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Which Fingers for WASD

227 words.

I’ve always wondered something. Most of the world uses WASD for their keyboard controls, right? I’m assuming so because that’s how every game is pre-configured. I, however, use ESDF for my keyboard controls, so I have to change the defaults on every single game I play. I am not bitter about that. Mostly.

I chose ESDF when I re-did my Quake keyboard binds way back in the day because it seemed like the natural choice, because my ring finger, middle finger, and index finger naturally rested on SDF anyway. If I needed to type a quick message, my fingers were right there ready to do so.

Here’s my question: Do people using WASD also use their ring finger, middle finger, and index finger? In other words, do they shift their fingers one key to the left of standard typing position? Or do they use their pinky, ring finger, and middle finger on ASD to maintain standard typing position? If the majority of people use their pinky to move left, then I could understand why it would seem normal for the default to be WASD. But whenever I use WASD, I have to shift my fingers into an unnatural position to play.

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p>It’s just an idle thought for the day. Perhaps next time I will ponder why everyone fails to use invert mouse like they’re supposed to.

Next: Slumming in EQ and AC. Previously: Twitch.tv.

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Archived Comments

Wilhelm Arcturus 2013-12-09T18:26:27Z

I tend to be resistant to remapping keys in games, unless they are something common to many games that get stuck in different or annoying places from game to game. The quest log and the key used for auto-run are the only ones I touch regularly.

So I leave movement keys set to WASD. That has caused me some problems typing in the past, but after years and years of it, my left hand now moves to the correct keys without though whether I am typing or playing a game with WASD movement. (The first WASD game I played was Lode Runner back on the Apple II, where it seemed a great improvement over the awkward WASZ diamond that many games used for movement.)

ESDF does seem more logical… Brian Green is a proponent of that as well… but so many games map F to something critical… WoW, EQII, and Neverwinter spring to mind… that I have never gone that route.

ultrviolet 2013-12-10T02:23:39Z

I always move F up to Q.. I’ve done the remapping so much now that I can practically do it in my sleep.

I wish there was some kind of global keymapping config file we could put on our computers that each game would recognize when it starts up.

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