You do need something other than the Quest to start up the Shadow PC and keep it running (it will shut down automatically if an official Shadow client is not connected for too long). I use my laptop or AppleTV for this -- both connected over ethernet so I save all my WiFi bandwidth for the Quest.
The last few weeks we've been playing Population One together since they have a very simple 6-digit-room-code way of creating private lobbies that can support > 8 people. They also have great team/voice configuration settings where you can set up who can talk to who. I worry a little about gun games and inclusivity, but it's the only app that's consistently allowed the 8 of us to get together without spending 30 minutes troubleshooting. Probably this is in part because they just avoid the quirks of the Quest party system altogether and use their own private lobby system.
Echo VR's private lobby system never worked for us (we were only able to get 2-3 people in the same private lobby at the same time).
Rec Room is nice and easy for new VR people, but when we've gone into the minigames it seems to split us up into different teams, with different team chats, and we can't talk to eachother anymore. We also couldn't figure out if it's possible to make private games. But this is one I'd like to investigate more.
Beat Saber works pretty well but maxes out at 5 people.
Spatial works well for meetings, but if you're just looking to hang out it gets kinda boring.
Immersed is super cool for coworking, but I think it costs monthly money if you want to cowork IIRC.
>I worry a little about gun games and inclusivity, but it's the only app that's consistently allowed the 8 of us to get together without spending 30 minutes troubleshooting.
Interesting pivot/fork for them - spin out a vr-group-chat service. 'Population 8'? ha
Virtual Desktop + Shadow PC on the Quest 2 is incredible. I played through Half-Life Alyx rendered on my cloud Shadow PC entirely wirelessly. It was a super smooth and responsive experience -- I didn't expect it to work at all when I first set it up.