Should I teach my daughter wasd or arrow keys?

haaammit

haaammit

haaammit

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I'm not really certain where this should go tbh, so sorry if it's in the wrong place.

Recently I've been helping my daughter, who is 5 in Feb, to play Minecraft. She really enjoys playing it and building stuff with me.

I'm a dyed-in-the wool arrow key player (started with Wolfenstein 3d, Quake etc and have never been able to take to wasd (actually started earlier than that - bbc micros at middle school))

I'm trying to help her play independently - using mouse and direction keys separately. I'm hoping this will, amongst other things, help her hand/eye coordination and stuff.

I am automatically teaching her arrow key movements. Should I teach her wasd keys instead?

I know- first world problems and all that. I'm self taught, but can't/won't use wasd and feel stuck in a rut. I downloaded a fairly modern game recently and couldn't map all the keys to the arrow key config :/

So - teach her wasd keys, or what I'm more comfortable using myself?
 
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She'll resent you if you teach her arrows keys :p.

Alternatively go for esdf to maximise the number of potential bindable keys around your fingers (it'll give you a several to the left which wasd wouldn't let you do). I'm versed in wasd so would find it too hard to switch.
 
An interesting one, I learnt (first) and naturally adapted to arrow keys and can't change - the slight cant to the SW just feels wrong and won't work for me.

Showing her both ways and letting her decide at that age might be confusing.
 
Rroff said:
An interesting one, I learnt (first) and naturally adapted to arrow keys and can't change - the slight cant to the SW just feels wrong and won't work for me.

Showing her both ways and letting her decide at that age might be confusing.
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^^^ That's it - that's so why I can't use wasd - there is a slight offset between s&w but that is so magnified when going from arrow keys to wasd - your wrist and arm changes position and rotates, placing your fingers not on wasd lol. Well, mine do anyhoo!!
 
Pho said:
Alternatively go for esdf to maximise the number of potential bindable keys around your fingers (it'll give you a several to the left which wasd wouldn't let you do).
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to give that a go. I hadnt considered it but makes a lot of sense.
 
Control pad! :D
Think of the poor RSI she might get later on ign life, I'm 36 now been using keyboards since 8 years old and I swear I'm getting RSI in certain finger joints. The issue seems to have got worst since using an iPad, for everyday browsing/blogging and quick Remote Desktop tasks.
 
WASD for certain. It simply cannot be better to use arrow keys surely? With WASD you can keep a finger on shift/crtl and your thumb on the space bar. Using the arrow keys is as awkward as hell!

In fact, it wouldnt even work, at all! You would have to stop in order to jump, or take your hand off of the mouse and use two hands on the keyboard? :confused:

It isn't a tough question, you arrow key people are weird or have three hands. :p
 
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Here you go - I'm not sure if most arrow players are like this, but I am, and it can't easily move to wasd



When I move my hand to wasd my fingers are in the wrong place.

Like I said - first world problems and all.

Merry Christmas anyhoo :)
 
Acme said:
WASD for certain. It simply cannot be better to use arrow keys surely? With WASD you can keep a finger on shift/crtl and your thumb on the space bar. Using the arrow keys is as awkward as hell!

In fact, it wouldnt even work, at all! You would have to stop in order to jump, or take your hand off of the mouse and use two hands on the keyboard? :confused:

It isn't a tough question, you arrow key people are weird or have three hands. :p
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This is the reason for asking lol. I get by, but obv want to make sure Miss McFungusPants gets the best starts etc :)

Edit - key mapping means jump is right shift and crouch is right ctrl - no stopping needed :P
 
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Barry McFungus Pants said:
This is the reason for asking lol. I get by, but obv want to make sure Miss McFungusPants gets the best starts etc :)

Edit - key mapping means jump is right shift and crouch is right ctrl - no stopping needed :P
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But, there are some games which don't allow for button mapping, and WASD has been the default in pretty much every game for over a decade for a reason. :p
 
Acme said:
But, there are some games which don't allow for button mapping, and WASD has been the default in pretty much every game for over a decade for a reason. :p
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I've been playing for just a bit over a decade and there's always haxxxors :/ lol :p
 
Barry McFungus Pants said:
I've been playing for just a bit over a decade and there's always haxxxors :/ lol :p
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If you teach her to use the arrow keys just because its how you learned to play, its a bit like teaching her imperial measurements and then sending her off to school to learn in metric. :p

Merry Christmas. :)
 
Out of interest - would someone put up a pic of wasd finger placement? Ta :)

Edit - it seems more upright (the wrist) than arrow keys.
 
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