Goblin Squad Member
|
It took me a while to get used to it, but I love my Nostromo. When I play, I have my left hand on my Nostromo and my right-hand on my mouse. I use the mouse mostly to look around, but also to move by either holding both buttons to move forward, or holding down the right button and using the Direction Pad on my Nostromo to strafe right or left.
One of the consistent problems I have with MMOs is getting new abilities over time, and not having room for them on my hotbar. Then I have to rearrange my abilities and it's just frustrating because I'm still hitting the key that used to activate the ability before I moved it.
What I'd really like to be able to do is map keys directly to abilities, without even having to have those abilities on the hotbar. And the only way I can think of to do that efficiently is to use the style of keybinding that Emacs and Visual Studio offer, where I can map key combinations to particular abilities.
Chords are simply combinations of keystrokes in sequence, such as:
- '1'
- '2' followed by '1'
- 'Alt-H' followed by '1' followed by 'Alt-Shift-Ctrl-7' followed by '2'
This kind of system would easily support the MMO standards most people are used to, but would also give people like me a powerful organizing tool. Not only would I be able to free up the valuable real estate gobbled up by stacking 5 or 6 hotbars, I could also add new abilities much more easily into existing paradigms.
For example, assume I have the following spells:
- 'Alt-3' + '1' = Cure Light Wounds
- 'Alt-3' + '2' = Cure Moderate Wounds
- 'Alt-3' + '3' = Cure Serious Wounds
Now, I can easily add:
- 'Alt-3' + '4' = Cure Critical Wounds
If I was forced to put my abilities on my hotbars, I might have accidentally put something else right after Cure Serious Wounds because I didn't know I was going to get Cure Critical Wounds later, and I'd be forced to rearrange my bar to keep a reasonable level of organization.
PS - Please refrain from pointing out how stupid I would be for not knowing that I'd be getting Cure Critical Wounds. This is just a hypothetical example I'm using to illustrate what I'm asking for. Thanks.
I have to agree. While I don't regularly make use of technological tools to assist me in on-line gaming, this idea make sense and warrants further discussion.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Another thought on UI mechanics, more by way of a cautionary tale than anything else.
As mentioned, I use my mouse mostly to look and move. I also map Up-Arrow to auto-run, which means I'm almost always auto-running and using my mouse and direction-pad to steer.
When I press and hold both mouse buttons in most MMOs, I move forward. If I'm auto-running, that gets turned off, so that when I stop moving forward with the mouse buttons, I stop moving forward period.
One of the most frustrating things for me about playing LOTRO is that they got this wrong. In LOTRO, when I'm auto-running and then press both mouse buttons to take over manually, I have to then release both mouse buttons before I stop auto-running. It simply doesn't make sense to me that I should be able to continue auto-running while only holding down the right mouse button, and then stop auto-running as soon as I release the right mouse button.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
AutoHotkey is a wonderful little program.
You can map your Nostromo buttons to various obscure keystrokes or keystroke combos and program autohotkey to respond to those obscure keystroke combos to do a single keystroke, a series of keystrokes, mouseclicks in very specific locations, and even color checks of specific pixels. It comes with an extra window to tell you the pixel number under your mouse cursor.
So for example you can program autohotkey to check every 5 seconds the color of a pixel at about 50% down your health bar, and if it isn't the color you specify it should be, then it will trigger a key combination or sequence that will do the appropriate healing.
I mostly use my G11 keyboard for combos or short sequences, but I understand Nostromo is a bit different in how you can program it, and it sounds like autohotkey is perfect for bridging that gap in the way you're asking. Bit of a learning curve, but it's actually not that hard to learn.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
@Blaeringr, thanks for the advice. It looks like the emacs-key-sequence.ahk library is exactly what I'm looking for.
Much appreciated.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Good reference page for AHK: AHK alphabetical list of commands
Best part is that you can share your scripts with friends.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ryan or Vic, is there any chance y'all will ban use of AutoHotKey? I'd hate to get hooked on it and then find out I can't use it, and I'm not going to use it if y'all don't want me to.
From what I can tell, Blizzard hasn't banned it, as long as you don't use it to break their rules.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ryan or Vic, is there any chance y'all will ban use of AutoHotKey? I'd hate to get hooked on it and then find out I can't use it, and I'm not going to use it if y'all don't want me to.
From what I can tell, Blizzard hasn't banned it, as long as you don't use it to break their rules.
I highly doubt the use of client side programs can/should be banned, unless they are being over the top used (IE being used to bot). The act of automating a character to do things without user interaction (which autohotkey is technically capable of). Personally IMO the act of using AHK shouldn't be illegal, but botting activity should. I'm at least hoping that GW is capable of detecting or allowing the users to detect uses for botting without attempting to go after programs with legitimate uses. (much in the way that it isn't illegal to own a hammer just because it can be used into a car)