OK guys was able to pick mine up from UPS at 8am and hook it up for just a few minutes before coming in to work. Quick first impressions:
Setup was a little rocky, but I was also rushing like an idiot. I still can't get it to work properly outside of Oculus Runtime's Direct HMD mode, and the only things that ran correctly through the Direct HMD mode were the calibration demo scene and Tuscany 0.4.0 (Technolust's DK2 Beta Demo doesn't run for me). I still have plenty of tinkering to do, but when the demo is compatible Oculus Runtime is a fabulous tool to have.
Anyways, onto the actual experience:
First thing I ran was Tuscany. It's back to the old non-Unity version with the nice particle effects and stuff, but immediately the crispness, clarity, and vibrance of the world stuck out to me relative to DK1. Everything is a lot clearer, and DAMN that low persistence makes head tracking buttery smooth. Really does make a huge difference in making the scene feel grounded in place. Havent gotten to test any text out though yet! Screen door is still noticeable if you are looking for it, but it's not nearly as pronounced as in DK1 and with the lack of image smearing it's a massive improvement overall.
Positional tracking is FANTASTIC - when it works. I know they are targeting the seated experience but I wanted to stand at least for my first demo, for fully accurate scale, like I did with DK1, because bottom line is it's just more impressive in a demo where you are a standing character. It works, but it's very easy to go outside the camera's bounds.
Especially if you lose track of which direction the camera is in real life, you'll quickly find yourself spinning too far out of tracking range, or accidentally just facing off-center enough that you lose tracking by glancing to one side. Can't really see anyone being able to play for more than a few minutes without frequently losing positional tracking while standing, which will be incredibly annoying (especially when a text prompt pops up EVERY TIME in Tuscany). So it looks like we'll have to get used to the seat for now, sadly.
All that said, leaning in the windows, bending over and examining the potted plants from multiple angles freely, all that stuff is fucking awesome. All in all, I'm definitely impressed. Just slightly annoyed by the single, relatively narrow tracking camera, but we all knew that was a limitation going into it. I'm also being highly critical here and already used DK1 extensively, so please don't take this as a hype killer or something. It's still fabulous and as other-wordly as technology can get. Can't wait to see more software updated!
