Πρόσφατες κριτικές από τον Aizria

In the past I wrote a fairly long review recommending against VRChat in the wake of what I still feel to this day was a poorly thought-out and poorly timed update (EAC update circa 2022) with too little two-way communication with their community. I am leaving the most relevant portion of that review below for posterity and as a point of reference for my revised review. To this day I still am not confident that I can really trust the team behind VRC - specifically and particularly their upper management - to the same extent which I once did.

With all of the above having been said, since the mentioned update the VRChat team has done much to address many of the community concerns following it, to include much of what I addressed in my prior review. Significant strides have been made in terms of accessibility, performance optimization, overall quality of life, and a respectable effort has also been put into improving security in what ways they have been able to, though I do still feel there are perhaps missed opportunities in this regard as of yet.

The community-created content which fuels VRC's success as a platform has only improved with time as creators have steadily been given more power and flexibility, and player communities have been given more tools to form, attract new members, and communicate within VRC itself rather than having to rely almost entirely on external tools. There is more room for growth here, but the work put into these aspects of VRC's ecosystem has been heartening to see.

For anyone considering getting into VRC near the time of this review though, be aware that the overall social climate in public instances - at least in the most popular worlds - is currently less than conducive to a positive experience for most people. Particularly so for cross-platform worlds. I highly recommend starting with someone you already know from outside of VRC. Even more so if they have already been on the platform for a while themself. Barring that, it can help to stick to public instances for worlds that are a little less popular or PC-only worlds if you are able to. Seeking out group public instances for groups that sound interesting to you may also be a good way to connect with other like-minded people and make some of your first friends. This being a social platform, the people you surround yourself with really can make or break the experience for you.

For those who are interested in VRChat as a concept but who are maybe less interested in its social side, I also encourage you to not be afraid to give it a chance as a place to simply explore the community-made content on offer. The sheer variety of worlds available to get lost in - to include art displays, music visualizers, games and much more - is truly mind boggling. To say nothing of the creativity of some of VRC's avatar creators.

It is best experienced in virtual reality as its name suggests, but can still be enjoyable for those on desktop computers or mobile devices as well. In particular, if one is interested in VR but unsure about it or still saving for it, VRC can be a great way to connect with people who already have VR equipment in order to get a better idea of its pros, cons, and whether or not one actually wants to get said equipment for themself.

As a platform, it certainly has its flaws a few of which I have briefly touched on above, but it has come a long way over time and its community has made it more than sum of its parts by far. I can no longer recommend against VRChat in good faith, flaws and some of my lingering personal feelings from the past aside, as it is still the best VR social platform to date as things stand currently, with the highest player population and the broadest and richest collection of community-made content.

Previously:
[...] this latest update, adding "Easy Anti-Cheat" to this virtual social space of all places, was one crossing too far. In one fell swoop, they have: given a massive middle finger to some of the most dedicated, involved, and long-time members of their community; made VRC as a whole objectively more unsafe by making benevolent - and sometimes borderline necessary - open-source community mods nearly impossible to use while doing little to meaningfully impede the usage of closed-source malicious mods; made VRC effectively impossible to use for many people with various disabilities that relied on community-made mods which provided them accessibility features which VRC on its own does not; and adversely impacted the ability of people with low-end machines to be able to enjoy VRC, as they can no longer rely on mods to patch up VRC's shoddy optimization.
[...]