I use WASD mostly, since I was a kid. My middle finger on the left hand got slightly curved, I beleive, because W is not right next to S... I also LOVE autorun featured in TES III+ and WOW.

btw, I tried playing WOW with mouse movement (LMB+RMB to run) and it was not that bad at all, with keyboard full of useful space.

i've experience key-ghosting in games, both on WSAD & Arrow-key configuration,
I wish i could get one of those n-key rollover gamer keyboards.

So many WoW remarks... I avidly played Diablo II back when it was relatively new and I think I had enough of online RPGs for a lifetime. Those games are simply way too time consuming 😜

Zqsd for me ; p

sprcorreia wrote:

All the keys you are going to need are Q A I O P SPACE. 😁

ZX Spectrum user detected

I've been using WASD as much as possible ever since I first got used to it in some game or other way back when.

I've gone out of my way to get it working with older games as well:

People used WASD+mouselook in Quake when it was new, but it was a novelty because it wasn't the default behavior.

For Descent, I use the keyboard for 6-axis sliding plus roll (W/S = move forward/back, A/D = strafe left/right, Q/E = roll left/right, R/F = slide up/down) and the mouse for pitch & yaw. I tried playing with a flightstick and it just isn't accurate enough compared to a mouse.

For Doom, I use source ports that allow full mouselook. I've heard there are ways to turn off the vertical axis in the original engine so that you can use the mouse for turning, but I've never really tried it.

System Shock 1 is the only one I've really had a hard time using WASD on, but mostly because the mouselook hack has quirks (if you keep turning too far in one direction, you'll eventually hit some limit).

Daggerfall and Future Shock / Skynet were pretty much intended to be played with WASD+mouselook, but with concessions provided for people who hadn't yet made the leap from arrow keys.

I never bothered with ESDF over WASD, because it really just makes it possible to use Q & Z with my pinky instead of my ring finger. I don't find that very ergonomic, and it makes it harder for me to reach the tilde/tab/capslock/lshift/lctrl keys while making it easier to accidentally hit the Windows key.

A change to WASD is not going to happen for me. Certainly not after using my config for 15 years. I tried it several times for fun. People call WASD more ergonomic, but in fact having run and jump all in one line with the arrows is so much more ergonomic than operating the space bar with the thumb 😀

It's not about ergonomics, it's about the fact that you can reach almost 1/4 of the keys on the keyboard without having to lift more than 1 finger off of WASD. This is crucial for games with a lot of actions.

WASD and always configure right mouse button to JUMP, space bar to USE.

I use WASD, but I don't do FPS games or anything else fast paced really.
Back in the 90s when I played DOOM and Quake, I used the joystick. I thought playing with a keyboard and mouse was both "lame" and "cheap". I've gotten over it.
I remember old Apple games being programmed for I,J,K,M. That was great ergonomics right there.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I could never quite get used to using the mouse in DOOM when it can only be used for one axis.

Agreed. I just started playing Doom last year with the mouse last year and am finally used to it. Played it since 1994 keyboard only. I use arrow keys exclusively. My brother uses wasd. For a while, I was hunting down old BTC keyboards with alt and control keys next to each other to play just Doom on. BTC keyboards can have multiple keys pressed without canceling each other out.

Our original BTC keyboard that came with our first Pionex 486 has the arrows worn off of the keys but still works!!

I used to be Doom and later Quake player using the keyboard (arrows). Whilst not a pro by any stretch of the imagination I'd usually annihilate my work mates. That was until a new guy shows up with mouse skills and put me in my place. One weekend of mouse training later I was back on top 😀 Use of the arrow keys have remained however!

Great Hierophant wrote:

I could never quite get used to using the mouse in DOOM when it can only be used for one axis.

I remember in the Wolf3D hintbook that John Romero recommended using the mouse, but I also found it too odd with just one axis.

Anyway I use arrow keys, never got used to WASD. I like having my hands closer together, I guess. I like to use right-ctrl for crouch and insert, delete, etc. for other functions.

To add: for FPS the WASD/mouse combo can't be beat IMHO. I don't play enough 3rd person action games to know what setup would work best for me. For adventure I prefer simple simple mouse-only point-n-clicks games - again few 3rd person as I find the overhead/behind perspective very peculiar. The rest are 1st person flight and racing sim with appropriate controllers.

I was a touch typist on a manual typewriter before ever getting a PC at the beginning of the 80s, so WASD always seemed a strange choice to me. The home position in typing was ESDF, but it was too much hassle to change for every game, and some don't allow you to remap keys.

Using WASD means that it is a lot more of a stretch to hit the T, G, and B keys than using EDSF, and my little finger is pretty much unused except for hitting the CTRL or Shift key, instead of hitting the Q, A, Z keys too.

Xian97 wrote:

The home position in typing was ESDF

Home row is ASDF, unless you learned on some non-US layout?

QAOP SPACE rocks! Aaah the good ol ZX days, 20 years ago...

Xian97 wrote:
The home position in typing was ESDF

Home row is ASDF, unless you learned on some non-US layout?

You are right, the home row is ASDF. I was translating it to a WASD style control using the same shape if you had your hand in the home position, which would be ESDF.