Will never happen because Apple patents every orifice of their device so anyone who so much as puts the same phrase as an Ipod will get sued to high heaven.mysecondlife said:
Developers: Steam Controller "Doesn't Feel Like a Trackpad"
- Thread starter Cognimancer
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Then just plug in a regular controller, this is not the only option...... (unlike on most consoles)Vrach said:Was my first thought, yeah, but don't see improvement in it :/Amaror said:The trackpat can serve as button. Want to press the right button? Press on the right side of the trackpat.Vrach said:Then what buttons do serve that purpose? Cause you kinda need something to click to do stuffCrazyFikus said:
Well, this at least relieves some of my fears of the controller, though, to tell you honestly, I wasn't so much concerned about the trackpad after hearing about the feedback they provide. Still, I want to try one out before really getting too excited about it. The button layout still has me concerned, and while we can reconfigure the buttons and even modify the controller, it still has me worried.
Still, I want to at least try one. I have been proven wrong in the past about new ways of doing something. I'm just hoping Valve is capable of doing that.
Still, I want to at least try one. I have been proven wrong in the past about new ways of doing something. I'm just hoping Valve is capable of doing that.
A few people seem to think this is still Valve's marketing campaign... Uh, the people commenting on the controller have nothing to do with Valve. READ
It sounds pretty great but I'm still having a hard time imagining how they actually feel. There really need to be places to try these things out before you buy them. What I want now is some feedback on how the button placement works for various genres
It sounds pretty great but I'm still having a hard time imagining how they actually feel. There really need to be places to try these things out before you buy them. What I want now is some feedback on how the button placement works for various genres
I can honestly say I think you may very well be the first person on this forum who mirrors my thoughts on this. Almost to the letter. That being, in a simple sense, skeptical optimism.Sleekit said:the move from d-pad to analog sticks took a bit of adjustment too...
i'm of a mind that i can't can't really make a judgement on the controller until trying it (and if Valve has any brains there will be little booths popping up that let people do just that) but i can see how it might feel pretty good and natural if it can truly track the tips of your thumbs with a high level of precision/accuracy.
if you picture how somone might mime using a controller...hands cupped, thumbs wiggling...it fits that well enough but this has a layer of potentially problematic mechanical parts (ie the sticks) removed...if it truly does work well...if the "trackpads" really are waaay in advance with those we might casually/lazily equate them with...it may be very good indeed...
regardless as an idea it still holds weight for the future because of that removal of mechanical parts angle...even if it doesn't satisfy everyone now with this iteration, doing away with the sticks still makes a lot of sense going forward...
to my mind, despite how...emblematic?..."sticks" are to gaming and gamers (and they are), this potentially has a bit of the move from ball to optical mice about it...
edit - consider also the fact the control surface/point is curved in a manner that actually follows much more closely the natural track of the movement coming down onto it from the axes of the joints in our thumbs (unlike thumbsticks which because they move on a separate axis of their own actually do the opposite) imo this design possibly has the potential to be much more comfortable in use than what we have grown accustomed to. simplistically put that bowl/cupped shape will require less "stretching" and "folding" of the whole of the thumb.
on a personal note i actually have "problems with hands" due to working in the "trades" for years and i kinda want to try one of these out due to the fact they may actually be far more "ergonomic" than what we're used to and thus hopefully kinder on my hands when setting about a decent gaming session that requires a controller.
tbth i still kinda prefer using a d-pad when it occasionally pops up in my gaming because, as i mentioned, thumbsticks require that "stretching" and "folding" of the whole of the thumb and maintaining a sort of "balancing on the axes of the stick" touch (as opposed to a sort of more planted actually "resting on the controller" touch) which sadly often makes often makes my hands hurt quite badly now
one way of looking this design is in terms of being more akin to an evolution of the old d-pads rather than the intermediary of "analog sticks" because it kinda seems much like a "digital d-pad" but with the direction that the "d-" stands for now being tracked in a full "analog like" range, subtlety and speed of motion and i suspect that'll probably be a bit like what it feels like in use "in your hands"...assuming the technology "works" ofc...
So rather than retype my thoughts, again, I felt compelled to just quote yours.
Hope you don't mind.
Because there's a market for it.legendp said:
And it will begin a shift of game support to Linux, which is something that many people (myself included) fully endorse and would pay extra money to make happen.
Heaven forbid that we have options.
Can someone please explain to me what the point of the Steam console is? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or start a fight, I really want to know. If I understand it correctly, its a console for those who want to play AAA but A. don't have a computer good enough and B. don't have a console to run it.
Why is this being hailed as Valve descending from on high to bring us the word? From my estimate, they solved the problem of people not wanting to spend money to buy a console to play big name games by...offering them a console to buy...
Look, I don't know about the rest of you, but unless I'm damn sure I can run a game on my laptop - a process that takes a whole minute to find out - I'll get it for my 360. And that seems to be working for me. And lets not forget I can hook up my laptop to my TV and run 'Big Screen' mode and essentially play my steam games on my TV...
So I ask again, what is the point of this console? Whats the target audience? What problem does it fix? Why is this seen as smart by Valve instead of a marketing blunder?
Why is this being hailed as Valve descending from on high to bring us the word? From my estimate, they solved the problem of people not wanting to spend money to buy a console to play big name games by...offering them a console to buy...
Look, I don't know about the rest of you, but unless I'm damn sure I can run a game on my laptop - a process that takes a whole minute to find out - I'll get it for my 360. And that seems to be working for me. And lets not forget I can hook up my laptop to my TV and run 'Big Screen' mode and essentially play my steam games on my TV...
So I ask again, what is the point of this console? Whats the target audience? What problem does it fix? Why is this seen as smart by Valve instead of a marketing blunder?
I would imagine that it is more compact and quieter than a typical gaming PC. And the Steam OS is supposedly designed to be optimized for running on a TV screen from a couch, unlike Windows. It would also be a custom Linux build supported and maintained by Steam, and therefore optimized for the purpose of running games - again, unlike Windows.Silentpony said:
We'll have to see when the hardware itself, but that's basically the gist of it from what Valve is saying.
Lots of people don't want to run PCs let alone hook them up to the TV. After all, we're in the supposedly "post-PC" world, and many people's primary device is a tablet or a phone, and the only time they might use traditional computers is at work. Hence the appeal of something console-like, and the ability for Steam's business to continue as sales of desktop and laptop computers stagnate or drop.
It looks promising to say the least. Hopefully things will clear up more in next year's E3.
Unless of course Valve decides to hold it's own E3... with blackjack and hookers.
Unless of course Valve decides to hold it's own E3... with blackjack and hookers.
I never understood this argument. Ive had plenty of PCs and the only thing there making noise (beside the old style hard drives that used to run like sledgehammer, but they arent around for almost a decade now) was when fans wore our and asked to be replace, so they got noisy. if anything consoles were always way more noisier becuase the dvd/BR drive is the noisiest part of computer anyway, and with PC your running off installed thing and not the disc.Aardvaarkman said:
This looks really weird. But maybe it's exactly what we need for controller gaming? I simply won't know unless I use it. This is probably my least favorite of the announcements with only appearances to go on. But with how many key bindings games have on pc I should have expected something unusual.
My initial reaction to this thing was a resounding "NO!". It just seemed like another touch-oriented device furthering my theory/tinfoil-hat-fear that the industry is waging a 'war on buttons' and eventually all we'll be left with is sloppy inaccurate touch controls with no tactile feedback.
After reading a couple of developers' accounts of the control, I'm a little less concerned about the trackpads despite having owned an Xperia play and finding that its touchpads/trackpads were practiacally useless for analog control. The button placement still concerns me, however. With the disclaimer that I (obviously) haven't tried it yet, here's where I still see huge problems:
1) Lack of tactile feedback: I know people are going on and on about "haptic feedback", but in my experience, haptic feedback just plain doesn't work. Mobile phones use "haptic feedback" for their virtual keyboards. Can any of you honestly say that when haptics are enabled that you actually feel the keys on your soft keyboard when you're typing? In my experience the phone just vibrates uselessly and maybe makes a "tick" sound through the speaker. I have a sinking feeling that the Steam controller will be more-or-less the same.
2) No D-Pad: I play a lot of 2-D platformers and oldschool games. As such, a proper D-Pad is important to me. The Xbox 360 controller had an atrocious D-Pad, but it was better than none at all. I find analog sticks too unresponsive to play games designed around 'digital' control. I worry that these touchpads will fare even worse given that now the element of proper tactile feedback has been (mostly) removed.
3) No (proper) face buttons: I'm aware that there's still shoulder buttons and two "underside" buttons, but the lack of face buttons for performing primary functions may make this contrroller cumbersome for use with games which require frequent and complex actions. It's likely a lot of player preference on this one, but I can't see myself being overly thrilled having to change up my muscle-memory and re-learn primary control elements that have been in place since the NES days at least. The trackpads are clickable, yes, but I see them being just about as much use as the "buttons" located underneath the analog sticks on the Playstation/Xbox360 controllers (read: not very.)
If I had a suggestion for Valve, it would be this: Change the right trackpad from one clickable region to 4, and 'simulate' the diamond face button configuration that most games use. Then, depending on how soft the trackpad's rubber is, make the center of those regions able to raise/lower from underneath the rubber to convert the trackpad to real face buttons when needed. The left pad could have a similar structure to turn it into a real D-Pad. As they are right now, the trackpad-to-button setup looks like a pain. Maybe this is too intricate to realistically implement, but it would be a hell of a lot better to actually create real tactile buttons on demand than to have some useless "haptic" vibrations.
I'll give this thing a chance, but I'm still not feeling warm and fuzzy about it.
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Tl;dr: Button placement is worrying, the controller needs a d-pad; haptic feedback as it's seen today in mobile devices is just a useless "rumble" feature that accomplishes nothing; wouldn't it be nice if the touchpad had 4 real buttons underneath the rubber that could raise up when real buttons are needed instead of just making the pad one large click target.
After reading a couple of developers' accounts of the control, I'm a little less concerned about the trackpads despite having owned an Xperia play and finding that its touchpads/trackpads were practiacally useless for analog control. The button placement still concerns me, however. With the disclaimer that I (obviously) haven't tried it yet, here's where I still see huge problems:
1) Lack of tactile feedback: I know people are going on and on about "haptic feedback", but in my experience, haptic feedback just plain doesn't work. Mobile phones use "haptic feedback" for their virtual keyboards. Can any of you honestly say that when haptics are enabled that you actually feel the keys on your soft keyboard when you're typing? In my experience the phone just vibrates uselessly and maybe makes a "tick" sound through the speaker. I have a sinking feeling that the Steam controller will be more-or-less the same.
2) No D-Pad: I play a lot of 2-D platformers and oldschool games. As such, a proper D-Pad is important to me. The Xbox 360 controller had an atrocious D-Pad, but it was better than none at all. I find analog sticks too unresponsive to play games designed around 'digital' control. I worry that these touchpads will fare even worse given that now the element of proper tactile feedback has been (mostly) removed.
3) No (proper) face buttons: I'm aware that there's still shoulder buttons and two "underside" buttons, but the lack of face buttons for performing primary functions may make this contrroller cumbersome for use with games which require frequent and complex actions. It's likely a lot of player preference on this one, but I can't see myself being overly thrilled having to change up my muscle-memory and re-learn primary control elements that have been in place since the NES days at least. The trackpads are clickable, yes, but I see them being just about as much use as the "buttons" located underneath the analog sticks on the Playstation/Xbox360 controllers (read: not very.)
If I had a suggestion for Valve, it would be this: Change the right trackpad from one clickable region to 4, and 'simulate' the diamond face button configuration that most games use. Then, depending on how soft the trackpad's rubber is, make the center of those regions able to raise/lower from underneath the rubber to convert the trackpad to real face buttons when needed. The left pad could have a similar structure to turn it into a real D-Pad. As they are right now, the trackpad-to-button setup looks like a pain. Maybe this is too intricate to realistically implement, but it would be a hell of a lot better to actually create real tactile buttons on demand than to have some useless "haptic" vibrations.
I'll give this thing a chance, but I'm still not feeling warm and fuzzy about it.
...
Tl;dr: Button placement is worrying, the controller needs a d-pad; haptic feedback as it's seen today in mobile devices is just a useless "rumble" feature that accomplishes nothing; wouldn't it be nice if the touchpad had 4 real buttons underneath the rubber that could raise up when real buttons are needed instead of just making the pad one large click target.
It sounds like it can definitely work like a click-wheel. It can certainly track your thumb as you move it around the pad. The announcement indicated that it is clickable and that it can register those clicks as different buttons based on where you are on it when you click. It sounds like it can work as more than 4 buttons at once too.Dragonbums said:
I'm sure it's using significantly different tech to avoid patent problems with Apple. Or, you know, they just paid for licenses they needed.
I did read the Team Meat review. But what I got from that was that while you can map face buttons to the pad, there's no region defining where your "button" is. It looks to be a touch-based mapping, rather than a click/press/button-based mapping, as there is only one clickable target under the trackpad. I'd suggest taking Tommy's "nub" idea one step further and making 4 real buttons/clickable targets under the thing and make the clickable areas feel physically different from the rest of the pad.romxxii said:
Maybe the single click target can work as 4 buttons with a combination of touch/click. We'll have to see. Regardless, it won't make it feel like 4 individual buttons. My worry there is that it'll be like those laptop trackpads that rock around when you click on them and generally feel unstable.
I have a huge problem with "touch" buttons in both the areas of feel and pressure that this thing in its current form seems to highlight rather than alleviate.
Well, I couldn't possibly care less (although I do admit I have a pang of curiosity buried somewhere deep within my PC dominated heart). Now, at least we may hazard a guess as to why no Half Life 3/Portal 3 - they're holding out, trying to extend their reach to more consumers, before they announce the really interesting stuff. Not a bad tactic: the more you starve an audience, the more desperate they'll be, I suppose. Although, that does come with a price: Whenever they do announce Half Life 3/Portal 3 (maybe 10-15 years or so?) If those games don't turn out to be the Citizen Kane of games and best thing in the world ever, right up there with the cure for cancer and an answer to over-population and dwindling resources, then people are gonna be pretty pissed - the longer they make us wait, the bigger our expectations will be. Good luck with that, VALVe, I trust in thee.
I disagree; the nubs I can deal with, but making it too discrete physically might rob from the fact that it's trying to simulate mouse movement, which is a level of precision that four buttons or a thumbstick cannot match. Make the divisions clearer, put a nub, but don't make it actual face buttons to the detriment of an actual accurate aiming input system. I honestly don't understand how console players can live with themselves playing FPSes with 360 controllers; I've tried several times, and it always felt cumbersome even when compared to a shitty, poorly-maintained mouse.MHzBurglar said:
The reviews already said that they feel nothing like trackpads, and feel more like track balls. You're worrying about something you don't have to.