Keyboard control anyone?

[Guest mpok]

One thing that i do dislike about all these new FPS games is that they're all based on playing with the mouse. One of the things that make Doom (2) a great game, is that the keyboard control is simple and has a kind of 'feel' to it which i'm missing in all these new games. It's just the feeling of strafing away from an incoming missile, while turning around and shooting your opponent in his face with a shotgun, precisely at the end of the turn, which makes your opponent's ripped-open body fly 15 feet through the air 8) This is kind of a doom-only (ok, and duke3d) thing, which everyone tends to overlook. I say, if your'e creating a new Doom game, screw the mouse control, let's go back to the basics, without 100 special keys and buttons, which only make thing more confusing. And please, if the guy falls down, let him bend through his knees like in Doom, don't use the funky Quake effect (guy falls, hits the ground, waits a sec. and makes some kind of funny cramping move) which is supposed to make things more realistic. Alltough Q3 does do a pretty nice job on this one (just not good enough).

And one other thing. Doom's level architecture consists out of absolutely weird and unrealistic environments. This leaves some space for imagination. Today's levels are all hyper realistic and thus eliminate the whole 'mystery' effect. I'd rather have a lava pit filled with strange shapes, spikes and creatures from hell, of course, then a church with an altar, benches, a gothic ceiling, and all the furniture you can buy at your local dealer.

There's just no point in trying to make a non realistic game realistic. A storyline/plot would just break the game apart. If you want a plot, play an RPG like Outcast. Extra features and buttons would only make a mess of things. Don't change what's already good, it'll only get worse.

[Tawney]

THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!!! LET'S TURN BACK A GENERATION AND TAKE AWAY MOUSELOOK. IN FACT LET'S JUST GET RID OF THE MOUSE ALL TOGETHER, BECAUSE I HATE IT LOOKING AROUND AND KNOWING WHAT'S AROUND ME!!!

Heh, yeah right. Sorry, but if you can't use a mouse by now...Well, you should probably learn how to, cu it's a lt more fun than thhe keyboard.

It's not requiring a mouse that makes things complex. What makes things complex is 20,000,000 different buttons. Quake had very simple controls and that almost totally required mouselook. Everything was managable to press without being too complicated. Quake2 was a little too complex however. Nothing wrong with adding crouch, but the invetory just slows things down, although that could be turned off for deathmatch, which was a VERY good move.

And when did you ever rip a guys body apart with a shotgun in Doom or Duke? Sorry, not possible;)

And what are you talking about with Quake's death frames? What I want is variety. Doom's death is way too repetitive. It's amusing at first but gets annoying after a while, but not nearly as bad as in 007 for N64 when you have to wait like 20 seconds to actually die. And it's just death frames anyway, something that is insignificant to many other things involved, such as gameplay.

So are you telling me ALL of Quake3's enviroments are totally, absolutely realistic? Yeah, I see reptile mouths and toungues lying all over the place ya know;) And Quake III did have a lot of strange shapes, spikes, and in some cases, creatures. Half-Life had strange shapes, spikes, and creatures at the end of the game, and even Quake II to an extent. Do you think all those games were meantto be realistic? Even Half-Life isn't realistic, and has a lot of imgination to create.

And what the fuck do you mean a story will break the game apart? Really, please explain this to me. Seriously, I really want to know how a fully integrated story, if implemented well, will break the game apart. A story is only bad when it slows the game down, such as in Turok2, while you sit there for 20 minutes listening to a girl talk about howvicious these monsters are when all you have to do is shoot them in the head. A story brings a person into the game, gives them a reason for playing the game the whole way through. Quake II had no story. It just had a computer that told you what to do, but it didnt tell you WHY you were doing it. Actually it kind of did, with the Big Gun and all, but it didn't have enough plot in it. Half-Life did excellent in this field, making the stories a part of the game were you can walk around while listening, and you can even shoot the person talking to you if you like:) I never tried Daikatana though, and I heard that had an excellent storyline to it.

I can understand your point of view about things being too complex, but you really need to learn how to use the mouse. It makes you more flexible as a player. As for a story, it can still be simple and long. I want to be able to understand what is going on as far as a story, but there needs to be a story! A game doesn't have to be totally realistic, but realistic enough to convince me that I'm actually there. Didn't you like DooM at first because it was realistic? Thought so...

[Guest mpok]

I don't think you understood my pov very well. First of all, i never said anything about death frames. This was about kbd control, remember 8). Second, i never claimed that it's impossible to play these games with the mouse, actually, it plays pretty nice, and it's true that in a fully 3D environment you would need mouselook (and i CAN play with the mouse, since i did finish q1,2,3,HL,unreal,etc, so i DO know what i'm talking about). The only thing i'm trying to say here is that i (and i know a lot of other old-doomers would agree) get more of a kick out of the control doom uses. This IS one of the main reasons that doom is still being played. Developers are just concentrating too much on mouse control, leaving a crappy kbd interface. Why not have both? Ok, i did kind of state that mousecontrol should be ignored. Consider that a temperal rage of insanity...

I never said anything about Q3 being a bad game. Hell, i really love some of it's levels. And the control is a lot better, thanks to some minor ajustments. What i meant to say was that more and more developers tend to create levels and indoor settings that already stand (nothing really creative), but this didn't really apply to ID, since, when it comes to level design, there really are some sick minds on the team overthere. And i say that as a compliment to ID, so don't get me wrong...

And a storyline/plot, as i mentioned before, isn't nessecary in a game like doom. You write as if i claimed that a storyline is inapropriate for every game, and as if i wouldn't know that a plot draws you into the game. But Doom was never about a storyline, it has always been about shooting weird hellish beings in a twisted environment. Nothing more, nothing less. A storyline just wouldn't fit this kind of game. Some people always want bigger and better, more and more until you choke in it, but just remember that too much is never a good thing (that's why it's called TOO much :) [btw, I'm not attacking you here].
And with realistic, i mean the game design, not the way it looks, so no, i didn't like doom because it was realistic, i liked it because it was unrealistic, freakish and weird.

BUT i really have to go now, my pizza is getting chilled 8P

....

[Hellbent]

I basically agree with everything you said. I too used to like using the keyboard, but at one point I finally decided to give the mouse ago - since in the manual it says "once you get good, use the mouse in combination with the keyboard", so I finally got used to it and glad I did! The mouse with freelook is one of the greatest control enhancements. running while looking around while strafing while firing then spinning around in a instant - this is the ultimate. Trust me, learn to move with the mouse and strafe with the keyboard. Here's my setup: Right hand (assuming you're right handed) controls the mouse: left button fires, right walks forward. Left hand: Ring finger on the S key to strafe left, middle finger moves player backward and index finger on C, (or F) strafes right. Thumb opens doors on spacebar. If you don't have always run on, then your pinky can run with the letter A. And then, moving the mouse forward looks down and moving it backward looks up and side to side looks right and left. BTW, I prefer reversed mouse - I suggest you find a setup that works for you or try mine until you get comfortable - you'll be glad you did :)

[Tawney]

mpok said:

And a storyline/plot, as i mentioned before, isn't nessecary in a game like doom. You write as if i claimed that a storyline is inapropriate for every game, and as if i wouldn't know that a plot draws

I never meant to imply you didn't think a story line is bad for all games. However, I still think hat this upcoming DooM is meant to have a storyline. It has so much potential with what it's got. The forces of hell, raiding a moon base near Mars. Starting the game, the hordes of hell attacl in masses, and you watch your fellow marines die, untill toward the end of the game, you're all alone, isolated, no one to help you.

Plus, some people never got the story straight about DooM. People locally thought that the DooM enemies were aliens from outer space:) If there was an in game story, that wouldn't happen would it?

And I think if John Romero had the technology he does now when he was making DooM, I bet he woul have added a BIG storyline, butback then, they basically chose between the fast fourious gameplay, or slow story based gameplay, and they chose the fast fourious kind. Now iD has the technology to incorperate both.

Maybe I should stop arguing cuz id said they were making the next doom story based anyway;)