DICE Investigating Support for Alternate Controls
A couple days ago I received an interesting email from a developer working for DICE, of Battlefield: Bad Company fame. Out of respect for this gentleman’s privacy, I’m not going to publish his name or email address here.
I will say, however, that DICE have taken note of our site and our control needs. The gentleman asked me a number of questions about our control preferences. I did my best to represent our site well in my reply and essentially stressed the importance of including the four standard stick layouts and controller customization so that each player can find a setting that suits their own personal tastes.
Some of his questions related to the re-mapping of the triggers and stick-presses while using alternate controls. They appear to be unsure if these should be switched as well. I stressed that this is a matter of personal taste and reiterated the fact that button mapping should be readily available since some players prefer these options switched, while others do not. This may shed some light on the fact why alternate controls are not included in certain games and stresses the point that if people speak up in a mature, professional manner, game companies will listen to their consumers.
So does this mean that the next game from DICE is guaranteed to support our control preferences? No… this means that they are taking the time to look into the matter and obviously care about the needs of their consumers. This is a great start and a much greater stride than some developers have been willing to take.
Thank you, DICE, for taking note of our site and for looking into the importance of alternative & customizable controls.
And to our members and visitors that have been speaking up to developers about Alt-Controls.com and our site goals, well done and thanks. It seems that we have gotten the attention of at least one developer who has taken the matter seriously.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
19 Responses to “DICE Investigating Support for Alternate Controls”
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mitch82cc says:
October 30th, 2008 at 8:57 amThat is awesome news! Great work on getting through to a major developer. I personally don’t care too much about button configuration. I would just like to see more games include Legacy sticks. I grew up playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on N64. Then Halo came along and supported it through all 3 of their games. That’s a lot of playing with one setup, and very difficult to change after nearly a decade.
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SAKY says:
October 30th, 2008 at 8:58 amAwesome…..yea that’s it. I’m speechless.
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soulwarrior says:
October 30th, 2008 at 9:27 amThis is great news
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Pete says:
October 30th, 2008 at 9:28 amIt would be nice if you could post the email reply you sent to DICE so we can see exactly what you said to them, so we can all be better at contacting game developers and of course you don’t need to post the guys name or email address.
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lone runer says:
October 30th, 2008 at 10:24 amcool!, im praying that Mirrors Edge has our controls
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Batian says:
October 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pmWow we finally get heard. Not lets try to do the same with Ubisoft :0)
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2Three says:
October 30th, 2008 at 2:45 pmMy reply to DICE:
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Thank you for your email. Battlefield: Bad Company would have been more accessible for Alt-Control players if what we call the “four standard stick layouts” were included: This being Southpaw, Legacy and Legacy-Southpaw along with the normal Default setting. We endorse games that offer all four of these options - especially so when button mapping is offered, as seen in Unreal Tournament 3.As for stick-presses and trigger positions, I use the “Legacy” set up and I’m comfortable using the trigger and stick-presses in the standard fashion. With Southpaw and Legacy-Southpaw gamers, it depends on the player. Some prefer the stick and triggers reversed; others don’t. This is why we often suggest that the best option is to support the four stick layouts, and also to offer button mapping - so each gamer can map the buttons to suit their own personal tastes.
I would like to thank you for your email and attention to the matter. Our purpose at Alt-Controls.com is not to “cut up” developers and games that do not support our controls, but rather to increase the awareness of our control needs. Please feel free to let me know if you have anymore questions.
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2Three says:
October 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pm@ Batian
I agree that we need to work on Ubisoft as well. They’ve forgotten about the GRAW episode, it seems.
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Nathan Rain says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pmFantastic news.
I really, really, really hope that Mirror’s Edge at least supports Southpaw, otherwise I’m planning on soldering my wired one to play it southpaw style permanently.
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Brandon S, says:
October 30th, 2008 at 8:57 pmFreakin’ righteous. I hope they don’t go making games where swapping the analog sticks forces the swapping of the L and R triggers as well. GRAW 2 came so close to being playable, yet just didn’t quite hit it…
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lone runer says:
October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 pmyeah i hated that problem too Brandon S
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mclovin says:
October 30th, 2008 at 11:50 pmAwesome news 2Three, I glad to see we have gotten some where with DICE.
Battlefield: Bad Company was a great game, the only thing that was holding it back was the bad control setup and no customisation for it.Lets hope more devs follow in realizing our needs just like Bungie, Epic and Treyarch have.
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Nathan Rain says:
October 31st, 2008 at 3:07 amSo guess what guys…
MIRROR’S EDGE SUPPORTS SOUTHPAW.
Here’s proof!!!!: http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll121/permutated/MirrorsEdgeSouthpaw.jpg
The demo was INCREDIBLE. GOTY material for sure, will be picking this up day one!
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SAKY says:
October 31st, 2008 at 3:58 am@Nathan Rain
Don’t get your hopes up. It’s pretty late in development for that game. By the way the demo hit XBOX LIVE today, perhaps even PSN since it is Thursday.
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2Three says:
October 31st, 2008 at 8:49 amNathan,
Can you also check for Legacy?
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soulwarrior says:
October 31st, 2008 at 9:12 amI played the demo of Mirror’s Edge on PS3 yesterday shortly and can confirm that there are also southpaw controls on the PS3 version. Unfortunately there are no legacy controls.
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2Three says:
October 31st, 2008 at 9:19 amThanks for the confirmation soulwarrior.
I’ll update the control lists and get a quick post up for easier reference.
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CyrusQ says:
November 1st, 2008 at 6:55 pmThis is awesome news! DICE redeemed in my eyes! Hopefully other developers notice the site as well and realize there are a lot of us that want to swap the sticks (or use legacy).
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Atlalt says:
November 12th, 2008 at 5:07 amInteresting that they emailed you. While you were quite diplomatic, I still wonder “why?”, why they did ask something that should be included logically. The more complex the controls become, the more obvious it is to allow full customization. I mean the controls are not just 2/3 buttons + a pad that we are using on these consoles. Still, its a good thing after all. Lets hope more developers follow the trend.
