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With all these impressive advancement in browser technology, it looks like supporting non-qwerty keyboards in games is still a struggle. Or maybe developers are

With all these impressive advancement in browser technology, it looks like supporting non-qwerty keyboards in games is still a struggle. Or maybe developers aren't aware of the problem since no matter how big the game is, something as basic as keyboard controls is sometime completely wrong (at least on azerty keyboards). I don't know much about videogame development, but is it really difficult to somehow detect the user keyboard?

w-ll 12y ago
I don't believe you can actually identify what the keyboard layout is in a browser. But I agree, key bindings should be configurable. Im an old ESDF quake player.
- frik 12y ago
  PC games like Unreal, Half-Life 1 and Quake 3 made the WASD a defacto standard. With a minor difference that HL1 used the Ctrl for crouch, the others mapped it to C. To this day many games use the HL1 or Unreal (as default) key mapping. Interesting that many DOS era racing games don't use the cursor keys for steering (e.g. Grand Prix series), instead some (weird) letter keys, probably due keyboard hardware limitations (not recognising two key strokes next to each other).
  - Argorak 12y ago
    I am a bit surprised that ESDF (used in Tribes 2) hasn't caught on. It gives you more (and more uniform) keys around to use for special functionality.
    - ANTSANTS 12y ago
      On the other hand, it makes it a bit harder to hit shift and ctrl (crouch and run for certain games), which are usually the most important keys after directions and space for jump.
      - clarry 12y ago
        Thankfully good games let us rebind them. I play with ESDF, and if the game needs a separate sprint button, I'm likely to have it in A, where it's as close as it can be. Z is often a good key for crouch. I find these easier to reach than shift & ctrl in the WASD arrangement. And my pinky can still reach ctrl, shift, caps and tab if needed.
jellofiend 12y ago
Time is a finite resource and even more precious for small/indie developers. Maybe they could write something to detect keyboard layouts (though I am not sure they could) or they could do what the other poster suggested and have configurable key layouts. The problem is every second working on something that really matters, to what, <1% of the population is something that you aren't working on that is more important. Not to mention the extra overhead of testing and maintaining that system. It might be a valid gripe with a AAA game dev but complaining about your fairly rare corner case is just picking nits.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  > The problem is every second working on something that really matters, to what, <1% of the population is something that you aren't working on that is more important It's fairly breathtaking chauvinism to assert that keyboard layouts are relevant to less thatn one percent of the population.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Less than one percent of their audience, of course, not less than one percent of all computer users. Is it still chauvinism if the game was only written in English in the first place?
    - TillE 12y ago
      Almost every German gamer (PC games are a big deal here) is willing to play games in English. Almost none of them have QWERTY keyboards.
      - sliverstorm 12y ago
        I guess on the bright side there, to my knowledge Z & Y are not commonly used keys for PC games, and never as a primary key (like WASD). (I gather Germany is mostly QWERTZ)
        12y ago
dkersten 12y ago
Totally agree. As a Colemak user, nothing irritates me more than key bindings that assume qwerty. If games don't either work with the physical keys (scancodes rather than character codes, I guess?), then at least let me rebind the keys, otherwise I can't play the game.
- Tideflat 12y ago
  Maybe you could switch to qwerty while playing the game? Many operating systems have some way of quickly switching layouts for multilingual users.
  - idlewan 12y ago
    Maybe that's not the right solution? Switching to qwerty and back everytime you play the game is a pain, you should only have to configure your controls once.
    - clarry 12y ago
      Also, some gamers multitask. I guess it might be possible to have the layout switch automatically depending on which window is in focus.. but it's a pain in the ass nevertheless. And switching to a layout you don't normally use absolutely sucks for e.g. in-game chat. It's not the right solution, it's a sad workaround. Things get harder still if you need to rebind keys because of the physical arrangement of the keys on your keyboard. In this case, you might have to create a custom layout for each game.. screw that.
      - dkersten 12y ago
        I guess it might be possible to have the layout switch automatically depending on which window is in focus.. Windows does this. Its horrible. It also doesn't remember what window has what layout between sessions, so you have to manually set the layout each time. If the game is a fullscreen game its even more effort because if you alt-tab out, it is no longer the focused window (and therefore changing the layout does NOT apply to the game.. frustrating).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mstange 12y ago
Nightly and Aurora Firefox builds actually support the "code" field on keyboard events, which lets JS know which physical key was pressed on the keyboard. For example, when a Dvorak user presses the key that would be W on a QWERTY layout (for moving forwards in a game), you'll get a keydown event with e.key == "," and e.code == "KeyW". I'd really like to know what the spec status on that is, and whether other browsers implement it.
- ultramancool 12y ago
  Seems like it could be a clever way to solve the issue for players, but probably makes developers on those other keyboards quite miserable.
  - ErikRogneby 12y ago
    a prompt training the game controls could be quite simple... "PRESS THE KEY YOU EXPECT TO BE UP" step 2: "PRESS THE KEY YOU USE FOR FIRE"
    - duskwuff 12y ago
      I've seen some FPSes get the player's preferred control mappings in a really subtle, cool way: ask the player to perform some actions very early in the game (often as part of a "training" sequence), and configure the controls however necessary to make the user's input correct. For instance, in Portal 2, to check whether the player wants inverted controls: http://youtu.be/niE5oiRs7pY?t=45s http://youtu.be/niE5oiRs7pY?t=45s
      - scrollaway 12y ago
        That does sound clever but I don't understand your example; in this case, would moving the mouse either way go the intended direction?
        wingerlang 12y ago
adnzzzzZ 12y ago
It really isn't that hard to add configurable key bindings to a game, just laziness on part of developers.
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  There's no such thing a lazy game developer. Dev time is zero sum. Sometimes devs prioritize incorrectly. It happens. Calling them lazy is itself not just lazy but also ignorant.
  - adnzzzzZ 12y ago
    As a dev myself who has an input system that supports stuff like this I can have the opinion that anyone who doesn't do it is lazy, because it didn't take me that much time at all to get it working. >There's no such thing a lazy game developer. The quality of some indie games out there really point in another direction, but if you wanna argue that these games don't have to uphold to a certain level of quality on the most basic stuff like key rebinding systems then I guess I can't stop you.
    - CmonDev 12y ago
      Just share your games with us and you will get a plenty of useful feedback. It must be one of those multi-million titles - so exciting!
  - babuskov 12y ago
    You're right. Most devs who do not implement this are not lazy. They are ignorant.

w-ll 12y ago

I don't believe you can actually identify what the keyboard layout is in a browser. But I agree, key bindings should be configurable. Im an old ESDF quake player.

frik 12y ago
PC games like Unreal, Half-Life 1 and Quake 3 made the WASD a defacto standard. With a minor difference that HL1 used the Ctrl for crouch, the others mapped it to C. To this day many games use the HL1 or Unreal (as default) key mapping. Interesting that many DOS era racing games don't use the cursor keys for steering (e.g. Grand Prix series), instead some (weird) letter keys, probably due keyboard hardware limitations (not recognising two key strokes next to each other).
- Argorak 12y ago
  I am a bit surprised that ESDF (used in Tribes 2) hasn't caught on. It gives you more (and more uniform) keys around to use for special functionality.
  - ANTSANTS 12y ago
    On the other hand, it makes it a bit harder to hit shift and ctrl (crouch and run for certain games), which are usually the most important keys after directions and space for jump.
    - clarry 12y ago
      Thankfully good games let us rebind them. I play with ESDF, and if the game needs a separate sprint button, I'm likely to have it in A, where it's as close as it can be. Z is often a good key for crouch. I find these easier to reach than shift & ctrl in the WASD arrangement. And my pinky can still reach ctrl, shift, caps and tab if needed.

jellofiend 12y ago

Time is a finite resource and even more precious for small/indie developers. Maybe they could write something to detect keyboard layouts (though I am not sure they could) or they could do what the other poster suggested and have configurable key layouts. The problem is every second working on something that really matters, to what, <1% of the population is something that you aren't working on that is more important. Not to mention the extra overhead of testing and maintaining that system. It might be a valid gripe with a AAA game dev but complaining about your fairly rare corner case is just picking nits.

rodgerd 12y ago
> The problem is every second working on something that really matters, to what, <1% of the population is something that you aren't working on that is more important It's fairly breathtaking chauvinism to assert that keyboard layouts are relevant to less thatn one percent of the population.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Less than one percent of their audience, of course, not less than one percent of all computer users. Is it still chauvinism if the game was only written in English in the first place?
  - TillE 12y ago
    Almost every German gamer (PC games are a big deal here) is willing to play games in English. Almost none of them have QWERTY keyboards.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      I guess on the bright side there, to my knowledge Z & Y are not commonly used keys for PC games, and never as a primary key (like WASD). (I gather Germany is mostly QWERTZ)
      - 12y ago

dkersten 12y ago

Totally agree. As a Colemak user, nothing irritates me more than key bindings that assume qwerty. If games don't either work with the physical keys (scancodes rather than character codes, I guess?), then at least let me rebind the keys, otherwise I can't play the game.

Tideflat 12y ago
Maybe you could switch to qwerty while playing the game? Many operating systems have some way of quickly switching layouts for multilingual users.
- idlewan 12y ago
  Maybe that's not the right solution? Switching to qwerty and back everytime you play the game is a pain, you should only have to configure your controls once.
  - clarry 12y ago
    Also, some gamers multitask. I guess it might be possible to have the layout switch automatically depending on which window is in focus.. but it's a pain in the ass nevertheless. And switching to a layout you don't normally use absolutely sucks for e.g. in-game chat. It's not the right solution, it's a sad workaround. Things get harder still if you need to rebind keys because of the physical arrangement of the keys on your keyboard. In this case, you might have to create a custom layout for each game.. screw that.
    - dkersten 12y ago
      I guess it might be possible to have the layout switch automatically depending on which window is in focus.. Windows does this. Its horrible. It also doesn't remember what window has what layout between sessions, so you have to manually set the layout each time. If the game is a fullscreen game its even more effort because if you alt-tab out, it is no longer the focused window (and therefore changing the layout does NOT apply to the game.. frustrating).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mstange 12y ago

Nightly and Aurora Firefox builds actually support the "code" field on keyboard events, which lets JS know which physical key was pressed on the keyboard. For example, when a Dvorak user presses the key that would be W on a QWERTY layout (for moving forwards in a game), you'll get a keydown event with e.key == "," and e.code == "KeyW". I'd really like to know what the spec status on that is, and whether other browsers implement it.

ultramancool 12y ago
Seems like it could be a clever way to solve the issue for players, but probably makes developers on those other keyboards quite miserable.
- ErikRogneby 12y ago
  a prompt training the game controls could be quite simple... "PRESS THE KEY YOU EXPECT TO BE UP" step 2: "PRESS THE KEY YOU USE FOR FIRE"
  - duskwuff 12y ago
    I've seen some FPSes get the player's preferred control mappings in a really subtle, cool way: ask the player to perform some actions very early in the game (often as part of a "training" sequence), and configure the controls however necessary to make the user's input correct. For instance, in Portal 2, to check whether the player wants inverted controls: http://youtu.be/niE5oiRs7pY?t=45s http://youtu.be/niE5oiRs7pY?t=45s
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      That does sound clever but I don't understand your example; in this case, would moving the mouse either way go the intended direction?
      - wingerlang 12y ago

adnzzzzZ 12y ago

It really isn't that hard to add configurable key bindings to a game, just laziness on part of developers.

forrestthewoods 12y ago
There's no such thing a lazy game developer. Dev time is zero sum. Sometimes devs prioritize incorrectly. It happens. Calling them lazy is itself not just lazy but also ignorant.
- adnzzzzZ 12y ago
  As a dev myself who has an input system that supports stuff like this I can have the opinion that anyone who doesn't do it is lazy, because it didn't take me that much time at all to get it working. >There's no such thing a lazy game developer. The quality of some indie games out there really point in another direction, but if you wanna argue that these games don't have to uphold to a certain level of quality on the most basic stuff like key rebinding systems then I guess I can't stop you.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    Just share your games with us and you will get a plenty of useful feedback. It must be one of those multi-million titles - so exciting!
- babuskov 12y ago
  You're right. Most devs who do not implement this are not lazy. They are ignorant.