Poll: Do you invert and how old are you -- testing a hypothesis

[Owyn_Merrilin]

We've had a rash of threads lately asking whether or not people invert their controls in FPS games. I personally invert mine, because I grew up in the days when Flight Sims were common, and FPS's were just getting off the ground. In both cases, assuming there was a Y axis at all, it was generally inverted, with no option to switch it to what we call "normal" today. I have a feeling that most people who invert are my age or older, and most people who don't are younger, and I'd like to test it. For reference, I'm 21.

So, do you invert, and how old are you?

 

[Irridium]

19, not inverted. Though I do play quite a few flying games with an inverted axis(whats the plural of axis? Axii. Axises, Axis'?).

I can usually switch between inverted/non-inverted fairly easily, so yeah. I'm just awesome like that.

/ego boost

 

[teqrevisited]

I'm 21, I keep it normal for everything besides flying choppers / jets in Battlefield.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

I'm 19 and I've always tried to have the 'normal' controls when possible.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I'm 17 and I never invert, it confuses me and throws off my aim most of the time. The only game where I use invert is Freespace 2.

 

[b3nn3tt]

21, I don't like inverting, it just confuses me more than anything. Can't really see why anyone would do so, actually. Obviously if it works for you, then it makes sense to stick with it, but I just can't do it

 

[Zantos]

I'm 21 and always invert. Though I think I might be an anomalous result considering how long it took me to figure out how old I was.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'm 29 and I have them normal but I'm female so maybe that has somthing to do with it. I've gamed on alot of different platforms since I was 4 or 5.

*shrug*

 

[ssgt splatter]

I play normal and I'm 21. I grew up during flight sims too but right around the time I got into videogames, 007 Goldeneye came out so I got used to up being up and down being down pretty early on.

 

[Malfy]

25. I used to invert for a short while playing FPS gamesar on my PS2, then I stopped gaming for awhile. When I came back to gaming, I couldn't go back to my inverting ways. Weird.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

43 and I invert the y axis.

I also play with a trackball (a Kensington Optical Expert Mouse, which is the biggest optical mouse readily available on the open market), so that freelook mirrors head movement. As I've noted elsewhere, this is a very immersive combination.

I did notice that when playing with an actual mouse, a non-inverted Y mirrors normal mouse movements on the 2D visual plane. So my theory was that trackball users inverted Y.

238U.

 

[DustyDrB]

23, normal. The only "flight" games I played when I was growing up was Rogue Squadron on the N64. I believe it gave you the option to turn off inverted controls then. Inverted feels unnatural to me, and I struggle with it when I'm forced to use it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

21, I don't like inverting, it just confuses me more than anything. Can't really see why anyone would do so, actually. Obviously if it works for you, then it makes sense to stick with it, but I just can't do it

That's the way I feel about putting it on normal; it confuses me, but I don't really care if someone else uses it, unless I have to borrow one of their controllers

I started this thread because I was curious about how old the average inverter is -- my guess is that they would have been playing 3D games from their inception, while the other group would be slightly younger.

 

[staika]

19 and I go normal, I never liked the Inverted but at times I can get too used to it and for a time all games have to be inverted but I always go back to normal.

 

[Ramin 123]

19, not inverted. Though I do play quite a few flying games with an inverted axis(whats the plural of axis? Axii. Axises, Axis'?).

I can usually switch between inverted/non-inverted fairly easily, so yeah. I'm just awesome like that.

/ego boost

Isn't it the same as sheep it doesn't have a plural, it stays the exact same but can mean two different things. e.g. I saw one sheep - I saw three sheep.

Never played a flight simulator so this is from the basis of playing FPS, always has been normal. Never liked inverted, used to have that on TimeSplitters 2, grrr that was annoying.

 

[Phlakes]

I used to play inverted when I was younger because I grew up with Goldeneye and the aiming in Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, but I took a pretty long break from gaming and when I came back with CoD 2 and Halo, I naturally started using regular controls.

19, not inverted. Though I do play quite a few flying games with an inverted axis(whats the plural of axis? Axii. Axises, Axis'?).

Axes, with a long E, like thesis -> theses.

 

[loc978]

I'm 30.
I don't invert, because in the early days of shooters before mouse support, I played exclusively on the keyboard, and the y-axis was configurable. I usually had home for up, end for down (with delete and pgdwn for strafing)... such awkward controls, back then.
Quake with its full mouse support was a revelation, and any form of joystick is quite simply inferior for the purpose of first-person shooters where one is under the influence of gravity.

That said, of course I keep a joystick inverted for sim games. There is one shooter series I play with a joystick/keyboard combo, and that is Descent.

 

[Silent Anima]

I'm 16 and I don't invert, though whenever I do play flight sims I invert. It doesn't feel right when not inverted IMO.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm 30.
I don't invert, because in the early days of shooters before mouse support, I played exclusively on the keyboard, and the y-axis was configurable. I usually had home for up, end for down (with delete and pgdwn for strafing)... such awkward controls, back then.
Quake with its full mouse support was a revelation, and any form of joystick is quite simply inferior for the purpose of first-person perspective gameplay.

That said, of course I keep a joystick inverted for sim games. There is one shooter series I play with a joystick/keyboard combo, and that is Descent.

Just wondering, what shooters were you playing? The only FPS I played that was post look up/look down but pre-mouselook was Dark Forces, which if I remember correctly, didn't allow for the controls to be remapped. Either way, the default was page up to look down, and page down to look up.