The Valve Thread

[Not Thread Owner]

Why wouldn't jumping on a shoulder button work? As long as it's a digital button and I can press it quickly, it'd work fine. Would feel a weird at first, but it's not like it's something which would somehow impair how you play.

Pressing in a touchpad is perfectly fine for something like jumping in Portal. The advantage it has over pressing in a stick is that it's easy to do no matter where you've placed your thumb to move, whereas on a stick pressing it in while at an angle always feels weird.

Did you ever play Sonic on the iPod? I mean, the touch wheel iPod. That is exactly how you jumped.

It was fucking shit.

[Smitty]

Man alive, people really don't like the new or unfamiliar do they?

'It's not familiar, kill it with fire'

It's entirely possible in 2015 we'll be saying 'wow can't believe we stuck with the old model for so long'.

[Bojangle]

But I was hoping this was going to be good

£100 says deKay would have already pre-ordered 2 of those pads if they had the words Nintendo across the front.

[NinjaSeb]

Looks amazing! I need to try it.

[Bojangle]

Did you ever play Sonic on the iPod? I mean, the touch wheel iPod. That is exactly how you jumped.

It was fucking shit.

I think these trackpads just might, and I'm going out on a fucking hunch here, be slightly better than the touch wheel in the old school iPod.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Did you ever play Sonic on the iPod? I mean, the touch wheel iPod. That is exactly how you jumped.

It was fucking shit.

No, but I've played "Using a trackpad on a Macbook Air to control a mouse pointer". Plays really well.

[Not Thread Owner]

£100 says deKay would have already pre-ordered 2 of those pads if they had the words Nintendo across the front.

Only if they came with a new Nintendo console.

[Comrade]

Honestly, people are calling me mental for thinking this is terrible, but the only counter-argument to my concerns is "Oh well, Valve wouldn't fuck it up"?

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Honestly, people are calling me mental for thinking this is terrible, but the only counter-argument to my concerns is "Oh well, Valve wouldn't fuck it up"?

Apart from the other counter arguments you're ignoring where people are responding to your specific concerns, sure!

[Not Thread Owner]

I think these trackpads just might, and I'm going out on a fucking hunch here, be slightly better than the touch wheel in the old school iPod.

Sure, but you still have to slide and press. It's the action not the sensitivity that's the problem.

[Bojangle]

Honestly, people are calling me mental for thinking this is terrible, but the only counter-argument to my concerns I choose to read is "Oh well, Valve wouldn't fuck it up"?

Fixed.

[Not Thread Owner]

No, but I've played "Using a trackpad on a Macbook Air to control a mouse pointer". Plays really well.

It does. But I still don't slide and click with my thumb. I slide with my finger, click with my thumb.

[Comrade]

Apart from the other counter arguments you're ignoring where people are responding to your specific concerns, sure!

Where? The only actual suggestion was someone saying that jump might be on one of the back paddles. Which is terrible.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Sure, but you still have to slide and press. It's the action not the sensitivity that's the problem.

Well, no. You can hold your thumb in place and press. In Sonic you'd keep your thumb in one place to the right of the pad (all of the time, the entire game) and then pressing it in to jump.

[snowbind]

Personally I'd put jump on the back.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Where? The only actual suggestion was someone saying that jump might be on one of the back paddles. Which is terrible.

Why wouldn't jumping on a shoulder button work? As long as it's a digital button and I can press it quickly, it'd work fine. Would feel a weird at first, but it's not like it's something which would somehow impair how you play.

[Bojangle]

Where? The only actual suggestion was someone saying that jump might be on one of the back paddles. Which is terrible.

Why is that a terrible option?

[Professor Puzzles]

Stop talking about the pad everyone, I'm going to start a kickstarter to raise funds for a nice shiny pitchfork so I can storm Valve HQ and demand they release information on Half-Life 3 or they'll feel such a prickin' as they aint never been pruck before.

[snowbind]

Actually I've changed my mind, to jump I am going to assign that all four shoulder buttons be pressed at once because fuck comrade.

[Bojangle]

Stop talking about the pad everyone, I'm going to start a kickstarter to raise funds for a nice shiny pitchfork so I can storm Valve HQ and demand they release information on Half-Life 3 or they'll feel such a prickin' as they aint never been pruck before.

Yeah, but what button are you going to use to start the Kickstarter?

[Massive Invisible Dog]

I'm going to assign jump to the A button on a 360 pad I will use in conjunction with the Steam pad. When I need to jump, I'll put down the Steam controller, pick up the 360 controller, put it down then move back to the Steam controller.

[Alex W.]

It's like Amiga owners deluding themselves that pushing up for jump was acceptable all over again.

I originally posted it as a joke but I actually used this thing to play C64 and Amiga games. Our mum got it for us because I guess the whole Nintendo Thumb thing was in the news.

I thought it was great.

Spacehost hated it IIRC and in the goodness of time played games with this instead.

[milko]

I thought the beta odds would be worse than they are, so far.

You are now one out of 142,624 eligible beta candidates.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Why is that a terrible option?

My guess is that it's terrible because it's not the same as pressing A, which is something Comrade has tried and likes. There's probably no point in trying to convince him that something different can also work, because he's a bit stupid.

[Comrade]

Oh, OK, I'll deal with that (to MID) - Do you think there might be some kind of reason why no platform games put jump on a shoulder button? Thumbs are far more sensitive and active than fingers, that's why pads have all the main buttons for them. Jump on a shoulder button or stick-click might be barely acceptable for an FPS like Portal where you don't jump very often, but in a game where you do it frequently it simply won't work.

[Bojangle]

With any luck they'll be a version of the Steam Box released with voice recognition. Then you can just sit yelling "JUMP!" at the screen when you need to jump, without all this worry about which button you'll assign jumping to.

[Comrade]

Actually I've changed my mind, to jump I am going to assign that all four shoulder buttons be pressed at once because fuck comrade.

I don't know why you find me saying how terrible this pad is offensive, but really, could you play (say) Mario 64 with jump on a shoulder button?

[Bojangle]

Oh, OK, I'll deal with that (to MID) - Do you think there might be some kind of reason why no platform games put jump on a shoulder button? Thumbs are far more sensitive and active than fingers, that's why pads have all the main buttons for them. Jump on a shoulder button or stick-click might be barely acceptable for an FPS like Portal where you don't jump very often, but in a game where you do it frequently it simply won't work.

I just tried playing Super Meat Boy (a game that arguably requires more timing/skill/accuracy than any of the Super Mario Bros games) using both the right trigger and right bumper as jump on a 360 pad.

It worked perfectly fine.

[Comrade]

I just tried playing Super Meat Boy using both the right trigger and right bumper as jump on a 360 pad.

It worked perfectly fine.

You are a liar.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Oh, OK, I'll deal with that (to MID) - Do you think there might be some kind of reason why no platform games put jump on a shoulder button? Thumbs are far more sensitive and active than fingers, that's why pads have all the main buttons for them. Jump on a shoulder button or stick-click might be barely acceptable for an FPS like Portal where you don't jump very often, but in a game where you do it frequently it simply won't work.

Out of interest - do you have any evidence to support the claim that "thumbs are far more sensitive and active than fingers"? Would be nice to read just to confirm it's not just some spurious bullshit you've come up with to support your point.