Guild Wars 2

The SAB makes me motion sick, at first I wasn’t sure if it was SAB or something I ate but I soon figured it out. I don’t feel sick until I stop and luckily I’ve completed it 3 times. Its too bad I really enjoy the SAB,

I don’t know if it is the graphics or FOV. Half-Life 2 and Borderlands also does this to a lot of people, Borderlands because of the FOV.

The FOV has been improved in GW2 but I’d still like a FOV slider. When new content is released I might just have to suck it up, it will put me in bed for the rest of the day but it may be worth it.

I wasn’t going to post anything because I thought it was only me but then I saw a comment on a Guildcast video.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’ve heard this from several different people. Needless to say, I never wanted my work to make people sick! I honestly don’t know why this is happening specifically in SAB. But I have to assume it has something to do with the angular geometrical environment and bright colors. I wonder if someone who gets sick tries it in black and white if that would help them.

I wouldn’t worry about it, some people are just affected by these things. It must be the graphics and the flashing because GW2 itself doesn’t make me sick.

Is there a way to play GW2 in black and white? Because if there is I’d love to play more Super Adventure Box.

What kind of FPS are you getting? Low FPS can make you sick.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’ve heard this from several different people. Needless to say, I never wanted my work to make people sick! I honestly don’t know why this is happening specifically in SAB. But I have to assume it has something to do with the angular geometrical environment and bright colors. I wonder if someone who gets sick tries it in black and white if that would help them.

I’ve been farming SAB for hours for baubles/skins and have no problems.

Go farm mobs out in the open world and I get motion sick after a while.

CMF.5461:

“stop the graphics!”

I know how that kid feels.

Not FPS but FOV. Here is an explanation.

All modern games should have a FOV slider. This issue was bought up during beta and although the FOV has been improved, I’m disappointed that there is no FOV slider.

I have understanding and sympathy for the motion sickness but was referencing:

CMF.5461:

I have understanding and sympathy for the motion sickness but was referencing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6qEESY4x4U

The FOV explanation was meant for the guy who thought I was talking about FPS.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I honestly don’t know why this is happening specifically in SAB.

I think the most offending areas are probably the jump pads and then the raft sequence. A LOT of rapid and substantial point-of-view changes going on there, comparative to regular GW2 play. Another problem could be certain areas that are really claustrophobic and thus cause rapid camera spasms.

When the eye wants to focus on a point, but it can’t because that point keeps moving around due to constant frame shift, that is what causes motion sickness. Have you ever heard of people who experience motion sickness while reading in a car? It is the same thing. They are trying focus on the text while the vibrations of the vehicle shifts their head around, slightly but rapidly and constantly.

I really don’t think color has anything to do with it.

My suggestions.

1. When crafting future levels, try to build them such that the camera has room to operate. Don’t make anything too tight or narrow.

2. Slow down the upward acceleration of jump pads.

3. If you have anything like the raft, also slow it down.

I bet if you research motion sickness enough, you can find resources out there that will provide guidelines for building content to avoid it.

We’ve completed it around 50 times and it makes us feel better! Josh Foreman, you’re genius! Thank you and your team very much. I hope worlds 2 and 3 will be released soon.

P.S. It’ll be great if you add movie skips.

I’ve almost never experienced motion sickness in a game and I’ve been playing for about 10 years, but playing zone 2 checkpoint 2 and 3 for more than 15 minutes makes me sick. Rest of the SAB is fine. Anyone experienced this?

Funny, I get the same using Dagger/Dagger thief. Little lady jumps about so much I get nauseous.

I used to get the same playing an old PS2 game called Primal.

I almost got motion sickness. It tends to happen during extremely cramped areas such as inside of logs, when I’m straining the camera to see a specific spot, I’ll notice my neck start to angle as if I’m trying to move my head. Then I’ll stop and take a step back (or forward, ingame, hehehe) and realize what I’m doing. It gives me a feeling of helplessness and frustration when I do the neck-bending thing, so I try to not do it as much as possible. I also start getting headaches and, in turn, get motion sick a little.

Ace.1726:

Is there a way to play GW2 in black and white? Because if there is I’d love to play more Super Adventure Box.

Can’t you just change the colors on your monitor manually?

Interesting. I was in SAB for a few hours the last Sunday. I felt fine while playing, but the instant I logged off I had a dizzy spell that lasted about 30 seconds. I haven’t had it since, but don’t get a chance to play for as long during the week.

Unknown.2796:

Ace.1726:

Is there a way to play GW2 in black and white? Because if there is I’d love to play more Super Adventure Box.

Can’t you just change the colors on your monitor manually?

To add onto this..

If you’re using an integrated moniter (say on a laptop) you may not be able to easily do it.

If you’re using a plug-in moniter, there should be settings buttons on the side or under it… look near the power strip/bar/button.

I got a headache the first time I played it. That was somewhere after 6 hours with no food or water – hunger headache or dehydration was setting in…….

The only area that gave me any form of motion sickness was the river-raft section….holy crap did that ever mess with my poor eyes T.T

Aw man, that sucks, I so understand how that feels… I wasnt able to play Half Life 1 for the very same reason
Fortunately, SAB doesnt do that to me!

@Josh
I find a lot of video game motion sickness can be cured by putting a crosshair or dot in the center of the screen. For those with this problem try putting a dot in the middle of your screen. (slightly sticky piece of paper like a corner of a post-it note).

I experienced motion sickness with SAB (the first day it was released). There were other games (like Oblivion) in the past which make me feel sick… I think it happens when I rotate the camera too frequently. I don’t experience motion sickness immediatly but after a long time spent playing the game… I had this problem the first day when I spent 2 hours inside SAB. Now I farm 1 hour or so in the SAB and I haven’t experience sickness anymore…

I experienced motion sickness when playing FPS like Borderlands 2 and Battlefield 3. Rapid camera movements can do that to you as well as staying focused on one point while moving the camera all over the place.

I had to change up my playstyle in FPS such as

1. Try not to move the camera so rapidly when looking around. I know this might be hard to do in a competitive environment, but it helped me quite a bit.

2. I know this might sound wierd but moving my head slightly to the left or right before panning my camera around helped some.

I can be playing borderlands 2 for quite some time if I made a conscious effort to implement these tips. But as soon as I jump in the back of a car and tried shooting stuff while my buddy was driving prompted a 2 hour break from the game before I could even look at a computer screen.

Motion sickness can happen if your brain wants to process an environment that somehow irritates you. I get motion sick in FPS all the time and it’s mostly because the FOV and head/weapon bobbing drive me insane in most of these games.
SAB might cause motion sickness to some, because you navigate a comparatively realistic looking character through an extremely unnatural looking 3D environment which your brain probably wants to “remedy” but can’t.

As somebody who gets motion sick easily, I have no problems whatsoever while in the SAB. Then again, it’s not the entire stage shaking, and the second I hit the raft I concentrate completely on the raft itself and whatever tries to get on it.

I just wanted to pop in and say I too get motion sickness from SAB, As much as I love playing SAB it does make me feel sick at times. I am pretty prone to motion sickness though, It’s pretty surprising to see how many other people have this problem.

If it’s any consolation, Josh, all of GW2 made me terribly motion sick until the camera was adjusted a long time back.

The river canyon zone and especially the raft and bridge made me almost sick to my stomach. The bridge was entirely due to the perceived height however, that part had nothing to do with motion, haha. That raft is harsh on me, though, and messed with me more quickly than reading in the car or being on a boat do irl.

In real life I get motion sickness when I try to read in a moving car. To the point where I refuse to read inside the car at all. However, I never get motion sickness when I play video games. In fact, I haven’t had a single game make me sick yet. The SAB doesn’t make me sick at all, which is fortunate. In fact, I can shake the screen violently with my mouse for 5 minutes straight, and still be perfectly fine. I keep my head very still when I play video games, because that’s how I concentrate. I play on a screen that’s 1920×1080, but I have also played on much lower resolution screens with no problem. The human brain is a mystery.

its because the graphics are so awsome it makes people motion sickness because its too life like!

Auron.9241:

its because the graphics are so awsome it makes people motion sickness because its too life like!

Hahaha, indeed.

The forums white background gives me motion sickness.

I’ve experienced motion sickness in Super Adventure Box, and lowering the brightness as well as being cautious with camera movements almost suppressed it, I still have to look away while killing the cage bosses.

Oh thank God.. I thought it was just me! Seems I’m not alone…

I never had this problem before in my life but in SAB I’ve experienced motion sickness as well. Dunno why but this is the weirdest thing. Have managed so far to deal with the sudden nausea but just barely if you know what I mean and headache!. It’s very uncomfortable.

Done couple runs at SAB but can’t play anymore after launch day… These symptoms make SAB very unpleasant for me.

I’ve ran hundreds of runs in SAB and have experienced no motion sickness of any sort.

However, my hands still sweat when I’m high up in the trees making some scary jumps from leaf to leaf or balancing on the tree limbs.

I absolutely know Anet did this right if my mind perceives danger from falling in a video game. It’s an absolute rush for me and I love it!

Here’s to sweaty palms!

SAB also gives me motion sickness. Apart from the fun aspect of MMOS one of the main reasons I play them is that I cannot play FPS games as they make me sick. The problem with SAB is its pure length. The longer I play the more sick I feel. Normal jumping puzzles are much shorter and have less camera switching. It’s a shame because I would love to complete it, but the feeling of sickness can last for hours after I stop FPS so it’s really not worth persisting.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’ve heard this from several different people. Needless to say, I never wanted my work to make people sick! I honestly don’t know why this is happening specifically in SAB. But I have to assume it has something to do with the angular geometrical environment and bright colors. I wonder if someone who gets sick tries it in black and white if that would help them.

It happens to my wife. It’s not the game specifically, it’s just the rapid camera angle changes that come from jumping. SAB makes her less sick than normal jumping puzzles because there aren’t any areas where the camera zooms in to extremes, starts shaking, or otherwise behaves strangely (like in Troll’s End), but she still has to stop after a while. Even the Uncategorized fractal makes her sick after a bit, and it’s wide open.

Like Ace said, some people are just affected by it, and some more than others. There are things you can do as a designer to minimize it, but SAB does already address a lot of the problems with many open world jumping puzzles (some of those—again, Troll’s End—even make me sick, when I usually don’t have issues).

I also get sick from SAB, though I’m not too sure if it’s specifically motion sickness. I just figure it’s because it’s too bright for me; like how Bioshock Infinite’s Columbia is “too clean” (in the first parts of the Let’s Play I’m watching at any rate). I think it’s just that I can’t take “extremes” in lighting, since Rapture gave me headaches for having poor lighting. There are couple other games that make me feel ill from too much movement, on the other hand…

Your brain uses multiple cues to determine it’s relative position and motion in regards to the environment. The primary cue is visual… seeing the relative movement of the environment around you. You also use your inner ear to sense rotation, gravity, and motion. Nausea can occur when the information differs. This is also why Icealen above feels the rush from the heights in the game… the brain still perceives the height and causes a stress response.

Normally, when you look at something, your eyes actually move around randomly focusing on different objects, and the brain combines them into one constant image. Tasks requiring significant focus limit that eye movement… which is why motion sickness is more common while reading in a car.

SAB likely causes motion sickness more than vanilla GW2 for two reasons – first, the bright colors. The human brain is designed to focus more closely on bright colors, yellows and reds especially, because bright coloration in nature indicates danger (like a venomous snake). This prevents the player’s visual system from noticing the space around the screen – while it may be in the player’s peripheral vision, the eyes never move to scan the area off of the screen. Secondly, there is a lot of rapid vertical movement. Constantly hopping up and down…especially on narrow ledges that cause the player to focus even more than usual, causes the visual system to inform the brain that the player is moving more than in vanilla GW2.

As Josh noted, dulling the colors or converting them to B&W would likely help. Also, taking a couple-second break to look away from the screen when not in combat would also help.

I don’t really have a problem with sab in general except when i am jumping from 1 platform to another fast. The exception being the shortcut wurm. That one is a dizzy inducing experience. I had to look elsewhere while doing it.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Well if the nausea in World 1 is so unpopular I guess for World 2 I’ll make it cause diarrhea.

…

Now where is that checkbox?

No one is saying you did this intentionally but it happening ( atleast for some ppl including me) .

I can skip that part of game i don’t really mind since i enjoy rest of the game.

But if you can find any checkbox in your dev tool please send me pm as a fellow developer so i can make sick too my some beloved! customers for good! reasons.

That sucks if you are one of the few people that has this problem, and I’m sorry for you, but games should NOT be “slowed down” for you, or anything like that.

3D tech either doesn’t work for, or gives headaches to, about 10% of the population. Their brains just cannot process the image properly, that doesn’t mean progress should stop for them.

Yes, all games should have FoV control, and GW2 may not have this as a standard option, but it can be fixed with a simple change to the launcher, instructions are on this forum somewhere.

Same here, SAB makes me sick after a short period of time playing it

SAB only makes me motion sick in the labyrinth in zone 1, and on the raft. I can’t help but keep playing though >.<

I am also getting motion sickness problems playing SAB. I have never really experienced it before so before I read this thread I wasn’t sure what it was.

I think the motion sickness could also be caused by the fact that you have to look down and many people have a fear of heights. Looking down on some of the JP’s can make you feel a little queasy.

That being said I think the rapids gives more motion sickness and possibly seizure inducing graphics. Mainly due to the rapid change in colors for the water.

Perhaps run PETA on your game http://trace.wisc.edu/peat/ to make sure you don’t cause visual seizures, Anet.

This may sound odd… but there was a shooter I played a while back that gave me motion sickness. Dramamine actually worked until my brain got used to the input it was receiving. Only took a few times… it’s worth a shot for those that have similar happenings here.

Protip: If you’re playing in a dimly lit (or not lit at all) room, decrease the brightness on your monitor accordingly. Sharp contrasts get sharper for the eyes in darkness when you look at a strongly backlit monitor. SAB has really sharp contrasts – unlike most of GW2 – and so you’ll notice this effect strongly playing it, especially Zone 1 World 2 where the rapids “flicker” alternating bright colors.

I’m willing to bet this is the problem for a big percentage of the people complaining here. This why people say “the retro pixel graphics make my eyes hurt / makes me nauseus” and so on. Nintendo games used to have a lot of bright colors – that was the color scheme used in a large amount of games – and old television sets had really bright backlight, thus people got sick by playing in dark rooms. I have someone in my family get epilepsy from this; the chances are drastically lowered if you just tune down the brightness in accordance with your environment’s light levels.

I GUESS THE COMMERCIAL WASN’T A JOKE AFTER ALL….STOOOOP THE GRAPHICS!!!!! hehehe

Onshidesigns.1069:

The forums white background gives me motion sickness.

Now that you mention it, I do notice some uneasiness with the stark white background.

An easy fix would be to get Greasemonkey – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/ – and write a simple script to set the background color to be slightly off-white. Here’s an example (you could use this as the script, or alter the ‘rgb()’ values as you like):

// ==UserScript==
// @name        GW2 Forum Background Color Changer
// @description Makes GW2 forum stop burning my eyes out.
// @include     http*://*.guildwars2.com/forum*
// ==/UserScript==
document.getElementById("content").backgroundcolor="rgb(250,250,250)";