I remember the transition from playing with the arrow keys to WASD, was in the late 90's. When I was playing Unreal Tournament and Quake 3
How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
31–40 of 83 posts
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#32Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
Funny, haven't seen esdf mention in ages. I used to use ESDF exclusively. I eventually gave it up though just due to needing to remap it in ever damn game. Plus some wouldn't let me remap, which was even more annoying.
It is incredible the number of AAA releases which have an abysmal rebinding experience. Like they gave the job to the intern and nobody attempted to try it once. From tutorials which hard code the controls, special modes (driving, UI) which only respect the original, etc.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#33I've always played asdf, since quake 1 and until this day. Any others? Seems the most natural to me. The majority of the time my finger placement is in the most natural position.
Oh, exotic! :) I could maybe do hjkl thanks to vim muscle-memory, but asdf would probably take forever to get used to, hard to imagine really.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#34OPQA, who's with me?
As you may have guessed from some of my postings here, I'm an ESDX man (grew up with a TI-99/4A).
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#35Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
> Yet ESDF is objectively better Subjectively better. If I were to switch to ESDF, I would have only one key to the right of my index finger in each row, as opposed to two. (I have a split keyboard.) You could argue that I would have two keys to the left of my pinky finger, but I find that reach more difficult. I would also have a harder time orienting my fingers without looking, because I would no longer have the di…
Objectively better on a standard non split keyboard then. Many games assume non split keyboard for default key bindings
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#36Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
> objectively better There actually was a time when computer scientists at Atari studied user interface stuff with game performance in mind. All that ended years before WASD, but it’s worth pointing out that WASD came about as part of a competitive process. It’s not like anyone’s being forced to use something that doesn’t work for them (except on consoles). > stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles m…
> part of a competitive process
Ehhh, sort of. I think people copied it from Thresh (a famous Quake player). It was better than the default, and "good enough" for competition. So a lot of people simply copied it and never thought about it again, especially after games started making it the default.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#37Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
So what exactly do you need the QAZW for? With WASD you still have TAB, CAPS, tilde and SHIFT available. Also, crouch is Q, jump is E.
For run'n'gun games like Quake, nothing really but for games with more controls like ArmA or Tribes those extra buttons come in handy.
Shield, nade, lean left/right, use item, etc.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#38Dark Castle, released on Macintosh in 1986, had ASDF movement and mouse for aiming.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#39Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
ESDF also has the cute advantage that it has your hand resting in home row position.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#40Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
An issue with EDSF that WASD dodged was that some keyboards had groupings that could only register a limited number of key-downs simultaneously. I believe EDSF was in one group. But, WASD spanned two. So, on those keyboards you could get ignored inputs specifically when things were getting frantic.
I've never experienced that myself. Instead, I've been EDSF fo' lyfe because I had so many keybinds in HL1 multiplayer they surrounded those keys on all sides.