The WASD dominatrix needs whipped

Comparatively speaking, the WASD keyboard layout is rubbish. There's two sets of keys that gamers use, and sadly in my opinion, the most logical and functional of the two is on it's last legs... WASD is a shoddy setup that was created by short visioned FPS developers that sadly, as has always been in the PC games market, seem to get off on overcomplicating things for us poor end-users! So, the logical alternative is that old classic: the Cursor keys.

I'm what most contemporary (childish) gamers would call old. Thirty six years old in fact. At this age, the landmarks in my life to come are supposedly forty, fifty, retirement and finally death... Over the course of my life so far, I've had a few people read my palm, and luckily for the planet, I'm due to hit my expiration date any day! So really, my next landmark is likely to be a bridge, church steeple or mountain that I plumet to my death from...

Considering that I'm now astrologically (apparently) in the twilight years of my life, do I really want to spend months of my precious time adjusting my playing style to a keyboard layout that has only become the gaming standard in the same way that Limp Bizkit outsold Radiohead? No, of course I don't, I'm stubborn for these things. It's my left! Right, I mean. Left, right, left right eft ight, hut! Sorry, flashbacks to military training camp there... *

So WASD came about, singularly because of the early generation of multi-player FPS games. Gamers with regular mice were limited to only two buttons. Most often assigned to Shoot and Aim or Shoot and Jump. There were no wheel mice as standard with PC's in the mid to late 90's, so people realised that if they would surrogate the four cursor keys with four other keys beside the direct-weapon-switch keys (1-0 above the QWERTY keys), they didn't have to stop moving and reach over half-way across the keyboard to change weapon! It did makes sense, for a very short period in time... About two years later though, even the most basically packaged Office PC's were shipped with that amazing luxury item, the Wheel Mouse; completely negating the need to use WASD. People don't like to learn new things too often or change technique if they can avoid it, so unfortunately for budding new gamers, in the course of that time WASD completely took over the market.

Where the wheel mouse fits into all this is quite straight-forward: Roll the wheel up, change weapon forwards, roll the wheel down, change weapon back-the-way. It's such a simple and elegant solution, it puts every other weapon selection method to shame. This single item cancels the need to use 1-0 for weapon switching, as making sure you press the right numeric key means a quick glance away from the screen and in the case of games with a lot of weapons, you STILL have to move your hand away from your movement controls (contrary to the point of this selection existing in the first place); bringing your in-game character to a stand-still for a single life threatening second...

There's a further huge advantage to Cursor keys for movement. They're located entirely on their own. There's no chance that if you place your hand on the keyboard (not your organ) in the dark, that you'll confuse any other keys for the cursors. I'm sorry, but a pin-head sized plastic dot on top of the WASD keys doesn't exactly cut it for me!

I use just about every key around the cursors for secondary commands. CTRL to duck, Shift to walk/run, Enter to reload. I use the 0, 1 and 4 numeric pad keys and the DEL, END and PGDN keys all for activities that aren't as time essential as swapping weapon in a gunfight. Because of their easy to find placement around the Cursors, I don't have to worry about losing my position or alignment on the correct buttons.

Now, there is a slight addendum to my whole argument, that throws it askew slightly... "Customise Controls". This is almost always built into every game released. However, the majority of gamers dont bother customising anything about their game anymore. They switch on, and want to be able to play without doing any "work" setting the game up to their own preference, understandably, of course. The problem I have with this, is that developers still leave the default controls set to WASD! It's so newcomer unfriendly it defies belief? How on earth are non-gamers, trying an FPS for the first time, supposed to relate to WASD after they've been used to the simplicity of a console control pad?

The first political party to put forward Cursor over WASD as a compulsory selection for games, gets my vote; my first vote since 1994... Politics appeal to me in the same way that nailing my genitalia to a door and slamming it over and over and over does! Or maybe as much as pushing my fingers slowly into my eyeballs until they touch brain. Even less than asking someone to use fish-hooks to attach my nipples to a horse about to bolt. Actually, is there a point to politics anymore? Do I even care? Hmmm...

The answer to this debate I'm having with myself is, ehm, I'm right and the rest of the planet is wrong... Yup!

* - actually, I was never in any military camp, though I do have a shotgun, Desert Eagle and .38mm in my house; all of the BB variety... Perfect for keeping pesky youngsters at a safe distance!