Topic: I want a joystick on my keyboard

[W7RE]

http://www.n52te.com/
Or I guess if that d-pad with the joystick attackment is analog, that would work. On console games you can walk slowly by just not pressing the joystick all the way in one direction, but you lose that on a keyboard. Instead you have to hold shift or something, or just do without. (half-Life 2 doesn't have a walk slow option, just normal speed and sprint) yea it's not a huge deal, but just one of the little things I with my keyboard could do.

EDIT: But fuck pressure sensitive shit, that's not what I want. I tried a few games on PS2 that used pressure sensitivity and didn't like it at all. (fuck you MGS2 and your first person leaning controls)

EDIT: Apparently the software side of the n52te is shit, and the old n52's were cheap and borke. No idea if the d-pad is analog, probably not. Oooh, but there's the Logitech G13. Apparently it works a lot better, and it has an analog stick instead of a d-pad. $80 though =/

[scottws]

I had the first iteration of that thing.  I think it was called the Belkin Nostromo n50 or something like that.  It was okay, but my kill/death ratio actually suffered when using it (even after a few months), so I went back to the keyboard.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that stuff is gimmicky.  It's true that it'd be nice if keyboards had some way to represent the pressure-sensitive nature of an analog stick, but none of those things are the answer, really.  Because ultimately a mouse and a keyboard are the ultimate control scheme.  Lots of people have tried to come up with something better, but thus far nothing trumps it.  Even when something does I'll likely be pretty skeptical for a while.  Whatever it is is going to need to prove itself.

[Cobra951]

Given enough surface area, no stick can match a mouse.  But what he's asking for is the equivalent of a left analog thumbstick instead of the D-pad-like WASD keys.  I know exactly what he means.  Walking/running with WASD and a run key works, but it's not ideal.  Mouselook is perfect, but keymove is not.

[Quemaqua]

I disagree.  I think having a full keyboard with 4 movement keys is superior to a d-pad or analog stick in every regard, with the aforementioned exception of being able to make use of varying degrees of pressure.

[W7RE]

Yea, I want a joystick of some kind in my left hand, and a mouse in my right hand. Getting a game to work with a gamepad and a mouse simultaneously would get the job done, but then you'd be extremely limited on buttons/keys you could press with your left hand. A thumb joystick like ont he n52 or the Logitech thing would be great. I just don't know if it's worth the $80 (if I coudl spare it) to give it a try.

[Xessive]

I used to play calssic UT with a joypad and mouse. Left hand with the analogue stick and two buttons (L1 jump, L2 crouch) and the mouse in the right hand with its traditional function. I liked it at the time because I didn't have to lean forward or plant my hand on the keyboard. Which is why I liked the idea of the FragFX for the PS3:


Note that the analogue piece is loose, it's not attached to the board, and it's a lot like the Wii nunchuks.

The only problem I had with the FragFX is on the mouse end of it. The sensitivity can be adjusted to a certain extent but it doesn't work well with all games. The ones it does work with it's kind of clunky anyway and it really feels like I'm playing a terrible PC port.