TL;DR: I discuss my experience with Welcome to Oculus from the old build to the new one, and some hopes for the new 2016 version. I would have just posted this on the sub in normal text form, but I can do a bit more stuff here, so here it is.

More than a year ago, I received my Rift DK2, and the first thing I did after browsing /r/Oculus, and indeed Reddit too, for the first time, was run Welcome to Oculus. I had read a good number of impressions about VR, seen a lot of reactionary videos, and couldn’t wait to finally know what it was like after so many years of just observing. However, I paced myself through the experience — a few times actually — and never got presence. I never got vertigo, or the feeling of fear from heights, at the part where you drop. I never felt afraid at the part with the dark forest. I never felt like I was truly transported. Given, I did feel some things, like a great 3D effect and feeling like an object might be close to me, but not too much more than that. I knew there was a possibility this would happen, so I was prepared, and subsequently did not feel disappointed, although maybe a bit unfortunate. After that, I tried many more demos, and did many more things.

Since that time, I’ve been on a journey — perhaps one that could rightly be called “The Search For Presence.” Suffice to say, I did find it, but the answer was deeper and more complex than I initially thought. I won’t go into the details of that here for obvious reasons, as well because it could prove “controversial” in one sense of the word (non-negative connotation). It’s great to go to all the events, see all the cool hardware and software people are cooking up to build future generations of paradigm shifted users, and see first hand all the developments worthy of historical value.