Recording with a camera is also suggested while developing a game to measure lag.

The theory says that any game lags at least 3/30 of a second or 3/60 of a second sepending if you have a game that's 30 or 60fps. (This calculus is based on consoles, but applies to pc's too)

Those 3 cycles of lag between button press and a visual response, is based on how input commands are taken and put in a pipeline of calculation... input parsing, world model change, rendering.
To this, there's also additional lag based on display type (crt, lcd, tv etc) as there could be some signal processing. So for example on a tv lcd you get 5/30 or 5/60 (depending on game) as a minimum lag (if game is well written).

So, is suggested to record with a camera with in same view both video and key pressing to test how responsive the game is. As sometime you don't see lag, but you could perceive it in an inconscous manner. Using a camera you can get numbers but are better than "feeling".

A detailed article on that:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3725/measuring_responsiveness_in_video_.php
 

I thought that it was impossible to type the Conan combos too fast, since it wouldn't register the third keystroke in a quick sequence. I'd have to wait before pressing the third ket.
 

You should have seen me while I was playing a paladin in DAoC. 1 hand to twist, 1 hand to access my taunt and melee styles, another one to move my char, and one on the mouse for targeting.
My ice wiz on the other hand: run towards the center of all the mobs, and pbaoe until either the mobs or you are dead. Than get cursed by the paladin and cleric for taking all the aggro :D

I don't think there's an easy solution, as they want to give the players a lot of options, which all take up slots and shortcuts, which all have to be accessed very easily.
 

It's problematic indeed. In WoW for example there are tons of abilities to use and with a default setup and using the first two quickslot bars you can usually just hit the first 5-7 keys depending on the length of your fingers. So the rest of the quickslots you have to release the wasd keys to reach or bind to one of the other surrounding keys, like E,X,Z. The same goes for the alt version of that quickslot bar basically. The other quickslot bars I have to bind to other keys or mouse click them which has it's own problems, like finding the correct quickslot in the middle of battle.

With each expansion there are also more abilities added so it will be harder and harder to keep all abilities within range for quick use.
 

For every mmo, and even fps for that matter I used the same keyboard set up. I use the number pad on the right of the keyboard and bind all the numbers there. Then wsad is replaced with the arrow keys. This compresses all those 1-9 buttons, and lets me keep my right hand on my mouse at all times. I set this up the first time I ever played an MMO, it just made so much scence, and I couldn't figure out why MMO's wern't set up like this to begin with. I also use page down to select next action bar. '0' on the num pad to select closest enemey. '-' on num pad for slot 12 and '+' for slot 11. Also use the other ins/home buttons for misc functions. Everything is compact and good to go.
 

I'm a clicker, so unless I'm pvping or in a group, I usually just use the mouse by itself.

I've tried binding keys and I've bought a couple of keypads, but it makes playing a chore.
 

For City of Heroes, I've a tendancy to bind things to my numpad. Granted it's hardly the most intensive game. Wasd to move, Mouse to select targets/move camera, 1-0 above the keyboard to fire off my main power tray.

Roleplayers get the worst of it. Either they end up having canned binds that get old fast for rping in combat or even the most verbose character suddenly goes quiet for the buttonmashofwin
 

@Preston: Are you left-handed? I control my mouse with my right hand and keyboard with the left. If I used the number pad regularly, then I would feel like I needed to move my keyboard to my far left. I’m wondering if you control your mouse with your left hand because that would make a big difference in my mind as to which keys would “feel” most comfortable.

My setup actually uses 5-6 buttons on my mouse to control all my movement and targeting. The extra buttons are useful, because it means I can do something like circle-strafing backwards with my mouse hand. My other hand rests over the 1-6 keys. Instead of using 7 and up, I use the shift key. So 7 becomes shift-1, 8 becomes shift-2, and so on. Since all the movement keys are bound to my mouse, it frees up Q,W,E,A,S,D to be used for additional bindings.

Now I typically play melee, so this works well for me because movement and positioning are critical. If I were a caster, I totally see how click-casting and using your mouse exclusively to target and cast spells would be more beneficial.
 

You don't use any keybinds while playing WoW?

...
 

I use a

360 controller.

I posted on Gax for Sara, as I think it may help to see alternatives as well.

I have been feeling some pain in my hands as I get older, and working on a computer for 80% of my day doesn't help. I needed relief.
The controller fits more naturally, and the hand-eye coordination seems to be more fluid in games for some reason with the controller.
I can do this for quick play games (Guild Wars, Devil May Cry) or massive MMO's (WoW, EQ2, AoC).
As long as the game allows keybinds from alt-key responses (like EQ2 allowed me to make my second toolbar CTRL-#), I can map every skill and action with minimal touch of the keyboard.

If I could get the chatpad to work (which I have found some workarounds, and will be looking into), I would NEVER need to touch the keyboard again, except to configure.
 

@sid67

I am right handed. I tend to keep my keyboard atleast 5 inches away from my mouse pad. Also I angle the keyboard slightly, and the mouse. Kind of creates a subtle v. I personally can't imagine playing with the standard config. It seems like a lot of trouble to stretch to 9 if you move with wsad. Also there are so many other letters around there to get in the way.

I play a rogue, so quick reactions are key. Every one of my common skills (hemo, ambush) & my emergency skills(blind, vanish, clos) are bound to my first/second hot key bar and I can hit one page down to scroll through them. All my non-emergency keys I will place in the remaining 4 hotkey bars, and those I will mouse click if I need to use. For example poisons, or non-common combat moves, for me that would include sinister strike, depends on how you play/talents.

I love my set up, it lets me move my character, move my camera and see around and use all my abilities when I need to. I can't imagine playing any other way. It felt so natural from the first time I played an MMO i'm still dumb founded that other set ups can be very use full?

Oh well, to each their own.
 

I can't stand using the mouse for anything but moving my character and the camera, and I like to keep the camera on the move constantly both to stay aware for world pvp and to make the game look better. So there's no time for clicking buttons unless I simply can't remember the key for them.

People overlook a lot of good and handy keybinds. There are dozens of key combinations on the board that are easily reached with a glance or less.

* tilde, alt+tilde, alt+Q
* ctrl+123
* alt+1237890
* backspace, num0, numplus
* ctrl+backspace, ctrl+del, ctrl+\

The numpad is handy for consumables and trinkets, as is ctrl+numX.

I bind the first 5 keys on a bar numerically, then skip the 6th and bind 6 through 10 to the 7 through minus keys. This sets up the bars in groups of 5 which help my brain remember the bindings.

The absolute best thing you can do for your game is seriously to bind autorun to a thumb button on the mouse. If you haven't tried that, give it a shot and use it in conjunction with aswd movement. It'll change your life, I promise!