Quote from SereniusI've never found FOV to be a problem, no matter what it's set to.
Most people don't seem to be affected by this. Personally I can't play without feeling ill after 30 minutes or so. It's great that it doesn't bother you. I wish it didn't affect me.
It's kind of a silly standard to stick to, given that the first group hasn't really gone away, simply that the usages are more diverse. It seems to me as in a similar category of usability as the availability of southpaw or inverted control schemes, or color blind support.
Funny you should mention this as I just happen to be a 37 year-old southpaw, so this is another thing I am constantly fighting with. My wife purchased my 360 for me at Christmas in 2007 along with COD4. I just couldn't get used to it so I began hunting for controller alternatives. I happened to stumble on the XIM1 and promptly built one for myself. The 30+ms lag was annoying so I ended up buying the XIM360/XIM2 as soon as that was available. I have also modified a couple controllers to have swapped sticks because there are games that I want to be able to use a controller with but they don't have any native southpaw configurations. One of the really cool things about the XIM is the ability to control a console with just about anything you can imagine.
IMO it's just stupid for these options to not be included. Everyone is going to prefer a different style of playing. It's as simple as that. It's incredibly frustrating to hear people blow it off and say just get used to it...My brain doesn't work that way and I just can't, plain and simple. What I really want is for developers to understand is that offering options for key/stick/whatever mapping, and graphics preferences does nothing but help them sell games.
Locking a games FOV to cater to a specific style of play is just silly. I don't play sitting 2+ meters from my monitor and I don't plan to.
hmm if you turn on 80-120 doesnt it go all fish eye'd? that makes me more sick than lower FOV
Not at all. I played UT for years with it around 110-120. That seems to be the sweet spot for me.
I'm aware that some people get motion sick, but there are other reason not just FOV, motion blur and depth of field effects are also known to cause this. Camera bobbing too.
Don't get me started on the motion blur and camera bobbing...lol...I hate this trendy shakey cam thing...Adding motion blur to a game to save frames might be necessary on consoles but my pc can handle it just fine without.
There are plenty of people who can't play games due to photosensitive lighting effects, that opens an whole other discussion about catering for minorities when working on products that millions of people use.
Yes, I am apparently in the minority. It's kind of funny how I haven't had problems though up until the past few years when all the games have been consolized...I can still play all the games that have adjustable FOV all day long without any issues. What I also find interesting is how I don't get motion sickness in any other situation except these low FOV games. I don't get carsick, seasick, airsick, or even sick from drinking to the point of getting the 'spins'. In fact I can deal with most of these situations better than the average person.
If you can change something without drastically effecting the product you should - FOV is about as drastic as it gets for a console game when you're squeezing every frame you can.
I would love to see graphics options available for consoles. E.g. if I want to up my FOV I might just need to lower something else. It's a trade off I would happily deal with. It's just not there with most of these new games and that is my point. A simple matter of offering options for controls and graphics. As a student studying programming and electronics I feel that it would be easy enough to implement a set of standards that would satisfy all gamers and not just the average Joe.
BTW: Sorry if my posts get out of control, I do appreciate that we can have a civil conversation regarding this. 
console commands. they do exist.
When they do exist, great! But many other games don't have that option. If it were that easy I wouldn't even be bothering to post here.
When we see the next consoles and theres a marked improvement in hardware/software speed you can be sure FOV will increase again, to start with at least
Honestly, I don't see it happening. The big game companies seem to be setting the standard of keeping the FOV low because they CAN get away with it. They have found the least common denominator for maintaining a respectable (debatable) FPS rate versus quality and 'pretty' graphics are more important than the small percentage of us getting physically ill as a result.
once you get more videomemory and stuff in consoles, that stuff will immediately be spent on....higher resolution crates and barrels. The graphical standard will go up, but the FOV will remain where it is now, because the graphical standard went up
What he said...
Crysis 2 is 55, but we played around with all sorts of values. IMO going higher than 65 just looks wrong to me for an FPS anyway. Dunno maybe I'm just used to it now.
This makes me sick. 55?!?! Are you F*ing kidding?!?! This is why I have to seriously look at EA's games with a microscope before buying them now. I like the original Crysis, but I will definitely pass if version 2 is locked to 55...
Postby dux » Today, 5:35 amThis is the one thing that pisses me off the most about console ports and just developer attitude in general. Low fov's DO NOT WORK on 16:10/16:9 widescreen ratios. So far I've had trouble with:
Dead Space due to low FOV causing me motion sickness so I've been unable to play it again or finish it. What a waste of money that was.
Bioshock gave me headaches from its low FOV but it was just too darn good to not finish.
Borderlands I had to literally go and change all of the game settings to even get to work on a PC but was rewarded with good fun, but was really annoyed that I had to even modify anything.
dux, you are one of my inspirations for posting this. Those EXACT games are the ones I have the biggest issues with. I've been trying to play Dead Space for over a year and always, always get too frustrated within a half hour to deal with it. Bioshock was probably the first game I noticed this with. I didn't have my 360 when this game came out but I picked it up on Steam and could only play it with an FOV hack. Borderlands....how I love/hate this game...This could be such a fantastic game for me...I would play it all the time....IF I could sit through it for more than 30 minutes. Holy crap, it makes me dizzy, angry, and want to throw my 360 out the window.
What people don't seem to wrap their heads around is how physically ill playing these low FOV games makes people. There should be a warning somewhere specifically citing the games locked FOV and what it is locked at.
For those that aren't affected by this I envy you.
I've noticed some people here complaining of the low FOV in a lot of the new games (mainly console ports). Add to that the success of the guy with epilepsy in getting EA to agree to 'maybe' update the key mapping in Dead Space 2...I was inspired to drag the low FOV topic up again and hope to find some interest in petitioning these companies to put options in their games for adjustable FOV...I know, I know, you don't care, it doesn't affect you, blah, blah, blah...
The fact of the matter is that many people ARE affected by this, and not being able to adjust the FOV to my own personal setting makes many of these games unplayable for me (and many others).
I just wanted to throw this topic out there for debate and see what happens.
