Taking a question from chat to the masses

[yendi]

("Masses" on LJ. I know, right?)

From a chat session with my daughter: "How did WASD become commonplace in a world dominated by righties?"

It's something I seriously don't get. Movement tends to be the more complicated action of a standard arcade-style game. Given the position of one's hands and the keyboard, using the WASD keys means reaching across the keyboard or using the left hand, while the arrow keys are much more conveniently placed. Is this still the legacy of the awfully-laid out PC-AT keyboard from the '80s that wasted the left side with function keys and had the arrows double with the number pad? That's a sad legacy. Even back then, other computers had figured it out (my beloved Atari ST definitely had a standard set of arrows, which made playing Dungeon Master so damned simple).

Yet it still seems like WASD is the default set of movement controls in most games.

So are we living with a silly legacy from over twenty years ago for no better reason than inertia?

Was there a lull after the mid-80s WASD craze (and I know it existed, because I remember playing any number of games that had it then on the school PCs) and the current one? Was this something that started again post-Doom with the used of the mouse for aiming in FPS games? I remember the Marathon games (which, incidentally, remain my favorite FPS games of all time) having WASD as the default, and my modifying the keys each time.

Or am I just the only person (other than my daughter) who prefers arrow keys to WASD?

Comments

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

Arrow keys were the norm and then people started adding mouse controls as well as WASD, also Doom type games added number padd stuff for a while. So all that kinda forced WASD to happena nd it stuck because it was eaiser to get used to once and not have to constantly lfip back and forth.

[yendi]

Hunh. I must have gotten a skewed view of WASD in the '80s (not shocking, given my limited PC experience). And I do remember number pads (and some annoyance over some games using 8456 and others using 8426).

[swashbucklr]

I recall using the arrow keys to play Doom and Wolfenstein, but as murnkay says, once mouselook came into play, WASD became common. Which I actually like, as having the extra keys nearby for play is handy.

But this actually makes me think of something else - most arcade games in the 1980s and 90s had the joystick on the left and the buttons on the right. The few times I can recall that it was reversed, I remember it feeling really awkward. And this pattern of movement controls on the left continues to this day, with most modern video game controllers having the movement stick and buttons on the left, action buttons on the right.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

my experience as well. Arrow keys then I had to "remap" my brain to WASD to incorporate mouselook. The only thing I donot like is that I cannot switch between WASD and arrow keys. In EQ1 I could use either which meant I could drink or snack with my left hand or right and still move around as necessary.

But realistically, it makes sense anyway because movement may be "complicated" but its only a set of four directions of which only two at a time can happen. Everything else are functions that come of specific need and require actual thought. The left hand (movement controls) can go on a sort of autopilot while the right hand will handle the more immediate commands.

[yendi]

I actually played arcade games cross-handed because of this.

(Don't get me started on playing Defender in the arcades, though.)

[swashbucklr]

I couldn't play Defender at all!

[yendi]

To a certain degree, I think that was the idea; old arcade games were built around the same business model as Candy Crush Saga, for all intents and purposes.

[swashbucklr]

Maybe that's why I'm so good at resisting giving any money to Candy Crush.

[herongale]

Wikipedia tells me that it was because it made more sense when games used WASD plus mouse control:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_keys#WASD_keys

(I'm not a gamer so I didn't even know what WASD even was which is why I wiki'd it to begin with)

[aiela.livejournal.com]

This is what I was going to assume. Your right hand is busy with the mouse.

[alexmegami]

Also was my first thought.

[lovingboth]

Yep, the mouse needs the 'better' hand and since most people are right-handed...

[yendi]

Makes sense; I tend to prefer games that don't require mouse controls (I'm a simple gamer), excluding the aforementioned Dungeon Master, so probably have a selection bias.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Most people are right-handed, and the mouse (in the right hand) is the most complicated and precise action required of 99.9% of games.

As such, letting you use your left hand where your left hand normally sits, without requiring you to rearrange your desk to get keypad+mouse the way games did when mice were new and weird, only makes sense.

Back before mice were a thing, most games used keypad movement and main-keyboard options. But mice have been a thing for basically ever, by now.

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

I'm not a gamer, so I can't speak to the timeline, but how does the incorporation of WASD-controlled games relate to the preponderance of left-handed controls on games like Nintendo? Most video games today (that I've seen other people play, like Minecraft and XBox) are based on the left-side directional, with buttons on the right, a la the old Nintendo controller. I wonder which came first... or is this a chicken-and-the-egg thing?