Sign in to follow this  
TheRealMagus

Motion Sickness in Wurm

Recommended Posts

Hello,


 


First off, sorry if this is the wrong section, but I thought this might be the best place to get advice and discussion on the subject.


 


I've started playing Wurm Online yet again, the last time having stopped due to issues of nausea and dizziness caused simply by playing the game.


 


After years of playing countless games, 3rd person, first person, isometric, top down and every other kind of view there is I have never once gotten motion sickness from playing a game. That is, until I started playing Wurm.


 


I have tried fiddling with the FoV settings, but even at max it feels like the first person view is like looking through a paper roll. I am not entirely certain what causes the sickness, but I do know that Wurm is the perpetrator. The effect is noticeable after only a few minutes of playing actively, and after a decently long playsession I end up going to bed nauseated and dizzy, which is no pleasant feeling in the least.


 


Does anyone else experience this with Wurm, or maybe some similar game, and what are your thoughts on the matter? Does anyone have any suggestions to fix or reduce the motion sickness with any possible graphical settings.


 


I can't help but feel the game has a poorly implemented camera, which I feel is valid criticism - would anyone really dispute it?


 


Thanks in advance,


 


Magus


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Funny thing is, Ive never had motion sickness from wurm, but other 3d games I have. a lower FoV would help with motion sickness, not higher


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hello,

 

First off, sorry if this is the wrong section, but I thought this might be the best place to get advice and discussion on the subject.

 

I've started playing Wurm Online yet again, the last time having stopped due to issues of nausea and dizziness caused simply by playing the game.

 

After years of playing countless games, 3rd person, first person, isometric, top down and every other kind of view there is I have never once gotten motion sickness from playing a game. That is, until I started playing Wurm.

 

I have tried fiddling with the FoV settings, but even at max it feels like the first person view is like looking through a paper roll. I am not entirely certain what causes the sickness, but I do know that Wurm is the perpetrator. The effect is noticeable after only a few minutes of playing actively, and after a decently long playsession I end up going to bed nauseated and dizzy, which is no pleasant feeling in the least.

 

Does anyone else experience this with Wurm, or maybe some similar game, and what are your thoughts on the matter? Does anyone have any suggestions to fix or reduce the motion sickness with any possible graphical settings.

 

I can't help but feel the game has a poorly implemented camera, which I feel is valid criticism - would anyone really dispute it?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Magus

 

I get REALLY bad motion sickness in quite a few other games.  Also get it in wurm if I play in full screen, have you tried windowed mode just with a dark background? That solves the issue for me... till it starts snowing

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I get it but only while riding a horse in the dark, usually looking for something on the ground or critters so the only thing I have found is to avoid searching for things in the night if I can help it lol, sorry not much help but you are not alone I guess.


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is just an idea I had but I can't test if it has an impact since I don't suffer from this myself but: Have you tried different framerate limitations to see if the speed the frames flash by in affects it?


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Im with Aeris.


 


Framerate thats too low can cause it for me. But a high as possible Field of view is what you want. Lower is akin to zooming, looking through a zoom lens or binoculars.


The downside with a nice wide fov, like 90, is that it eats up a bit more of your performance. I play 90 only, and sometimes 100 in games that support it. HL2 makes me sick as a dog, unless i get that fov up.


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Can't say I've ever had this but people have made some good suggestions.  


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Reduce details to minimum to improve FPS, increase FOV to get you better "peripheral vision". I get motion sickness when playing games from low FPS - I can recognize when it's down to 30 (also: f**k "cinematic 30fps" in games).


Edited by Parsiuk
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the responses guys. I have tried framecap at 30, 60 and 120, no difference (in sickness) as I somewhat expected.


 


I found the following entry on wikipedia concerning motion sickness (citation needed unfortunately): "Some games have a default setting which places a player's vision a small distance ahead of the actual object controlled, which will most likely trigger simulation sickness."


 


I'm thinking (and somewhat feeling) that this may be the cause, as I have always experienced the wurm camera to be different from any other game, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I noticed when turning left and right that the camera isn't actually centered on the player character, but feels situated slightly in front of it, creating a pivoting effect when turning.


 


As Daolin suggested, I changed to windowed mode resizable and made the window a whole lot smaller. I find it rather unplayable having everything so tiny, with the UI taking up most of the screenspace. But I did however notice that the pivoting effect is much less noticeable with a smaller window and played around with it a bit just walking around. It definitely helps with the dizziness, but also reinforces my belief that it's this strange camera position that causes the sickness. I would certainly prefer being able to play the game in fullscreen.


 


Any thoughts on this?


Edited by TheRealMagus

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i remember, every time i come from other 3d games back to wurm, that im always bashed by how "close" the camera is compared to other first person games. and it felt really weird when for some time characters animations were visible in first person XD...can not tell if i had motion sickness from it, but it sometimes feels really uncomfortable to be so damn "shortsighted" in wurm, it even feels like you are closer to the ground than the actual character (I usually turn my fov in games really high or play in 3rd person view)


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As Daolin suggested, I changed to windowed mode resizable and made the window a whole lot smaller. I find it rather unplayable having everything so tiny, with the UI taking up most of the screenspace. But I did however notice that the pivoting effect is much less noticeable with a smaller window and played around with it a bit just walking around. It definitely helps with the dizziness, but also reinforces my belief that it's this strange camera position that causes the sickness. I would certainly prefer being able to play the game in fullscreen.

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

You can resize the window (select windowed resizable) as well as change the size of the text .etc, so it's not as bad as it seems.

 

The main problem for me is background distractions, so I usually have all my icons outta the way and a dark background on the screen running wurm.

Edited by Daolin

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Extra Credits did a video on it.  It's about 6 minutes, but maybe give it a gander?  It offers some solutions that may help.
 

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvimYs7tnRM

Edited by Hailene

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Friendlybob posted in the wurm IRC about your thread and Budda(dev that did FoV and camera tweeks) said he will look into it and see if moving the camera back helps


  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

FWIW, you may also want to try adjusting your monitor(s) color temperature to a warmer range (more yellow/red, away from the blue range).  If you're running an nVidia graphics card that has "Color Vibrance" settings, try adjusting those upward (50-60% range).  


 


While not tested scientifically, I've found a slightly warmer, yellow/redder color - not so much that anything distorts, but just slightly into this range - has a remarkable effect on reducing eye strain and any vertigo/motion sickness that I've occasionally experienced.  Adjusting color profiles in Windows may also help.


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fortunately I do not get the motion sickness effect from playing Wurm but I do get it from certain videos that players make where their view is constantly shifting or jerking around frequently. Also possibly not surprising, I get it from watching sailing videos players make but not from sailing myself. Easy enough then to just stop watching these vids, while of course not playing the game would be another matter. Hopefully some other suggestions made here will help your particular situation.


 


=Ayes=


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sometimes the best option is to turn up the graphics settings if you do not want to lose detail. I get motion sickness from time to time from various games. Few years back I was getting it bad in Wurm after some updates. In this case I found it was caused by tile transitions. The difference in tile textures a cpl tiles ahead as they draw in the detail was just enough to cause my issues. I cranked the settings up and it solved my problem.


 


A Few other things have cause it for me in Wurm also. A well lit room is fine as long as the source/glare is not in my field of view. Probably the most common thing I have found is playing another game and then playing Wurm or vice versa. Keeping my game resolution constant or as close as I can get it across all games I play helps minimize it. Having a bit of cooldown time between games helps also.


 


 




Friendlybob posted in the wurm IRC about your thread and Budda(dev that did FoV and camera tweeks) said he will look into it and see if moving the camera back helps




 


This does worry me a bit if the camera gets fiddled with. Since I am already sensitive will changing the camera actually cause issues for some people who are acclimated to the way it is now.


Edited by Evilvision

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Funny thing is, Ive never had motion sickness from wurm, but other 3d games I have. a lower FoV would help with motion sickness, not higher

 

Motion / Simulation Sickness is really different between people. 

 

Usually (but not always!) increasing FOV reduces it, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it even works backwards.

 

I personally never got it in any game ever, except Borderlands (both 1 and 2), not sure what are they doing that my brain doesn't like but i can't play it more than a hour before i get a headache and an irresistible urge to barf.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The best way to avoid motion sickness while playing a game is to not play it. I can only play any Half-Life version for one to two hours before I have to stop. It's the only game that does that to me.


 


To blame this on the game is ludicrous. It's you, not the game. 


Edited by Clatius

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The best way to avoid motion sickness while playing a game is to not play it. I can only play any Half-Life version for one to two hours before I have to stop. It's the only game that does that to me.

 

To blame this on the game is ludicrous. It's you, not the game. 

 

Very well then, the blame is on myself, and all the others that experience nausea.

 

God forbid we'd have a grown up discussion about the non-issue and potential causes, to try improving the game.

 

To all the other replies, thank you all for your suggestions and thoughts. I'm really glad Budda would take an interest in this, I am anxiously waiting for whatever comes of it and it gives me hope that I will be able to play Wurm like I would any other game, free of nausea and dizziness. :)

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To blame this on the game is ludicrous. It's you, not the game. 

 

Frankly that's ######. Games which cause nausea often have a camera based issue of some kind which causes it. Most of the time it's the FoV, which is why the devs added a slider to Wurm, but it can also be caused by other things. Thus blaming it on a game is perfectly fine, as it's a shortcoming in said game which causes the nausea and it's almost always something that can be fixed by the developer, as long as the issues which causes the nauseau can be identified. It's no different with color blindness, certain games choose very bad color schemes which don't work for color blind people (that's between 4 and 5 percent of the world's population). World of Tanks had this problem for a while but they caught up and added a different color scheme for color blind people.

There are also plenty of developers out there who simply raise the figurative middle finger towards those minorities by not doing anything about it when their game causes such issues, often not even offering refunds to their customers either when they suffer from such things. I'm really glad that the Wurm dev team is not one of those and that they actively try to fix these issues, and that more and more developers are catching on these days and doing the same, even if it's still mostly just in the form of FoV sliders these days.

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very well then, the blame is on myself, and all the others that experience nausea.

 

God forbid we'd have a grown up discussion about the non-issue and potential causes, to try improving the game.

 

To all the other replies, thank you all for your suggestions and thoughts. I'm really glad Budda would take an interest in this, I am anxiously waiting for whatever comes of it and it gives me hope that I will be able to play Wurm like I would any other game, free of nausea and dizziness. :)

 

No, it really is you and not the game. If it were the game the vast majority of people would have an issue. They don't. People are like all the computers in the world. There are a vast array of different components that work together in different ways in different computers. That's why a majority of computers will run an application with no problems while there are a few that have problems running that exact same application. People are the same way. We are all put together a little bit differently. Otherwise we would all have the exact same problem with every game we play. We don't have the same problems with every game we play. That's because it isn't the game, it's you. And no Ecrir, it's not complete bs. There have been many studies. They point to the same thing.

 

Now, can the game be made so it effects people less, sure. Never said it couldn't. But it is still you and not the game because it's how your brain processes the information. Can the information be reasonably presented in a different way so that your brain can process it without you having a problem, like the vast majority of WURMIANS don't have a problem? Maybe. Maybe not. That's because it's you and not the game. That's why there are ways you can adjust the game to suit how it works best for you. The sliders are there because it's you and not the game. You can deny the science and the studies but that doesn't change the fact that brains work differently from one another. That's why I have a problem with Half-Life while most people don't. It's me, not the game. I'm intelligent enough to understand that and don't call people names out of ignorance.

Edited by Clatius

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The vast majority don't have problems from becoming motion sick on busses either but they've still taken those passengers into consideration when designing the busses. Just saying.


  • Like 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hopefully budda will be able to make some changes that fix or at least reduce the problems.


 


I am sure he could make the camera change optional just like FoV, so I don't think we need to worry about having to get used to a new camera if we don't want to.


Edited by FriendlyBob

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No, it really is you and not the game.

 

 

I am sorry you misunderstood, but I am not denying that it's MY problem. It just so happens that I'm not the only one with this problem, although with varying degrees of intensity, no doubt.

 

 

You can deny the science and the studies but that doesn't change the fact that brains work differently from one another.

 

Nor have I denied any science or studies, particularly not any you have (not) brought up. But I am happy to hear you are well versed in the technological and physiological sciences.

 

That's why I have a problem with Half-Life while most people don't. It's me, not the game.

 

I appreciate the anecdotal evidence. How very scientific of you to draw these conclusions based on it. Hey! It's almost like what I did in my second post, imagine that.

 

I'm intelligent enough to understand that and don't call people names out of ignorance.

 

Firstly, I seem to have lost my memory because I can't recall any namecalling on my part. Mild-mannered sarcasm at worst, but I doubt that would get to an intelligent guy like you.

 

Secondly, you not only just insulted my intelligence by proxy, you also called me ignorant.

 

 

Thank you for your input, and I am sorry you disapprove of my shameful attempt at constructive criticism and discussion.

 

How about you share with us the many peer-reviewed studies that confirm your theory?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There's an option in the game settings



"viewport_bob"="true" : Bob the viewport when walking

I don't know what it changes but you could try setting it to false and see if it helps.


Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this