Why WASD? : Gator Byte

Many many moons ago when I first started playing first person shooters on computer, the default controls used the ESDF keys for movement and the mouse for looking and shooting. I quickly got used to doing it that way, but then along came a game that was using WASD for movement instead. Not a real big deal I suppose, same finger patterns and all, but difference is huge for a touch typer.

For those that don’t know, when you type without looking at the keyboard, your left hand rests with the index finger over the F key, the home row keys. This makes ESDF the perfect controls for any game that you need to type in, generally to talk to the other players. It’s more useful in massive online RPGs such as WoW or EverQuest of course. So why then did the industry turn to WASD as a default?! It’s annoying, having to move your hand back and forth between moving and typing messages. At least most games let you re-map the keys to whatever you want.