July 21, 2020 – Oculus announced yesterday that it has introduced features on the Oculus Platform that are designed to help users connect with friends, meet new people, and share their experiences with the community.
Public Parties & Travel Together
Oculus is expanding its existing ‘Parties’ experience and rolling out new ‘Public Parties’ for users and their friends. A Public Party is a voice call for groups to discover, travel and play together in Oculus. Users can invite existing friends or discover new friends by making a party public. Up to 8 people can join a party at the same time and hang out together in VR over voice chat.
Oculus also stated that it has received feedback from users stating that they want easier ways to meet up with friends in the same instance of games they own. Oculus has therefore partnered with apps on its platform to allow groups to launch directly into social experiences. With ‘Travel Together’, friends in a party can ‘travel’ to supported experiences together without jumping through multiple menus and waiting for other friends to join.
Users can now try the Travel Together feature out in a number of games, including: Echo VR, Racket: Nx, Synth Riders, Eleven Table Tennis, Elven Assassin, Epic Roller Coasters, Arizona Sunshine, Cloudlands 2, Spaceteam VR, Ironlights, Multiverse, and Pro Putt by Topgolf.
Finding Facebook friends on Oculus
Oculus has also made it easier for users to find their friends from Facebook who also have an Oculus headset, allowing friends to more easily connect in virtual reality.
Users are given control over who can find them by their Facebook name — users can set privacy settings to a variety of options: Only Me, Facebook Friends on Oculus, Public. For people who are setting up new accounts, this setting will default to ‘Facebook Friends on Oculus,’ but users can change it at any time.
For more information on Facebook social features on Oculus, please visit the FAQ on the company’s website.
Image credit: Oculus
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.