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Comment by friggeri | Hacker News Reader

It's tiring to see that WASD is always used to control movement, regardless of keyboard layout. On a French keyboard, this is how WASD is laid out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_France.svg

Needless to say that it is highly impractical… Why not bind the arrow keys?

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The arrow keys are usually at the right of the keyboard, next to the mouse, which makes playing with two hands awkward. You also need to move the hand on the keyboard to push pretty much any other key, which makes it difficult to do other actions (reload, open inventory, sprint, etc.)

Of course the better solution is to give the player the choice...

> You also need to move the hand on the keyboard to push pretty much any other key

- cost of binding arrow keys: ~0

- benefit to non-wasd compatible layouts: ∞

(did you know that my keyboard can actually move to where arrow keys are comfortably used, or that left-handed and right-handed-who-use-their-mouse-on-the-left-because-it-makes-sense-with-a-numpad-and-makes-RSI-bearable people exist? ;-)

The main reason is there are no keys around the arrows, making it useless for many games. The layout issue is completely different thing.

Sure, it makes sense in some cases, but not for most casual gamers (due to using a laptop, limited desk space, being right-handed with the mouse, etc.)

Binding both the arrows and WASD is a good idea.

> The arrow keys are usually at the right of the keyboard, next to the mouse

Usually yes, but not if you're using your left hand for the mouse as I've recently switched to do. At a bare minimum both WASD and arrow keys should be enabled.

But yes, reconfigurability is by far the best solution.

Alt+shift will make you happy ;)

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