Player movement....

[minetus]

and besides you can mod your game pad to bind the keys for walking (and actions) while mouse movement isnt has good for it

altho game pad isnt the best for planeshift due to the chating around, but i used this system before in other games

[LARAGORN]

and besides you can mod your game pad to bind the keys for walking (and actions) while mouse movement isnt has good for it

altho game pad isnt the best for planeshift due to the chating around, but i used this system before in other games

There is also "mouse to Joystick" programs. If you have a flight sim type joystick, you can have all functions other than chat on 1 device. I havent been able to get it just right yet though.

I do find the controls a little difficult, espescialy in the DR. I see people fly by me going up the spirale ledges, when i try that i find myself falling 
I dont know if it is my keyboard but, I can rearly target my guy to go straight. I am always going in a zig zag pattern. the turn rotation never stops where i want it to, it is either too much or too little. 

[minetus]

yes i know but mouse movement isnt very good for gamepads or joystick anyway, im not counting flightsimulators tho since theyr are a completly diferent playing style that you find in rpg/action games

[DaveG]

Yeah, strafing sucks, but that has nothing to do with the movement system.  The anim is just so slow, that the speed had to be lowered to match it.  We don't have any speed-anim syncing.  (we'll have to overhaul that thing sometime)

If you're on an azerty or dvorak, you can just change the keys to match WADS, but with whatever keys are there. 

You can move forward, left, strafe, and jump at once if you want now.  When I rewrote the controls and movement stuffs, I fixed many bugs, but it's basically the same scheme as before.  It just actually works now.  (only things I really added were the sneak mode and ability to show the strafe anim, not that many races have the anims)  For people who have used both this and the old system, I usually hear that it's easier to use and more fluid, and you don't get stuck in crap as easily...

I think we can sum up this thread as follows:
* We use WADS for movement, primarily, and for those who use keyboard movement it's quite decent.
* For those people who don't use their keyboard much, our mouse-based stuff isn't very good.  It works, but you have to cusomize the controls first, and it's missing many fancier features.

Personally, I find it very odd that someone would avoid using their keyboard this much.  It could be just that I've been using computers longer; half the people here can barely type.  :/  I still object to using RE as a comparison.  I find that personally offensive, and in RE you can't really turn while moving, while you can just fine here.  (1st person mode is a different story, but that's really in there for people who use the mouse to turn with)

About camera-bound movement:  There are camera modes where the camera is bount to the movement.  What he wants is where you can move the camera wherever, and pressing keys moves in that direction regardless of where the character is currently facing.  With a manual camera this is possible to be useful, however it becomes cumbersome.  With any vagely automatic camera, it's a good way to totally negate the ability to play a game.  Ex: Run forward, camera switchs modes to oposite direction, you run in that direction, hits the same boundary, flips again, repeat quickly, and now you're having a seizure.

Side topics:
I love the so-called "natural" keyboard layout.  I have it on my desktop (though I use my laptop most of the time).  It does take a while to learn, but once you do it's quite nice and easier to type with.  Defintiely a matter of opinion, though.

It's obviously easy to detect the screen ratio, but we just don't and don't have anything to deal with it.  It'd have to not stretch the widgets incorrectly, and position them in relative locations.  The simplest thing to do, I guess, is just make them not stretch and place them in the same spots.  (so there's be nothing on the right side, for example)  Then it would just require that the user moves stuff where they want it, and it would save it thereafter.  (there's already stuff that would force it back on screen, if the resolution was lowered)

Edited to add:
About the mouse sensitivity:  Yes, others have complained that the settings in the options can't go high enough.  I should probably just bump up the maximums there.

[thedevilsjester]

I dont strafe in games where I can fall off of a ledge and die or agro enemies I have no hope of surviving.  I only see strafing as a usefull movement tool in FPS games where most of the time falls dont equal death, and enemies dont stand arround in randomly placed groups in the middle of the world, and one man with a gun CAN take on the world.  In a MMORPG, where moving too close to a group of enemies that you cant kill yet will result in instant death, and cliffs that do the same, strafing isnt that usefull of a tool for movement.

Although someone mentioned that RE doesnt have the ability to really walk and turn at the same time, for the most part PS doesnt either.  Sure you can walk and turn in general directions, but (for example), in the area you are in when you die, after you go up the bridge, when you need to take a 90 degree turn to the left and up the cliff side (and then SLOWLY walk arround the path leading up), you have to pretty much come to a dead stop to turn in the right direction or risk falling off of the ledge.  Where as in say EQ2 I can run at full speed past and up very similar structures without any worry about falling.  Now I am sure that someone with lots of experiance with the PS style of control might be able to make that turn at full speed also, that is not the point, new users to the engine are not going to instantly be familar with a system that takes a good deal of time and practice just to prevent yourself from falling off a cliff, when they can load any other mmorpg and feel right at home with the standardized control schemes.

As for screen ratio, non 3d images should _NEVER_ be based purely on a percentage of the screen, thats just pure laziness on the devs part.  Seriously, I design plenty of OpenGL and (formerly) Direct3d based applications, and not once have I ever written a program that couldnt go to any possible ratio without stretching the 2d portions. 

Its as simple as

float SinglePixelX = (1.0f / width);
float SinglePixelY = (1.0f / height);
....
glVertex2f(SinglePixelX*X_Placement, SinglePixelY*Y_Placement);
....
etc.....

Although the above is just an incomplete example, I am sure developers who can manage such a complicated game system can understand simple mathmatics.

In their defence, maybe none of the devs ever tested on a non 4:3 screen, but since the majority of laptops, and most of the newer PCs are being equiped with a non standard ratio, its not something they should ignore.

Personally, I find it very odd that someone would avoid using their keyboard this much.  It could be just that I've been using computers longer; half the people here can barely type.

On the contrary, I use my keyboard often, I write code for atleast 4 hours a day (much more on weekends) for many, many years.  Plus numerous other projects (stories, poems, website designs, posting on forums, etc...) that after so much keyboard interaction its quite nice to just sit back with a wireless mouse and sip coffee while relaxing in a game.

[DaveG]

You're beeing a little overly harsh here.  We're not lazy, we've just never needed these things.  Very few people have widescreens, and it's just never something that's come up.  The stuff is scaled to match the resolution, and it just needs extra logic to notice ratios.  It's just not done yet.

We all make this in our spare time.  We have around a dozen programmers, and only a few at any one time are doing anything, and even then it's usually on the weekend.

With the controls, you're really the first person to think this is as bad as you say it is.  Everyone else just uses it and it works.  Most people can use WADS without much of an issue.  And with the finer control things, that's one of the reasons the sneak mode was added.

My main issue with your posts is the vagueness of it.  You're just saying stuff is bad and you can't use it, but without any real suggestions on how to fix the things you're complaining about.  Yes, we don't have the mouse stuff, but unless you feel like writing it we just don't for now.

[neko kyouran]

"Sure you can walk and turn in general directions, but (for example), in the area you are in when you die, after you go up the bridge, when you need to take a 90 degree turn to the left and up the cliff side (and then SLOWLY walk arround the path leading up), you have to pretty much come to a dead stop to turn in the right direction or risk falling off of the ledge."

I'd like to see you run as fast as you can in RL and make a 90 degree turn without having to slow down.     I see the movement the way it is now quite nice, save for the slow turning with the mouse, but again, thats already been discussed.

[thedevilsjester]

"Sure you can walk and turn in general directions, but (for example), in the area you are in when you die, after you go up the bridge, when you need to take a 90 degree turn to the left and up the cliff side (and then SLOWLY walk arround the path leading up), you have to pretty much come to a dead stop to turn in the right direction or risk falling off of the ledge."

I'd like to see you run as fast as you can in RL and make a 90 degree turn without having to slow down.     I see the movement the way it is now quite nice, save for the slow turning with the mouse, but again, thats already been discussed.

First, we play games to ESCAPE real life.  I would like to see you cast magic, or do many of the other things that you can do in MMORPGs including PS in real life, but you know its not gonna happen.

My main issue with your posts is the vagueness of it.  You're just saying stuff is bad and you can't use it, but without any real suggestions on how to fix the things you're complaining about.  Yes, we don't have the mouse stuff, but unless you feel like writing it we just don't for now.

I keep getting that "You complain but dont offer solutions" argument here, which must mean you dont actually read my post all the way through because I have made MANY suggestions for improvement.

Not many people have widescreens? Are you joking?  I havent physically seen a laptop in years that didnt have a non 4:3 ratio (they are not always 'wide' but they are rarely 4:3), and atleast 30% of the people I know with desktop PCs have widescreens, and I know alot of people.  Hell, widescreens are so popular now that even my place of work (most definitly not a computer orientated company), just upgraded ALL of their PCs with widescreens.

Yes, I understand all to well that there are alot of things to do, and not everything is a priority, and many coders are contributors that do it during their spare time, I work on projects the same way.  You missunderstand my post, I dont demand that they be fixed or changed right now, I didnt say anything of the sort, I simply gave my view on the subject, hoping that the developers would take this into account and work on it when they can get to it.  If everyone just ignored the problem (any problem), instead of voicing their opinion, you would end up with a pile of junk rather than a useable engine.  Isnt that what community projects are about? 

In the few months I have played my most recent MMORPG (EQ2) I have seen many drastic game changes (all of them, in my opinion, a really good step in the right direction).  How would any of these changes have come about if the players hadnt spoken up?  Well I am speaking up, the movement system is lacking and could use a good workover.

With the controls, you're really the first person to think this is as bad as you say it is.

Might this be simply because of the harsh response you seem to give (case in point) if someone disagrees with the way something works?  Hmm?  Just a little?  Might the people who dislike it just give up on it and not even bother to sign up and post on the forum? (I know a few of these personally, they like the engine, dont like the movement, but feel its pointless to sign up to a forum and complain, ) Knowing its usually a pointless waste of bandwidth because more often then not, devotees and the developers tend to act in the same manner that some of you in this post have?  Now this forum hasnt been nearly as bad with their response as I have seen in other communities, but it certainly isnt welcoming input and ideas.

BTW I just showed the game to my brother-in-law about two hours ago, I didnt tell him anything bad about it, didnt mention movement AT ALL, I told him only good about the engine, showed him all the interesting details in character creation, and the nice visuals the game offers, and went through lists of skills and such that will be available in the game, and told him that he should check it out, and the first thing he noticed watching me play was how it controled.  He didnt like it at all.  I told him, however, that as a beta, a work in progress, that the developers would fix things like that when they get the chance.  I hope I am not wrong.

[zorbels]

I told him, however, that as a beta, a work in progress, that the developers would fix things like that when they get the chance.  I hope I am not wrong.

Alpha. Yes, it is a work in progress. The developers do this as a hobbie, and spend their free time on it when they can. You can find all the answers you seek at the planeshift main wedsite if you are unsure of things.

[DaveG]

You started off by saying the movement system is horrible, talked about other games, and pointing out that you want some mouse movement stuff.  What I'm saying, is that our controls are just standard keyboard based, which you simply don't know how to use that well, and we just don't have the mouse stuff you're talking about.

And no, not that many people have widescreens.  You may be a bit biased if your company has that kind of cash.  Only reason I have a computer that can even run PS is because I won it in a contest...  With respect to most people, meaning the average person and not the one with money to burn, widescreens are quite uncommon.

[thedevilsjester]

You started off by saying the movement system is horrible, talked about other games, and pointing out that you want some mouse movement stuff.  What I'm saying, is that our controls are just standard keyboard based, which you simply don't know how to use that well, and we just don't have the mouse stuff you're talking about.

And no, not that many people have widescreens.  You may be a bit biased if your company has that kind of cash.  Only reason I have a computer that can even run PS is because I won it in a contest...  With respect to most people, meaning the average person and not the one with money to burn, widescreens are quite uncommon.

I think you are underestimating the average computer.  The company I work for barely makes a profit, but replaced their old outdated montiors with new ones.  The people that live arround me are very low level wages (not much higher than minimum wage), and are not computer literate in the lowest sense (southern missouri rednecks), yet many of them have widescreens, and practically all of the newer laptops come with widescreens.  Most 3d games I have purchased in the past 5+ years have support for widescreen ratios, its not difficult, its not new, hell early Black & White macs and pcs (15 years ago) had tall "document size" monitors that were not 4:3.  Lack of support for such features is simply lack of foresight and something _VERY_EASY_ to fix.  Simply, as I said, replace your static percentage variables in your vector calculations, with dynamic ones based on the screen ratio, the simple math 1/screensize can give you this value, its not rocket science. I know much more about how many people have non standard ratios because I had to scour the net far and wide when I originally bought mine, to figureout how to get my OS to use the proper ratio, because like PS, the developers didnt seem to have many of the non standard arround to test on.  This has since been fixed in the OS (for the most part), but PS still suffers from it.  Although I am sure with time it will be fixed, its really basic math.

Instead of using a width of 32, for instance, use a width of ((1/width)*32), I usually hold 1/width and 1/height in a variable thats set at the same time the screen resolution is set so that I dont have to add that (albiet minor) performance hit everytime a new vector is calculated, I can simply go PixelWidth*32, and when the resolution is changed, I simply recalculate the PixelWidth variable and everything automagically fixes itself.

As for a PC that can run PS, hell $250 at tigerdirect or tech4less, etc... can get you a PC that can play it twice over (tigerdirect just had a refurbished AMD 64bit 4800+ DualCore system for $480 and thats extremely top of the line, that could run PS four times over without breaking a sweat), just because you live with (or lived with) outdated technology doesnt mean the whole world follows suite.  And something you KEEP overlooking is laptops, a good 90% or more of the laptops in the past few years all come with nonstandard ratios, they are not all wide, but they are not 4:3 either (and many many of them are quite capable of playing PS without a hitch) 

As for your movement being standard, thats just it, ITS NOT STANDARD.  Thats the point.  Sure you may use standard key assignments, but that doesnt make the movement system standard by any means.  I have played many MMORPGs, all of which, for the most part, follow the standard, PS does not.

[hook]

I have better things to do IRL (study for 5 exams!!) then post here, so I'll make it short:

I own a widescreen laptop. Also I work at Cyberpipe - a place that's amongst others a free cybercafe and offering free workshops presentations etc. about FOSS. What I see there are a lot of diverse laptop owners and I'd say a very good third has a widescreen. Also I'm surrounded there with a lot of desktops (and servers) and well ...none of those there has a widescreen. So, if I'd to count all the computers (not counting servers and projectors), I'd have to say there's around 15-20% those which are widescreen.

I'll say it again as I have numerous times before - I like PlaneShift because it's not like other MMORPGs. I positevly despise the movement in FinalFantasy and when playing Neverwinter Nights I probably use keyboard movement more often then the point'n'click one.

I like strafing for two reasons:
 - it offers me more flexibility in my role-playing (like shuffling towards somebody that's close to you or away)
 - it offers me more flexibility in movement - sliding along cliffs, walls, etc; moving diagonally

Mouselook is something that needs to be amended sometime, but since PlaneShift is still alpha, I'm sure a lot of things have higher priority then that. But seing you know your way around programming - why don't you post a bug or even a patch to the bugreport system? The source's open and you seem to know how it should be done - I'm no coder, but from what I see it'd be easier to post a patch for you then waste days arguing about it in this thread. And not only would you keep your own nerves calmer, you'd also make other widescreen owners happier.

p.s. are we officially already alpha? I know MB was pre-alpha..

[thedevilsjester]

Posting a patch would be a useless waste of time if the coders dont consider the thing broke.  If I posted a patch to 'fix' something they think works fine already, or a patch that added or changed something that they dont want messed with, such as movement and screen ratio, then that would be a huge waste of my time.  And as you said, you dont know much about coding, its not as simple as 'patching whats broken', I would have to spend hours trying to set up a proper development enviroment (all the proper versions of the proper libs and utilites that they compile with, the same compiler they use, etc...), attempt to get PS client and server compiled (which as their own news posts say "The sources package was giving some issues"), and then try and figureout their coding style, their rules, their formats, and then attempt to fix something that they havent really agreed is broken. I could always, of course, write up a untested patch, but there are always tiny things that you didnt account for that need tweeking and such.  If I didnt have so many other projects at the moment (one of which, oddly enough, is a mmorpg), I would be glad to help, assuming of course, that I agreed with the licence (havent read it really).

As far as PS not being like other MMORPGs, from the looks of it, besides movement, its almost identical to EQ2 (a comment which my brother-in-law made the other day), which isnt bad by any means.

As far as your post about widescreens, its all area dependent, just like HD TV's, statistics say %23 of homes in the USA have HD TV's, and they are a hot seller, yet I have never seen a house with one in it, they just dont sell arround here, where as with widescreens, you goto Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart and thats almost all they offer anymore in this area.  If you goto pretty much any online PC store (I use tigerdirect.com) and look at all of their laptops, ATLEAST 75% have non 4:3, they are NOT all widescreen, but they most are not 4:3, thats the point, it doesnt have to be a widescreen to have a non 4:3 ratio. 

And the game is still listed as prealpha on sourceforge, I use the term beta (somewhat inaccurately) to apply to all pre release state projects.

[hook]

I would have to spend hours trying to set up a proper development enviroment (all the proper versions of the proper libs and utilites that they compile with, the same compiler they use, etc...), attempt to get PS client and server compiled (which as their own news posts say "The sources package was giving some issues"),

hehe ...that I don't code much, doesn't mean I haven't compiled PS before - I know how much trouble it is. You can find out which nightly or daily CVS/SVN tarballs you need and all that, though. If I remember correctly it's listed now somewhere which taballs of the deps and PS work together. It's still a pity the (non-CVS/SVN) source releases of all this packages are too scarce.

and then try and figureout their coding style, their rules, their formats, and then attempt to fix something that they havent really agreed is broken. I could always, of course, write up a untested patch, but there are always tiny things that you didnt account for that need tweeking and such.  If I didnt have so many other projects at the moment (one of which, oddly enough, is a mmorpg)

I don't know ...from what I can tell, they seem to agree that it's not perfect. But just assume it good 'nuff for now. And "now" is pretty much pre-alpha where a lot of features need to be added.

p.s. care sharing the name of the game?

I would be glad to help, assuming of course, that I agreed with the licence (havent read it really).

The code is under GPL. Art and data are under PlaneShift license (which is an interesting piece of license, if you ask me as a lawyer )

As far as your post about widescreens, its all area dependent, just like HD TV's, statistics say %23 of homes in the USA have HD TV's, and they are a hot seller, yet I have never seen a house with one in it, they just dont sell arround here, where as with widescreens, you goto Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart and thats almost all they offer anymore in this area.  If you goto pretty much any online PC store (I use tigerdirect.com) and look at all of their laptops, ATLEAST 75% have non 4:3, they are NOT all widescreen, but they most are not 4:3, thats the point, it doesnt have to be a widescreen to have a non 4:3 ratio. 

Hmmm ...you've got a point there, I guess.
It's also true though that if the ration is close to 4:3 the bug is probably less annoying then on a wider screen.

[Kerol]

Fully agree with Santiago. The turning and sidewalk are still too slow, but as it has been said, the animations can't adapt to the movement speed yet, so we'll have to wait a bit for that.

AFAIK the guys from CS are working on better pathfinding stuff, so it won't take that long to have a working click-on-the-floor-and-walk-there system.