The one thing that I think hurts the growth of PC gaming the most, is a lack of gamepad support. I know the PC snobs are going to jump on that statement and poo poo about how totally superior the Keyboard and mouse set up is, but they can really just go fuck themselves. If you want a more reasonable reply, try playing a racing or fighting game with the keyboard and mouse. There is a reason why the PC market is confined to FPS, RTS, MMORPG and knock-off Tycoon games.....
But it's not just the fact that the keyboard and mouse are confining to just a handful of genres. The issue is also the fact that a keyboard and mouse just aren't as intuitive as a controller. Come to think of it, not everybody gets the two stick, sixteen button gamepad either. At any rate, most gamers are more familiar and comfortable with a controller than the keyboard and mouse. On top of that, the keyboard and mouse is overkill in most situations.
Let me take you back for a minute. It's the early '90s. The top games on the PC are Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, etc. I was playing these games with a Gravis Gamepad. The Gravis was a 2-axis analog controller like all PC joysticks at the time, but it had four buttons and was laid out like an SNES controller without the shoulder buttons. This pad was so popular that laptop manufacturers began packing it in with their computers. The point I'm trying to make here is that while PC gamers could play Doom with the keyboard, most preferred to play it with a controller that they were already familiar with. The same thing applies today. Especially with games that are made both for PCs and consoles.
Can anyone tell me why Knights of The Old Republic, a game produced originally for the XBox, doesn't have gamepad support? What about Jade Empire? Why not Call of Duty 4? COD4 won't even let me map the controls to my gamepad and I know that all of the functions can be mapped to a 360 contoller since it was also released on the 360!! I can understand wanting to use the keyboard and mouse for online multiplayer since you need to be able to turn on a dime, but single player? When the single player game was designed for an audience that's using controllers? WTF??!!
The games that I've found that do allow me to map to a controller don't even specify that it's possible. I discovered that I can map the controls to BF2142 to my gamepad, but it's not like there's a radio button labeled "enable joystick." There also aren't any sliders to adjust the sensitivity of the analog sticks. Given, this is an online game for serious catasses, but this isn't an uncommon situation. Very few of the single player FPS games that I own allow me to map to a controller. Even those games where I know damn good and well I can map everything to the controller.
Of those games that do allow me to map to a controller, none of them have a default controller setup. How hard is it to have a an option for the gamer to use a controller and provide a default setup? Especially for games that were made for both PCs and consoles.
Now I realize that there are some third party programs that allow you to map keyboard and mouse functions to a gamepad, but that's beside the point. If a game can be played with a controller, it should have a hassle free way to set up for the controller. I shouldn't have to wonder if the game will just automatically map a gamepad function to a keyboard or mouse control slot. It should also allow me to adjust the sensitivity of the sticks.
Bringing this back to MMORPGs, I've played CoH with a controller and had no problems. Xfire allows you to use a controller to play WoW and I'm pretty sure that It wouldn't be too hard to set up Guild Wars for a 4-axis, sixteen button controller considering that you only need eight buttons for skill slots, one stick to move, one stick to move the camera, and a button to lock onto targets with. you could actually reduce the number of buttons used through the use of skill highlighting with left and right on the D-Pad or macroing the skill cycle sequence to one button. This is all assuming that I was able to get into the options tab in GW which I can't anymore for some unknown reason.
Finally, consider for a moment that most households have a computer right now yet only a small number of computer owners use their machines to play games. If computer manufactures began packaging their machines with this:
And game developers started supporting Gampads right out of the box, how many people do you suppose would start using their machine for gaming? At the very least it might give developers the wherewithall to try genres outside of the FPS, RTS, and MMORPG trinity.
I understand that this is a rant about why so many games don't offer much support for Controllers or Joysticks, but I may have a bit of info that may interest you. There's a program out there called Joytokey (And I'm sure a few other versions) that more or less lets you set up your controller movements to translate to Keyboard and Mouse movements. It works quite well, and you can play pretty much anything you can come up with a control scheme for with a controller. I personally use it to play the freeware Guitar Hero knockoff Frets on Fire and it works fine.
Wed Dec 12 2007 10:21PM ReportAnd I wont play consoles because they dont offer keyboard and mouse support. I means seriously tho, a FPS with a controller, I pass. Altho I do play madden on my pc with a 360 controller. I would say sports games are about the only thing I use a controller for tho...
Wed Dec 12 2007 11:09PM ReportWhile I agree, ALL games SERIOUSLY need the ability to map to gamepads, you neglected to mention a very specific and important genre of PC games: simulators. And of all the current genre of PC games it is the most Controller-centric, people spending serious cash for decent controllers.
As well, racing games are part of the simulation catagorey. Mind you, a good deal of the folks who play in the simulator catagorey are die-hard and usually put out the cash for the FCS or Steering wheels (Both including the appropriate pedals of course.). They tend to keep to their tight knit communities as well, which are both small and niche.
Fighting (3rd and 1st person), arcade-style, and sports are the only genres that a gamepad is an absolute requirement for decent play. Everything else on PC has usable options.
For FPS, I'll take keyboard and mouse over a gamepad any day, so much so I do not care for FPS on consoles. Whenever I have used a controlpad in an FPS game it has always felt jittery and not smooth at all.
That being said, the BF games are mappable to controls simply because of the flight componant and a LOT of the flight junkies in the BF games use FCS; at least the serious ones I have dealt with.
There most definately is a bias with controllers and it seems to be directed specifically to gamepads as opposed to other types of controls (FCS, Steering/pedals, Throttle quadrants, cockpits, and other forms of seperate control systems.)
When ever it has been in regards to controls, it ALWAYS seems that gamepads are the ones that always get struck out.
Thu Dec 13 2007 4:58AM ReportYes, yes, I realize that hardcore PC gamers are set in their ways about the ever holy keyboard and mouse. That's not the point.
The point is that the overwhelming majority of video gamers use and prefer controllers. So much so that they'll go out and buy a console, even when 1) The games they want on consoles are available on the PC and 2) The PC they already own can run said games.
I've watched the PC market shrink and then shrink some more over the last eight years and I can't help but think that this is a major part of the problem. People don't consider playing games on their computer because because they don't think about the fact that they can just plug a controller into one of those four USB ports on the front of their machine. Apparently, neither do game developers.
As a personal aside, I can play FPS games with or without a controller single player. Multiplayer, you have to be able to turn around quickly so you have to use the mouse. I can't use the mouse on third person games just because it's too sensitive and doesn't feel quite as smooth as a dual analog setup. Third person with a mouse is just begging for motion sickness. Ditto for 3D platform games, of which the PC has none. In fact, outside of RTS games, I can't really see why I shouldn't be able to use a controller if I choose.
This isn't about forcing PC gamers to use a controller. It's about allowing those people who prefer a controller the ability to use something other than the keyboard and mouse.
Thu Dec 13 2007 7:44AM ReportI get what your saying, but I also think it can be a mistake. You can lower or raise the sensitivity of a mouse so that it perfectly suits your style of gameplay. In most games you can not change the sensitivity of an analog stick, so you are stuck with whats stock.
I do believe that in an FPS all players should be forced into the same control option (keyboard). If not you will have 100's of people in your games with controllers. I used to play quake team arena this way. Id be on my PC shredding dreamcast players who were using a controller. The last thing you want people to do is handicap themselves. This will only lead to frustration further along the road, due to them not being able to compete.
Most games that involve flying or driving do having joystick or steering wheel options which is fine. The only games that really require a gamepad are games like Madden, which do sync up with an xbox 360 controller.
I believe the real reason people play consoles over computers is the amount of money involved. Yes, they may own a crap dell, but what games are you going to play on it. They are not going to look as good as a ps3 or 360 game. They are not going to play as well. Why play games on a 19" crt when you can play them on a 40" high def tv.
Personally i have a 22" wide screen and a decent machine. So my games look pretty good. A good machine can be built for 1,000$ or you can buy a 360 for under half that cost. Console games are as simple as, insert cd/dvd, play game. PC games are usually, insert dvd, install game, update game, i keep getting a wierd error, search error on google, fix error, possibly play the game now, find out that the game is still glitchy and not really finished, realize you are playing to play a beta, get frustrated and go back to consoles which actually WORK WHEN YOU BUY THE DAMN GAME.
Thu Dec 13 2007 12:42PM ReportI think you just hit many of the problems on the PC directly. Plug and play games would be a huge leap forward on the PC and Micro$loth has been promising a package that would let developers do it for several years now.
As for performance, browsing the specs of most uber cheap computers at Wal-Mart I notice that most of them will perform at a 360 / PS3 level for about the same price as either one. Hell, I just built this machine last year and after a $100 upgrade I'll be able to run everything short of Supreme Commander and Crysis.
I'm also going to disagree with forcing players into a control scheme. they'll either adapt or leave. Online players are a minority anyway.
Having played online games since '96, I can honestly say that I'd rather play a game with people that I know in the same room than with a bunch of fuckwit preteen strangers over the ether. Incidentally, I normally play online with people that I can't party with due to geography or I turn off the voice chat and just pretend all the other players are bots.
Hardcore catass FPS players will eventually adapt the keyboard and mouse, everyone else will be happy with the controller. This only applies to FPS games however, since MMORPGs have never been about speed or skill. In a case like that, it boils down to what control scheme is more intuitive and which one the individual is more comfortable with.
Choice is good and game developers need to realize this.
Thu Dec 13 2007 4:41PM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
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