to spend countless hours programming in all those interactions, a lot of that is going to get lost.

[Quantus]

Gravitation would be so many kinds of awesome for VR, being able to just reset your Down direction and use it for mobility, with a allomantic Steel and Iron being close seconds.  Drawing Aons in the air for tangible effects would be really cool if very complex to code and require a lot of gesture precision.  Most other cosmere powers would be awesome in a video game setting in general, but those are the ones that I think would specifically benefit from VR. 

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

I think you could do some form of soothing/rioting in VR, but that it would be hard to show except under ideal conditions.  like its easy-ish for a computer to keep a score of mental state of various characters, including emotions that are soothable/riotable, but minor changes in those things wouldnt necessarily register visually.

I think the other big issue with tryign to depict cosmere magics (ore really most magics) in a vr or other gaming environment is that one of the most interesting things is how they interact with each other.  and unless you are planning to spend countless hours programming in all those interactions, a lot of that is going to get lost.

I suppose Soothing/Rioting an NPC would be doable, but not for another human controlled player in the VR (I'm just thinking ahead).

It would be funny if the game had built-in blocks on certain actions, or automatic actions, on the part of a human controlled player due to Soothing/Rioting. It'd be a little like a throwback to the old text-based Infocom games.

Quote

> ATTACK KELSIER

Do you have a death wish?

> SLAP BREEZE

You can't seem to bring yourself to do that.

> EXIT WEST

You head towards the door, but find yourself filling a cup of wine and handing it to Breeze instead. "Ah, thank you, my lad," he says with a smirk.

> BURN COPPER

Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

> CLUBS, BURN COPPER

Clubs isn't here right now.

> SCREAM

You try to express your frustration, but it just melts away. Why not have a cup of wine instead? And Breeze's cup looks half empty already.

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by robardin

[Dunkum]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I suppose Soothing/Rioting an NPC would be doable, but not for another human controlled player in the VR (I'm just thinking ahead).

good point.  I was thinking strictly NPC, but yea, it would be impossible to do to a human player barring horrifically invasive innovations in machine/brain interfaces anyway

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Drawing Aons in the air for tangible effects would be really cool if very complex to code and require a lot of gesture precision

This one would be pretty cool, though it would end up having to be severely limited compared to the system as described in Elantris.  for one thing, there is the precision level.  its been a while since my last elantris reread, but i recall that things like line length and width would affect the overall power of the Aon, which is somethign that woudl be difficult to handle.  plus there are so many aons, some with potentially subtle or difficult powers that just coding for all of them would be a nightmare.

[Quantus]

2 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

This one would be pretty cool, though it would end up having to be severely limited compared to the system as described in Elantris.  for one thing, there is the precision level.  its been a while since my last elantris reread, but i recall that things like line length and width would affect the overall power of the Aon, which is somethign that woudl be difficult to handle.  plus there are so many aons, some with potentially subtle or difficult powers that just coding for all of them would be a nightmare.

That was my thought as well. For a game you'd likely have to force it were the Aons were huge to work so the exaggerated gestures could hide the inaccuracies.  I know I cant free-hand a circle with any level of accuracy. The closest thing Ive tried was the Harry Potter world at Universal Studios where they had IR tracking cameras set up to take wand gesture commands, and those things were janky as all get-out even with a budget that could also afford a dragon fireball every 20 minutes.  

[+Harrycrapper]

Technically, you can try Surgebinding in The Way of Kings VR Experience. It's not fully fleshed out, mostly you just lash rocks in a direction and they fly in that direction. Pulling some of the feats that Kaladin and Szeth pull would likely induce nausea in the people susceptible to it in VR. I'm not sure I can recommend spending the $10 on it with everything going on in the world at the moment. Moving via steel/iron pushes/pulls would be a very interesting method of locomotion in VR that hasn't been explored, I'll have to try that VR Chat world. 

[Dunkum]

19 minutes ago, Quantus said:

That was my thought as well. For a game you'd likely have to force it were the Aons were huge to work so the exaggerated gestures could hide the inaccuracies.  I know I cant free-hand a circle with any level of accuracy. The closest thing Ive tried was the Harry Potter world at Universal Studios where they had IR tracking cameras set up to take wand gesture commands, and those things were janky as all get-out even with a budget that could also afford a dragon fireball every 20 minutes.  

yea, between imprecise gestures from humans and imprecise motion tracking, it seems like drawing aons would be pretty limited.  but you could definitely make a system that allows for say the top 50 or so most visual aons, and give each maybe 2 or 3 modes depending on overall size (small medium large, for instance).

[Quantus]

25 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

yea, between imprecise gestures from humans and imprecise motion tracking, it seems like drawing aons would be pretty limited.  but you could definitely make a system that allows for say the top 50 or so most visual aons, and give each maybe 2 or 3 modes depending on overall size (small medium large, for instance).

Agreed.  And from a purely user UI standpoint you could work in other interface options.  Assuming the VR is using hand motion trackers like the occulus has, you could incorporate button holds to mimic some of the modifier options. You could also have an offline Aon-Builder that lets you pre-program some of the modifier options, where you put in the design work in an Aon workshop or something, and then when you draw the aon while holding a given button, you get the modified version rather than the basic default.  

[datalaughing]

I feel like the basic physics of Allomantic steel/iron would make the most sense for a VR conversion. Though seeing blue lines fill your view as they fly out and connect to all nearby sources of metal might make that a tough sell.

Awakening might be cool. I can imagine a Zelda-esque adventure/puzzle game that uses Awakening with a limited number of breaths and limited set of commands to solve puzzles.

Weirdly, I think Aviar would be the simplest and potentially the coolest to put into a VR game. Imagine having to make your way through the deadly jungles of Patji in VR. You've got certain Aviar, but you can only "equip" a couple at a time. So you have to choose the right Aviar to survive the right dangers. And as you progress in the game, you can discover or breed Aviar with new powers.

[Halyo_Alex]

Ok so this is gonna sound a little weird, but Vivecraft actually kinda already lets you do Allomancy in VR; there's an Allomancy mod for Minecraft with all 16 Era 2 metals, and Vivecraft lets you play Java Edition in VR (which includes the vast supply of mods), so... Yeah. It's obviously kinda clunky and weird, but it does work because all the metals are bound to either left- or right-click for pulling and pushing metals respectively. So you left click when looking at a metal block to Pull yourself with Iron, and right click when looking at metal to Push yourself with Steel. Part of what I love about it being in Minecraft is that it comes with the added bonuses of it being, well, in Minecraft. You can build an entire custom map based around the Allomancy mod and then fly through it in VR, Pushing and Pulling with steel and iron to climb to the top of, say, a giant tower. Or using Brass to Soothe a creeper into no longer exploding, Tin to see in dark caves without torches (and to see where certain noises come from), Pewter to fight a horde of zombies, and so on.

And of course you can throw in other mods for more stuff.

I just wish there was a feruchemy and/or hemalurgy mod.

[Eugenides]

I do think drawing Aons would be really cool. Here's the thing. Surgebinding is largely invisible, at least basically every surge except illumination (I think that's what it is called?). Allomancy has the blue lines, but that's about all. The Aons are perhaps the most visible form of cosmere magic, again, not including lightweaving. Therefore, it would be cool to have VR gloves that accurately tracked your hand movements and cast the spell correctly. Also, if the tech gets good enough, I think it would be really cool if it didn't prompt you as to the shape of the Aon, you just had to remember it.

[Emerald_Mage]

Sand mastery would probably work pretty well in VR. It's one of the most visual magic systems. I believe that is why Brandon chose it for graphic novels.

[SirWolfe]

AonDor would actually be super cool, especially if the developer made it so that the Aons acted as code, so that the game would execute the Aons. So attaching an Aon Rao to an Aon Ashe would prompt the game to increase the amount of light that Aon Ashe produced. It would also necessitate the precision that AonDor is stated in the books to require, as the computer won't be able to read the Aons if they aren't clearly drawn.