ValtoX
As mentioned in discord AMA.
I think it would be benefitial to put some info screens around specific areas in the Valt. A "home page screen" that shows what's available to do in the Valt and where that is. I haven't thought very much about how one should present such screens in an immersive VR environment, but I think screens can do the trick as a start. It's a familiar thing for people (shopping malls, etc). I think it is pivotal that users get exposed to these screens immediately upon entering quarters in the Valt. Without it, they are going in blind. Also - just imagine when 10+ districts are up and running with events and stuff. Would be great to be able to quickly check on a dashboard where the fun is and when.
Some drafts of possible nice features to have on this "home page"/dashboard:
  1. Icons of ACTIVE districts. Give district owners an option in the portal to post "happenings". District owners can: A. upload an image (from inside the district or to show what the event is about for the user. Maybe a video too, or like a series of 2-4 pictures that circulate when hovering the district on the menu). B. Put a timeframe of the event (optional, as if there is no specific event, they can just have their standard text or something). C. Write a text that explains what the event is (or the district in general)
  2. Waypoint or teleport. Clicking on one of the districts/events gives you the option to click "show waypoint" which gives ingame arrows of where to go. If you are going to expand on your teleportation, just have a "teleport function" here instead. Probably easier as this already exists, so just mapping.
  3. Ranking/sorting the districts on display. First off RFOX themselves can probably just sort the active ones to be on top, but down the line it could be based on rating from users (or some other metrics).
  4. Categories. Also just a nice addition to have on top of this UI. Make it so that users can filter by category to see districts within their core interests. (game, retail shop, art exhibition, etc).
  5. If a friend is inside of one of the districts on this page, it could have an icon of a person below the district with the PFP of their avatar and username (or something)
  6. Tutorials ("Take me through this quarter"). People click on it and get an NPC walkthrough of the quarter. Some XP points are rewarded for participating.
There is obviousely a ton of small things that would help on the user experience on this type of "dashboard", but the key thing for me is to show what people can do in the Valt. Important to not overload such a dashboard with too much other stuff. Keep it easy to use.
Most people I bring into the Valt have this sense of "what am I suppose to do now?" upon spawning in Qua5ar. And I totally get why. My friends don't find it interesting to go in random directions without knowing what to expect. There is no obvious reason to enter "Arkamoto" nor "Callinova" either. These are just some empty blue boxes. Maybe there should be something like a Quarter-specific-dashboard there too. This could in such case be mapped to the websites as well (as proposed earlier: https://rfox.canny.io/rfoxvalt/p/quarter-sections)
Feel free to call me on discord to elaborate and visualize it better :)
July 28, 2023