Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, writing on his private weblog: Right this moment is November sixth, 2022, the day of the SAO Incident. 1000’s of VRMMORPG avid gamers had been trapped by a mad scientist inside a demise sport that might solely be escaped by completion. If their hit factors dropped to zero, their mind could be bombarded by terribly highly effective microwaves, supposedly killing the consumer. The identical would occur if anybody in the true world tampered with their NerveGear, the digital actuality head-mounted-display that transported their minds and souls to Aincrad, the first setting of Sword Artwork On-line.
[…] In SAO, the NerveGear contained a microwave emitter that could possibly be overdriven to deadly ranges, one thing the creator of SAO and the NerveGear itself (Akihiko Kayaba) was in a position to cover from his staff, regulators, and contract manufacturing companions. I’m a fairly sensible man, however I could not provide you with any technique to make something like this work, not with out attaching the headset to gigantic items of apparatus.
In lieu of this, I used three of the explosive cost modules I normally use for a unique undertaking, tying them to a narrow-band photosensor that may detect when the display flashes crimson at a selected frequency, making game-over integration on the a part of the developer very simple. When an applicable game-over display is displayed, the costs hearth, immediately destroying the mind of the consumer. This is not an ideal system, in fact. I’ve plans for an anti-tamper mechanism that, just like the NerveGear, will make it not possible to take away or destroy the headset.
Even so, there are an enormous number of failures that might happen and kill the consumer on the incorrect time. Because of this I’ve not labored up the balls to really use it myself, and likewise why I’m satisfied that, like in SAO, the ultimate triggering ought to actually be tied to a high-intelligence agent that may readily decide if circumstances for termination are literally right. At this level, it’s only a piece of workplace artwork, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in sport design. It’s also, so far as I do know, the primary non-fiction instance of a VR machine that may really kill the consumer. It will not be the final.
