EverQuest and the Keyboard Question December 11, 2007
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest, EverQuest II.Tags: MMO Accessibility, MMO Interface
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One of the nice things about moving to a new machine is that you get to install some of your software from scratch.
Okay, maybe that isn’t such a nice thing most of the time, but it can be illuminating.
The last time I did a full, from scratch install of EverQuest II, for example, was back in November of 2004. So three years later, it was a bit of a refresher, being able to see the default UI and configuration for EQ2. My old system was so full of UI modifications that I was even a bit surprised.
One of the things I had forgotten about from the install is that when starting up the application for the first time, you are presented with an option for keyboard layouts. You can choose either the EverQuest II layout or the EverQuest layout.
The EverQuest layout? Ouch.
As I mentioned in the post on my new machine, I also installed EverQuest from scratch, since it was totally hosed on my old machine. And so I got to try and use the EverQuest layout again.
If Clint Worley and the EverQuest team are really worried about accessibility, as I noted while back, then here is a place ripe for improvement.
What is wrong with the default EverQuest keyboard layout? No WASD.
The EverQuest key plan has you move by using either the keys on the 10-key pad or the arrow keys on the keyboard. Unless you use the mouse with your left hand, this is at a minimum a mildly awkward configuration.
The funny thing is, I know exactly why it is laid out as such.
Some might speculate that EverQuest is so old that it pre-dates the WASD movement key layout.
I might be that old, but EverQuest is not.
I first used the WASD keyboard layout for character movement back with the game Lode Runner on my Apple ][+. And I played a first person shooter with that key configuration in 1994 with Marathon on the Mac.
No, the keyboard layout is directly related to the background of the people who developed EverQuest in the first place.
And that background is MUDs. If you want evidence for the Diku influence on EverQuest, here is a big clue.
As I have mentioned before, in an attempt to associate myself with fame, Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler, and others on the team used to even play one of the same MUDs I used to play, Toril MUD.
When you are playing a MUD, the primary input tool is the keyboard. Even with later versions of ZMud, where you could make elaborate UIs with lots of buttons and such, typing was still king. And when you are mostly typing, the mouse is an incidental input tool.
That was translated over to EverQuest.
Unfortunately, what was something of a quirk back then is pretty big oversight these days. The pool of new users for EverQuest is more likely to be people who have played World of Warcraft and are looking for something of a retro experience. EverQuest can offer that, but it would help if the game could be made manageable by such a new user, especially the controls.
Yes, of course, you can remap they keys to create a WASD set of movement keys, but if the EverQuest team is serious about accessibility, if they are not just giving that term lip service, there ought to be a standard, starting keyboard layout that has these keys set for movement.
They should again take a page from the EQ2 play book.
When you run EverQuest for the first time, it should offer up two options for keyboard layout:
EverQuest II (recommended for new players)
EverQuest Classic
I resisted the temptation to make the first entry “World of Warcraft.” SOE is unlikely to use that name and there could be other implications if they claim to be using the WoW keyboard layout.
But the EQ2 keyboard layout is close enough, primarily because it uses the WASD standard movement controls. And, that also ties the games closer together and allows for some comfort from players who may have started with EQ2 and who want to see pre-cataclysm Norrath.
For the cause of accessibility, I think this is one small thing the EverQuest team can do to make their product better.
And yes, it is raining again.
It’s funny… I never did get the hang of WASD movement and have always used the arrow keys. I’m not sure why. Back in the early EQ1 days, it was doubly funny because I played a bard. I would still cross my left hand to the arrow keys and cross my right hand over the top to the number keys for twisting. My friends who watched me play kept asking, “Why do you do that? Why not twist with your left hand and move with the right?” The only answer I can come up with to this day is, “Hell, I don’t know.”
I believe there is an “other” option (or at least there used to be) within Everquest II which mirrored the World of Warcraft set-up.
Speaking of rain, I am patched and loaded into Luclin (Veeshan) this morning with my level 19 warrior, kilt included. Want a tank? Here is your chance to make good on your offer from the SUWT podcast (and yes, I’m calling you out publicly!)
I also wish to be associated with fame. Were the EQ developers the guys in Toril who were “RP,” i.e. talked like Frogloks on bad acid? You remember, thee’s, thou’s, thy’s, etc. Only guy I can remember like that was D…something or other. We used to roll that dwarf at Anna’s with him :)
@ Rao–hehe that is an interesting gaming style–reminds me of keyboard twister!
@Rao – I have big hands. The cross-over plan would not work for me.
@Kendricke – Well, the EQ2 keyboard layout is pretty close to the WoW layout. I mainly get confused about where to find quests when I move between the two. J in EQ2, L in WoW. But I would take either in EQ.
@Gaff – Offer? What offer? But my account is spooled up all the same. I made a level and a half of exp with my SK while we were recording SUWT.
I don’t use WASD. WASD was popularized by first person shooters. I don’t do first person shooters. On the old games like Alley Cat I used the arrow keys so the EQ1 keybindings are natural for me. It seems that the reason for using WASD originally is that on the original apple keyboards they did not have a keypad or arrow keys. The old PC clones did, so games developed for old PCs used arrow keys instead of WASD.
When in RoK beta they reset the keybindings. This got me confused till I realized that it was using the EQ2 defaults instead of the EQ1 ones that I am used to.
Well, I disagree with you reasoning for “why WASD?” Apple keyboards have had arrow keys for more than 20 years now, and most games that pre-date that used the diamond layout of WASX or WASZ and not WASD.
The motive is clearly to allow right handed players to move their characters and use the mouse at the same time. That is very important in shooters, but it is also pretty darn important, at least to me, in MMOs as well.
But they key point here is not that you or some other EQ players are fine with the old layout. I am not proposing doing away with.
What I am saying is that if Clint Worely and the EQ team are serious about accessibility and bringing in fresh blood to Norrath, here is something they can go after pretty easily.
Accessibility is a stated priority. The MMO market is now primarily made up people who have played WoW. Supporting a default keyboard configuration that is natural to that player base seems like a good idea to me.
[nostalgia on]
I can’t think of another game before Loderunner on the Apple ][ (1983) that used WASD, but I'm sure someone can prove me wrong. I cant remember if Castle Wolfenstein did in 1981 or not, but I digress. That might have been AZ and the left/right arrow keys...
Keep in mind with the PC arrow key/WASD conundrum, when PCs came out in 1981, the mouse hadn't been popularized. The Lisa had it, but who had a Lisa (and $10 grand) in 1982? It wasn't until 1984 and the Mac (and subsequently for the PC in 1987 in earnest). Macs didn't have arrow keys and the old Apple II series had them all horizontal at the lower right up/down/left/right fashion. PC XTs and ATs had them doubled on the num pad 8/2/6/4 even though DEC rainbows had separate inverted T arrows around 1982/83 I think.
Either way, the release of EQ in 1999 was long after the introduction of the mouse, Windows 3.1 (1992) and of course Win95...
Even Diablo with its point and click to move paradigm was out in 1996 and would have been wildly successful when EQ came out. By 1999, it would have been pretty hard to overlook the mouse as a primary (right handed) input device. Requiring greater dexterity, it was natural that the right hand should mouse for right hand dominant persons.
I agree with Wil that it must have been a conscious choice to facilitate role-playing via text chat a la MUDs. Many, many other games at the time recognized that a) the inverted T was a superior keyboard control paradigm and that b) migration of that inverted T from the then newly standard 104 key keyboard with inverted T arrow key to very near the homerow would afford the opportunity to use the full keyboard as both input dashboard and chat keyboard without substantial repositioning of the hands.
I remember in the early to mid 90's many games of different genres starting to converge on WASD as a standard control paradigm (sliders, shooters and sims). Using just the arrow keys simply left 2/3 of the keyboards out of bounds for most (right handed) users a constraint which game designers simply couldn't ignore.
[nostalgia off]
Certainly, it was an iconoclastic design choice and one that they simply don’t need to continue to mandate 8 years out. Certainly enough of an iconoclastic choice at the time that it was a bit odd. Not completely bonkers, but odd. By that time I had already become proficient at remapping any game that didn’t come with WASD out of the box to WASD because it was so ubiquitous.
It’s funny, Wilhelm. A few months back when my PC was fried, I installed EQ on my Mac just for laughs. After years of being accustomed to WoW and Guild Wars’ more intuitive UIs, I just couldn’t find the motivation to be logged in for more than 20 minutes. A similar thing happened when I tried to revisit some of the old text-based Infocom games after Jonathan from “Online Gamer’s Anthology” got me all nostalgic with his last two podcasts.
Really made me think about how UI really trains one’s brain in an almost Pavlovian way. Once I’m conditioned to salivate when that bell rings, there’s just no going back. It amazed me how ways of interacting with my comp that were once commonplace have become so alien. It also really opened my eyes to how big an impact the UI has on my enjoyment (or lack thereof) when I’m playing.
Sigh…you really can’t go back…
I had excactly the same as Rao. Being a Bard in EQ1 I used the arrow keys with my left and twisting (using nr 1 to 9 keys) with my right hand. The only benifit is discovered was that it was easier to use the mouse and the arrow keys (for example to strafe-walk with the right mouse keys). Now that I think of it in EQ2 I use the arrow keys with my right again. Hey, I hadn’t even thought about that till now :)