Pinnacle
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It took a while to be accustomed to the keyboard layout, (especially on a laptop) so to make DROD more accessable, I would
like to see mouse control as an alternate control method.
Perhaps left-clicking a square would move Beethro there, and right-clicking would rotate the sword to that space.

Um...that's about it.


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stigant
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I don't particularly care about having mouse support. I personally wouldn't use it unless it was significantly more convenient than the scheme you just described. That particular scheme has been requested before. I won't condemn you for asking for it (it won't hurt me if it gets implemented) but I won't push for it either.

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Pinnacle
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I only mention it because this review brings it up.

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Mouse
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that review also says "The downside to this is that access to the forum system requires a $12 per year CaravelNet membership."

I don't think that's true is it?

Swivel
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Mouse is talking about Mouse Control. Suspicious, isn't it?

I've never played DROD on a laptop. Just to ask: What are some of the difficulties? Do you often misstep (or misswing -- that word looks really odd), or is it just awkward?

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md5i
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As much as I don't desire mouse control myself, I can't see as it would be that difficult to code. Simplest would be click to move to a square (adjacent squares only), left and right buttons while pointing at Beethro or mousewheel to rotate. Wait would have to be a seperate button off of the room grid. More complicated would allow click on a non-adjacent square to move towards that square using roach-movement rules. I could probably create a patch to support the former type of movement myself. I'd have to find another way to do what right-click does now, however. Maybe middle-click (except for the fact that nall mice have a middle button).

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Oneiromancer
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Swivel wrote:
I've never played DROD on a laptop. Just to ask: What are some of the difficulties? Do you often misstep (or misswing -- that word looks really odd), or is it just awkward?

I don't personally think that the laptop layout is any more difficult than the normal keyboard layout, but that's just me. Backspace as Undo, for example, is much more convenient...so much so that I remapped Undo to the Numpad - key on my home computer. (In case you don't know what the laptop layout is, the numpad is "remapped" to 789/UIO/JKL.)

Game on,

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NiroZ
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that review wrote:Can't I reconfigure the keyboard? I can, and I have, but it's still tricky. The controls for the game involve using the keyboard to travel in all directions including up, down, left, right and all the diagonals in between. That's 8 keys right there. Toss in the wait key to trigger enemy movement, the restart key (a great way to escape certain death and restart an area) and the keys to control which direction Beethro is facing (oh yeah, changing his orientation counts as a full move), and you're up to 12 keys to keep track of at all times. My fingers get confused from time to time and many of my deaths were a direct result of that. Caravel Games can only be faulted so much for my own incompetence, but a few steps could have been taken to alleviate this. The undo move key only undoes a single move, making it minimally helpful. Perhaps a gamer's death wouldn't need to automatically restart the room, and the option to back up a few steps could be taken. Also, the game could include a form of mouse control. Clicking to move instead of relying on total keyboard control would have much lessened my occasional frustration.

i think that is what this topic is about.

anyway, i think it would be good to implement, because it would open the game up to the people who are used to consoles (much less buttons).

the way i see it, it would be:
LMB: goto, whatever square you click on, bethro travels there (might have to make it so that some holds can disable it so that there can still be maze puzzles, in which case it would move only one square(or perhaps can only be used once the room is completeted)) ctrl+LMB would show the co-ordinates of that square.

RMB: (replaced by the control key on mac, while to see co-ordinates move to spacebar+LMB) makes bethro move his sword in the direction of that click, user can choose if it moves once per click, or as many as needed to reach that square.

this way, it has added usefulness for the veteran DROD player, and can be more newbie friendly.

stigant
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Look, its not a matter of being hard to code. Its a matter of this scheme actually being MORE awkward to use. Think about this: a square in DROD is between 1/4 and 1/3 of an inch on a side (I just measured in full screen mode). There are just under 1000 squares in each room. The manual dexterity required to repeatedly hit the correct square quickly for 100+ moves in a row is beyond most humans. The targets are too small and too close together. After every click, you have to reposition your mouse for the next move. Its too easy to click on the square just the left or just to the right etc. Not to mention the onset of carpel tunnel syndrome. I realize that many of us already get that from using the keyboard. I predict it will be much much much worse if you solve many long rooms with the mouse.

Implementing a goto feature would be nice (something I would even consider using) but would only be useful in mostly empty rooms (ie maze type rooms or rooms you've already cleared) in which you have to hit complicated sequences of keys to get through the maze and miskeying becomes an annoyance.

Now, if you could make the target area larger without sacrificing the intuitiveness of a mouse, you might stand a chance of it actually being useful. Perhaps measuring the angle with respect to due north and moving in the appropriate octant (so that you could keep the mouse a bit farther away from Beethro and changes in direction could require larger movements with the mouse. However, the boundary conditions will be difficult to represent visually to the user.

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silver
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stigant wrote:
Now, if you could make the target area larger without sacrificing the intuitiveness of a mouse, you might stand a chance of it actually being useful. ... However, the boundary conditions will be difficult to represent visually to the user.

this was the movement interface in Avernum 1 - you could use the keyboard, or hold the mouse "somewhere northish" to move north, "somewhere northeastish" to move northeast... and, moreover, it was always clear what you meant because the mouse cursor was an arrow pointing the appropriate direction.

were I to add a mouse interface to DROD, I'd do just that for movement, then also have bit buttons on the lower left or something for rotate clockwise, wait, and rotate counterclockwise (which would light up if you were hovering over them)


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stigant
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I didn't play avernum, but did the screen move with your character or did you have to reposition your mouse every move? Because I think that the repositioning is still going to be problematic.

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silver
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the screen was always centered on you in Avernum, it's true.

but you'd only need to reposition often if Beethro were in a corner or you were always trying to keep the cursor close to him.

for example, if I knew I was going to go east a lot, I'd move the mouse once to the east side side of the board, and click often.

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stigant
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for example, if I knew I was going to go east a lot, I'd move the mouse once to the east side side of the board, and click often.

Yeah, but think about it. In order for this to be practical, you would have to not only be moving east a lot, but moving east exclusively. Since even if you want to move NE or SE, you'll have to move your mouse a long distance just to accomplish one move. If you ever have to move west, its going to take a very long mouse move to make that happen.

Now, how many rooms involve this type of movement to begin with? Not many. at least, not many interesting ones.

Does that matter? ie wouldn't it be useful to implement this feature if only to get an improvement in those few rooms? In this case, I have to say no. why? Because if you find the mouse more tedious than the keyboard in 90% of rooms are you really going to play the other 10% with the mouse when you are used to using the keyboard? No, you won't because by the time you've figured out that the mouse would be easier to use, you've already finished the room on autopilot by using the keyboard. So unless the mouse is a significant improvement over the keyboard in a significant number of rooms, this feature will never be used.

I think most people asking for mouse support are probably of the opinion that the amount of use the mouse will get will be directly proportional to the % of situations in which the mouse is better than the keyboard. This is not the case unless those %'s are very close to 50-50.

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Beef Row
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The one place I see mouse control being fairly useful would be one click mimic/decoy placement.

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Tahnan
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Beef Row wrote:
The one place I see mouse control being fairly useful would be one click mimic/decoy placement.

Ooh, hey, that would be nice. Not vital, but awfully helpful.

mrimer
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*STAMP*

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Ezlo
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Yay! Happiness!

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Briareos
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Beef Row wrote:
The one place I see mouse control being fairly useful would be one click mimic/decoy placement.

I wonder if that'd conflict with Amazon's One-Click(TM) patent...

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NiroZ
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mrimer wrote:
*STAMP*

I too felt the happyness, untill i looked at the time posted

mrimer
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Naw, I'm quite serious. I posted on March 31. And that's no lie.

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coppro
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*Jumps for joy, realizing that DROD now has fully redundant control*

Stefan
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Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted Mike's *STAMP* as only belonging to the one click mimic/decoy placement feature request and not to full mouse control (which, IMO, is completely and utterly useless (it's too slow and possibly very inaccurate, not to mention clumsy)).

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Ezlo
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That's how I interpreted it as well. Could it be thought of any differently?

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Oneiromancer
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To be clear, yes, Mike was only referring to placing mimics/decoys with the mouse.

Game on,

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NiroZ
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well with the mouse thing, im wondering how effective it would be if:

when you hit left-click during the game, bethro becomes attached to your cursor, and the scroll wheel up is to move the sword clockwise, down is anti-clockwise. Right click is undo move and left click gets you out of this mode.

In the options, you could tweak the response time of the mouse in relation to bethro, and how long it takes to accept commands again to move.

In order to stay compadable with inbuild laptop mouses, the keyboard would still be active.

This would be good if you have an old keyboard with tough keys or are just feeling lazy.

Any good?

Chaco
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Some people, ya know, don't have scroll wheels. Or even two-button mice. We want to be considerate to those people who spent money on our game rather than a mouse, don't we?

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Maurog
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But what about the poor people who can't even afford a keyboard?

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stigant
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But what about the poor people who can't even afford a keyboard?

Well, if its that much of a problem for them, surely they'll log onto the forum and comoplain about it.

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AlefBet
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I agree with the scroll wheel concern. My mouse actually has both a horizontal scroll and a vertical scroll, but neither work under Linux and I'd rather software didn't depend on them. But the concern about one-button mice I can't get behind at all. Whatever workaround Apple has been using for their insistence on "interface purity" can be used here too.

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Syntax
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Maurog wrote:
But what about the poor people who can't even afford a keyboard?

I second that... And what about those without DROD? Or without a house? Or without that collection of useless nicknacks on the third shelf down of the shelving unit in the main corridor leading to the bedroom?