At long last we'll be getting that ever elusive thing - details! Touch controllers, Oculus Social, and more!

Oculus Connect starts Wednesday, October 5th, but you should expect the big announcements to come at the opening keynote Thursday morning. Join us in Discord Thursday at 12 p.m. CST to react and chat to all the announcements live! See the full Oculus Connect schedule here.

The big news everyone is anticipating is the release date and price of the Touch controllers. Six months after the shaky launch of the Rift, everyone is expecting a fairly quick launch of Touch once details are released. If we're going off of rumors and speculation, there's a lot of Touch games whose release date is slated for around October 21st. If you were one of the ones who pre-ordered the Rift (and consequently got hit with the shipping delay), it wouldn't be surprising if your Touch launches sometime in October.

As for price of the Touch controllers, most evidence (websites leaking the order page early) points to the price being somewhere around $199. It's hard to imagine the Touch controllers being more expensive considering that places the full Oculus package at the same price as HTC's Vive ($800 total). I wouldn't be surprised if Oculus actually tried to undercut that price and make it a little cheaper, but it most likely won't be by much. The extreme optimist in me is hoping they provide Touch for free to those affected by the Rift shipping delays, but I'm not holding my breath.

Looking at the Oculus Connect schedule, it seems there will be a focus on Oculus Social as well. Right now you can only find Oculus Social in beta form on the Gear VR, but Facebook has actually showed off an interesting prototype of a Facebook-integrated social VR platform with Touch controllers. Video below:

http://youtu.be/vzhHCcR6hic

Considering how many multiplayer games are coming to Oculus once Touch is released, it wouldn't be surprising to see Oculus' social platform begin to roll out soon. Currently it is sorely missing and seems like a no-brainer for a VR platform.

You'll want to keep a close eye out for news on these Touch-enabled multiplayer games:

* Dead and Buried
* Ripcoil
* Killing Floor: Incursion
* The Unspoken
* Minecraft
* Star Trek: Bridge Crew

This list doesn't include all of the Steam VR multiplayer games that will be compatible with Rift once Touch comes out! This will be made easier with Oculus' own "chaperone" system called Guardian. This will allow Rift+Touch to comfortably do room-scale games that were originally designed with the Vive in mind.

We should be getting a good number of announcements and details this week, so stay tuned for the latest!

Nate Mitchell confirmed via Twitter that the Touch controllers will include a software update that provides a safety system called "Guardian". While the details aren't being revealed until Oculus Connect 3 early next month, reports are that it works similar to Steam VR's Chaperone boundary system.

Touch is slated to release before the end of the year, most likely in November.

While there is still no word on when Oculus Touch launches, Brendan Iribe tweeted that demos for the motion controllers would be available in stores in October. This, combined with Oculus Connect 3 happening in early October, has many people speculating that we'd be looking at an October release for Touch. All that's currently confirmed is that Touch will be out by the end of the year.

With a huge library of Touch-designed multiplayer games set to release at the end of the year, we'll be following this news closely!

Welcome to the Furious Angels!

Welcome to the Furious Angels!

Work in progress

Where to get it!

Browser
For Windows
For Mac
For Android
For iOS

You'll want to get a desktop and mobile version for full functionality!

Tips

-Enable push-to-talk. You can bind it in User Settings - Voice - Input Mode. Also go to Keybinds to set up one bind for your mouse/keyboard and another for your controller (in VR).
-In order to switch input/output devices (from headphones to VR headset, for instance), you will need to go to User Settings - Voice. Choosing "Default" currently does not change when you change the Windows default.
-In Notification Settings, we recommend enabling Mobile Push Notifications. You at least want @mentions enabled. You can also enable notifications for all messages in #general if you would like to stay involved in the conversation throughout the day!
-@FA will send a notification to all Furious Angel members who have notifications enabled. Use it sparingly. @admin will contact admins. Use @username to alert individuals.
-You can direct message users for more private conversations.

Useful Links:
Adding Friends
Instant Invites
*Mobile Notifications
*Notifications


Other Useful Links
Game Detection

Discord is like Teamspeak, Kik, and Steam all wrapped into one. It's a voice server, text/group text system, and notification system. It works as a desktop app, in browser, and on your phone. We are currently testing it out to see how we like it! You can join with this link: https://discord.gg/d4DK26Y or by clicking "Join Server" in the widget to the right. This will make you a base member. I can come through later and give you FA permissions.

You can direct message people and if they have the app, it'll send the message to their phone. (if they have notifications on). You can also type @furious angel 'message' and it will send it to everyone in the Furious Angel group. Currently @everyone sends it to everyone who is a member of the server, but I will probably turn that off. If you have the Desktop app, like Steam, it will list what game you are playing if you are in a game. There's also Twitch and Youtube integration if anyone is into that.

Please leave your feedback here! I think it might be a great replacement for Teamspeak!