Why WASD?

I just had an epiphany. I always use WASD, and so do most others, when playing games (because that's what games generally bind movement to), but I just realized that this is silly.

If you use "ESDF" instead, it has the same feel, except now you have easier access to 3 more keys, "QAZ" to bind to. In addition to that your left hand is automatically in the right spot to type, instead of having to shift your hand to move/type.

Anyone see any downfalls/negative effects of this?

 

Because I use my left shift key quite often (it's usually bound to "duck/cover") and esdf is a touch too far for me to rest my pinky on shift.

Also, 15+ years of gaming... that's a hard habit to break.

 

With WASD you have easy, natural access to Tab, Shift and Ctrl (and Caps Lock, though I don't usually use it), and it's also more intuitive when reaching for the number row. With ESDF you have to stretch a little for those side keys, and the number 1.

 

I pretty much cried with joy when valve patched the source engine not to freak out when you press caps lock. The amount of times I had TF2 minimise on me from trying to press tab and absent mindedly hit caps lock is probably in the hundreds.

 

Yep it's all because of the access to the "side keys" that you access with your pinky finger.

 

Do we know who came up with the WASD keys? I remember in the days of Duke 3d and Doom, it was all the arrow key action.

 

wasd 'cause while I used to use the arrow keys way back when, that was with an actual full sized desktop keyboard. Stuff isn't placed in the proper locations on a laptop keyboard.

helps that my laptop is setup so that warm air is kept away from the wasd half of the keyboard

 

Quake engine was (I think) the first to really come up with WASD - quake and derived games (e.g. Jedi knight jedi outcast)

 

Heck, I used UHJK for moving the camera in DOOM II and I.

 

Older games tended to have fewer commands. The arrow keys are really awkwardly placed if you have to use any other buttons around them. For a simple game like Doom where all you really need to do is move around, swap weapons and shoot, the arrow keys made sense. For a modern game with more than a handful of keybinds, it would be really awkward to reach any other commands while using the arrow keys for motion.

 

Because QWOP is too hard...

 

THIS lmao.

Epic post is epic.

 

Doom-era was pretty much arrow keys right hand and ctrl-alt-space for the left hand.

Duke3D was playable with keyboard, it created some funny moments for my friend. By default INS/DEL control look up and down. ALT is strafe, CTRL shoot. Take a jetpack, fly in the air and then stat strafeshooting others on ground. CTRL-ALT-DEL -> reboot. Oh the joy at lanparties, xxx has left the game

Then came Quake and more importantly QW TF (eh, beaten by language filter). Basically that was the moment mouse was needed for looking/aiming and left hand needed also more action keys. Instead of WASD I actually trained to use ASDX keys, now that I think of it I should have chosen something like DFGV to have more bindable keys around. With ASDX movement keys I had QWE for quick binds, easier and faster to use than ZXC would be. That has stuck ever since, regular WASD just doesn't work for me anymore. It was easy when I used it from the beginning

 

The next evolution is 8,4,6,2 on the numpad, excellent for games like mech warrior, that combined with a mouse with lots of buttons.

 

Well as I see it, wasd keys have very good place on the keyboard. It's really comfortable to reach all other keys like space-bar, ctrl, alt, tab and so on, from wasd.

 

i think Quake was first. Or whoever made a 3d game with mandatory mouse.

 

I use the directional arrows, never used WSAD and I dont know why. I guess when i was younger I wanted the arrows to reflect where I was moving. My younger cousins use the arrow keys as well because of me.

 

I use the mouse with my left hand even though I'm right handed (crazy and messed up, yes I know)

So therefore I use the trusty IJKL!

 

I'm left handed and could never really see myself using the mouse in my left hand.

*shrugs*

 

Same here. I've always had a mouse on the right side, I would never have it any other way.

 

I suppose that makes sense for FPS or 3rd person action games, but you rarely use shift, tab, or ctrl for rpgs/mmorpgs.

 

I thought it was a primitive attempt to reduce the possible chance of ghosting on most consumer keyboards as the keyboard shortcuts increase.

 

Well that's why crouch and sprint are shift and ctrl respectively. Because those keys are commonly pressed with others, they have their own circuit even on cheap keyboards.

Also, you can tell when an FPS devs are idiots when they allocate arrow keys by default. I remember seeing something on IAB about "pro gamer girl playing HL2", she was using the arow keys and I laughed. Don't get me wrong, there are some situations where arrow keys are usefull, but for FPS movement where you need weapon switches and various other nearby keys, you need something like WASD.

Also, I'm kinda left handed too (I write with my left hand, but do other things with my right) and I've had the urge to use my left hand to use a mouse. Maybe my dad stopped me when I was small or something because he knew how much hassle it would be later in life when everything computer related is right hand orientated, though before I had properly learned to write (we had our first PC round when I first started school) I didn't really have any hand preference to hold a pencil.

 

The worst games are the ones that set A and D turn your character by default instead of strafe...are they trying to make everyone bad on purpose?

And of course anything where you can't change keybinds completely is usually a terrible console port.

These are on my gaming board at home:

Lavender WASD Keycaps - elitekeyboards.com - Products

 

Q and E are supposed to be strafe, nub. Having to use your mouse to turn is a terrible idea.

Unless of course we're talking about FPS again. Then yes, A and D should be strafe.

 

I like QWES more than WASD. Some really old games had IJKL.

 

Q and E are supposed to be lean left and right.

 

I use Q for switching weapons, ALT for throwing grenades ETC. and E for melee in games that have melee.

WASD is used because it's the perfect setting for right handed mouse users.
Arrow Keys are so 90s.

ESDF is all right. I use it in games that you carry more then 2 weapons, because cycling 3 things with Q sucks.

UHJK is perfect for DOOM.

TAB 1QW is also all right for games that you have to press a certain button a lot.

In platform games I use HBNM because I use the Spacebar for jumping because jumping is good in platformers.

 

I'd say it has more to do with the fact that some games (mostly FPS style) had the ability to look up and down, and thus the natural solution was to use the mouse and then the arrow keys had to be displaced by something... a bit far away (with access to more commands).

 

Easier access to the left shift key for ducking and the thumb easily conforms to the spacebar.

 

your kidding right? i cannot play wow without tab shift and ctrl.

how else are you suppose to keybind all the abilities/macros without shift/ctrl.
and tab switch between targets.....

 

N52 and Razer Naga

 

This. Plus in WOW most classes only actually use like 5 skills anyways. The rest are pretty much extra.

 

Because my hands are pretty large and insanely thick fingers (Thanks dad....), I use a more spaced out WASD. I use R=FWD, W=Left, Y=Right, Space=Back. I've used it ever since DOOM and Quake days. It gives me immediate access to TAB/Shift/Cntrl and immediate # range too. In addition, I gain access to QETU for other binds if needed. Odd, but it works. I spent months trying out various binds back in the day till settling on this one.



With WASD, my fingers are literally running into each other

 

..........y'all are nerds!

Lol jk, but I know I have to learn everything you guys are writing here I'm still clingy to my 360 controller.

Mr. Mysterious

 

guess you people dont arena. for me and partners (we beat mlg player/team in 2v2 and 3v3 a bunch of times, gladiator from s4-6) tab shift and ctrl are a must have. and none of the progamers use mice like the naga.

 

i use asdf as my keys as i mainly play sc2 with the grid hotkeys, so everything is in range along with 1-5

all thats missing is backspace which i bound to my mouse button so i can hop from base to base

 

I haven't played WOW in years, and didn't do arena seriously since BC. But unfortunately I have very small hands and can barely reach CTR or any number past 4, so the Naga is a must for me.

 

Real men played Doom with arrow keys + a mouse.

Then came Heretic which allowed you to look up/down but had vertical autoaiming like Doom so it was possible to play this game without a mouse. I believe this was the same with Hexen.

I don't remember the first fps game that didn't have vertical autoaim which would necessitate using a mouse for aiming. Probably Descent I reckon, but I played that with a Joystick + arrow keys so...

I played Half-Life/Counter-Strike with the arrow keys, rctrl = crouch, rshift = walk, right mouse button = jump, left mouse button = shoot, scroll wheel to cycle weapons and middle click = zoom/secondary fire. I had numpad keys bound for various things too but only 0 Ins, 1, 2 and 4.

I don't remember when I made the switch to WSAD but it was over something hotkey intensive. It might have been Freespace because even with a Joystick, that game still used practically the entire keyboard.

Nowadays with first or third person there can be alot of hotkeys for stuff like inventory management, non weapon skills, weapon select + fire modes etc. In Mass Effect 2 I used every single key around WSAD the number keys 1 to 5 for hotkeying Shep + teammate powers (warp bomb combos etc).

 

Who really cares what "progamers" use?

And didn't WoW get removed from MLG?

 

for me the first FPS with wasd controls was Dark Forces (Lucas arts first fps in the Star Wars universe ) It was released before Quake I think, and the vertical auto aiming was bad/useless, as opposed to Doom's, so you needed the mouse! (and the Y-axis was inverted too!)

 

Ohhhhh, I forgot about Dark Forces. I only played the 1 level demo on a coverdisk though because the full game was really expensive for its time (way more expensive than the shareware stuff). Edit: Oh, I still play with Y axis inverted. Have done in every first and third person game since Starfox.

 

it did because most of the pro arena players quit in wraith of the lich king.

and if progamers dont need crazy overpriced mice with so many unnecessary buttons, normal gamers dont either.

 

Nobody needs it. Just like nobody needs a SLI 590 setup with an i7-2600k. You use it because you want to. And if you use the buttons, then I don't see how they can be labeled as unnecessary. Except of course by superawesome dudes who like to brag about pwning nubs with an intellimouse and a Das Keyboard ultimate.

 

WASD predates FPS like Quake and Doom by at least a decade. Off the top of my head the first games I can remember using WASD were the original Wizardry ('85), and the old SSI gold box AD&D game Pools of Radiance ('88) but I know WASD (and just AWD) goes back even further than that.


The reason for WASD is very simple....old computers like the TRS-80 and Commodore 64 didn't have arrow keys.

 

well not just that, it's also until you end up playing at an impromptu LAN or move onto another mouse, or generally any situation in which your ubher mouse setup no longer applies. I have a modest mouse with the usual metas bound, but I use WASD and always make sure not to rely on any binds other than for convenience; this way you can switch to a standard 102-key, 2-button setup in a flash.

@OP I used ESDF for a time in CS, but as others noted, you lose access to the "comfort" keys and the number row is misaligned, not worth the 2 keys gained.

 

I used to just bring my mouse with me if I desperately needed to play WoW somewhere away from my desk.

 

I always find room for my mouse/mouse pad. Always need to be prepared.