PC When did you learn to ride your FPS

[bobrpggamer]

For me it was DOOM. I was using the arrow keys at first because it was intuitive, but the mouse movement was difficult this way. Then a guy who had Quake told me a about using ASDW and it took a while to train myself, but once I did every FPS has been just like riding a bicycle, no matter how long its been since I played one.

 

[ElDudorino]

I mean, why would you even use mouse movement in DOOM?  The game was made for the keyboard and there was no vertical aiming.

I think I might have learned mouse aiming from Magic Carpet, but didn't make use of it in traditional FPS games until Unreal came out.  I didn't get into Quake 2 like a lot of people did so I was late to the party on vertical aiming.

 

[bobrpggamer]

I mean, why would you even use mouse movement in DOOM?  The game was made for the keyboard and there was no vertical aiming.

I think I might have learned mouse aiming from Magic Carpet, but didn't make use of it in traditional FPS games until Unreal came out.  I didn't get into Quake 2 like a lot of people did so I was late to the party on vertical aiming.

If I remember correctly, ASDW to move and Mouse to shoot, I remember circle strafing being the main reason for this but that would require keyboard and mouse.

It was not until Quake II that you got full on free look, but by the time that came around I had it down pat. Except being a player of flight sims before FPS I have to and still invert the mouse. The movement of the joystick for the elevator in planes was the same as a real plane which is the opposite of UN-inverted mouse look . A guy told me to train that for but the options in game always allowed it.

 

[Maharin]

You could use space to shoot, if I remember correctly.

 

[bobrpggamer]

You could use space to shoot, if I remember correctly.

I am sure that is correct, but the mouse and keyboard have been my way to play FPS. I also played Ultima Underworld with mouse and keyboard as well as Dungeon Master on Amiga, its just more intuitive to me.

Can anyone say they play 7 Days To Die with just the keyboard or is it just ASDW and Mouse. Maybe you played Half Life, Unreal or Quake 2 with just the keyboard. This is a general PC gaming thing since the first FPS with freelook.

Or I guess better said, whats the first FPS you played with ASDW and a Mouse?

 

[Data]

i used arrow keys for when i played BF3 and 4, it was easier for me to use my kb keypad on the right to select different weapons etc, as they were closer, as in e.g. 0 was my melee, 1 2 3 main weapons 4 chuck grenade 5 heal or ammo pack

was a lot easier to me back then

 

[hiemfire]

Wolfenstein 3d. Sort of. Left and right arrow turned the pc as did the mouse, a and d were strafe/sidestep, w/up and s/down were forwards and backwards iirc. Started out just using the arrow keys at first then WASD and left and right arrows. Didn't transition to using the mouse for turning the pc till Doom 2, though even then it didn't become ingrained until FPSs started allowing use of the mouse to make selections in the game menus. Originally they were set up to only respond to keyboard input (arrow keys and enter or esc, rarely space) for selections.

 

[Riamus]

I couldn't tell you what game was first with mouse and keyboard combo for me, but it would have been in the 90s.  I did stick to arrow keys quite a while after most people were using WASD.  It took me a while to accept that it was better with WASD.  Habits, you know.

 

[Vampirenostra]

quake 2 was the first mouse guided game for me.

but start playing long before that with Wolfensetein 3D, Doom 2 Hell on Earth and all the rest.

became a good fpser and a killing machine playing CS betas (0.XX) when it was just a mod for HL. Also liked SystemShock and SS2 as a mix of fps and rpg.

hell there were so many games, I can't even recall a half of them.

 

[Orclover]

Bout 93 We were using just keyboard and playing Shareware doom on our 486's and having a ball.  One day I was on campus using a mouse AND keyboard doing 4 player and he was just MOPPING the floor with these other guys over and over.  I went home and immediately started training myself to use the mouse with keyboard and my K/D ratio improved once I got used to it.  Jump ahead a few years or maybe a decade and I was playing facing worlds (unreal Tourny, think we called it 2 towers at the time)) with my homies and i'm just killing them.  I didnt notice but they got sick of losing and they all joined 1 team vs me, 4 on 1 and I was just beating the snot out of them.  They never really adapted to M/K combo very well for some reason.

Old man now, ache's and pains everywhere, still got my caffeinated twitch reflexes though so I got that going for me and can play the hell out of 7d2D.

 

[Crater Creator]

In the parallel universe that is Mac gaming, we played Marathon. That was my introduction to first person shooters. Technically it was much like Doom and other 2.5D engines, but it faked a look up/down function. D to look up, C to look down, and V to center view. Kind of awkward, but you do that for a hundred hours and you get used to it.

So that was how I played shooters for years afterwards. One highlight was a LAN party in the computer programming lab, playing Unreal Tournament (1999). Keep in mind keyboard-only was the only way I could play at that time - it was all I’d ever known. I did my best, but the other boys kept besting me using the newer WASD and mouse look technique. That is, until we played a sniper rifles only match.

Well, the thing about a center view key, at least on simple, mostly flat maps is, it sets your altitude at 0°, dead ahead. Which is exactly at the height of the other guy’s head. My previously lackluster keyboard-only technique paid off as I scored headshot after headshot. I leapt ahead and won the match, to the surprise of many.

The last game where I clung to my awkward d-c-v setup was Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002). After that I bit the bullet and adapted to WASD like everyone else.

 

[Riamus]

In the parallel universe that is Mac gaming, we played Marathon. That was my introduction to first person shooters. Technically it was much like Doom and other 2.5D engines, but it faked a look up/down function. D to look up, C to look down, and V to center view. Kind of awkward, but you do that for a hundred hours and you get used to it.

So that was how I played shooters for years afterwards. One highlight was a LAN party in the computer programming lab, playing Unreal Tournament (1999). Keep in mind keyboard-only was the only way I could play at that time - it was all I’d ever known. I did my best, but the other boys kept besting me using the newer WASD and mouse look technique. That is, until we played a sniper rifles only match.

Well, the thing about a center view key, at least on simple, mostly flat maps is, it sets your altitude at 0°, dead ahead. Which is exactly at the height of the other guy’s head. My previously lackluster keyboard-only technique paid off as I scored headshot after headshot. I leapt ahead and won the match, to the surprise of many.

The last game where I clung to my awkward d-c-v setup was Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002). After that I bit the bullet and adapted to WASD like everyone else.

People play games on Mac?!  I kid, I kid.  Lol!  Granted, my first real computer games (non-console) were played on Apple II.

 

[bobrpggamer]

People play games on Mac?!  I kid, I kid.  Lol!  Granted, my first real computer games (non-console) were played on Apple II.

First mainstream PC with mouse was the MAC. The MAC is a good PC but it lacked the game library that the PC had.

Once Wolfenstein and DOOM came out it was the IBM PC that had all the games. Also about that time, the Amiga and Atari ST was a thing of the past and if you wanted to play FPS like everyone else you had to get a DOS  PC or later Windows 95 PC.

Then the rivalry was between PC gamers and console gamers. The argument the PC gamers would make, was that the mouse and keyboard was far superior to the gamepad the console guys had - I agree with this to this day but I suppose learning to play FPS on a gamepad is just second nature to guys that played Halo on an Xbox.

The idea that someone could line up that crosshairs of you weapon on an enemy as fast as you can with a mouse on a gamepad just does not seem likely to me.

 

[Riamus]

Yep.  Of course, it quest never helped Mac to stick to only one mouse button for so many years.  The second button and then wheel and eventually extra buttons really helped gamers.

My first PC was a 286 with a 20MB (yes, MB) hard drive and DR DOS 5. My first console was an RCA Studio II.