Sigh. Why must technology keep coming up with new and awesome ways for me to irradiate my brain?

3d glasses? Really?

Why not just go the whole hog and bring back VR helmets?

I don't want to mess with any of that until I can get a pair of *comfortable* datagloves. No other input device I know of works with my poor wetware--I can't make the leap from 2D pointer control to 3D pointer control via mouse/trackball/joystick/keyboard.

Well, from what I understood at the Intel booth at GDC last year, getting them to work is really easy.  You just have to have the rendering engine be able (and ready) to render the same image from slightly different angles.   In theory (again, intel rep talking) the production cost will not change much to provide support for it.

Well from what I understand Nvidia’s 3D glasses work on every game as long as you have an Nvidia graphics card. The actually 3D calculations are performed at the graphics card driver level but some games lend themselves better to this process than others. Nvidia has been trying to get developers to release patches and beef up support for their new 3D glasses although they haven’t had much time to get anything major together I believe. It sounds like Nvidia hopes that they can get the drivers refined enough to work with every game and then developers can just focus on adding cool effects and features but I would assume some level of cooperation between the developer and Nvidia will be necessary for the best experience.

 As for the benefits this could have for Elemental I see 3 places where Stardock could really add some awesome 3D effects. The cinematic battles with thousands of soldiers Brad has talked about sound like they would be awesome and tailor made for 3D effects. The late game world wrecking spells we’ve heard about could really benefit from 3D effects. Lastly, if Stardock did implement some kind of dueling system similar to what was discussed in the ideas section of the forum 3D effects would make duels even more epic.  

they made everyone sick cause the tech was crap. The stereoscopic glasses make people SLIGHTLY sick from what i heard (well, only people who get carsick). But it would still be easier to get proper QUALITY VR helmet... what makes VR helmets possible now that wasn't before? OLED! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oled

The only real problem with 3d systems like these is that they are not fully immersive unless you have a screen that curves all the way around your field of vision. If you rely on a projection that is flat then the perspective will become skewed and the border where the 3d ends will stand out.

Well balance and modability we know they are planing to do.

Rather than stereoscopic 3D glasses, I'd rather see duel-moniter support and windowed mode support.  That would be the same people doing it, unlike balance which I'd imagine might not be the 3D interface guys (like the same parts of the team that COULD make stereoscopic 3D glasses would be making duel-moniter support),

Duel-moniters are MUCH more common than 3D glasses.  And even if I had 3D glasses, I'd probebly still use windowed mode or duel-moniters more since I'm a fiend when it comes to chatting or doing other things that cause me to minimize my game on a regular basis.

landisaurus, the subtext of the Elemental project is building a game engine that become a baseline for the future effort on Galactic Civilizations 3.

GC2 is already darned friendly about running in window mode, so I'm pretty sure that even the beta for Elemental will play nicely for folks who want to run the game while also keeping an eye on this forum, headlines, homework, etc.

The thought of having proper 3D in games is always going to be a big attraction as its the next major step in making games more immersive. However, I don't see Stardock doing anything to optimise this feature in game as it would be a waste of their time, mainly due to the lack of users out there. I can't there are many people who want to/already have spent a large chunck of cash on upgrading to a 120Hz monitor plus paying out for the glasses and possibly the graphics card is they currently use ATI.

IMO this technology still needs to be polished further before it can really be considered mainstream enough for widespread use. The issue that taltamir was talking about is what I think is the biggest stumbling block as this is something that would really annoy me. I read somewhere that this happens to a lot of targeting reticles in FPS games making targeting somewhat harder than normal. I also don't really see the need for something like this in Elemental, and dual-screen support sounds like a better use of SD's time.

Just my thoughts though