Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

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I've found validation in this point of view in an unexpected source, World of Warcraft (WoW).

WoW has the ability to redefine the user interface through keyboard short-cuts, LUA code, and UX changes. There is an active community providing different takes on the UX.

WoW has a built in 'time test' which consists of 'boss' encounters in what the game calls a 'raid'. [1]

In polling characters who were better able to perform during an encounter, there was a strong correlation between "keyboard" users and better performace. Better was defined as able to respond faster and more consistently to changing conditions.

It would be interesting to have Tog have a look.

[1] For anyone not familiar with WoW and its gameplay, a group of 10 or 25 people, of different specialties (game specific; damage doers, healers, and damage takers (tanks)) who coordinate during an encounter with a powerful game character (a boss) by fighting it. Healers are focussed on applying various skills to keep the players alive (they take damage due to various game mechanics), damage doers (dps) use different skills to maximize their damage, and tanks use their skills to keep the game characters focussed on attacking them rather than the other players. After a set amount of time, the game character 'enrages' which basically makes it impossible to kill and it does 10x the amount of damage it normally does. This results in a 'wipe' (all player characters in the group dying).

If you suggested to a Starcraft 2 pro that they should stop using the keyboard shortcuts because they are slower, you would be laughed out of the building. Erik Naggum was on the ball with that one - it is impossible to acquire muscle memory for mouse movements because there is no base position from which all movement actions are performed.

Wouldn't they also laugh you out of the building if you suggested they should stop using a mouse?

I'm replying to the specific points about Starcraft 2 here, but really this is off topic considering that nobody is actually saying Professional Gamers in the year 2011 should be compared to word processor "power users" in the year 1989.

Professional Starcraft 2 players need to use hotkeys because they have to be able to do multiple tasks at once - they're macroing with their left hand while clicking around the mini-map and performing other tasks with their mouse hand. You couldn't play SC2 (well) with just the keyboard or just the mouse.

As for the muscle memory for mouse movements, there's no question that Pro SC2 players have exactly that. If you watch a pro give his opening workers commands, it looks like what he's doing should be impossible. You or I couldn't sit down at a computer and do it. But they can precisely because of muscle memory: they know how far a mineral node is from the starting base and exactly what mouse movements are needed to select a worker and send him to a specific mineral patch, then select the next and so on. It's true that in Starcraft 1 this muscle memory was even more necessary as SC2 has automated (to a high degree) many tasks that once required precisely practiced mouse movements, but you still see SC2 players using those skills that they learned from Brood War.

In most non-casual games it's all about maximizing how many commands you can issue. WoW (and SC2) have interfaces for which a large part of the interaction is only efficient at all with the mouse. If you then depend on the mouse for other things, you've created a bottleneck.

All good WoW players bind all their skills to keys rather than clicking them because if they didn't do that they couldn't use that skill while running, or while selecting a new target. It's not about the cost (or lack thereof) of mode-switching between keyboard/mouse, or the cost (or lack thereof) of consciously manipulating the UI -- it's purely about being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Keybinds are important in WoW but no less so then the mouse. The primary benefit of keybinding is to keep your mouse for faster turning and target changing (turning with the keyboard is slow). High end healing is based around click casting mods. The mouse is so vital to WoW that MMO mice have progressively added more and more buttons because it's essential to have your hand on the mouse when in combat.

Good point. It suggests that a keyboard that was a mouse might capture both qualities. I can't imagine how you might accomplish that (attach your keyboard to your wrists somehow?) but it sounds like an interesting (if cutting edge) experiment.

For the record I own one of the weird things Microsoft built the 'Strategic Commander' [1] which, if one could have two of them, and the protocol was documented, my make for an interesting test platform.

[1] http://guru3d.com/review/microsoft/commander/

The Strategic Commander looks like an awesome beast. And I like your idea of keyboards that were mice. If there were some way to move beyond the obvious ergonomic issues, that is. It would definitely be for the power user. Or power gamer. I mean, these guys already learn some pretty insane (to me) mice[1][2] to get an edge.

[1] http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=gaming+mice&um=...] [2] http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=gaming+mice&um=...

The mouse is so vital to WoW that MMO mice have progressively added more and more buttons because it's essential to have your hand on the mouse when in combat.

That's not the 'mouse being vital', that's 'missing out on keystrokes' and putting a keyboard on the mouse.

Actually it is the 'mouse being vital'. It's so vital that you don't "use it sometimes" and float back and forth ala classic mac interface the article discusses. Your hand is always on the mouse during combat.

Semantic games are fun but unless you're actually contesting that the mouse is vital you're just tilting at straw men.

Actually, it's "mouse being required". As in there are functions that Blizzard will not allow you to keybind like turning your camera or character. In games where this restriction is not in play, players have keys to face an enemy or do a 180.

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