World Of Warcraft On A Treadmill


[Aaron Rasmussen] and his friend [Eli] slapped together this setup to see what it would be like to run as much as their World of Warcraft characters. They used a couple old treadmills to spin some tires with makeshift mouse sensors on them. As their speed increased, so did their character. There was a decent amount of math done to figure the average speed of a World of Warcraft character, and ultimately they settled on 12 miles per hour. Not surprisingly, they found that too difficult due to the resistance in the rig as well as being out of shape. They ended up lowering the speed required to make their character go full sprint to 6 miles per hour.

Their final conclusion was that they could never run as much as their digital counterparts. Even if they were in really good shape. [Aaron] does say that it was fun enough to consider doing it regularly as a workout plan. He should wear the costume every time he uses it.

17 thoughts on “World Of Warcraft On A Treadmill

  1. I always wondered about something like this as an arcade game. Maybe add in a lightgun and use it as the mouse, then you’d have a little more involved FPS-ing.
    Before I finish, I’m aware there are plenty of technicalities to what I just said, it was just a thought.

  2. @ sarsface: In GTA4 you pilot vehicles, what do you need to walk for? Just get a dummy of a hooker and an old car door to set near the TV and you are set as far as VR for that “game” (Why no RPGs that don’t feature violence or witchcraft? That don’t suck?).

    @ winphreak (windows gives you free calls?):

    How about a huge ball you get in and walk on, in fact figure out how to project on the ball (rear projection?), it is now a trackball and you are inside it. Don’t get dizzy. I want to see if there is an inflatable ball that this would work with.

    Or for display use a wireless HMD. If you put the whole thing on a mini trampoline you could even have jump :)

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