Just another day at Bethesda
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So I've mucking about with game development as a hobby and I've managed to emulate a 3D world. You run around with some basic collision to make it look all solid and tha's it. There is no sound, no opposition, no interaction, no special effects, nothing. And yet I do have one feature that Skyrim does not; I can use the keypad/arrow keys for movement. That's right, I can get a basic simulation (written in java nontheless) to use those keys, but Bethesda's flagship game can't. And that's because they are obviously staffed my complete muppets, because it takes a special kind of stupid to sink millions into the development of a game and not be able to do what videogames have been doing since the fucking 80s.
I thought their hardcoded A/E keys in Fallout 3 / Fallout NV were bad but obviously those were the good times.
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I play my games mostly with an Xbox controller so I didn't notice anything strange about Fallout 3. If you can't rebind your keys in it, it's really some WTF. I'll check it when I get back home.
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I recently bought Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for PC to give it another play-through. I had it for Xbox 360 when it was released but a friend borrowed it and destroyed the disc so I hadn't played since. Steam just had it on sale for $5, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.
The keys are not configurable at all, in-game or in menus, so this isn't for you if you want or need a custom layout (I guess you could always re-map your keyboard before playing). There is no mouse cursor anywhere in menus so you have to navigate your selection using the keyboard. Switching between menus requires the use of the bracket keys (yes, "[" and "]") instead of the more-intuitive left and right arrow keys, though the up and down keys do move your selection up and down as expected. If you're in the Force Upgrades menu and you want to see what a combo does, you have to highlight it and hit backspace. If you hit enter you purchase the upgrade instead, with no confirmation or cancel. I accidentally bought several upgrades without knowing what they were. Also, I can't remember where, but I recall having to use the spacebar to cancel out of a menu somewhere. Finally, the "Quit" item in the main menu (accessible in-game) does not actually quit the game, it just ends your session and sends you back to the main menu.
And of course there are the four or five unskippable intro videos that (in my case) serve only to remind me what companies I want to avoid in the future while wondering how much money they spent developing the 3D artwork and animations for a video that nobody pays attention to anyway when a simple text logo would have been cheaper and just as effective.
Mainly what we're dealing with here (and I assume Skyrim is the same thing) are games developed primarily for consoles, then they pay a bunch of minimum-wage code monkeys in the third world to do the bare minimum necessary for it to compile for PC.
[EDIT]
I forgot to mention, the "Controls" menu screen which lets you see what buttons do what only shows an Xbox 360 controller. So it's totally useless at telling me what buttons do what in-game since I use a keyboard and mouse. I beat the first few missions with my friend screaming in my ear to use "Block" more often, except I didn't know what button blocked, the game wouldn't tell me, and I was too lazy/apathetic to Google it.
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The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
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@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
When you encounter a poorly designed UI, it's best to shrug your shoulders, accept the fact, and work around it.
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@cdosrun said:
@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
When you encounter a poorly designed UI, it's best to shrug your shoulders, accept the fact, and work around it.
So, "intended for a particular platform" equates to "poorly designed"?
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@cdosrun said:
@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
When you encounter a poorly designed UI, it's best to shrug your shoulders, accept the fact, and work around it.Yes look I'm a huge hypocrite.
Look, I'm the first one to admit Skyrim's a shitty port. That doesn't change the fact that you'd be much happier just using a controller with it, instead of trying to wrestling with the keyboard.
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@jverd said:
@cdosrun said:
@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
When you encounter a poorly designed UI, it's best to shrug your shoulders, accept the fact, and work around it.
So, "intended for a particular platform" equates to "poorly designed"?
It's more intended for a particular input mode than platform, but really cdosrun's comment was more directed at blakey's normal reaction to UI failures (and his repeatedly saying that those who first look for a workaround tolerate failure to a silly degree).
Edit: and it looks like blakey took him up on his trolling including the standard admission of being a hypocrite
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There's this free program called AutoHotKey.
I write an AHK script to remap keys for almost every game I play on PC and I couldn't be happier. At this point I just expect the keyboard config in every game to be completely useless / dangerous. (I'm looking at you, Battlefield ... anything.)
In Skyrim I tried using a controller but I just can not handle using the analog stick to aim my arrows. For me, the nightmare controls are limited to the menu/inventory/dialog screens (only ~80% of the game), so I just put up with it.
Also the game crashes about every 10 minutes.
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I play with a Logitech G13 and couldn't be happier. I map all the keys to whatever I want and leave the bindings in-game to the defaults.
I don't think I could go back to playing with a regular keyboard if I wanted.
(If you want, I can post my G13 profile for Skyrim.)
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AssCreed 2 used the puppet navigation for menu navigation and it was Holy and Glorious. AssBro forgot all that and used arrow keys and backspace. Often right-click exist any menu (yay) but sometimes, only sometimes, backspace is the only option.
Thankfully, mousewheel scrolls up/down through the menus, and I bound Feet to Enter so the menu interaction's not a complete disaster.
Really hate Bethesda for hard-coding the E key while making everything else configurable.
Deus Ex: Haughty Rambunctious, which I'm warming up to now that I finally killed the death out of Boss #1, has great keyboard rebindability.
In minecraft, for some reason, I an ok with the default WASD config. I'm not sure why I don't like it for other games. Maybe I am teh bias.
Oh, on Deus Ex: Horse Races, I discovered why I think it all looks so flat and meh. There's no GI/Ambient Occlusion. It's just flat textures. Not even a hint of baked radiosity. Could it be a special feature/shader not supported by DX9?
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Uhmmm...
I set it to the arrow keys at first. It IS possible. It just isn't all that handy when you got a shitload of other shortcut keys you need within reach. Run, sneak, ready weapon, quick inventory, quick spells, etc. I don't have that many keys near my arrow keys. So no, it's not a WTF because you CAN actually change the controls to use the arrow keys.
There is another WTF in that system, though. It's one that, if I remember correctly, wasn't here in Oblivion or Morrowind. If you change the controls settings, the reminder texts (like "Press R to drop") doesn't change to the custom controls. It's confusing like all hell. I got a Superiour Steel Mace of Soulstealing (YEEAAAH 8) ) and apparently got the option to charge it by pressing F. But if I press F, I'll drop it cause I changed my controls and what by default is R, is now F. What that F changed into, I dunno... so no charging my Superiour Steel Mace of Soulstealing (YEEAAAH 8) ) for me.
Oh, and another WTF is that, when you play in windowed mode, the mouse is locked into the window. That in itself isn't the WTF, but if you're playing in Win7 and your mouse moves outside the window's boundaries (while it's still within the window), it makes all windows transparent so you can see your desktop. It's especially annoying when lockpicking or such, where you don't actually see your cursor's position. Either you lock the mouse in properly, or you don't lock it at all, but this half-bakedness forced me to go fullscreen (while I prefer all my games in windowed mode)
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@jverd said:
@cdosrun said:
@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
When you encounter a poorly designed UI, it's best to shrug your shoulders, accept the fact, and work around it.
So, "intended for a particular platform" equates to "poorly designed"?
If you release something for multiple platforms, that does not cater to those disparate platforms but assumes all platforms work the same: your design is not just poor, it's irrevocably shitty. I don't care how allegedly great Skyrim is, if Bethesda can't be arsed to make the PC version work properly WITH A FUCKING KEYBOARD, they don't deserve to be in business peddling their shitty engines.
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@DOA said:
use the keypad/arrow keys for movement
And why whould you want to do that? What's the advantage of using the arrow keys?
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on a funny side note, the first patch for the game broke anything magic-resistance-related.
Beth then said that the next patch will be carefully crafted not to break anything.
Then the second patch send to oblivion (huhu) all non us/ascii caracters in localised versions ot the game.
Bethesda.
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@dargor17 said:
What's the advantage of using the arrow keys?
A long, long time ago my dad bought a brand new 286 (with a hard drive!) because he wanted to check out these newfangled "computers" that everyone was so excited about. With that he bought a desk designed to hold a PC that could be configured to have an area for the mouse either on the left or right side. For reasons lost in history the desk was placed so that the mouse rested on the left side and so I learned to use it with my left even though I'm right-handed. As a result using the keypad instead of WASD with my right was far more comfortable.
Fast forward 20+ years and now I prefer to use the mouse with my left and the keypad with my right when gaming. Combined with the extra mouse buttons there's a sufficient amount of keys within easy reach for all the game functions. The arrow keys I only mentioned because they are my fallback position for the occasional game that just doen't like the keypad. Now I've seen games in the past that wont let you remap your keys but never before Skyrim did I see a game that actively refused to let you use them because they are "reserved".
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Funny that you mention handedness. I prefer the numpad for games, and as such I always move my keyboard to the far left when starting a game session. It's a minor nuisance.
I game my cousin a CyberSnipa because it's rather handy.
@DOA said:
never before Skyrim did I see a game that actively refused to let you use them because they are "reserved"
From Dust doesn't allow you to map the Totem Power keys, even though their on-screen layout is a cross/plus and thus would be supremely intuitive to use with arrow keys or 4-8-6-2. Instead, From Dust forces the 1234 top row number keys.But it's hardly a big deal, because it instantly forgets the config when you exit anyway.
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@dargor17 said:
@DOA said:
use the keypad/arrow keys for movement
And why whould you want to do that? What's the advantage of using the arrow keys?
It's all fine and good if you're using a QWERTY keyboard. As soon as your keyboard layout deviates from that, WASD doesn't work anymore. Here in Belgium, for example, going up'd require me to push a button on the bottom left part, and going left is a button on the top left. I don't even want to know what it's like for Dvorak users. It's generally just a pain in the ass if you're forced to use WASD and can't change that. For me, it's reason enough not to play a game, as I don't want to break my fingers and have to spend all my energy in struggling with the warped controls cause they didn't think anybody in the world might have a different keyboard layout than them.
And again, I managed to map the arrow keys to me in Skyrim, so I don't really see the problem in that. It's just not practical as well, so I mapped walking to ZQSD (just like in Minecraft). Works like a charm that way.
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@dargor17 said:
@DOA said:
use the keypad/arrow keys for movement
And why whould you want to do that? What's the advantage of using the arrow keys?
You get carpel tunnel much faster. Either that or you need to clear your desk and sweep your keyboard a foot to the left.
I did arrows instead of WASD for a long time when first starting, mostly because my first FPS was Marathon and that was the default then! (Back in 1994, we didn't know much about how FPS games were meant to be played!) I finally changed to WASD for Tribes, since Tribes has... well, about 46,000 controls you need in easy reach. And also because I was playing it enough that my wrists would have really been hurting from the contortions you need to use the arrow keys.
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@DOA said:
For reasons lost in history the desk was placed so that the mouse rested on the left side and so I learned to use it with my left even though I'm right-handed.
Heretic!
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I've had similar issues with indie games, particularly those programmed by Edmund McMillen. The OS X build of "Super Meat Boy" assumes I have an Xbox 360 controller (why would I?), and doesn't even let me see what the keyboard equivalents of each gamepad button are. "The Binding of Isaac" is slightly better, in that the keyboard controls are at least disclosed to the player, but still unreconfigurable, and it suggests that if I want to map to a gamepad I should use "Joy2Key", which is a Windows-only program.
At least indie developers have the excuse of limited resources. What's Bethesda's justification?
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@blakeyrat said:
The game's designed for an Xbox 360 controller. I'm sure you'll gnash your teeth, but your life will be easier if you just accept the fact and plug your controller in.
What controller? All I've got is a keyboard and mouse.
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@Rootbeer said:
The OS X build of "Super Meat Boy" assumes I have an Xbox 360 controller (why would I?)
Because you're interested in video games! Why wouldn't you?
"Man that sewing class is annoying, they just assume I have a sewing machine..."
@Rootbeer said:
At least indie developers have the excuse of limited resources. What's Bethesda's justification?
They didn't bother, and still managed to outsell pretty much every game of the year-- and they released in mid-November? The invisible hand is telling them: "you done good."
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@blakeyrat said:
@Rootbeer said:
The OS X build of "Super Meat Boy" assumes I have an Xbox 360 controller (why would I?)
Because you're interested in video games! Why wouldn't you?
"Man that sewing class is annoying, they just assume I have a sewing machine..."
So because I like to play video games, I need to have an Xbox 360 controller? What good would that do me in, say, Civilization? Or in Secret of Monkey Island? Or in Leisure Suit Larry? Or in Starcraft? Or in Sim City?
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@The poop of DOOM said:
I don't even want to know what it's like for Dvorak users.
It sucks, but then I don't play that many games anymore so...
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So like is like Anno 2070 any good?
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Keyboard? In a few years nearly every PC game will be solely touchscreen controlled anyways.
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@MiffTheFox said:
Keyboard? In a few years nearly every PC game will be solely touchscreen controlled anyways.
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@dhromed said:
I use QWOP for everything!Funny that you mention handedness. I prefer the numpad for games, and as such I always move my keyboard to the far left when starting a game session. It's a minor nuisance.
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@blakeyrat said:
@dargor17 said:
@DOA said:
use the keypad/arrow keys for movement
And why whould you want to do that? What's the advantage of using the arrow keys?
You get carpel tunnel much faster. Either that or you need to clear your desk and sweep your keyboard a foot to the left.
I did arrows instead of WASD for a long time when first starting, mostly because my first FPS was Marathon and that was the default then! (Back in 1994, we didn't know much about how FPS games were meant to be played!) I finally changed to WASD for Tribes, since Tribes has... well, about 46,000 controls you need in easy reach. And also because I was playing it enough that my wrists would have really been hurting from the contortions you need to use the arrow keys.
It was not until Blakey replied to this that I grasped that the question might be what the advantage of the arrow keys would be over WASD. I was assuming the question meant as opposed to a controller.
The only games I can ever remember playing with WASD are some flash games that don't offer configurable input, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft. When I got into first person shooters, I went with something much more reasonable: the mouse buttons were for strafing, none of this counterintuitive crap where I shoot at someone by clicking; and the arrow keys are too far right to be convenient (I wonder if my reaction would have been completely different had WASD been the defaults in that game?)...let's remap everything to be near where my fingers land on the keyboard if I just drop my hand naturally on my wrist-rest: So... AERG and the spacebar.
Years later, as a side effect of that control arrangement and the way it mutated when I got a Nostromo Speedpad, I found out that in a certain double-jump mutator for Unreal Tournament '99, if you had jump bound to A instead of to something like CTRL or the spacebar, double-jumping would not work correctly. I gave up on finding the correct place to report the bug after about one minute, and never have tested to see if it's been fixed...I oughta look into that sometime.
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@Smitty said:
@DOA said:
For reasons lost in history the desk was placed so that the mouse rested on the left side and so I learned to use it with my left even though I'm right-handed.
Heretic!
I'm left handed but keep mouse in the right hand. Same reason - was using it that way since day one.
Funny thing - I'm uncapable of doing just about any precise motion with my right hand, it's not limited only to writing (I have problems with right hand's precision when soldering, for example) - but I do use the mouse with precision in right, and can't use it at all in left hand.
Which of course means it's all just habit/practice engraved deep in the brain at this point.
@Zylon said:@MiffTheFox said:
Keyboard? In a few years nearly every PC game will be solely touchscreen controlled anyways.
not-sure-if-trolling-or-just-stupid.png
ITYM not-sure-if-trolling-or-just-depressingly-accurate-prophecy.png
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@DaveK said:
I use QWOP for everything!
There's a code that lets you unlock QWOP for AssCreed. It's for the hardcore elite only, obviously.
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@bannedfromcoding said:
bla bla left right
Me too. I tried to find a pattern once, but it's just random, really. Pens go left, and doorknobs go right, but remote controls go right and big mugs go left. Spoons for eating is left. Spoons for stirring is whatever. Forks and spatulas go left. Knives go left unless I'm holding a fork as well. Knives go right if I'm just holding them and not actually cutting
peopleah things. Swords would probably go right. Texting is both or right, but never left alone. Playing bass is right-hand position.
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@locallunatic said:
It's more intended for a particular input mode than platform
Then it should come with a gamepad or something, at least when you buy it boxed at the store.
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@kilroo said:
It was not until Blakey replied to this that I grasped that the question might be what the advantage of the arrow keys would be over WASD. I was assuming the question meant as opposed to a controller.
The only games I can ever remember playing with WASD are some flash games that don't offer configurable input, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft.
WASD has a huge advantage in games where you need a lot of keys for attacks and spells -- namely, it lets you keep one hand on the mouse. In WoW, keyboard turning is much slower than mouse, so I ended up using WASD, but with A and D for strafing instead of turning. F is for the attack/spell I use most often (which often happens to start with F -- say, Fireball), and all the other left-hand keys are for other attacks/spells.
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@Zylon said:
@MiffTheFox said:
Keyboard? In a few years nearly every PC game will be solely touchscreen controlled anyways.
He'd be trolling if he then goes on to suggest all games'd become like either Operation Wolf, or would become an FPS.
*Tap* POW! HEADSHOT!
*Tap* POW! HEADSHOT!
*Tap* POW! HEADSHOT!
(ad infinitum)
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@Seahen said:
@kilroo said:
It was not until Blakey replied to this that I grasped that the question might be what the advantage of the arrow keys would be over WASD. I was assuming the question meant as opposed to a controller.
The only games I can ever remember playing with WASD are some flash games that don't offer configurable input, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft.
WASD has a huge advantage in games where you need a lot of keys for attacks and spells -- namely, it lets you keep one hand on the mouse. In WoW, keyboard turning is much slower than mouse, so I ended up using WASD, but with A and D for strafing instead of turning. F is for the attack/spell I use most often (which often happens to start with F -- say, Fireball), and all the other left-hand keys are for other attacks/spells.
It really is a huge advantage, and I've only recently started noticing it (ever since I started playing Minecraft). But... it's only an advantage if either
1.They're set to the buttons on your keyboard and not the keyboard settings of your system (so it's independant of whether you use Qwerty, Qwertz, Azerty, Dvorak or anything else). This one tends to be nice, but a major WTF at the same time.
2. If you can remap them. That way, if you do have a different layout than Qwerty, you're not regally screwed. Just remap it so your fingers go on the same places and tâdaa. Works like a charm.If, however, you're forced to use settings made for one keyboard layout that's not globally used, it's as bad a WTF as making a game for a controller, then doing a shitty keyboard port of it. It's the exact same principle.
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@dhromed said:
@bannedfromcoding said:
bla bla left right
Me too. I tried to find a pattern once, but it's just random, really. Pens go left, and doorknobs go right, but remote controls go right and big mugs go left. Spoons for eating is left. Spoons for stirring is whatever. Forks and spatulas go left. Knives go left unless I'm holding a fork as well. Knives go right if I'm just holding them and not actually cutting
peopleah things. Swords would probably go right. Texting is both or right, but never left alone. Playing bass is right-hand position.I'm right handed and I do everything important with the right hand - I think the left is mostly redundant and takes on a support role when needed
I guess being a lefty and living in a predominantly right handed world forces you to adapt the right hand to be much more than just a supporting limb, whereas my left limbs are spoilt and lazy
I can't really think of anything I do that would favour my left hand...though the right-handed bass thing is strange. My son is turning out to be a lefty so far (he's only 1 and a bit and he seems to use the left hand a lot more than the right when manpulating/picking up objects), though I've got a couple of Ukes and various guitars which he always strums with the right hand (in his limited capability... I mean he ain't shredding yet). It's not like he knows which string should be at the top - so he's just doing what feels natural at this point I suppose
Right handed guitar always felt right to me, even though the more minute and possibly more complex movement is the left hand fret-finding (or fingering if you like!) - can't imagine swapping to try and play it left handed, but I spose if I'd picked it up and learned it as a leftie would, I'd probably still have got by
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The pattern I tried to distill was that of righthand = power (guitar picking, door), lefthand = subtlety (pen, fingerboard), but there are many obvious exceptions, such as right-handed remote control, texting, and mix-handed tool usage (screw right, hammer left).
So yeah, I give up. Further analysis would be trying to find an answer for a non-existent question.
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@Seahen said:
WASD has a huge advantage in games where you need a lot of keys for attacks and spells -- namely, it lets you keep one hand on the mouse.
AERG shares this advantage, plus (at least for me) lets the left hand rest in a more relaxed position. Whether it puts more or fewer additional keys in easy, non-hand-contorting reach I couldn't say, since I've never had a WASD-based control scheme as bind-heavy as what I used to use for Unreal Tournament: Tactical Ops.
Also, while I lose the ability to aim and fire if I need either hand to scratch my nose, neither hand being off the controls renders me completely incapable of moving. Depending on the style of game that can be more important.
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@Charleh said:
My son is turning out to be a lefty so far (he's only 1 and a bit and he seems to use the left hand a lot more than the right when manpulating/picking up objects)
I'm told that mild electrical shocks solve this problem (just taze him from time to time and you will have a happy parenthood).
;)
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@serguey123 said:
@Charleh said:
My son is turning out to be a lefty so far (he's only 1 and a bit and he seems to use the left hand a lot more than the right when manpulating/picking up objects)
I'm told that mild electrical shocks solve this problem (just taze him from time to time and you will have a happy parenthood).
;)
I find that punches to the face also have the desired effect
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@Charleh said:
@serguey123 said:
@Charleh said:
My son is turning out to be a lefty so far (he's only 1 and a bit and he seems to use the left hand a lot more than the right when manpulating/picking up objects)
I'm told that mild electrical shocks solve this problem (just taze him from time to time and you will have a happy parenthood).
;)
I find that punches to the face also have the desired effect
Well, yeah, but there is no science in there, you can't finely tune the experience, also the blood and bruises are harder to explain
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Bruises... hard to explain? Not as hard as you might think - children fall over all the time
Especially when you push them
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@Charleh said:
Bruises... hard to explain? Not as hard as you might think - children fall over all the time
Especially when you push them
Yeah, but I rather don't take chances and besides no matter how good the feedback of phsical force feels I'm a scientist, a controllable environment is best for me
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@The poop of DOOM said:
He'd be trolling if he then goes on to suggest all games'd become like either Operation Wolf, or would become an FPS.
Tap POW! HEADSHOT!
Tap POW! HEADSHOT!
Tap POW! HEADSHOT!
(ad infinitum)
I never said any genres were going away-- just that PC games would become more like those for Android and iOS rather then those for Xbox and PlayStation. Those will hopefully still exist as it turns out that emulating the Wii was not very good of an idea.
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@MiffTheFox said:
I never said any genres were going away-- just that PC games would become more like those for Android and iOS rather then those for Xbox and PlayStation.
Touch screens will never, ever become popular for desktop computing. Human anatomy guarantees this.
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@Zylon said:
@MiffTheFox said:
I never said any genres were going away-- just that PC games would become more like those for Android and iOS rather then those for Xbox and PlayStation.
Touch screens will never, ever become popular for desktop computing. Human nature guarantees this.FTFY
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@serguey123 said:
FTFY
No, you just made it dumb and wrong and fixed nothing.
Are you sitting in front of a desktop computer right now? Try holding your arm up and lightly resting a finger on the center of your monitor. Now hold it there for, say, a minute. Now imagine doing that [b]all day[/b].
Touch computing works fine for handheld devices, where operating them takes little more than wrist movement. For the desktop though, it's an ergonomic trainwreck.
