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Posts with tag mouse

The fastest way to play Arena PvP

We've covered the topic of keyboard turners before, but Paul over on LJ has a similar distinction between control schemes -- he set up a spectrum that has clickers (or those who click all their icons with the mouse) on one end, and pressers (what he called "experts," though that's a little too biased for our tastes) on the other -- those who use the mouse to control movement only, and hit keyboard buttons to use abilities.

Personally, I do a mixture of both -- some icons, especially on the top rows, are easier to reach with the mouse than on the keyboard, so I click them. But most of the lower icons are easier to just reach up and click the number buttons on the keyboard, so that's what I do with those. Still Paul isn't really interested in the ways people do it -- he's interested in what's best. In Arena, getting abilities cast and out as fast as possible is often more important than anything else, so it definitely seems like relying on the mouse for movement (and maybe even binding oft-used abilities to mouse keys) would be much faster than clicking on icons periodically. Of course, there's always the option to do both at the same time.

It would be interesting for sure to see what kind of schemes and setups winning Arena teams use -- I'd imagine that they'd have to play with default interfaces, so while keybindings and macros would probably work best, they wouldn't be able to go too overboard with customization. At the highest levels, is it faster to click and press or just use the mouse for movement?

Avast! update causing issues with WoW

Avast! anti-virus, which is used by millions of people around the world, recently upgraded to version 4.8. Unfortunately, it seems that this upgrade has caused many WoW players to have a drastically lower play experience.

The most common symptom is severe keystroke lag while playing the World of Warcraft. Mouse actions also seem to be affected by this. Delays as low as a second and as high as five seconds between keystroke and the game receiving that action have been reported. Supposedly, running WoW in windowed mode fixes this, but your mileage may vary.

Continue reading Avast! update causing issues with WoW

Playing with your mouse

Lots of us purchase these nifty mice from the local computer store. Be they a fancy new Logitech mouse with a dozen keys placed strategically around the unit, or a slick new beauty from Apple, the mouse is a strategic part of your game play.

At least, it should be.

All too often people don't utilize what they have in front of them. Today we're going to look at how you can increase your game play by using your mouse more effectively. In particular, the buttons.

However before we look into buttoning strategies, lets just quickly cover moving with the mouse. It's pretty simple, right? Push both buttons down, move forward. Right click and hold to turn your character. Left click and hold to look around without moving. Mike Schramm covered this in a post about a month and a half back, and it's a pretty good read for those interested more in the topic of mouse moving.

So now that that's out of the way, let's look at basic mouse buttoning techniques. I own two Logitech MX5000 cordless optical mice. They work very well and have a battery life of a couple days; but even then I recharge them both every night just so I don't have disaster strike me in the middle of a raid when the battery goes out.

Continue reading Playing with your mouse

The Art of War(craft): Motion Theory Part I


I was looking through some of the career (class) descriptions over at Warhammer Online, EA Mythic's much-anticipated MMORPG which touts a rich PvP experience as one of its selling points, and happened to go over their description of the combat system. Listening to one of their amusing podcasts, I got the impression that some careers (classes) move faster than others. This struck me as odd, if only because I've grown accustomed to something we take for granted in World of Warcraft. In WoW, all classes and races move at the same speed. With the exception of enchants, spells, or talents, all characters move at exactly the same pace. Size changes that perception somewhat, with Tauren seeming to move at a plodding step and Gnomes waltzing around like Oompa-loompas hopped up on too much caffeine.

The martial arts is all about speed, about movement where there needs to be movement. More importantly, it is about freedom of movement. Speed is essential, but it can also be arbitrary because there are so many factors that affect it. Latency, computer power... all these things contribute to one's speed or reaction time -- or more accurately, how that reaction time translates into action within the game. That's another matter altogether. What we're going to look at today is movement. How we move, how fast we move, and how we can move better. When fighting a computer-controlled mob, with the exception of scripted events or certain boss phases, there is very little urgency to move. It's easy to kill most mobs by standing still and just attacking or casting spells. PvP, on the other hand, is all about movement. Standing still is tantamount to certain death.

Continue reading The Art of War(craft): Motion Theory Part I

Turning keyboard turners around

Zg thinks, quite unreasonably, that 99% of players in the game are "keyboard turners"-- people who use the keyboard to turn their characters rather than holding down the right mouse button and moving the camera to turn. It's hardly anywhere near 99%, but given that WoW is a game that attracts casual players (a.k.a. people who aren't experienced videogame players), I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people in Azeroth than in, say, Counter-Strike, who use the keyboard to do most of their navigating.

Personally, I'm one of those that come from a CS background, and so I use the mouse for pretty much all movement whenever possible-- I'll often just hold down both mouse buttons if I need to run for a short distance (and anything longer gets the run lock key from me). I also think that circle strafing is pretty much the best game mechanic ever made, but I know that there are those who disagree with me-- back when I worked at Gamestop, one of our employees there just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that he should turn and move at the same time, and as a result just got dominated in our Halo matches.

But habits are a powerful thing, and so keyboard turning is probably around to stay. I won't go so far as to say that fast-turning with a mouse is required to be a good player, but certainly that kind of reflex is required to be a really great player. So keyboard turners, pick up that mouse and start looking around-- you'll thank me later.

To click or not to click?

Flipping through the forums I came across a post by Taithleech where he was asking why everyone seems to think clicking is bad. It's only been recently that I knew about this debate, but I can't really call it a debate if it's one sided, can I? A lot of players seem to believe that using keybindings is the only way to play. When I started playing World of Warcraft I was actually taught by a friend to use the mouse to click on my spells as a way of improving my speed in the game. Since hearing about the keybinding argument I have recently tried using them more than my mouse in instances, and I do find that my speed has greatly improved. Now, being the frost mage I find I spend a lot of time spamming Frostbolt, so that's a situation where I don't think clicking the spell with my mouse hinders me in any way. There are even fights, such as Warlord Kalithresh, where I use a combination of keyboard and mouse to maximize my speed.

Many of the posts on the forum thread made reference to something I hadn't considered. They say that in order to play WoW properly, you need to approach it like an FPS. I guess this argument is particularly valid if you spend a lot of time in the arenas. I personally have little FPS experience, and so this viewpoint makes me a bit uneasy. I see the advantage of working your keyboard to its full advantage, but I'm just not sure I've got the reflexes to play like that. In the end I will have to agree with one poster who said that clicking isn't wrong, it's just slower. Where do you side on the keybindings/clicking debate?


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