A place to discuss any and all things Virtual Reality. Disclaimer, What I am proposing is not for everyone, you all have your own lives and needs, I do not advocate you spend more time in VR than is comfortable for you, my situation is unique so lets look at this from my perspective if you will. Long introduction before we get to the main part but it does all need to be explained. I am have spent 50 years on this planet we call earth, enjoyed true love and experienced much that life has to offer, had a job, visited Egypt and Greece, explored the beauty, of England, Wales and Scotland. I have no close family, the last family member that visited me was in 2019 , it is me, my dogs and the people I know online, I have an online girlfriend who like me has dealt with a lot of trauma in life and we both feel most comfortable and happy in our own houses away from the world. If my PTSD triggers outside I will end up in a ball on the floor for 30 minutes as I live through the last 30 minutes of my Wife’s life, she died in 2018 after we fought her cancer together for 20 years. Even through those 20 years I was her primary carer and thus 90% of our time was spent in this or our old house with the only non hospital excursions being me taking her on adventures in a wheelchair. Due to my Autistic side, my Bi-polar type 2, my ADHD and PTSD, the world out there doesn’t fit me, doesn’t make sense and I have no need or desire to physically be a part of it. I spent 20 year getting up at 6am in the morning looking after my slowly dying Wife, making the most of a broken world, in hospital we spent time in the high mortality wards, coronary care, renal and cancer, I have seen over 100 people die from teenagers with a life stolen away from them to first world war heroes. That world outside the front door hold nothing positive for me, my autistic nature means that even if I hadn’t seen such tragedy life out there would be next to impossible. But games, technology and VR that makes sense to me, that makes me feel comfortable, that is a world I understand. Now before deep diving into what I mean by wanting to live in VR lets look at the financial side. Even though I stream and do YT it has never been monetised and never will, I have no sponsors and the people that come to my channel will never have a financial bar to enter. I own my house it is a small place but I pay no rent on it and have no outstanding debts leveraged on it, my only income is my disability benefits which are just enough to live on (I get a small amount extra because I am classed as severely disabled) My mental issues mean I could never turn this into a career I can’t even tie my shoe laces anymore (I where crocs for this reason) I can’t schedule or plan or edit videos or keep my mind on one game or one situation) Let’s talk sponsorship and the online tech community at large, in myTo hug someone in VR ? (A long term goal) : virtualreality (reddit.com) Post a lot of you lovely people told me to contact different companies and or Tech channel youtubers. After all since late 2015 I have spent at least an hour a day in VR, I have used VR to help with depression and disability, I spend more time in VR than most people out there, VR is part of my official treatment for Bi-polar and my Autism, I am tech savvy, have a instinctive love of technology, I have coded my own online game, and can strip down most technology without issues. You would think that I would be the perfect tester for all this new tech, you would think haptic feedback and VR companies would love to throw tech my way to see someone who actually could use these technologies and write experience based reports. You would think VR channels like ***** or Tech giant channels like ***** would love to do a colab with me. Not only because of my use of technology to allow me to survive without medication or long stay hospital but because it is well documented how technology, VR and gaming helped my Wife deal with incurable cancer for 20 years (before netflix and amazon prime I created in the early 2000’s a house wide and hospital entertainment setup that allowed my Wife to watch our entire library of films and series either on phone/laptop/pc or media tv) But unless my email domains are all entering a black hole on the internet (I have contacted them all over the last 12 months) even tried via discord and never got even one reply, I won’t name the channels or companies but of the hundreds of them I have contacted the only one who ended up helping me was them hearing my story and contacting me not the other way around, Valve, I am still in contact with them. Most companies or big channels want influencers not testers, they want the big numbers not the little guy. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is an oncoming train, my mum sadly is in end stage dementia, I have already said my goodbyes, when she does pass I will get a small financial amount but it will be enough for me to secure full body haptic, tracking and revamp all the house technology and allow me a 3-5 year savings budget to replace items in a cycle. Why? As I have stated before, that world outside doesn’t fit me, doesn’t make sense and I have no urge to be a part of it, this house is my safe place, my bubble and I love it, my dogs are getting old and don’t like to do more than go outside the back door for 2-5 mins at a time. What you can’t do in VR? Eat, drink, shower, use the bathroom, deal with finances and so on, my money goes straight in my bank, all my bills come out of the same bank, my food is delivered bi-weekly via amazon. Sleeping? well I do plan on trying to turn my old Vive Pro into a sleep aid and maybe try sleeping in VR should be an interesting thing. I will also continue to do flatscreen streams and keep in touch with people outside of VR in my online life. 60-80% living in VR my goal. The social side is easy, Rec room, Alt Space and VRchat in some ways provide a closer connection to other humans than meeting someone at a pub. Where will I live? Open to suggestions on that my current plan is to have a custom SkyrimVR with all the higgs VRIK and other systems, pick a nice home from nexus and mod the game more for living and reality. My home away from home, a place to go on long walks and adventures, include mods like frostfall and camping and anything else to make it a liveable place while focusing on stability. Please suggest some other games I could “live” in as a primary domicile. Gaming, cinema, TV, streaming all can be done in VR. This paired with the long term goal of my other post of being able to hug a person in VR, it is my choice and my journey. As I progress i’ll post videos and do streams, show how it goes and come back here to create new versions of my posts. What I would ask is this. If you know of any channels or companies who you think would be interested in a collaboration, interview, or something else I am happy to talk about all of this and completely open, please contact them and point them my way please don’t suggest I make first contact my ability to do so from past experience is horrible. If you have any suggestions, games, VR social places, ideas then reply below. But if your think this is crazy, if you think this is wrong, please just pass on by. My own GP and my mental health consultant are behind me on this they know my medical history you don’t then know how close to ending life I was before VR, Gaming and technology gave me a future. My consultant has also offered to write official medical history and our treatment plan using VR and such like for me to pass on to any company interested in making use of this opportunity to test all of this out. I am already a front runner in technology and this new frontier so being a Guinea pig isn’t a negative. Update My health. My eye sight is good for a person my age, I have a yearly check-up (they come to my house because I am disabled) in fact they tested me for some glasses a couple of years ago, I was having trouble reading small stuff, now at my age they warned me that eye sight does deteriorate, well for the last two years my eyes haven’t degraded, now I am not saying VR is the cause, but I can say that what I have done over the last 2 years in VR has not in any way affected my eyes badly. As a Neuro Divergent person with ADHD and Bipolar, exercise never stuck, over eating did, exercise was boring and no energy or focus no matter how logical the reasons stuck, I tried everything, My weight over the last 10 years slowly crept up never reducing till I was 130KG, now since doing VR and every day using Beat Saber for 30-60 minutes and exploring worlds/VR chat and SkyrimVR using Natural locomotion where you basically use your arms to jog and run on the spot, I am not only down to 117.5KG but for the first time in years my Blood pressure is at a safe level (note for 10 years I have been on blood pressure meds and even with them at max amounts my BP was in the yellow not in the green, now it is in the green and the Doctor wants to start reducing my meds.) For example my old BP average 141/88 my new average is 126/82. A few points I want to put out there. Let me put it in this context in March 2019 I had 5 consultants, Snr Psychocologist, ADHD, Bipolar, Autistic spectrum and Head Practice PTSD. All of my Doctors admitted later they were just waiting for the phone call from the Police letting them know where my body was. I was at the point of logging into the old games me and my Wife played, one last walk around, say goodbye, the last thing I was going to do was watch End Game (the only MCU film we didn’t get to watch together) (BTW: if a person really wants to end it, no amount of experts or intervention will stop it, this is very different from a cry for help) I had a death plan that would have worked and not caused trauma to others, I even set up a script to notify the police after the event so only a trained professional would find my body. This wasn’t a cry for help this was a simple logical “if I die and whether there is anything after or not at least the pain stops” All the experts tried to help, multiple counsellors as well, my brain was just broken, I was broken, group therapy was literally killing me. Medication was turning me into a zombie, long stay hospital was an option but I just no longer wanted to exist. When I started gaming again, streaming, vlogging and VR on the 23rd March 2019, all of my consultants noticed within weeks. Within 3 months 4 of the 5 primary consultants had signed off on me. And those that keep in touch including my now down to once a year consultancy with Primary consultant all have agreed what I am doing works for me. He is also in conjunction with me writing a medical paper that will be published based around the use of technology, VR and gaming in relation to Autism, Bi-polar, ADHD and PTSD. (still working on a title lol) as an alternative to medication and long stay care. While I can’t function out there, where I am now is worlds away from 2019. This may very well be as good as it gets for me but you assume quite a lot. I have friends and an online community, and friends online as important and real as anyone you meet offline. When my Wife died a friend I have never met who lives in Australia stayed up every night for months just to check on me where as my own sister who lives across the city from me never called or checked on me once. My house is safe, my online life is safe for me, VR is safe the world out there isn’t. Now lets just put this in context, a lot of people talk about PTSD, this is what mine is like and the only thing that ever helped with it was VR, technology and gaming. https://youtu.be/D8q08EguXxI 2 year later update 😀 — 2 years later and I am still alive. I do 60 minutes of Beat Saber every day for exercise although to my brain it is never exercise because exercise never felt right instead I am committing against evil blue and red cubes to save the universe. The real world out there still doesn’t fit me. But I have a life. For example this weekend (and every weekend for 12 months) I do open mic in Vrchat, for the first 8 months I did inspiring speeches about how technology and VR can help with Autism. Then 3 months ago after seeing so many people stand up in VR and sing, I had a crazy idea to try it myself and now I sing and do inspiring speeches in VR. I’ve never sung in the shower or ever done anything like this. So maybe I’ll never be part of that world out there but I have a “life” friends and love in VR and online, I’m happy. My cancer is still in remission. Every morning I leverage technology to make sure I take my blood pressure meds (only medication I take) and cook a real meal, I go live every morning with a stream where we chat while I make sure that I cook a real meal. And every weekend this is me. https://youtu.be/H16yiaE6iSI https://youtu.be/oPzStQwlSbY I try to keep it to a 4 minute talk “Quebber’s weekend chat’s” and a song. Usually 40+ people in the room and 20+ people on Mani’s Twitch stream. I make a difference, I make people smile and I connect on a way I can’t in that world out there, who are you to judge when my own GP, and consultant are happy I am doing something that actually works for me. And here is my talk with Azeal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPqypYw5uG0 35,000 views, people I have connected with.