Blogs Why I don't use WASD

Back in the 8 bit days it used to be QAOP and Space to fire/Jump
You could use the Alt key (or whatever was there back then) as alternate fire if needed.

Nowadays just WASD+Mouselook.

 

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't a way to use your feet. Sure, it sounds odd, but if you have limited use of fingers, your feet are just going to waste. That's a good few extra buttons you could have!

Anybody use that mind control thing? Was it by OCZ or somebody?

 

oh wow this setup is like mine. i'm not sure how the setup for me came about i think it was in the days of doom or quake. all my fps buddys always say that i have a wierd setup.

right mouse - forward
left mouse - shoot
m - duck
, - left strafe
. - right strafe
/ - backwards
; - reload
left shift - walk

these have always been my keys for any fps game.

 

Nice idea but I'm right handed and that would leave me aiming with my left hand which would both drive me mad and get me killed...a lot.

 

I've always used the cursor keys, it made sense when I first started out and it's just stuck.
Saying that playing bad company 2 is attrocious as every time I react and try to sprint (which I always set to enter) I end up opening the squad screen.
There's been only a few times when I've noticed hardcoded key binds in games (and no others that I can name) but for people who play unconventionally it really does ruin a game. But these dev's don't seem to realise that lots of people are unconventional - HCI out the window is the order of the day.

 

When i was a wide-eyed child looking in amazement at glorious games such as doom II i used the cursor keys for movement because, ya know, its got arrows on them. Its what they are for!
But ive since migrated to WASD'ing, although i could easily switch to cursor keys if for some reason WASD wasnt an option (my previous keyboard was a dirt cheap no-brand thing and one day my 'A' key stopped working, which made things rather difficult).

 

Greetings!

Dead Space is atrocious.
Hard coded keys and lousy mouse movement.

 

On my laptop I played morrowind with a kind of weird set up. It involved using the touch pad since I didn't always have a mouse with me so I adjusted the controls into 2 different ways depending on mood.

from memory the set up was using w,a,s,d to move with my thumb on the pad. The Alternate method was arrow keys with thumb on the pad. Double touching the pad was set to activate and if w,a,s,d was used for movement the right click to attack and with arrows left click was attack. Apart from attack my other hand was free to hit any key needed and being morrowind I didn't need to attack as much as in an fps so really it was a lazy one handed way of playing.

 

Lol Alex, and I thought I was the only one with weird keys!! Here's what I use for L4D. Quite similar to you.

Forward = /
Back = Alt GR
Strafe left = ,
Strafe Right = .
Fire = left mouse
Alt fire = right mouse
Reload = '
Use = middle mouse
Crouch = m
Walk = n
Health pack = l
Pistols = k
Main Gun = ;
Pills = j
Spray = #
Zoom = Mouse button 3

The reason for this goes back to when I used to play Doom2. There was no real mouse controls back then, so I used the cursor keys to look up/down and left/right with my right hand and the left used the keys as mentioned above, to walk forward/backward etc. When I started to play Quake1, my right hand moved onto the mouse but the left stayed put.

I have tried WASD, but I just can't get used to it! They say "you can't teach an old god new tricks", well in my case that's true.

 

I used cursor keys up until I got Farcry I think. Amazingly I managed to finish Half Life and the expansions without using strafe at all -I had the cursors set to forward, backward, left and right. No idea how I managed to do that now but it seemed right at the time

 

There are systems. They are mostly rubbish.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/06/03/gwsystems_fragpedal_classic_review/1

The OCZ NIA? We had it. I spent three weeks using it and trying to get it to work. It was unreliable, unusable and pretty goddamn terrible, to be honest. It was less about mind control and more about waggling your eyebrows and sitting in awkward positions - a result we still had even when we had the designer on the phone helping me learn how to adjust it with hidden driver functions. It was terrible and, in the end, we decided it wasn't even really worth covering.

 

Yep, I use my n50 for MMOs but I don't find it responsive enough for FPS gaming. I'm tempted by the N52TE though.

 

I have the Belkin n52te (previously called Nostromo) but I only use it for WoW. The problem I have with using it for FPS game is that it's difficult to use the movement keys at the same time as jumping, since Button 15 is normally set for jump.

One of these days - probably tonight, if I remember - I'll get around to changing the key settings.

As an aside, does anyone that uses the n52te actually use the scroll wheel on it?

 

I was trying to remember this keymap all the way through the article. I use something similar on the rare occasions I play a racing game with the keyboard. makes more sense to me!

 

Another WASD'er here. I used cursor keys when I first started gaming becuase it seemed more logical than WASD, but then after awhile I bought a new game or something (Half Life or RTCW?) and didn't bother to change the keys from WASD, and I liked it.

I might try ESDF though. I can definitely see the advantage of having keys to either side.

I use my pinky on Ctrl, ring on A, middle on W or S, index on D, and thumb on spacebar. My first stop shopping for keybinds is on E. In HL, "E' was the default key for "use", so I got used to pressing it quickly. If I play a FPS and there isn't already something important on "E", I put something important on it.

I have a MS Sidewinder mouse, and I really should get around to using the macros. On my old PC, I had the two back/forward buttons macro'ed to select different Spy disguises in TF2, but I never worked out the kinks, and haven't installed the software on my new PC yet. I also tried to bind them to two Warcraft 3 item slots (WC3 is not re-mappable, and the default keys to use an item are numpad 784512, while most hero hotkeys are concentrated on the left side of the keyboard, so there is no convenient way to get to the item slot keys without moving your hand)

 

Numpad for racing games (Wheel/Controller just never appealed to me)
Everything else ESDF

Also, my first thought when I read the title was "Yeah, you probably use a DVORAK keyboard..."

 

I managed to have a fairly bad wrist injury which required 5 surgeries ( http://i.imgur.com/MojBv.jpg ) ... however luckily enough I can use a mouse and type fairly normally now.
Controllers are a little worse, i can play with them for an hour or two before things start to hurt.

 

I remember starting out using the arrow keys in old games like doom and then i had a game that was WASD as defult and i guess i just switched rather than bothering to change the controls.
I'm left handed and use WASD with my right hand, with my palm resting on space and my thumb on CTRL. on rare occasions i have set it up as IJKL for movement but then i loose out on using my palm to jump and mashing space is too much fun

 

I've found a couple of games that the cursor keys will work where WASD won't (for example in a 'say' dialog or with the scoreboard up.

As such on my Saitek n52te My keybindings are set relative to the WASD configuration but with those four keys replaced by the cursor keys.

 

Well I dont know about you guys but I find being a lefty a bit of a dissadvantage nower days, hard to find left hand mouse and such.

I use the numpad on the keyboard and the mouse in the left hand basically. Any other lefties out there use this sort of control method?