Southpaw Gaming

[Iun]

 

 

 

 

Apparently, left handed people have the advantage in fighting and one on one sports. Because lefties make up about 10% of the population, the odds of fighting a left handed person is less (10% funnily enough), meaning right handed fighters don't get much practice fighting against lefties. Left handed fighters however, fight against right handed people 90% of the time, meaning they are well practiced against right handers. Lefty on lefty is still an even playing field. There's a famous example (I forget who) where a lefty boxer came out in a right handed stance, swapped to a left handed stance straight away, confusing his opponent, before landing the first and only punch of the bout.

 

 

 

That sounds like an amalgam of Rocky II and the last fight had in 2007 - except I didn't swap stances, I just hammered the little guy in the face, he went flying with a cut under the right eye and stopped the fight.

 

Pretty little thing had never really been hit before.

 

I play bass right handed however: the ol' brain box performs a double somersault when I pick up a guitar left-handed.

[nekunando]

But yeah, surely it's, like, a line of code (coming from a non-coder this may be ludicrous)

 

You're probably not far off, actually..

 

As far as I see it, it isn't really any different from being given the option to customise any of the other buttons. I'm sure someone more experienced will set me straight, but I imagine the programming would be as follows:

 

If the game does not allow any customisation of controls, the developer should have no problem, for example, setting specfic buttons to do specfic things when pressed.. for example..

if (A.pressed)

{

jump();

}

 

Obviously I'm simplifying what would actually be present, but I'm sure you get the idea! If they gave the option for the player to assign any button to 'jump', the code would only differ slightly.. for example..

 

if (jumpButton.pressed)

{

jump();

}

 

In this instance, jumpButton would have a default value set by the programmer (such as A) which is part of the default control scheme. If the user wanted X to jump, there only needs to be a few lines of code to allow the player to assign a particular button as the jumpButton. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to do, particularly for an experienced development team. It's all about the variables

 

The way I see it is..

 

if (developers == lazy || developers == unqualified)

{

doNotIncludeSouthpaw();

sackProgrammer();

}

[EEVILMURRAY]

The fact that we have been able to aim with our left on previous generations is irrelevant. We can't play southpaw in certain current games.

How is it irrelevant? Us right handed people couldn't play "northpaw" in older games.

[Aimless]

So why do you guys think these things are left out of some games? Laziness, ignorance of the need etc?

Testing.

 

The moment you add any sort of customisability to control settings you then have to get QA to check for edge cases — "if reload's on this button and jump is on this one, what happens if they hold the former down whilst..." etc. I imagine Southpaw is less of an issue than button mapping as you're essentially swapping two identical inputs, but it does have other usability concerns: "if you have to hold forward and tap A to vault over cover, how are people going to do that when moving with the right stick?"

 

Ergonomically Southpaw often doesn't make sense, but I still think they should give people that want to use it the option. It's up there with camera inverting as something that's a negligible inclusion, but as there isn't really an industry standards body I suppose your best bet is to pester the console manufacturers to include the option at a system level.

[Goafer]

Cube; hell yes. Valve's subtitling is brilliant, but they have the time and resources to do them (and do those excellent audio commentaries).

 

Goafer; abridging is understandable in some instances, but many times the subtitles choose to change the wording entirely, omit things that easily could've been said, leave out half a dialogue exchange... I am only 'hard of hearing' so I tend to miss quiet words, things spoken off-screen, or just a few words here and there. I like to refer to subs in such situations.

 

Next time you watch a movie, put the subs on and you'll see what I mean. Every movie has to deal with the issue of appropriate abridging, and perhaps some things they leave out affect me and not others.

 

Yeah I used to use subtitles on when I used to watch movies at night (I use headphones now though). Some changes are pretty bad.

 

How is it irrelevant? Us right handed people couldn't play "northpaw" in older games.

 

It's irrelevant because it doesn't make a difference to how things are now. If that were the case today, I'd understand fully people complaining about it.

 

Just because one group of people had a hard time in the past, doesn't mean people can't bitch about the hard time they're having now.

 

I imagine the reason right handed people didn't bitch about left stick aiming was because they had never experienced the way the were supposed to aim (IE right thumb) so had no idea that they were playing the wrong way. Think back to shooters in the one thumb stick era. It was the general opinion that shooters on consoles were shit due to the controls. People just slated the whole control scheme, instead of realising that it was shit due to it being a left handed control scheme.

 

Nowadays, console shooters are just as popular/highly rated as the PC versions. I'd argue that it's because the majority of people (right handed people) finally have a control scheme they can use.

[Sméagol]

[..]

I put Xenoblade on Japanese voices and turned on the subtitles, but was a bit annoyed there were no subtitles for mid-battle banter. That's the kind of thing I see omitted the most.

 

Aw crap.

 

[..]

Just because one group of people had a hard time in the past, doesn't mean people can't bitch about the hard time they're having now.

 

I imagine the reason right handed people didn't bitch about left stick aiming was because they had never experienced the way the were supposed to aim (IE right thumb) so had no idea that they were playing the wrong way. Think back to shooters in the one thumb stick era. It was the general opinion that shooters on consoles were shit due to the controls. People just slated the whole control scheme, instead of realising that it was shit due to it being a left handed control scheme.

 

Nowadays, console shooters are just as popular/highly rated as the PC versions. I'd argue that it's because the majority of people (right handed people) finally have a control scheme they can use.

I disagree, especially about how “we’re supposed to aimâ€. I think it is simply a matter of what you’re used to, and therefore, how you were introduced to gaming (and using a controller). I’m curious how many left-handed people had trouble with Super Mario Bros? There were no alternatives (perhaps holding the controller upside down). Pushing a button is a very small movement, not as complex as throwing a ball. Look at my situation: I am right handed, but can’t for the love of God aim with a right positioned analogue stick. I wonder why I seem to be the only one with this problem, but I guess the Halo generation didn’t grow up with an N64. That said, Goafer, you’re not from the Halo generation I believe? I chose to learn FPS controls on the controller using the left stick and movement on the right c-buttons. I could have chosen a different option, the FPS games on the N64 usually had plenty of options. This to me felt most natural, and I chose this because it most closely resembled the PC configuration (WASD + mouse, only swapped). I didn’t know how people could use the original Goldeneye configuration, but anyway, this is what I decided on, and stuck with, and they did the same for the other configuration. Does this mean I suck at movement with the left stick? No of course not! If you go out of the context of FPS games, it’s obvious. Every other game that wasn’t a shooter of some kind on the N64 used the stick for movement. Does it move I can simply move in any game with the right stick? I can’t recall any recent examples, but I believe not. It’s simply restricted to shooters (where I simply want 4 direction movement), any games that require more precise movement, feel less natural I expect.

 

Anyway, to sum it up, I’m right handed, but learned to use the left stick to aim in shooters. As such, just like the actual left-handers, I always look for the “swap stick†option, and I’m alays quite disappointed if I don’t don’t find any. Generally it should be a simple thing to add, although in some cases there can be technical difficulties. I could be wrong, but I believe the classic controller pro for example, uses different sensitivities for each stick (which in itself is a stupid mistake, but anyway).

 

Luckily, I’m a proud member of a minority of Nintendo & PC gamers, so I rarely have to deal with this problem. I haven’t had to deal with sticks in shooters for years, with the odd exception. When I play on an X-box at someone else’s place or something. The last concrete example I can really recall was Starfox Assault, which didn’t include the option for the on-foot missions. I rarely looked up or down in that game, if I needed to shoot something that was elevated, I generally walked up to it or jumped. It made these missions harder than they needed to be. Oh and a funny example was Banjo-Tooie. Being a Rare game, they only included the Goldeneye controls for the FPS bits. I loved the game overall, but these bits made me nauseous, and I was glad there weren’t too many of them.

 

Another thing someone mentioned: inverted controls. I don't know if it was Starfox N64 that was the culprit, but yeah, I got accustomed to inverted controls too, but only when dealing with sticks. I never use inverted controls with mouse controls, but always with an analogue stick.

 

Lastly I will say that I’d like to see a general increase of options for gamers. Be it remapping controls or adjusting the visuals. It is a often heard complaint of PC gamers, but yes, it’s really annoying when PC games get dumbed down because the console versions have priority. I often facepalm when the visual settings only let you change the resolution (Assassins Creed I blieve), and I am annoyed when I can’t assign my 4th mouse button.

[Charlie]

To whoever said that you can't compare having to use a joystick with your 'wrong' hand to throwing with your 'wrong' hand - that's absolutely ridiculous. Why don't you try playing on Southpaw and see how you get on? Or writing with your other hand, that's a small movement too.

 

Being a righty, I've never even thought about this before but it is quite interesting. There's no reason they can't swap them over. Inverted look is an option in every game (which should be enabled by default as it's a joystick your using. Pull down on a joystick in their original place, an aircraft and the nose pulled up). I bought a game once which didnt let you invert the look, so I took it back because I couldn't and didn't want to get used to it.

 

 

As for lefties in sport, tennis in particular, I think they should be banned because they get an unfair advantage with having the serve out wide to the advantage court. Especially lefties who aren't actually left handed

[Aneres11]

As for lefties in sport, tennis in particular, I think they should be banned because they get an unfair advantage with having the serve out wide to the advantage court. Especially lefties who aren't actually left handed

 

Hey! You leave us lefty tennis players alone!

We should not be banned!

Ha i see where you're coming from. Though strangely even though i am a lefty and ive played club tennis for years, i dont actually have the 'lefty' serve.

I dont hold the grip correctly to generate an effective slice to the righties backhand. I can get it over there - just not quite good enough to cause problems haha.

Flat one down the middle though? All over that.

 

Back to the topic at hand though... I had never even heard of this until recently and i have to say the thought of playing a game with the sticks being 'swapped' does sound strange.

 

if anything it always seemed to me that the right handers had a hard time because they were having to use their less dominant hand for controlling - what with the dpad / analogue stick being situated to the left on virtually all control pads.

[Pit-Jr]

I write and eat left-handed but i throw right-handed and kick with my right foot. WHATS WRONG WITH ME?!

[Goafer]

I disagree, especially about how “we’re supposed to aimâ€. I think it is simply a matter of what you’re used to, and therefore, how you were introduced to gaming (and using a controller).

 

I've never been big on shooters so I never really played them in the early years. I only really started in the late Xbox/early 360 era. When I started, I played with normal controls. I pretty much sucked at them and avoided shooters. When I started playing first person RPGs like Oblivion, I had to play with regular controls. About half way through my time with Oblivion, I dabbled in a few more FPS games and must have found one with southpaw. I knew southpaw was another term for left handed, so figured I'd give it a go. It was odd at first, but I stuck with it and haven't looked back.

 

In short, I learned to play FPS's right handed, but it never felt natural so switched to southpaw when I learned of it's existence.

[Roostophe]

I write and eat left-handed but i throw right-handed and kick with my right foot. WHATS WRONG WITH ME?!

 

You're mixed-handed. The world isn't just 90% righty and 10% cack-handed. There are some weirdos like you (and me) who are dexterity mindfucks by doing things with one hand and other things with the other.

 

I never thought about the problems lefty gamers have because I play right-handed. Whether I always preferred playing righty or adapted to it, I've no idea.

[Dan_Dare]

Woah, two page thread while I've been at my girlfriend's. Ok!

 

Well yeah as pointed out by a few others, I R mega Southpaw. Obviously my disability, which reduces motor control on my right side in laymans, makes me something of an extreme case, but I'm not the only one who can't play a lot of games normally.

 

Here's a test: Anyone who says 'you can just learn!' should do exactly that. Go and switch on Halo or Call of Duty (both of which offer excellent control configuration. Yay!) and switch from regular controls to Southpaw. Then learn to play it as well as you could before.

 

Then, when you inevitably fail, imagine never being able to switch back. That's life for a lot of left handed gamers. How this is somehow industry standard is completely baffling, borderline discriminatory and speaks very poorly on gaming's record on accessibility and widening participation as a whole. Just look at Jayseven's issues with subtitles and audio choices for another example.

[nekunando]

How this is somehow industry standard is completely baffling, borderline discriminatory and speaks very poorly on gaming's record on accessibility and widening participation as a whole.

 

The Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination certainly helps address the issue considerign the fact that you are free to choose what hands you use to operate them

 

A friend of mine who I grew up with and played many games with in my younger days was down a couple of years ago to play some Wii games with me. He's left handed and when we went to play Mario Strikers: Charged Football, I saw him grasp the Wii Remote with his left hand and the Nunchuk in his right. It looked a bit strange to me as I hadn't seen it done before but I asked him about it and he said it felt more natural for him.. which makes sense!

[Dan_Dare]

Irony lolz: I find Wii controls borderline impossible, but that's more to do with me being a lolspaz.

[Ashley]

 

if (developers == lazy || developers == unqualified)

{

doNotIncludeSouthpaw();

sackProgrammer();

}

 

Ahh ActionScript humour.

 

While doing my own research I came across this paper on disability and video games - http://people.dsv.su.se/~thomasw/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/hcii2005_gac.pdf probably many more like it and obviously not saying left-handedness is a disability (obviously) but the topic has branched out.

[Pookiablo]

I'm a lefty but I've always played right-handed for some reason. Guessing it's something to do with the way I learned games. Would playing southpaw be more beneficial to me though or is it more of a preference thing?

[Goafer]

I'm a lefty but I've always played right-handed for some reason. Guessing it's something to do with the way I learned games. Would playing southpaw be more beneficial to me though or is it more of a preference thing?

 

I'm not sure to be honest. It would be interesting to compare how you are now with right handed with how you are in the future with a similar amount of time spent playing southpaw.

 

Some people just do things with their different hands. Just like some people write with their left hand, but do other stuff with the right. Maybe you're just a right handed gamer?

[Dyson]

I'm a lefty, and as Pook, have always played games right handed. Southpaw feels awkward, as does inverted aim. In fact, apart from writing I'm mostly a right handed person. It's an odd one.

[Happenstance]

I used to use inverted aiming when playing FPS' then one day, for no reason I can figure out I put on COD4 I think it was and the aiming just felt completely wrong and I had to switch over to normal aiming.

[Goafer]

I used to use inverted aiming when playing FPS' then one day, for no reason I can figure out I put on COD4 I think it was and the aiming just felt completely wrong and I had to switch over to normal aiming.

 

Yeah I remember you using inverted. Wasn't sure if you still did or not. Got the impression you stopped, but wasn't sure as I couldn't remember you stopping.

 

 

I really wish I could use regular controls. Would be such a peace of mind. I wouldn't have had to spend all that money on an adapter for the PS3 if I could just get used to righty stuff.