im thinking of using the wheel on the mouse as quite an important part of the control system in a game, and i just wanted to check that people actually have mice with wheels, or if that would make it unplayable to just about everybody.
I do, many don't. Use it, but give it an alternate system. For most of my games I let people use WASD instead of the arrow keys. Just make, say, A/Z do the same thing as wheep up/down.
the problems that its going to be quite fast paced, and the left hands already going to be pretty busy pressing other buttons - it would just be easier to use the mouse - kind of like a fighter pilot has all the buttons they need on just the joystick and throttle thing.
no, if most people have wheels anyway i can pretty much forget about the ones that dont and just have a keyboard alternative like you say, and they'll still be able to play albeit less easily.
if most people dont have them, then it'd be worth rethinking and simplifying the whole game to make it more playable for the majority of people.
I like my optical mouse alot better then my ball mouse. My ball mouse used to get stick all the time even when it was clean & it just wasnt werth it even when I bought a brain new one, it still screwed up. I'd say go optical, I've had mine for a while now & its great, expecially for games like UT2K4 because its a pain to get a close aim on someone & have to wip you mouse around to get it off of X or Y. Its just plain annoying.
SpaceCadet: you could always come up with an equally easy system for those without a scroll wheel. Say you're using it for a throttle or something: have it so that when the right mouse button is held (or whatever, spacebar even), moving the mouse fowards and backwards moves the throttle indicator up and down. Then have the wheel do the same thing for simplicity. Be creative.
The luddites who don't have mouse-wheels can just upgrade or be left behind. It's just as stupid as people making sites 56K friendly, and making software support otherwise outdated systems. Keep your game as is.
While I don't think anyone should limit a project based on some percentage of the users, preventing them from playing your game or visiting your website when it would be simple to provide for them is retarded.
ok, thanks everybody. looks like everyone has a wheel so i'll just carry on regardless - if anyone doesnt have, they should go and buy one, regardless of wheteher they want to play my shitty game (that'll probably never be finished anyway).
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