The "yet another thread ruined by ABF" Thread

[OB1]

When I say PC RPG, I'd generally mean a RPG on the PC...

Well you needed to make that more clear.

On this subject you are utterly discounting the entire PC gaming side of things, so it's not a bad comparison at all... as for change, if things work really well as they are why do something totally different?

Wow, what a sad, sad response. While the console industry has developers like Nintendo innovating every which way whenever they can because they know that staying stagnant will kill the industry, you have people like you on the PC side fighting for things to stay the same, which will most definitely be the death of the industry.

Analog controls... gamepads usually have them. Not always, but usually. Joysticks of course do. What flight sim developers would do is just require a joystick, you know. Yes, it limits your audience somewhat, but it's really the only good solution for games like that. But for most games mouse and keyboard can perform adaquately. For some genres it's the best control mechanism possible (PC-style RPGs, all kinds of strategy games, wargames, (graphical or text) adventure games, FPSes, many third-person action titles, etc), and for others it can make do for people without gamepads or joysticks. Not as good, but that's why you buy a joystick, nice gamepad, or steering wheel if you want better controls for games that control better with some other kind of input device.

Gamepads just assign keyboard keys to buttons. There are very few PC games that support analog control. There's a reason why fighting games, third-person action/adventure games, beat-em-ups (like DMC), platformers, and various other types of games are scarce on the PC. There's simply no control standard for any of them. You can't release a great, original 3D platformer for the PC without including kb&m support, which basically ruins the controls and forces you to greatly limit the way you design the controls. If you're not making a strategy game, FPS-style game (that includes the likes of Max Payne), or sim, you're going to have great creative difficulties.