The Daily Grind: Do controls make or break an MMO for you?
With all the different options for controls in MMOs, some are devotedly tied to keyboards for movement - either the WASD crowd, the arrow keys, or occasionally the folks who use the numeric keypad. Other players we know who love PvP tend to be heavily mouse-driven, often with macros tied to different buttons on their mouse, able to unleash a devastating string of attacks with just a couple of clicks. In the Western market, we tend to see a combination of controls, offering users their choice. As we play through the Eastern free-to-play titles, we notice a great many that are click-to-move, offering limited keyboard/remapping support.
This of course started discussion on our end. Some of the team are dedicated keyboard fans, and really dislike playing click-to-move only type games. Others are very used to using their mice and the idea of being required to use keyboard for movement seems clunky and slow. What we thought we'd ask today is this - if you found a game you were interested in playing, but it locked you into a control for movement that you didn't like (such as click-to-move, or WASD only if you're an arrow-key fan) would it cause you to put down the game? Or would you try to get used to a completely foreign set of control/movement keys? Do control options (or the lack thereof if you can't change your keymap) make or break an MMO for you?
