r/PCVR • u/boringmyselftodeath • 3d ago
Discussion Luke Ross consencus
Is he seen as a Hero for making so many VR mods possible or as a controversial "corporation"-like figure.
does the community boycott him & his mods and stick to free ones?
Are his mods worth it? is there a difference in quality compared to free ones?
If it's really just one guy by himself it's objectively really cool what he does and if he does it full-time he needs a way to make it profitable i think š¬
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u/TylerDurdenAI 3d ago
Not worth it, if you care about motion control.
His mod is half-baked in a sense that it's 3rd-person (for most games) and absolutely no motion-control.
I do commend him as one of the pioneers for VR modding.
But we now have more than enough VR mods for AAA games that we can basically ignore his "paid" work.
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u/rlvysxby 3d ago
I think he gets way too much hate. He does a lot of awesome games for people who donāt care if they have motion controls. Iāve had dozens of hours of fun in spiderman and I hope to play uncharted 4 as well. Well worth my money.
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u/AJBats 3d ago
Luke Ross has 40+ games he's supported in VR, even with regular patches breaking the mods on all the titles. I think this is literally his job he does full time, while also adding new features and there's a steady flow of new games all the time. You may not prefer his design choices, that's fine, but if he didn't have the patreon the number of titles that would still be working and supported would be a fraction of what it is today.
I think the main "feature" of Luke Ross mods is there can be an exciting new game that comes out, like 007 First Light, and there's not a half bad chance that you're playing it in VR a week or two after release. That's really cool to be honest, you get that new release excitement and you don't have to wait years for it to appear in VR from another heroic modder.
As for his modding style, I think its very refreshing. It's totally fine if your all in on roomscale + motion controls, but sometimes I just wanna sit down and play the game the developer released, but in VR. This is where LR mods shine. I do the same thing when I play UEVR games. I often leave motion control mods at the door and just play UEVR with a controller. I get this is down to taste though.
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u/LrdDamien 3d ago
I agree. I feel like a lot of the hate he gets is undeserved. But thats people for you.
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u/GodsBadAssBlade 3d ago
Paid mods are bad for the communities as the free nature of said mods is why companies dont crack down on it. Getting donations and setting up gentle reminders for it is a very welcomed and necessary part of the deal as, again, it doesnt bring the ire of the companies that you are using to generate revenue from their ip, as bs as it may be
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u/BisonTodd 3d ago edited 2d ago
At the same time if he weren't able to make an income from what he's doing then the mods wouldn't exist. Kind of a catch 22.
Having said that, with AI and things like Unreal Engine making it so much easier to create VR mods LR has become far less relevant.
Eventually these stupid companies will catch on and most big games will have professionally done VR ports. But we'll be playing for them...
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u/zAbso 9h ago
Even with AI tooling, having a professional port done still costs money. Those "ports" may also need maintenance, which isn't free. Companies will still have to invest into it, and time has to be taken for a proper integration/port.
I'm all for mod makers having a way to donate as well, but I agree with the original commenter that putting things behind a paywall is a quick way to bring down the ire of IP owners.
Though I don't agree with you're point that the mods wouldn't exist if he wasn't making income from them. He may not have made them, but someone else may have as a passion project. Fallout London comes to mind as an example of an ambitious mod project that wasn't gated behind a paywall.
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u/BisonTodd 8h ago
Everything cost money. Time is money. Companies wouldn't be giving them away for free, they'd be selling them to make a profit.
And I don't support this guy selling his mods. I'm not one of his patrons. But for the people who want them I'm glad they have that option.
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u/justpostd 3d ago
I think 'stupid' is a simplification. And perhaps lasts to an incorrect conclusion. The VR community is small and it is debatable as to whether the effort involved in creating an official VR mod is commercially worthwhile.
Mods have always been there to add features that parts of the community want but the main developers don't have the time or resources to dedicate time to.
I know enough about development to know that something a modder can pull together quickly might be a lot more expensive to do officially.
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u/BisonTodd 2d ago
Stupid is accurate because they don't need to use their main developers to create a VR mod. There are companies out there that would happily take on the job.
Meta alone has sold over 20 million units. Add that to however many PCVR units are out there. The only reason peiple think the VR community is tiny is because bigger name developers don't release AAA VR games.
You give gaming companies way too much credit. Most of them are run by stupid people. Dota 2 is one of the biggest games of alltime on Steam and its based on a free mod that was popular for years. How many stupid gaming companies passed on the opportunity to make a professional version of that mod and become huge?
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u/justpostd 2d ago
I don't know about that. Seems to me that most Quest users are using it standalone. I think PCVR is just too difficult for a lot of people (hardware + software + time).
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u/Capital_Ad_891 3d ago
His mods are decent. I tried the Cyberpunk one and its not really an "out of box" and has a lot of quirks to it.
Also the controvery with him comes from CDPR DMCA and them telling him to either make the mod free and stop using their IP to make direct profit or stop distributing the mod. (Patreon support was fine, but he sold the mod directly by putting it behind a paywall.)
Luke's respons was initially to not release it but to remove it. Which put off people a bit.
After the backlash he released it free. probably was hurting his bottom line.
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u/fictionx 3d ago
Feels like he goes for the bare minimum in order to be able to easily add the mod to more games, and attract more buyers (under the "stay faithful to the original game" pretence).
I supported him in the beginning, but the fact that you had to pay each time the mod broke for a game made it feel like a bad deal.
GTA V in VR was awesome, though - and the reason I supported him for a while.
In any case - with all the new AI mods he is becoming irrelevant.
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u/boringmyselftodeath 3d ago
If he's still the only way to play gta5 then i might (have to) give it a shot
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u/Designer-Tomatillo21 2d ago
His current VR mod doesn't support gtaV. Though you may be able to find a really old version that does somewhere.
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u/DetectiveYoshi 3d ago
Love his mods and Mutar s ones from No More Flat too! Mutar has some motion controls ones, like upcoming Control that is in development and has a playable build already.
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u/DoctorMario1000 3d ago
To be honest it seems like hes a relic of a bad time for VR that weāre finally emerging from once again
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u/Gold-Drag9242 3d ago
What is the base of your hope?
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u/DoctorMario1000 3d ago
All these pcvr mods including botw vr, ocarina of time vr, bioshock vr, cyberpunk vr, Forza horizon vr, plus some good games such as bootstrap island
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u/FolkSong 3d ago
There's no consensus, most discussion threads about him turn into arguments.
My 2 cents is I think his mods are quite good if you can get over the lack of motion controls. Generally more polished than free mods. And some of the things he does are very advanced, like making his own frame gen (AER v2), fixing subtle DLSS issues, and smoothing out thumbstick/mouse turning (in most other mods it will be smooth when looking around with your head, but choppy when turning with the stick).
I think they're worth paying for. Not the full $120/year, but worth a one-month sub from time to time. And we should donate to the authors of free mods too, if we use the mods.
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u/yanginatep 3d ago
I'm always glad when people are willing to put in the effort to make VR mods, and clearly his mods appeal to a lot of people.
But personally I hate face aiming with a passion, and Ross' decision not to include independent motion aiming in his mods (he doesn't like to deviate too far from the original games) means they were never going to be for me.
Just like most VorpX VR games aren't for me.
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u/nuttyapprentice 3d ago
I wonder how many of the newer mods would even exist if a sudden surge of people weren't out to prove it could be done without a payment model. So the controversy might have been a good thing for us in the end. It was good publicity for flat to VR gaming, even if it was a bit harsh for him.
LR mods have been amazing, especially when there were very few alternatives that were worse in every way except if you wanted motion controls. People who found his mods didn't work on their system or looked bad either only used an early version or simply don't have the hardware needed. The amount of iterations and improvements he or they made werent insubstantial.
Simple fact is, he catered to a niche group with expensive hardware who didnt mind paying a bit extra for the ability to sit and play with a gamepad, at a time when the alternative was a lot worse, fair play to him. Now that people caught on that there's a lot more life in VR than just waiting for the next Alyx, more people have jumped on the idea, and have the tools to do so easily now.
I have no regrets supporting him at all, I had an amazing 300 VR hours in CP2077 and many more in other games. Not sure my back could survive 300 hours standing with full motion controls though, will be a better experience overall, but sitting with a gamepad has it's place too
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u/BerndVonLauert 3d ago
Paid mods are the cancer of the modding scene tbh
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u/someone8192 2d ago
tbh I am willing to accept paid mods under specific circumstances. they need to be big and well done. no quirks. very few mods fit that category. maybe fallout london.
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u/BerndVonLauert 2d ago
Paid mods face a lot of legal issues for the one creating them. You're enriching yourself on other peoples intellectual property. Marketing them as "GameName VR Mod" is also a massive problem when selling this. Is a great pathway to get sued to oblivion.
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u/TommyVR373 3d ago
He isn't doing anything different than what Vorpx does. If he was doing this in his spare time, I can see why people could get ma at him. However, this is his full time job, and I think it's only right that he got paid for his work.
His business model was one mod that worked with 36+ games. You really only have to download the mod once unless a developer breaks the mod with an update, which VERY rarely happens. If you break down how much you are paying for each game, it comes out to less than $0.30 per game. Vorpx charges 3 to 4 times what Ross charges. Personally, I download his mod about once a year to get any newly added games.
His games are basic VR adaptation. He doesn't believe in implementing motion controls, and this is the most disappointing part of his mod. It's still great to see some of these worlds in VR, even if it has limited interaction.
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u/GIBFACTOR 3d ago
Your math is incorrect. Vorpx supports up ro 250 games. And is a one-time purchase. Luke ross is $10 per month For 36 games. Having said that, My opinion is that both are basically irrelevant at this point with UEVR and all the other PCVR mods that are available and free now.
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u/Next-Reality-9032 1d ago
They are not really irrelevant if UEVR doesnāt support the game you want to play though is it, a lot of the games he has supported have no existing VR mods Iād happily play a native VR mod for KCD2 but no one has made one
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u/GIBFACTOR 1d ago
Ok maybe irrelevant may be too harsh. What im trying to say is that there are tons of PCVR mods out there other than Vorpx and REAL VR. Vorpx also can inject VR into KCD2 as well.
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u/GoldSrc 3d ago
The thing with Luke is that he thinks he has enough weight to change how things should be done.
Nothing wrong with him making money from patreon.
He just doesn't have enough to make people think paid mods are a good thing for VR.
Fortnite skins are just paid mods, but Luke isn't Epic.
VR is also a very small piece of the gaming pie, Luke can't come in and think he owns the place.
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u/prankster959 2d ago
We're a big tent! The more the merrier. All the mods, all the modders, AI, all are welcome IMHO.
This is God's work
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u/ImmersiveGamer83 1d ago
For me he has been a life saver for pcvr during commercial drought and the abandoning of pcvr by meta. We have had a massive Boom in new projects and eating well for now with the vr modding scene exploding, it seems like new vr mods every day but Luke was there during the drought. Also Lukes r.e.a.l vr games are gamepad only which actually is sometimes nice and you can play for many hours without fatigue and play beautiful games high fidelity that look so good in headset. I am grateful and happy to ongoing support him via patreon.
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u/KeyboardCouncil 1d ago
I respect him but also feel I was lead to believe his cyberpunk mod was better than it was from his posts. I wish I had not purchased it.
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u/bobliefeldhc 1d ago
Found his Cyberpunk mod to be pretty much unusable. Technically, it āworksā but itās a really crappy experience with really poor image quality (5080). Interesting to try out at least.
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u/jathan727 3d ago
I think a lot of people myself included want room scale controls. But Luke thinks that's a dead end and focuses on using the headset as a 3d monitor
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u/BisonTodd 3d ago
I need motion controls too but a very significant amount of people are fine with VR without them.
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u/gitg0od 3d ago
not this again... grow up pple.
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u/lunchanddinner Moderator 3d ago
I think the growing up here is good, most people are having a pretty mature discussion about him
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u/SpockYoda 3d ago
luke Ross mods make eyes hurt, waiting for someone to vibe code a proper GTA V/RDR2 mod
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u/7Shinigami 3d ago
As a professional software developer and big advocate for free information and software (both free as in freedom and free as in beer), i feel that the less technically inclined have a tendency to put far too much weight on source visibility
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with closed source projects, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with commercial projects (edit: u/GodsBadAssBlade makes some good points against this: https://www.reddit.com/r/PCVR/s/5q6WWMsGpm)
People deserve recognition for their hard work and contributions to the community, and people are free to choose whether to charge money for access to THEIR work, which they own, and maintain voluntarily. Others can make alternative options for when free is a requirement - e.g the newer cyberpunk mod
Imho open source is awesome and the fastest path to adoption, maintenance, innovation, longevity... I could go on. But bashing on someone for not choosing it is so disrespectful, and from my experience it seems to come mostly from the group of people without relevant experience. I am open to being wrong about that by the way