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Games Entertainment

Strategic Commander Controller For RTS 96

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-looks-pretty-nifty dept.
limpbizkit sent in a review of strategic commander, a new controller designed especially for real-time strategy games (StarCraft, Red Alert, etc). Yeah, it's made by Microsoft, but they have a history of making excellent input devices. The controller puts a lot of buttons on the mouse, and I gotta say I'm pretty curious. Wonder how long before we have X11 drivers ...
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Strategic Commander Controller for RTS More

Strategic Commander Controller for RTS

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  • Have had one for a couple of months (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I got one of these when it came into the local CompUSA, and I like it a lot. To address the comment above, this definitely came out before the claw story appeared on /.

    I have mapped a whole bunch of EverQuest macros to this thing and it makes a lot of tasks easier.

    A few cons to using this thing:

    • Moving around with this is very difficult.
    • The interface that Microsoft supplies to modify your profiles is excruciating to use. I would love it if a lot of people started using this and came up with a much more flexible profile editor.
    • It has a surprisingly large footprint on your desk. I ended up having to put it pretty far away from my keyboard because it did not come close to fitting on the keyboard tray.

    Pros for using this (from an EverQuest standpoint):

    • Twisting bard songs is pretty easy with this thing as one button can have a series of song starts, stops, and pauses.
    • Practice that sense heading continually with one button press every 5 min
    • If you are running an event you can have the script attached to these buttons to save mistypes and speed up the information given to the participants.
  • There was an earlier slashdot story about the claw, which is a similar device. I posted there.
    Code reuse is a good thing right? So is post-recycling!

    ================================================ ==
    A long time ago when I first started with the mouse in Quake 1 I went through 3 different incarnations of my key layout. Here is (part of) my current key configuration from Quake bind "e" "impulse 10"
    bind "f" "+moveright"
    bind "g" "impulse 7"
    bind "r" "+movedown"
    bind "s" "+moveleft"
    bind "t" "messagemode "
    bind "MOUSE1" "+attack "
    bind "MOUSE2" "+forward "
    bind "SPACE" "+jump "

    There is a reason for every key above. Mind you depending on the game I add keys. (Currently I am playing Thief 2 with the above setup, and a is set to toggle crouch for example.)

    Now, over time I have seen many many key setups and neat tricks for FPS games. I still have yet to see anything that replaces a good key setup.

    Believe it or not, I borrowed the current key configuration from my Kung Fu Style. (No Really!)

    My left hand rests on A,S,D,F, and thumb on space. The same keys that it is resting on now while I type, I do not have to move my left hand from the
    home position if I desire to type (just move one finger for T, and take right hand off mouse.) This is what is called "economy of motion" that is, never move more than you need to to accomplish you goal. The less of a distance you have to move, the faster you will move.

    S and F are strafe naturally (I still cannot believe how few people use this, watch them you can see the people who dont use this!) Your setup should have it that these keys are ALWAYS under your fingers, you need to be able to sidestep.

    I can temporarily take my left hand off the keyboard and grab a snack or a drink and I still have move forward and fire bound to the mouse. I
    sacrifice some mobility, but I am still moblie while drinking. (Yes, I am a die-hard:)

    Now look at all the keys I have not yet listed:
    Mouse weel (3 buttons actually by itself)
    Mouse thumb button (logitech mouseman +) A (usually assigned to duck)T (talk/type) Q, Z, C, V, B, G, R, Y, H, N, Shift, Cntrl, Tab, and numbers 1-6. I assign these dependent on the game I play.

    This goes straight back to kung fu: Economy of Motion. While the claw offers me the same (sort of) functionality, I would have to take BOTH my
    hands off my control devices to be able to type. That violates the Economy of Motion principle.

    Now, lets look at the strategic commander.
    Its good, it does all of the above, it even has programmable "macros" allowing multiple combinations. This is good. However, in order to type a message you must take BOTH hands off of your control devices. That is not good. Without control you are going to be an easy frag, even if you are Thresh himself. The only advantage I can see is the added macro/record ability, and I rarely use macros (TFC being the only exception) as I feel that the breed weakness. I remember the people using keybinds in Quake 1 for rocket jumping. It worked flawlessly: but only for specific jumps. macros breed weakness, if you can only do one kind of rocket jump for example, you cant do a running backwards one, or a sideways one, or the original 180 rocket jump as seen in quake done quicker.

    So, I think that this thing is neat, but I don't see it conveying a huge advantage (if any) over the keyboard/mouse combo.
  • See my comment here [slashdot.org].

    Simply, YES, it works incredibly well, if you are willing to put a little bit of time into getting the feel for it. It's a little tough at first, but a couple days and you can adapt.

    Just don't program the twisting to do anything, at least if you're going to use the mouse to look.
    ---
  • I think this was a design change (early on) that never got represented in the advertising. Both of mine, the beta I tested with and the production version I got at the end of the test, had orange lights, too.
  • This review accuses m$ of creating this thing specifically for use with AoK, but they completely fail to mention how it works with any of the supported titles (are the presets adequate?), and unsupported titles (can you really make this thing do what you want?).

    And what about the memory problem: how hard is it to keep track of the... what... 72 commands? Is it practical?

    Someone who owns one care to comment? I play alot of RTS games, and i'm interested in this thing, but this review really didn't clarify anything...

  • Forget the minmalist, and forget the keyboard, lets just make numerous controlers that are rectangular, and carry every key a "keyboard" has, that way we never run out of buttons, hell... with a little but of work this new gaming controller can be used for things such as, code, typing long and excrutiating documents that before only a keyboard could do, and if all else fails, it can be used to write depresingly bad haikus.
  • I play alot of FPS games, Tribes mostly. So mapping the default asdw keys to the directional input was the logical method. The first thing I noticed is you have to move your hands ALOT for simple asdw movement keys. It is too slow for a FPS games. (IMHO)

    Thou, this thing rocks for games that you want to move things on the screen around, and still have the mouse free for clicking & dragging objects. Ages of Empire rocks with this, I'm going to try out Red Alert later this week, should make me extremely fast with the macros.

    Also the thing works flawlessly in windows. I was able to map keys in windows, and there is no reason you couldnt use it for CAD, Level Design, or some type of production software. The thing has realtime keyboard macro recording.

    Side note, I haven't figure out how to turn off its lights when you have a button programmed. The button lights up after its been programmed. Real eye-sore at night. Now I have 2 things on my desk that glow at night, the intellimouse optical explorer and then system commander.

    -Brook Harty

    -=-Wheres my tribes2 beta!
    http://www.planetstarsiege.com [planetstarsiege.com]

  • The ui is pretty clunky. The best thing to do is set up your profiles using the record-on-the-fly feature, and only use the profile editor for advanced stuff, like inserting pauses.
  • It's a very cunning way of sabotaging the Unix world, it must be! Just imagine what will happen when the people coding xfig get hold of one of these!

  • I'm still hoping for the ultimate in minimalism - the binary keyboard. Yup, just give me two keys and I can type anything. Make them big enough and you could even type with your fists, or maybe make it like the Whack a Mole game.

    Start warming up on those ascii codes...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • You might want to take a look at Black and White: Peter Molyneaueuexe's new game by Lionhead Studios, if or when it ships. According to previews I've heard, you can control the entire game using just the mouse -- much of it through mouse gestures. For instance, drawing a heart-symbol with the mouse casts a Healing spell.

    Of course, while all that is nice, I think they'll find that 90% of their players will realize it's a hell of a lot faster to hit the "H" key to cast their healing spell and all that mouse-gesture-recognition technology will be for naught. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

  • Hmmm, so it's out for me too - I'm right handed but use the mouse with my left, on the advice of anther /. poster a year or so ago. The theory is that it equalizes the stress on your hands, since the right hand hits [enter] and (in my case)[space]. It does seem to lessen the stress on my right hand. Too bad Microsoft couldn't have taken a tip from the many mice which are made to work ergonomically with either hand.

  • ... since I already have a 4 button mouse (Logitech rocks :), and I re-map all my keys so that they are close to my left hand around the left side of keyboard (the "WASD" diamond keys.) Basically I'm applying Fitt's Law [asktog.com]. Having to take your hand of the keys can can prove fatal in the long run when those precious seconds matter at the build-up phase.

  • That would be a obligatory UNIX reference. ;-)

    This _is_ slashdot.


    -- Thrakkerzog
  • Thanks for bringing this up... I was thinking I was going to have to post myself to ask the question. :)

    I guess I'll have to look into getting myself one for Christmas or something. My small mind can't contain the number of times I've wanted more precise directional control in Counter-Strike...


    --Fesh
    "Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy

  • Actaully I found mostly the opposite. The SC is OK for basic stuff in a FPS game, but runs into problems for my play style.

    The springs are too weak to center the thing unless you pull your hand off of it. This leads to me drifting off the edge of a ledge or something because I missed recentering properly. You have to up the dead zone range to max to have any chance here.

    Once you up the dead zone it starts requiring a huge amount of motion to activate the axes. Something like Unreal's double tap a direction to lunge is unusable because of the distance required.

    The axes are digital. What's the point of upgrading from your keyboard if you don't get finer control.

    YMMV

    -Rob
  • Actually that mouse has 6 buttons.

  • Create a macro to automatically preform a "rocket jump" or other some what difficult moves in FPS.

    Put something like strafing left->right-left while facing forward unleashing a ungodly amount of machine gun fire :)

    I haven't played Unreal Tournament, but things like this in Quake3 or SOF would rock!

  • think that the new controller for RTS games wouldn't be very good. I think all the avid gamers are already used to key combinations, such as B->F for building a farm, or pressing F1, F2 for group command forces. So I don't think a controller would be necessary for these types of things

    Unless they're using over 24 hotkeys, then the controller still gives the advantage of putting them right at your fingers where they're easier to get to. I have the 6 buttons programmed for each of the 4 states (one unshifted and three shifted) for Quake, and it's not really too much.

    But I could see some of its use for Diablo II, and like Unreal Tournament. Instead of switching spells in Diablo 2 with the F1-F8 keys or pressing S, you could easily program a button to do what you feel like, because in diablo II, theres a whole mess of spells that are useful, but we have to reorder them in only 8 keys. In first person shoot em up, you could use them to do specific things, like switching weapons, reloading, opening doors. That would save a lot of time.

    The thing is great for Diablo II. I've been working on programming mine, by paying attention to what I use the most, and rearranging the profile based on that. It's definately easier not to have to hunt around the keyboard.

    There's also the ease of switching skills with the hotkeys right at your fingers, and it would be no problem to set up sort of a "pre-combat" macro, for example, with the barb, just program it to do the three war cries you want before dealing with monsters. One click, you're all set.

    ANY program that doesn't require regular use of more than 24 or 26 keys becomes easier with the SC. Even if you can control everything with the mouse, if there are hotkeys that you can use, or a map to scroll around, this is an improvement.

    No, I'm not a M$ supporter, just someone who is VERY happy with this controller.
    ---
  • Am I the only one that thinks this looks like the Cyberman on steroids?

    I WANT ONE

    --
  • I really didn't like this controller. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't go far enough. Basically you can queue keystrokes - but it's rare for that to be especially important

    For example take buildings. You have to click/otherwise select what you want to build, drop it and select another one. That generally involves the mouse, commands of which are not programmable into the Strategic Commander. So...since you have to remember which button does what why not just use the keyboard? If it could record mouse movements too then it would be great - splash a village down with a button click! As it is, it's not worth the money. The movable top is..well...OK. The zoom and camera rotation command is easy but scrolling the map with it is tricky as it lacks the precision of keys.

    Nice try though...


  • This doesn't really prove that MS supports Linux. Was the source on an MS server?

    I think maybe it was just a "helpful" tech support person (I know an oxymoron) or a Linux geek traped in a MS job to pay the bills.

    You might want to call again and see if you get the same results from a differant tech.

  • Good versus evil (Score:3)

    by perdida ( 251676 ) <thethreatproject@yahoo. c o m> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:53PM (#633749) Homepage Journal
    M$ wins when people take an absolutist stance and say that everything they do is bad. They have every right to market whatever they choose. What they don't have a right to do is interere with opposing innovations. I for one would be very happy if M$ threw its resources into making gaming accessories instead of forcing people to comply with their inefficient demands for licensing
  • get an intellimouse and configure the wheel (which can be rolled as well as clicked) to act as button 3

  • Superfluous (Score:5)

    by Marios Richards ( 251539 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:55PM (#633751)
    Don't stop there! Have you ever noticed that keyboards are utterly cluttered up with keys? Why not replace it with new minimalist scheme of two sets of eight keys each - one set of 'primaries' and one set of 'shifts'? You just program it with your favourite keys (a, e, t, s) and you can get them at the simultaneous touch of nine buttons.
    What about RPG's? Clearly there is a niche for the 'RPG keyboard', with specially designed keys. For example, the 'hehehe' key and the 'run die! buy sell boil seal spank catch spoon fish fight! kewldude strobo nix boat house Orc' key.
    The only RTS games I can imagine needing an extra mouse+ for would be fully 3D games like Homeworld. Even then, I can't but think that the keyboard would be faster.
    Marios
  • Actually, it's very easy to set up buttons to do single keypresses. Most of the buttons are primarily just macros. So you just set up each button to count as a single keyboard button. The advantage, then, is that you never have to look down and/or move your hand to hit the different buttons.
  • How is thumb button 2 + pinky button forward any different than Ctrl-Shift-E?

    The 'multi movement' of this is no harder to grasp than the standard idea of chording with special keys.
  • As was mentioned, the Sidewinder has the motion controls, unlike the Claw. The Sidewinder does NOT plug into the kb port. The claw does, which makes the claw portable between OS's, with no modifications. I don't know if there are kb port versions available, but the one I have plugs into the USB port, i.e. haven't gotten it running in Linux.

    In Windows games, it is a Good Idea. I haven't wanted to get over the learning curve of a new input device yet, though.

  • Re:Sigh .. (Score:3)

    by SuperRob ( 31516 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:41PM (#633755) Homepage
    Must you find it necessary to use such tired, old cliches?

    Yes. This wouldn't be Slashdot otherwise. Slashdot itself is becoming a tired old cliché. It used to be that Slashdot was a great place to discuss technology. It used to be The Well for the tech crowd. Now, well, it's just a Linux fan site. Pro-Microsoft posts get unfairly mod'ed down, and every post has a Linux slant to it. More importantly, only one of my many techie friends even know what Slashdot IS, anymore.

    Maybe the Slashdot folks should think about that for a while.

  • Drivers for the Controler (Score:5)

    by Sanchi ( 192386 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:41PM (#633756)
    I asked my self the same question when I got my MS Intellimouse Explorer (the big gray one) and as a joke I called Microsoft and asked them about drivers for it to run under Linux. They pointed out a like on their webpage to the SOURCE!!!!!!! So I don't think that it will be too long and somewere (maybe even On MS's page) we will have the source for it.

    Sanchi
  • Actually, depending on the hotkeys you have set, you don't even need to take your hands off the SC to type in savegame names.

    although you'd have to settle for names like "qr!1"..

    :)
  • I'll get the device(after testing it), then write drivers for Linux. Let them create good hardware, I'll make it work on a good os.
  • Yup it works very well under Debian keep in mind that you want it to be "IMPS/2" not "intellimouse"
  • Boy, Microsoft (maybe Macro$oft! he he) sure does suck! You go, boy!

    ---------------
  • Doesn't sound that bad to me... But then again, even though I'm left-handed, I'm a right-handed mouse-jockey. I use scissors right-handed as well. I guess I'm really partially-ambidextrous... *shrug*


    --Fesh
    "Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy

  • I'm not too sure if this could be done, but if it could, this controller would certainly give an unfair advantage to those who had it.

    You can record "moves" on the fly. Well, what if you did this:

    -First hotkey your townhall, to 0 (Ctrl-0).
    -Create a "move" that will first hotkey whatever you have selected (say to Ctrl-9). Then select your townhall by pressing 0. Then it presses the button to build a peon. Then presses 9 to reselect what you already had.
    -You've just made a "peon button" anytime, any where in the game you can just press it and it will build a peon for you, and you wouldn't even notice.

    And you could do this with anything. Your gateways, raxes, hatcheries, etc. You could record a move to build a dragoon at every gateway you have. And you could do it all with a press of a button, and it would happen almost instantly. This would certainly give the user of the controller and unfair advantage. If you don't see why, you probably don't play much online RTS.

    I remember thinking about cheats for RTS games. And if someone ever made a "bot" that would auto build your peons (similair to how the button works, except it would automatically do it every 30 seconds or so). Its probably not that hard to do, and I think it would be VERY hard to detect.

    Well thats my 2c.

  • The *good* thing about this ... (Score:4)

    by djohnsto ( 133220 ) <dan,e,johnston&gmail,com> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:48PM (#633763) Homepage
    You can program each button to do a COMBINATION of keystrokes. In Diablo II, I use the keys (some with combinations of shift) to: switch to a different spell, right click (cast the spell), and switch back to the "main" spell.

    In this case, I think one button press is better then key-mouse_click-key in order. Granted, there are only 6 general purpose buttons, but using the shift keys doesn't take long to get used to. I find it MUCH easier than using the keyboard for most RTS type games.

  • I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for any kind of voice communication package. It's really a great deal, too. For ~$50US you get a very nice headphone/mic combo (retail US$19.95 or more), a great voice recognition program for games (retail ~$35US), and a great peer-to-peer voice chat program based on the popular Battlefield Commander program (free). Oh, and there's a handy little switch on the side of the control puck to let you switch between speakers and headphones without having to reach around behind your case! (truthfully, that was the deciding issue for me. The rest of it was nice but that switch sold me on it)

    The only downsides to the GV are the lack of a Push-to-Talk button (you have to hit the mute switch on the control puck) and the lack of a stand-alone server. Oh, and since it's USB, it's also Windows-only.
    I know I'm sounding like a M$ advocate/drone here, but these two products really are solid investments for serious gamers. I could see the SC replacing my throttle for many flight games (not true flight sims, but the more arcade-like ones). These are two must-have items on the serious gamer's wish list.

    Averye0
  • What sort of minimum bandwitdth does this require if you're running counterstrike and trying to comm with your team? I assume 56k won't cut it...


    --Fesh
    "Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy

  • Yeah, it's made by Microsoft, but they have a history of making excellent input devices.

    What are you talking about? Microsoft has a history...to me anyways...of making undersized and poorly constructed interface devices. The only thing I will give Microsoft credit on is the Natural Keyboard (the first version) and outlook express. I'll stick with Saitek and Logitec devices...large, sturdy, and heavy...so i dont snap the damn thing like the microsoft sidewinder did.

  • Yes, you can program the +/-. The 4 directions and left and right twisting are also programmable. These 8 programmable functions can not be used with the 3 states, but they can be changed with the 3 position selector.
  • 56K might not, but 33.6 will, as long as you don't try to comm with more than 3 or 4 people. For some reason, the extra stability v.42 offers over v.90 allows enough bandwidth to do small-scale voice chats without a significant hit in network performance. I know I used to run Roger Wilco with 3 or 4 others over my old 33.6 USR modem while playing Tribes and I never noticed a performance hit.

    Averye0
  • I agree, the springs and the amount of movement necessary to control the thing were my biggest problem with quake. I spent all night last night trying to get used to it, and eventually got disgusted.

    What it really needs is a set of switches with a positive feedback and requiring almost no movement, kind of like those eight-way "hats" on joysticks.

    Maybe I should try taking mine apart and replacing the springs with something heavier.
  • haven't tried it with RTS but a friend and geeked out the other night trying to find the ultimate controller combination for FPS... after a trip to Frys i was convinced to buy this.

    don't give into the propaganda... use this thing in new and creative ways.

    the movement is not switched but with practice there's enough finess movement and you can move while using other keys.

    play counter strike with it. the programming on the fly is cool, it's just associating strings of key presses to a macro button. nice form factor. doze only... suck.
  • presses the 5th button from the right
    Now Installing Windows ME
    Ahhh!!!
    presses all the buttons rapidly
    Now formatting hard drive and removing unknown partitions
    Nooo! Not my Linux!
    Computer will be assimilated in 10...9...8...
  • I dunno about everyone else, but that game genre hasn't caught my interests since Red Alert... Just how usefull is this now adays? Other then have a billion shortcuts under my fingers.
  • Isn't this just another "CLAW" device just like the one here/a&g t;? How does this one differ from the CLAW besides it's marketing angle? [slashdot.org]
  • I'm an avid Warcraft 2 BNE player, and the problem I see with this is the vast combinations of keys I use. Most of them are one keys, and I can hit them relatively quickly on the keyboard - but it said that the programmable keys are 'a key' you program in. Say for instance I want to build a farm, B->F, can it handle that??

    I'm really glad to see this line of thinking coming out, as there has been a plethora of FPS controllers for eons. Too bad it's an MS product, if it's anything like my keyboard at work one button (that is the one by default used the most) will fail..

  • I was waiting for someone to improve the standard mouse for RTS. The standard mouse is definitely not sophisticated enough to handle the "click" and the "click again" interface involved in most RTS games.
  • Just when I thought my 4-button Logitech mouse [logitech.com] was
    the one with the most buttons, now I gotta go get another one!


    Yes, I know it's not really a mouse, but damn that's a lot of buttons!
  • Could you provide a link to your project? It sounds really exciting, I would be willing to test and submit bug reports on your project to replace X11.

    Hope to hear back from you!
  • I've heard of this before, and there's one fundamental problem with it. It's trying to replace the keyboard where the keyboard is the best device, and everyone is happy with the keyboard. Having to do multi-movement sequences for single keypresses is impractical in an RTS, where the speed at which you input is a major component of 'skill'.


    ------------------
    A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.

  • First... real comment (Score:5)

    by Sodakar ( 205398 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:39PM (#633779)
    Gosh, I hate those "first post" posts... Growl...

    Having played with this, I can tell you a few things:
    • You need a nice, flat, clean surface to place this unit on, otherwise every time you move the center hand module, the whole unit slips, since the dime-size rubber pads aren't that grippy.
    • You need to have somewhat large hands. My hands are about 7" from edge of wrist to tip of middle finger... and I found the center hand module to be kinda big, and uncomfortable when gripping.
    • The finger buttons are pretty stiff, and you have to kinda reach forward and back to be able to press them. Then again, maybe my hand is just too small.
    • The center hand module doesn't move forward/backward/sideways as smoothly as I would want. I would want a little resistance - the unit just goes flying a bit too fast.
    Now... despite all of those things, this unit was great for playing RTS's, since I didn't even have to peek at the keyboard to make sure I was depressing the right hotkey.

    But... I guess you need big hands... Somehow I get the feeling this unit wasn't made for a 5'8" Asian male like myself... which makes me think... hey, what about kids? They have smaller hands than me... Oh well.
  • The author of the review is wrong when he talks about the freestyle pro using gyroscopes! It uses a nifty little chip called an accelerometer made by analog.com [analog.com] that is found in many products like car alarms and the like. It is a very cool chip (I have some myself) and they will send you some samples if you want. The chip is called the ADXL202

  • Sigh .. (Score:5)

    by Splat ( 9175 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:07PM (#633781)
    Hello moderator. Before you moderate this story as "offtopic" like I know you might, I ask you this question. If I am offtopic, then we are all to assume there is a place for me to be on topic with a point like this I am about to make. There is however, no such forum on Slashdot for general slashdot story issues. So any moderations of offtopic on this comment will be redundant, because there is no ONTOPIC place to post it. You will simply be wrong and wasting your moderation points. Thank you and enjoy the comment.

    Ok here's one little pet peeve that I'm finding as of late with Slashdot stories. The story above mentions a new joystick concept from Microsoft. Obviously a technology story that belongs here on Slashdot. But oh wait, we forgot the OBLIGATORY linux reference! "Can't wait for x11 drivers"

    Oh goodness, we couldn't just post a story for itself? No. We must complain about how every single new technology does not work with our beloved Linux, FreeBSD, KDE or GNOME. Oh wait I'm sorry, I just offended all you users of Debian.. Slackware... OpenBSD ... NetBSD ..

    Speaking of that, what the hell is an "x11 driver" anyways?! Last time I checked, joysticks were handled by joystick code in the kernel, not an "x11 driver". This from the same site that continuously complains when the media interchangably uses "hacker" and "cracker". Does anyone want to explain to me an "x11 driver?" Because if not, you look just as silly as the media.

    As of late Slashdot has been posting lots of good stories such as this joystick one, but then the editors must quip in with their whole "... but i wonder when open source drivers will be availble" or "shame it doesnt work in linux" etc comments. This is insulting and irritating for me to read. Must you find it necessary to use such tired, old cliches?
  • I completely agree with the first and last bullets. It is a bit slippery, and using the panning functionality is a bit touchy.

    However, seeing as how I mostly play Diablo II (which doesn't need panning support), and I have larger hands (am I the only one who think most mice are WAY too tiny?), I'd have to say THIS THING ROCKS!

    Although the shift keys take some getting used to, I've managed to replace EVERY single function in Diablo with the SC. Makes playing the sorceress or the necromancer much easier. It also makes me wonder if you could use two of these things and completely replace a keyboard for typing ...

  • Anyone who uses SC in a rated or serious game of AOK is considered to be cheating. The only acceptable controllers are a mouse and keyboard.
  • ok, well I guess I might get one. the learning curve isn't a problem. I suck at UT anyways...doesn't stop me from playing though. between the mouse and that who knows, I might get better.

    Thanks
  • Hi, I have been thinking of getting me one of those. I like playing RTS games, but more importantly, I have started developping my own. I hope that this device will be supported under Linux. I use SDL so that the game will be cross-platform.

    Do you think that the Straty Commander would be good for playing games like Unreal Tournament? I like using the keyboard but I can think of efficient ways to use the SC. I mostly wonder if it would be possible to use to side-walk and jump/crunch.
  • Alright... i /WAS/ going to mod you down... but what the hell... X11 does have joystic drivers, check XF68Config sometime... you can use them as input devices (they, of course, revert back to the kernel driver under linux, but thats another story) beings you don't want to use it as a joystick in this case (playing an RTS, you'd want it as an input device like a keyboard) it only makes sence that it would need an X11 driver to be used as such. anyway... there is your clue... enjoy it =)
  • Here's another really neat device created by the Evil Empire. Definately on Christmas list.

    GameVoice [gamevoice.com]

    Just imagine if MS didn't sell an operating system.
  • I am an avid starcraft, diablo, war 2 bne, and diablo 2 player. I also like half life, tfc, unreal tourney.. etc etc.

    i think that the new controller for RTS games wouldn't be very good. I think all the avid gamers are already used to key combinations, such as B->F for building a farm, or pressing F1, F2 for group command forces. So I don't think a controller would be necessary for these types of things

    But I could see some of its use for Diablo II, and like Unreal Tournament. Instead of switching spells in Diablo 2 with the F1-F8 keys or pressing S, you could easily program a button to do what you feel like, because in diablo II, theres a whole mess of spells that are useful, but we have to reorder them in only 8 keys. In first person shoot em up, you could use them to do specific things, like switching weapons, reloading, opening doors. That would save a lot of time.

    But if it does come out, how much?! Thats the only factor that will keep us from buying it.

  • "Ergonomic", Microsoft? I don't think that word means what you think it means. Someone please give me a joystick I can use! Those things are getting more wrong-handed with each new model.

    At least Microsoft wised up about mice. The new Intellimouse Optical is symmetrical.
    --

  • The joy stick should have x11 drivers.

    Maybe kernel drivers would be usefull if you wanted to use it without x. But that doesn't make sense to me.

    IMHO if the original poster was as into technology as he claimed he should have realised this.


  • The Wednesday news [penny-arcade.com] posting at Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] has Tycho's experiences with the MS GameVoice [gamevoice.com]. He's pretty impressed with that one as well.

    -c/e

  • Escape, Meta, Alt...we just need a Control and a Shift and it'd be perfect for Emacs!!!

  • Fugging Lovely... (Score:3)

    by Bieeardo ( 123434 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:40PM (#633793)
    Yet another ergonomic device that's only designed with right-handed people in mind. I'm a lefty-- I use my left hand to move the mouse. This thing, while interesting, is about as useless to me as a standard right-handed Intellimouse. Is it so difficult to design something that doesn't demand the use of one hand or the other?
  • It not only has the programmable buttons (like the CLAW), but it has a limited range of twist motion to allow your left hand to control things like map view or movement. That's one thing the CLAW didn't have.

    I don't have one, but a friend of mine does. He claims it's very nice for RTS gaming (TA, Starcraft, Myth, etc.), and it's even better for 3D space-flight sims (Independence War, Descent). It looks like it might make for a nice alternative to a throttle for the left hand.

    Averye0

  • I have the 101-button version... (Score:5)

    by yobtah ( 16795 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:41PM (#633795)
    and it doubles as my keyboard.
  • You are forgetting about those CAD mice then? Those things have about 1x10^8 buttons on them.
    I asked a design student what they were for and he killed me right after he told me... was a rather blighting expierience.
  • taco asks:

    Yeah, its made by Microsoft, but they have a history of making excellent input devices. The controller puts a lot of buttons on the mouse, and I gotta say I'm pretty curious. Wonder how long before we have x11 drivers...

    I simply ask for a 3 button MS mouse. Do they make one? I don't like my 3 button mouse, cheap non MS, that does not work.

  • Maybe I'll pick one up.. This could just be the huge conspiracy to rid places like battle.net of the 13 year old cock-jockies that pollute the game environment with their blithering idiocy.

    Real reason I'm posting: Is it worth getting for Blizzard games? Especially war2 (starcraft is the same, virtually)

  • It's great for online RPGs as well (Score:3)

    by ChenKenichi ( 216991 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:09PM (#633799) Homepage
    For Asheron's Call, for instance, that requires a whole whack of keystrokes to do stuff like cast spells... set the various buttons to map to one or more keys and you're set. By "set" I mean "you can actually sit back and play a game rather than hunch forward, wrecking your back"... Mighty nice. Little pricey though, and lefties will hate it -- actually I don't think lefties can use it to be honest, unless they use righty mice.

    --

  • Re:Hm.. what about key combos? (Score:3)

    by psxndc ( 105904 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:46PM (#633800) Journal
    I have the strategic commander and yes, it can handle combinations of keys. I occasionally use it for TFC/Half-life and can program in commands (for when my binds get stuck) like ~-E-X-E-C-SPACE-A-U-T-O-E-X-E-C-.-C-F-G-~ to go to concole and exec autoexec.cfg and return to the game just by pressing a button. It suffices (barely, but suffices) for FPS, but its main focus is RTS. It also is not supposed to be a replacement for a mouse. You say select a group of infantry with the mouse, click button 1 (which has the command "group selected into GROUP1 and send them to the rally point") and off they go to do what they should.

    psxndc

    It feels a little weird too because its bigger than a mouse and you use your left hand (sorry lefties, it ain't uni-handed) but after a while it feels natural and with up to 24 buttons per setting (and 3 settings = 72 buttons) its pretty cool.

  • I use one of these for Age of Empires II and it's awesome. At the very start of the game, one click starts building villagers, makes my Scout control group one and then finds an idle villager and builds a mill.

    With 6 buttons, three shift buttons and three profiles you have shit loads of options.
  • I've hardly used it with any strategy games because I've been too busy using it for Quake 2 and Quake 3.

    It works incredibly well for the directional movement (after setting the dead zone to the largest setting), allowing me forward, backward, and strafing with ease. And, unlike using the keyboard, I still have ALL of my fingers free while moving. It takes a period of adjustment (I spent the first weekend beating Quake 2 on single player mode for the first time), but after, I'm definately playing better.

    I was a bit concerned at first that the three shift buttons and the seeming closeness of the finger buttons might make them a bit difficult to use, but that hasn't been the case at all. I have them ALL bound for my Q2CTF play - and how many of you can bounce around, moving in all directions, jumping and croutching, while sending messages to your team that the base is under attack? You'd have to be amazing with the keyboard to pull that off, yet it's easy for me.

    The only real problem I had was that the unit wasn't heavy enough to keep from sliding and slipping during play. After all, you're not going to be moving it as much in a strategy game. A little bit of sticky tack (that adhesive putty often used for posters in college) to the bottom has anchored it solidly to my desk, and solved it completely.

    All told, I am VERY happy with the money spent on this, especially since you can play just about any game using it. Even simple stuff like SC3000, or Rollercoaster Tycoon - just bind the hot keys to the thing, and you're more efficient.

    Of course, if you're a keyboard master on the FPS games, you probably won't improve.
    ---
  • There was a review the other day on /. for "the Claw" - well I've found that the Strategic Commander works very well for these games as well. Especially the ability to hot program macros. Very good for straffing and moving forward at the same time. It will take a little time to get used to - but it puts a lot of buttons in much easier reach than on a standard keyboard.

  • Not Bad, but don't sacrifice UI (Score:5)

    by mellifluous ( 249700 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:11PM (#633804)
    Let me start off by saying that I do think this would be a pretty helpful device. In fact, it seem pretty applicable to a variety of applications.

    In my mind, however, this effort is overshadowed by the fact that so many RTS games really need to improve their UI. I would hate to think that future RTS games will use this as a crutch thinking, "Hey, we can just recommend that they buy a second input device.". Too many RTS games (which are Real Time Tactics games in most cases, if you ask me), have fairly limited unit AI and rely on the player to provide precise maneuvering orders in complex situations. Take for example WarCraft II -- how many times did you wish for an option to "move the catapult just outside of the range of that tower" rather than having to micro-manage every last unit's movement. I'll grant that these are not simple problems and some games are moving to fix this, but most RTS games are still far short of being truly "strategy" games instead of intricate click-fests.

  • Has anyone tried one of these with quake, unreal tournament, or one like these? I've been looking at them but would like to here of someone who has actually used it for some good fast action killing.

    I was considering getting the claw since I get tiered of using the keyboard for things the game needs. It would be cool if it works with 1st person games too. I'm not willing to chunk $60 for something that might not fill my purpose.
  • There's a rule in the industry that no new technology exists until Microsoft invents it. Hence, the CLAW is virtually ignored by everyone except Slashdotters, and this cheapy-looking Microsoft doohickey gets a 9 in the "Innovation" dept. I know, it tilts and swivels too, but you're right, it's essentially the same design.
  • Remember all the fuss about how a keyboard chord device could be so intuitive for input with a mouse? This thing looks like it could make a great chord key modifier.
  • to my days in junior high / high school with my ThrustMaster Throttle (a human heart shaped apparatus that had 6 buttons, 3 shift modes and of course, the whole thing rocked forward and backward as a throttle) playing the whole of the Wing Commander series and its derivatives. I think Thrustmaster has a new version of that old thing [thrustmaster.com].
  • ...I can't wait for the games to be ported to Linux.

    Seriously, what's the good of having a gaming 'mouse' for linux, when the game selection in linux is slightly less than nothing? RTS are even less sparse when it comes to Linux than most other generes.

    Sure, there's WINE and vmware - but they hardly work as well as native, and good luck getting your devices working properly. It's hard enough to get a game in, without having WINE crash, and vmware is just slow.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • Unless you're actively using three profiles, and don't want to bother reassigning one, just have at least one without anything recorded for the main (as in no shift) set of buttons. When you want the lights off, just switch to that profile, and they'll all be off.
  • To set some questions straight....

    #1: yes the box says its just for strategy games... but hey, why stop there? I use it in regular everyday windows work. Setup a key on it to bring up my next icq message, setup browser functions so that a press of a button makes the browser go back, forward, stop, reload, etc... the possibilities are limitless.

    #2: Yes, you can program a whole sequence of keys into it. It will type a whole essay for you if you so choose it to. And on top of keyboard keys, it will also add mouse clicks for you too. And with enough programming... it might even do your homework for you. :)

    #3: With its ability to change programming on the fly, and to change profiles on the fly, it is SOOOOO much more usefull.

    I gave up my old wingman extreme digital for this new controller... its that good. :) I personally give it a 10. Microsoft did a good job on this one.

    Synchis
    The worlds most popular, famous, and loved super hero...
    ...
    ...
    ...
  • I like the poetic description on that page: "...performs on desks crowded."

  • Recently ended up digging out Red Alert again and having a play. Curiosity got the better of me, however, and I ended up trying to play it with my 'new toy', a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet [wacom.com].

    The thing is amazing for RTS, the 'pen' working to select/move units and build things in a remarkably simple way, and with the 'eraser' end set to emulate a 'shift+mouse' trick it made multiple selects so easy. The other hand rested on the Wacom Mouse, a five button+wheel little doobrie I'd set up as a button box

    Finally, I can live the intro to Mech Commander in the comfort of my own swivelly chair!

    Sure, this things expensive enough to effectively price itself right out of this bracket- but it's a lot nicer than this Commander sounds.

  • The answer to the question though, is when linux USB works (*), and MS provide docs for writing drivers - which is to say, roughly 2 days before the sun cools. The device itself is presented (under directx anyway) as a 3-axis joystick with a zillion buttons, although some MS software sits on top of that and maps buttons to macros to work with your favourite games. It's kind of neat, but takes some getting used to.

    (*)OK, sorry - 2.4 will have USB a bit more. This is one of the two things that is stopping me switching to Linux as a desktop OS - USB support for my bits (scanner, printer, wacom pad, games things) and a browser that works, doesn't eat all my RAM, and doesn't spew diagnostics all over. I've had these things for a couple of years on my current OS, and I would miss them a lot.
  • http://www.microsoft.com/products/hardware/sidewin der/devices/SComm/SComm_Program.ht m [microsoft.com] site answers your question.

    Just like the Sidewinder original game pad and joystick, multiple keystrokes (delayed, simultaneous, sequential) can all be programmed into this device.

    Cool stuff.
    Sorry, /. is raping my link. Take out the %20 that appears in the .htm suffix

  • What in THE HELL IS GOING ON?
    Are you guys on crack?

    /. IS SELLING OUT!!

    First you proclaim IE as being superior to Netscape and Mozilla and now this crap.

    Have you guys forgotten? Microsoft is *EVIL* because of its whole approach; you cannot let yourselves be tricked by their simple Sith mind control tricks. Yeah they release a couple kewl things; but those are only a smoke screen to cover their heinous acts of EVIL! If you start supporting them in any capacity you will be consumed by the dark side.

    I hearby prescribe the following remedy for your condition: dont touch, operate, look at or listen to ANY product micros~1 makes for 3 WEEKS!

    You MUST ween yourself off them before you become addicted!We can help you, but you must first admit you have a problem.

    Thus if I seen anymore stories praising M$ on here ever again BAD BAD karma will follow!!

  • The finger buttons are not pressure adjusted (ie, gotta have buff pinkies), and the finger button locations aren't optimized for righties...

    Too bad they didn't put another set of thumb buttons on the other side for lefties! That would have been a very acceptable solution for an otherwise oval-shaped, symmetric unit.
  • Actually, I've toyed with the idea of programming it to represent every key. With 72 buttons (6 buttons, 4 states (open, shift1, shift2, shift3), and three profiles (=72) you could get upper and lower case letters (52) numbers (10) and key punctuation. I think you can even map the +- button on it too, so throw another 24 buttons onto that and you could do it.

    psxndc

  • I was in the beta (Score:5)

    by mmmmbeer ( 107215 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:50PM (#633819)
    I beta tested the SC, and it is pretty cool. Oddly, I found it more useful for games like Baldur's Gate (I won't play BG without it) than for rts games they designed it for. Basically, it's because rts games tend to have too many options to organize a useful set without leaving out a lot. Not that it isn't still really useful, it's just that you still need to use the keyboard a lot. With BG, on the other hand, the only time I touch the keyboard is to name a saved game.

    I definitely recommend this to any serious gamer. Among the features I found most useful were that it is left-handed, so it works alongside a mouse (for most of us); and it can be programmed on the fly, so if you decide you don't like how your profile is set up, you can change it right then. It also makes it easy to set up your own profiles, which I recommend over using a profile someone else has set up. It just makes it a lot easier to use.

    There's only one serious issue I ran into, and you can work around it. If you type fast while you are recording, it sometimes treats separate keystrokes as combos. (You'll understand this once you see its accompanying software.) This sometimes makes the keystrokes replay out of order, so your commands don't work right. To avoid this, type carefully while recording, so that you don't have two keys down at once, except of course when that is required.

  • I bought one and..... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a C&C fan and having bought Red Alert 2 recently, I was curious to try out the SCommander. When I first opened up my SCommander, I was less than impressed. There was some free play on the upper part of the controller (like a loose door knob, so I know it's more of a manufacturing issue rather than thinking it's a feature) and the spring resistance is way too weak so that when your hand is on the device, you may scroll by accident due to such weak center positioning resistance. I am quite disappointed also that Westwood did not have any native support for the device (not that I expect them to, but I do play RA 2 on a regular basis) and RA 2 does not have any key on the keyboard that you can smooth scroll the map with so therefore you can't program the SCommander to smoothly, continiously scroll the map when moving the upper part of the SCommander. The map scrolling capability of the SCommander is gone down the drain with RA 2. Just a side note, my buttons, when programmed, turns on an orange light, as opposed to the advertised green light..ughh..I guess I got a different "alernative" batch. My 2 cents.
  • I think it depends on what level you're playing at. I'm not *that* good at these RTS's, so losing a half second here or there isn't going to really change my life.

    However, I've seen friends who are good at RTS's use the programmable function of the buttons, and it's pretty sickening how they pump out units from 3-4 bases in a flash.

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