I've only played around with VR a bit at work and that was to look at car interiors. I haven't done any VR gaming yet and the only VR game that interests me at all is the Star Trek Bridge Commander game. I'm waiting for VR to become more mainstream with more games and lower prices for the hardware. But, I do think that making the saber trainer VR or maybe even AR (the glasses could be "safety glasses") would be a good way to go depending on whether you can actually block the lasers or if you're supposed to just dodge them with a lightsaber in your hands.
How is VR? Maybe its an old wive’s tale but I do fear you are more likely to damage your eyes from extensive play on VR than through regular video game use because your eyes are far closer to the screen. Alyx maybe have improved things but the gameplay also seems janky still.

But yeah, the concept itself should have been reworked before proceeding. First, basing it off BB-8 as opposed to a classic ship is a dumb idea. At least make it based off the TLJ cruiser or something to tie it to the movies. Honestly something like the falcon if you wanted a ship, jedi temple (and jedi robes for bath robes lol), or Naboo palace would have been more fitting.

I’ve never been and have never been interested in cruises so this doesnt interest me but the itinerary also seems off imo. What is “bridge training” and why is it 45 minutes? Do people really want to spend 20 minutes “droid racing” and or 30 minutes “building a model ship” when they could just go to Disneyland which is right there (cruise makes sense because you’re at sea but you are on land here). Guests also spend more time on sabacc more than anything, 30 minutes learning how to play and 1 hour for a tournament.

Also took a look at Disney cruises. Total price for 4 night cruise from Miami for 2 is $1,282 where guests enjoy broadway quality shows, fireworks at sea, movie screenings, meeting characters, along with access to a nightclub with live music. Is this “land cruise” really worth 8~9x as much?
 
darth mall.jpg
 
$6,000 is just speculation, right? It's not actually confirmed to be that much for two nights and this hefty amount of cheese, is it?

Back in May with a decent coronavirus discount, I stayed at an amazing five star hotel in the center of Dubai for about $120 a night. I could have booked a room at that place for 50 nights before reaching $6,000.
 
How is VR? Maybe its an old wive’s tale but I do fear you are more likely to damage your eyes from extensive play on VR than through regular video game use because your eyes are far closer to the screen. Alyx maybe have improved things but the gameplay also seems janky still.

But yeah, the concept itself should have been reworked before proceeding. First, basing it off BB-8 as opposed to a classic ship is a dumb idea. At least make it based off the TLJ cruiser or something to tie it to the movies. Honestly something like the falcon if you wanted a ship, jedi temple (and jedi robes for bath robes lol), or Naboo palace would have been more fitting.

I’ve never been and have never been interested in cruises so this doesnt interest me but the itinerary also seems off imo. What is “bridge training” and why is it 45 minutes? Do people really want to spend 20 minutes “droid racing” and or 30 minutes “building a model ship” when they could just go to Disneyland which is right there (cruise makes sense because you’re at sea but you are on land here). Guests also spend more time on sabacc more than anything, 30 minutes learning how to play and 1 hour for a tournament.

Also took a look at Disney cruises. Total price for 4 night cruise from Miami for 2 is $1,282 where guests enjoy broadway quality shows, fireworks at sea, movie screenings, meeting characters, along with access to a nightclub with live music. Is this “land cruise” really worth 8~9x as much?
That's essentially been my beef with this hotel concept as soon as the prices were announced. It's not the concept that bothers me, I think that the concept makes a certain amount of sense, you're boarding the cruise liner version of Star Tours except that it doesn't move. My problem is the price, for the price that you pay for a 2 day/night stay on a fake cruise, you could easily book a real cruise, even a Disney cruise for the same, or less, and for a longer period of time to boot. Having been on several cruises before, including a Disney Cruise, I'd much rather do a real cruise than spend 2 days & night in a fake hotel based "cruise". $6,000 can book you a pretty decent room on just about any cruise and gives you money left over for drink packages (if you're that into alcohol), excursions, souvenirs, tip, and still have money left over

In regards to VR, I really can't say much since my experience has been very limited with it. I only played with it for a little bit at my work and even then it was only to QA interior VR panos of car interiors. I could look around as if I was actually in the car but there was no interactivity outside of that and all I was doing was checking that there was no wonkiness in the image. So, I have no idea of how VR would affect your vision, all I know is that it made some people a bit queasy or nauseous when looking at the panos. Some people's brains have a hard time adapting to the VR and can't quite process what they see without it make them feel sick.
 
$6,000 is just speculation, right? It's not actually confirmed to be that much for two nights and this hefty amount of cheese, is it?

Back in May with a decent coronavirus discount, I stayed at an amazing five star hotel in the center of Dubai for about $120 a night. I could have booked a room at that place for 50 nights before reaching $6,000.

Nope, not speculation.

$6k is the price ceiling. The accurate prices are the following:

2 adults: $4809
2 adults + 1 child: $5299
3 adults + 1 child: $5999

So at min, you are spending close to $5k for 2 nights with a partner.

I guess the 2 adults + 2 child option was removed because the family needed to sell the second child for the trip…
 
Hey. Idea. Make the cruise an interactive VR experience. Multiple ships you could go on, any manner of passengers you could meet, ability to customize how you appear to others, accessories like droids and blasters, a variety of events to go through... I am reminded of Han and Fiolla stowing away on the Queen of Ranroon in Han Solo's Revenge. Attacked by pirates, working through maintenance tunnels, taking out the pirates waiting at the boarding lock, stealing one of their small craft and escaping.
 
The funniest part of this is that thus far they haven't demonstrated anything truly interactive just yet so can it accurately called an "immersive experience?" Sitting in a Star Wars themed bar watching The Fifth Element isn't immersive as it is just Star Wars themed entertainment.

The lightsaber training is a game so technically I guess you could say it's "immersive" because it requires a bit of effort on your part. But playing Star Wars themed card games? Sabbac? I mean what people actually want to immerse themselves in is the battles. The action. That's exciting. That's immersive. Otherwise everything thus far is nothing more than a themed restaurant because the activities require little to no interaction. A passive theme park experience frankly sounds boring, and for that kind of money people are paying hard earned cash for some excitement. This sounds anything but...

Ordering your dinner in Huttese isn't thrilling. A lightsaber battle or flying a spaceship is thrilling!
 
The funniest part of this is that thus far they haven't demonstrated anything truly interactive just yet so can it accurately called an "immersive experience?" Sitting in a Star Wars themed bar watching The Fifth Element isn't immersive as it is just Star Wars themed entertainment.

The lightsaber training is a game so technically I guess you could say it's "immersive" because it requires a bit of effort on your part. But playing Star Wars themed card games? Sabbac? I mean what people actually want to immerse themselves in is the battles. The action. That's exciting. That's immersive. Otherwise everything thus far is nothing more than a themed restaurant because the activities require little to no interaction. A passive theme park experience frankly sounds boring, and for that kind of money people are paying hard earned cash for some excitement. This sounds anything but...

Ordering your dinner in Huttese isn't thrilling. A lightsaber battle or flying a spaceship is thrilling!
Not sure if this is a good idea or just a bias due to my love of games but I also thought making it a film experience would be far more exciting.

First, im not too hot on the spaceship. I would have preferred the hotel be the jedi temple and you are a new initiate where you get comfy “jedi robes” (bath robes).

The hotel has a gym, climbing wall/play area, “meditation room” aka stream room, jedi library for videos and books about Star Wars lore, and the lightsaber training rooms (probably the biggest appeal). In the lightsaber training rooms, there are 3 types of training:
- current laser defection (but red lights).
- “learn” one of 3 lightsaber combat forms (with a “just dance” like combat instructor you mimic).
- and a VR “duel room” where you get to duel with exclusive jedi/sith for Disney guests only (thanks to contract with EA).

You also get points and “ranks” for your performance, encouraging repeat visits and to actively try out the various activites to “build up” your rank. Maybe going from student to padawan, knight, master, then grandmaster. (Also encourage downgrading the 6k price tag to something more reasonable to encourage repeat visits).

You could have the same thing on a “jedi transportation ship” if you want to go the ship theme.

Or you could give a rebel ship with the same “amenities,” (bacta tank for baths, rebel cafeteria, gym, etc.). You can have a command room also be a game where people need to work together doing “fun” activities. Have a special campaign lifted from the movies (either a campaign from the movies or an original campaign) where one guest is in charge of shooting down tie fighters, one guest “commands” rebel forces in a RTS like game, and one could “drive the ship” like a racing game escaping the Empire or first order.

Have a shooting range in VR where you are a rebel shooting stormtroopers (and graded from marksman to stormtrooper lol), maybe puzzles where you need to “decode” Empire secrets, etc. make the guest feel like they are a jedi or rebel in the movies with a ton of fun activities the guests would want to do.

Maybe too gamified but something like that sounds more fun to me. Star Wars had many amazing arcade games. Give them the Disney imagineers touch.

A youtuber made the good point that the intention of this cruise may be more to gain “cred” and look cool as opposed to have fun. Hard to prove you are defecting lasers if your face is covered by a helmet.
 
I'm slightly surprised that the Galactic Starcruiser looks as bad as it does. I thought Disney had a better handle on experiences, but apparently not. They have a way of ruining SW so it's not that surprising though. Those promo videos were a nightmare. Whatever The Goldbergs is, I'm stearing completely clear of it thanks to that creep show guy. Haunting.

If this was created by fans it would probably be a 1,000 times better. Real love would be put into it instead of whatever that was.
 
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25 Days of Star Wars Music - day 7

One of my favorite pieces from Kevin Kiner. And it sounds as if it was inspired by a movie directed by ILM's Joe Johnston. Can you guess the film?


 
The funniest part of this is that thus far they haven't demonstrated anything truly interactive just yet so can it accurately called an "immersive experience?" Sitting in a Star Wars themed bar watching The Fifth Element isn't immersive as it is just Star Wars themed entertainment.

The lightsaber training is a game so technically I guess you could say it's "immersive" because it requires a bit of effort on your part. But playing Star Wars themed card games? Sabbac? I mean what people actually want to immerse themselves in is the battles. The action. That's exciting. That's immersive. Otherwise everything thus far is nothing more than a themed restaurant because the activities require little to no interaction. A passive theme park experience frankly sounds boring, and for that kind of money people are paying hard earned cash for some excitement. This sounds anything but...

Ordering your dinner in Huttese isn't thrilling. A lightsaber battle or flying a spaceship is thrilling!
The reason is that it's not fully up and running yet. Part of the experience is supposed to be cast members in the hotel who will interact with the guests (probably for an extra fee), I think they mentioned or showed in concept art Resistance members hiding on the ship and the First Order boarding looking for said Resistance members.

Other interactivity will be "bridge training" which looks to be a derivation of the tech in the Smuggler's Run ride and two people will operate the ship's guns, one aims while the other actually shoots. Then you'll be able to take the ship into hyperspace. So there's that.

Personally, I don't get all of the resistance to the idea of this being a space cruise ship. The idea makes perfect sense to me. They're not trying to make this simply an interactive Star Wars experience like they had intended, to a degree, in Galaxy's Edge, but full blown luxury Star Wars interactive experience. And to this day, there is, in my mind, still nothing quite as luxurious as a cruise with all of its food and amenities. My problem is that this fake cruise is just way too expensive for just 2 nights/days and going nowhere. I'd much rather spend the money on a real cruise and spend a week going somewhere new or seeing new parts of places I've been before. So, to me, the concept is sound, it's the price that I don't like.
 
I don't think the idea of luxury and Star Wars mix at all. Star Wars is a lived in universe with battles and adventure. This just all sounds too tame and uninspired, and expensive as all get out. No one wants to go visit Canto Bight but that's what most of this amounts to.

If you're not actually traveling anywhere then why limit yourself to the idea of a cruise ship? If it was on a literal ship floating in the ocean then I could undersrand the limitations in storytelling, but since they could literally do anything and "go" anywhere, the best they could come up with is a trip to Floston Paradise??

Plus doubling down on ST Era characters/ scenarios may be a way to avoid paying royalties to George but as far as I understood it Galaxies Edge saw a drop in attendance even before COVID because a lot of fans were hoping to witness some other eras in what was promised to be an immersive experience.

If fans enjoy this sort of thing, by all means, I just think it sounds incredibly lame.
 
In regards to VR, I really can't say much since my experience has been very limited with it. I only played with it for a little bit at my work and even then it was only to QA interior VR panos of car interiors. I could look around as if I was actually in the car but there was no interactivity outside of that and all I was doing was checking that there was no wonkiness in the image. So, I have no idea of how VR would affect your vision, all I know is that it made some people a bit queasy or nauseous when looking at the panos. Some people's brains have a hard time adapting to the VR and can't quite process what they see without it make them feel sick.
Wanted to chime in here as I have quite a bit of VR experience (though with the PlayStation one, not Oculus.) Don’t think there’s any danger of vision problems due to being close to the screen (also don’t think that there was much of an issue with old tube TVs as far as that goes, from what I remember reading.)

What I can say that relates to this discussion is: VR has the potential to be incredible, and there are flashes of brilliance in the experiences that are already available- most notable to me are games like EVE: Valkyrie, a space combat flight sim where you’re in the cockpit and it feels totally immersive. You look down and see legs, and arms, and when you push buttons on the controller, the hands on the screen push buttons.

It’s very difficult to explain just how “real” a VR experience can feel at its best. The best experiences seem to be ones where you are sitting in a seat (like a car or a cockpit of a ship/plane,) while the most disorienting are the ones where you are walking around in a world. This is because your brain really, really struggles with the dissonance of seeing yourself “walking” around with your eyes, while your body feels like it’s not moving because you’re standing still while moving your character around with your controller in-hand. This can lead to feeling nauseous pretty quickly.

I think the best thing Disney could do with VR would be to have high-end simulation rigs that did motion, where you could strap into a seat and when you banked left or did a barrel roll, the rig would mirror that. But… I think people would get sick pretty easily from that, and so I don’t think it’s likely to happen, unless it’s a much more toned down version.
 
I just feel that if you're going to charge people that much money then they should put forth the very best quality of entertainment and this is simply not it. Not worth the price of admission for the bare minimum of effort on their part.

That VR experience is more along the lines of what I think fans would expect. Better yet, why not build an actual laser tag set in a Star Wars environment with actors as Stormtroopers? You book an appointment for you and your group ahead of time, and get a 1 hour window where you run out a mission like that but in real time, with an opposing team. One side is either actors dressed as Stormtroopers or you are pitted against another guest staying at the resort and you're divided up into factions.

Rebels vs. Imperials. Humans vs. Droids. Etc. You get a vest or chest plate in Star Wars style that you get to keep or something like that so you're "dressing" the part. At least then it would require some sort of effort on the guests part. The whole idea of immersion only works when you're a participant, not just an observer.
 
hat's essentially been my beef with this hotel concept as soon as the prices were announced. It's not the concept that bothers me, I think that the concept makes a certain amount of sense, you're boarding the cruise liner version of Star Tours except that it doesn't move. My problem is the price, for the price that you pay for a 2 day/night stay on a fake cruise, you could easily book a real cruise, even a Disney cruise for the same, or less, and for a longer period of time to boot. Having been on several cruises before, including a Disney Cruise, I'd much rather do a real cruise than spend 2 days & night in a fake hotel based "cruise". $6,000 can book you a pretty decent room on just about any cruise and gives you money left over for drink packages (if you're that into alcohol), excursions, souvenirs, tip, and still have money left over

I think the issue is demand and supply. Disney can never charge enough for regular park tickets to actually lower the number of people who want to come down to manageable numbers, hence the hours long lines. And public relations won't let them charge you $1000 for one ticket to Disneyland. This, being a special enclosed event, lets them really experiment with ticket prices as a crowd control mechanism. The price will drop once they get a handle on the true demand.
 
I doubt the price would drop all that much. It may come down a bit but from a business perspective if they can get away with charging that much for a themed experience that's catered to a smaller group of people, why would they cut their prices down at all? If you can get a customer to pay you that much, then why would you except any less?
 
I doubt the price would drop all that much. It may come down a bit but from a business perspective if they can get away with charging that much for a themed experience that's catered to a smaller group of people, why would they cut their prices down at all? If you can get a customer to pay you that much, then why would you except any less?

With this price point they are almost booked up for the first month, and everything after March is wide open. If there are still open spots when the various launch dates come and go, they will lower the price.
 

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