Why we switched to WASD | Nostalgia Nerd

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[MrHarumakiSensei]

The default keyboard layout of Quake was such that if you pressed strafe, shoot and look down at the same time you were pressing ctrl-alt-del. Genius!

[techhutch]

Arrow keys aren't completely retired. They're still useful with keys like Z and X for games that don't require the mouse.

[bluejayofevil]

You mentioned mouse DPI in early PC era limitations, but not the other major issue many of us who grew up with those remember: trackball gunk. Most mice had a trackball on the bottom and hand/desk residue easily jamming up the wheels touching the ball with gunk, which caused unresponsiveness and required cleaning frequently.
Optical sensor mice phasing them out over the late 90s/early 2000s was a blessing. No more trackballs jamming up with gunk while trying to aim in fast-paced deathmatch or other scenarios that require speed and precision.

[jonathanross]

A weird thing is I made a little game in BASIC that used WASD when I was a kid and had no idea that would became coincidently the standard for moving the main sprite. Just pure coincidence.

[Shokanshi]

I was using arrow keys up to the release of Half Life 2, I was defending the classic arrow key movement in most multiplayer games like CS and Americas Army. What a fool I was, blind to such a better movement system.

[migueeeelet]

A good thing about the cramped arrow keys + shift, ctrl is that in some games you can also use WASD + J, K, L or so and have two players on the same keyboard
If you have a keypad and remap the shift and ctrl keys to the keypad keys it's even better

[robintst]

Being left-handed, and therefore preferring that hand for the mouse, I never switched from the arrow keys. It's far more comfortable to have my right hand on the other side of the keyboard with the arrow keys instead of cramping up to the left side.

[stephenrobertson]

As a left-hander I've continued to use the arrow keys for movement along with the right shift, right control, numpad and other nearby keys, as this is way more comfortable for me.
One of the downsides to everyone switching to WASD is that occasionally game developers forget some people (mainly left-handed folks) still like to use the arrow keys and they prevent them being used or remapped, along with keys like enter and backspace, as they hard bind these to menus. Even some AAA games do this, and then have to patch their keymapping systems when left-handers complain.

I remember seeing someone use mouse in Doom back in the day, but I myself could never get the hang of it at the time.
I did switch quite early to mouselook in Quake and Duke Nukem 3D though and I absolutely dominated anyone else playing using keyboard and mouse on a LAN or Wireplay (Until they switched to mouselook). Fun times!

[NorthernTigress]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Descent, the first fully 3D shooter, just not just looking up and down, but movement in all directions too. It was a flying shooter, where you might find an exit on the ceiling, or a hallway entrance in the floor.

[martinthompson]

I worked out the mouse look function in Quake almost immediately after it was released, or even before (I assume I found out about it on usenet). I took to it immediately, but my friends weren't convinced until the first evening playing deathmatch against me. My total domination of the game that evening meant they very quickly saw the light.

[nero]

As someone who never plays shooters, it took me until a few months ago to finally start using wasd instead of the arrow keys. The reason being that the only game I play on a regular basis resets the keybindings whenever the game is updated, and I got tired of constantly having to change them. Also, it was always quite the hassle to find good keys around the arrows to bind other frequently used keys to which would be located around wasd on the default keybindings. It took a few weeks to get used to, but now I'm kinda mad at myself for not giving in earlier, as it really made the experience a lot better.

[urametroid]

Being left handed I found the new default WASD to be bazaar and extremely polarizing if you use a mouse left handed, I quickly found the arrow keys to be inadequate and forged my own custom layout around keypad 8456 keys, it has worked great for me, unfortunately every once in awhile their is a game with hard coded keys that are just too awkward to play...

[neuro.weaver]

I never did. I either remap my commands to the arrow keys (taking advantage of the keys above them as well as the numerical keys next to them) or, if the game does not allow that, I return it.
The extra space around each arrow key make it easier to avoid mistakes. And you only need to push the keyboard a little to the left.

[ChaosXeloc]

Another ESDF user here, adding to the pile. I learned touch typing in middle school, where you situate your hands on the "home row keys." Years later, when we finally got a computer in the home, I bought Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for it, and I was confused by the WASD layout because it was just home row but shifted left by a key. Without the internet or prior PC gaming experience to tell me otherwise, I moved every single keybind over one key to the right, and I've been doing it ever since. It just seems more sensible to me, and it was never a problem when I eventually got into MMO's, since you could easily rebind anything and would type a lot in those games too, meaning you'd never have to move your hands to type quickly from your regular playing position.

Honestly, as more games are released even now in 2023, it seems that there are ever-increasing examples of modern games that *don't* let you rebind WASD, as they just assume everyone will love it and it will be perfect. Honkai Star Rail, Lethal Company, and Fortnite are just a few examples in the last year that I picked up and had various issues with an ESDF playstyle. In Lethal Company, you cannot change keybindings at all. In Fortnite, there are issues when something new in an update cannot be overwritten or rebound from E (such as re-rolling augments when that was new), which would cause it to overlap with movement. In Honkai, you can use ESDF for traversal after a recent update, but the targeting system for combat was never updated to match, so it's still locked to WASD.

I could go on with more examples, but my point is that I think it says a lot about the culture behind PC gaming and how we've just come to accept WASD as the only way to play, even though we would never have WASD in the first place without forward-thinking players changing their bindings. Even when developers actually give you the option to rebind WASD... they just don't really think anyone will do it, and it's difficult for me to readjust my brain to play WASD when I'm forced. I at least appreciate everyone's contribution over the years that made it so I don't have to use the arrow keys... Yikes.

[deathkitty]

I use ESDF whenever the option to customize keys arises.

It allows for more hotkeys to be mapped to the Q, W, A, Z, R, T, F, G, X, C, and V keys as well as making it easier to reach the 1-4 keys.

[TheUAoB]

I can think of a couple of notable old games that come close to the modern convention: "The Way of the Exploding Fist" simulated a joystick with "S" as the centre, which is pretty close to WASD. The original Elite used two clusters of keys in space flight with the left hand using "S" and "X" for dive and climb with the various aux and fire control in the surrounding keys.

[kennethstark]

Love the story about Thresh, a reputation we all wished we had

[WallisHall]

Glad you mentioned ESDF, I adopted that playing doom, and my hand is large enough that the benefits you mention about ctrl/shift etc are available to me. That and it gives so many more keys around my hand that I can easily adapt whatever game I'm playing to that combo... and I always know my fingers are on the correct keys as the nub on the f key keeps me centered...

[_theoriginalbhandles_Genflag]

Grew up playing with arrow keys in the 90's. Took me forever to get the hang of WASD when mouse look became a thing, I used to just slide my keyboard over and use the arrows with my left hand.

[sunyavadin]

I was still using it pretty late into the 2000s/early 2010s because it was always so convenient having the entire numpad right there to bind everything to. My biggest complaint about keyboard design was that they for some reason kept it on the RIGHT when once the mouse became standardised as an input device, it made way more sense to have it on the left.