Gabe Newell - PC/Linux gaming and Steambox

Robert ninja

If you can make smaller movements for things like lining up a shot by rolling your thumb print on the touch pads instead of moving your entire thumb (like this), I think you could get pretty accurate gamepad movement.

AlmightyCushion

Those touchpads could be interesting. Hopefully, they work really well. Not sure on the button layout though. I don't get the screen at all. It seems pointless, like keyboards with screens on them, the last thing you want to do is look down at your controller when playing a game. I also wonder how comfortable it would be to reach it.

Thecageyone

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

No look at it, awwwww

Haha, looks better like that.

It's shaped like the head rest of a car

shruikan2553

bizmark wrote: »

Wouldn't you get that with a 10 euro xbox 360 knock off controller from argos ? this thing doesn't look like it will be cheap

For a lot of games but if this thing works as well as they say then games like RTSs would be playable with a controller. Whether or not it will meet their claims is another thing. Cant be cheap either.

grimm2005

It just looks... well... weird, but I guess it's just because it's new and feels so alien to anything I'd be used to it. It certainly eliminates the problem of not all games being controller supported but we'll just have to wait and see if it's actually comfortable and intuitive to learn. If it was coming from anyone but Valve I'd probably write it off immediately.

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Those touchpads could be interesting. Hopefully, they work really well. Not sure on the button layout though. I don't get the screen at all. It seems pointless, like keyboards with screens on them, the last thing you want to do is look down at your controller when playing a game. I also wonder how comfortable it would be to reach it.

They have come up with a solution to that, if you press the screen (like a button) an overlay appears on your main screen so you can see what you're pressing essentially without taking your eyes from the screen.

wes

New joy pad is very interesting looking. Will want to get a hold of one before making any judgements, but definitely interesting.

marco_polo

Hmm definitely a more intriguing prospect than I was expecting, like other have said hard to judge without seeing it in the flesh.

Gut feeling is "I want that one" though

Varik

I can't see how using your thumb with a touch pad is going to be anything other than bad.

Dyr

Sarky wrote: »

They've put a lot of thought into it, by the looks of things. Touch screen, allegedly nearly mouse levels of resolution on the trackpads, some interesting feedback mechanisms and an official carte blanche to hack the sh*t out of it. I'd be quite interested in giving it a go.

tbh i doubt anything thumb controlled can be as accurate as a mouse. Thumbs are for gripping

Also: trackpads Valve? Really? On top of the condescending sentence about keyboards and mice it doesnt bode well for me

K.O.Kiki

Early feedback from developers.

"These are not like laptop trackpads," Tabar said. "Everyone is like, 'Oh we're replacing thumbsticks with trackpads, oh ****.' [laughs] But this is not at all like a laptop trackpad. It just feels good. It's a challenge to verbally describe it.

"When [your thumb] moves toward the outer zone of the trackpad, you can feel that. [The zones on the trackpad] are independent of each other," he added.

Robert ninja

^ Read more of the feedback. In short, nobody can properly describe it by comparisons to other controllers, mouse or touchpads. In other words, we have no idea what it's like until we get our hands on it ourselves so saying anything about it like we'll like or dislike it is pointless - it's something new.

stevenmu

My first thought looking at it was "no fcuking way will that be any good, it's just another stupid gimmick".

But on the other hand, Valve have been very open about saying that all the other motion gimmick stuff doesn't work and that they'd only get on board with something that works really well. It's very possible that they've come up with something much better than the traditional joystick type controller.

Although I won't really believe in it until I can try it out for myself.

jaykhunter

Radiosonde

stevenmu wrote: »

But on the other hand, Valve have been very open about saying that all the other motion gimmick stuff doesn't work and that they'd only get on board with something that works really well.

They did talk about using sensors that monitor your pulse (I think) to see how 'tense' you are - which sounds like the height of gimmickry (though obviously must have abandoned that idea.)

I quite like the look of it though. Was about time someone tried to shake up the traditional controller layout a bit. Sony and Microsoft seem content to stick with minor variations on this gen's controllers.

spankmaster2000

Robert ninja

without touchscreen


Diagram

C14N

Looks kind of strange but at least it's interesting. I'm a little worried about stuff like games that would normally use WASD to move around. Do we have to keep scrolling up on the left pad to move forward? Because that would get tiring quickly.

danthefan

C14N wrote: »

Looks kind of strange but at least it's interesting. I'm a little worried about stuff like games that would normally use WASD to move around. Do we have to keep scrolling up on the left pad to move forward? Because that would get tiring quickly.

I doubt it, that would be seriously rubbish. If it did work like that I would never use this controller anyway.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

surely you could just set the left trackpad to respond to presses instead of scrolls for those games

nesf

shruikan2553 wrote: »

For a lot of games but if this thing works as well as they say then games like RTSs would be playable with a controller. Whether or not it will meet their claims is another thing. Cant be cheap either.

I'm trying to picture playing an RTS with that controller or any kind of touch device and failing to see how it would work given that hotkeys (many, many of them) are a crucial component in these games. You need keys for quick selecting groups, depending on playstyle this can be 4 or 5 or 10. At least 10-15 to cover actions in a game like SC II. And then another 5 or so to cover various camera shortcuts and similar and finally a few global hotkeys to combine with the above for splitting, adding to or changing group selections or actions.

I find it hard to believe any serious RTS player is saying you could play one with one of these. You might be able to control one sure, but play competitively? Not a chance.

C14N

nesf wrote: »

I'm trying to picture playing an RTS with that controller or any kind of touch device and failing to see how it would work given that hotkeys (many, many of them) are a crucial component in these games. You need keys for quick selecting groups, depending on playstyle this can be 4 or 5 or 10. At least 10-15 to cover actions in a game like SC II. And then another 5 or so to cover various camera shortcuts and similar and finally a few global hotkeys to combine with the above for splitting, adding to or changing group selections or actions.

I find it hard to believe any serious RTS player is saying you could play one with one of these. You might be able to control one sure, but play competitively? Not a chance.

Yeah but it's really not aimed at serious, competitive RTS players. This is Valve trying to attract a more casual, living-room audience, not switch all of PC gamers to a new default control system. If you just have an average person who might want to give Age of Empires or Rome: Total War a go now and again, it could be fine for stuff like that, it sounds like they're at least confident it works better than the dreadful RTS ports to current consoles..

NTMK

nesf wrote: »

I'm trying to picture playing an RTS with that controller or any kind of touch device and failing to see how it would work given that hotkeys (many, many of them) are a crucial component in these games. You need keys for quick selecting groups, depending on playstyle this can be 4 or 5 or 10. At least 10-15 to cover actions in a game like SC II. And then another 5 or so to cover various camera shortcuts and similar and finally a few global hotkeys to combine with the above for splitting, adding to or changing group selections or actions.

I find it hard to believe any serious RTS player is saying you could play one with one of these. You might be able to control one sure, but play competitively? Not a chance.

unbelieveably someone got into Masters (top 2%) using an xbox controller but this isnt aimed at competitive games but i could see myself playing Civ and Total war with it if its any good

ill be buying one to try it out but i (and tbh none of us) can comment until a decent amount of people have used it

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

NTMK wrote: »

unbelieveably someone got into Masters (top 2%) using an xbox controller but this isnt aimed at competitive games but i could see myself playing Civ and Total war with it if its any good

ill be buying one to try it out but i (and tbh none of us) can comment until a decent amount of people have used it

he was playing protoss though, doesn't really count

Robert ninja

C14N wrote: »

Looks kind of strange but at least it's interesting. I'm a little worried about stuff like games that would normally use WASD to move around. Do we have to keep scrolling up on the left pad to move forward? Because that would get tiring quickly.

I'm almost positive they wouldn't design it to work like that... it just defies all reason. I'd say it would simulate an analogue stick more, you move you thumb to the top of the track pad, essentially like moving your thumb upwards to hold the sticks upwards. The higher you go, the faster you move in FPS games. That's actually something PC games miss out on, sensitive character movement. It's either run or walk, nothing in between. Then again, there's no guarantee the steam controller can do that with games that have absolutely no controller support seeing as how the steam controller would then just be tricking the game into thinking its a keyboard and mouse (their words, not mine). So each area of the track pad would be a roll-over WASD, left being A, up being W etc. But it's not a stretch too far to think that you could just say the top most part of the track pad is run while only slightly above middle is walk.

Gbear

I can't imagine using those pads would be great for your fingers.

After lengthy sessions I could see the skin on your fingers getting irritated.

nesf

C14N wrote: »

Yeah but it's really not aimed at serious, competitive RTS players. This is Valve trying to attract a more casual, living-room audience, not switch all of PC gamers to a new default control system. If you just have an average person who might want to give Age of Empires or Rome: Total War a go now and again, it could be fine for stuff like that, it sounds like they're at least confident it works better than the dreadful RTS ports to current consoles..

True enough. I think I read the statement too generally. When you can pause like in the Total War games any slowness in terms of control wouldn't be an issue.

nesf

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

he was playing protoss though, doesn't really count

Was it in the Protoss Death Ball (tm) days? (I haven't kept up with the meta for a fair bit)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

dont remember, i only watched his stream once and he 4gated every game i saw

C14N

Robert ninja wrote: »

I'm almost positive they wouldn't design it to work like that... it just defies all reason. I'd say it would simulate an analogue stick more, you move you thumb to the top of the track pad, essentially like moving your thumb upwards to hold the sticks upwards. The higher you go, the faster you move in FPS games. That's actually something PC games miss out on, sensitive character movement. It's either run or walk, nothing in between. Then again, there's no guarantee the steam controller can do that with games that have absolutely no controller support seeing as how the steam controller would then just be tricking the game into thinking its a keyboard and mouse (their words, not mine). So each area of the track pad would be a roll-over WASD, left being A, up being W etc. But it's not a stretch too far to think that you could just say the top most part of the track pad is run while only slightly above middle is walk.

Well you never know. A lot of PC games have a "run" button to move faster or a "walk" button to move slower, maybe they could incorporate that into the trackpad some way so pushing further up would make it push the "run" button.

Overheal

Im a bit annoyed that Valve used the HL3 cult following to fuel the hype around this console announcement by spacing it out into 3 separate press releases