World of Warcraft’s Move Pad Needs Rotate
Hello, Ability Powered gamers! I felt like I needed to write a post about something near and dear to my heart… World of Warcraft’s Move Pad. If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably seen me tweeting @WarcraftDevs every week asking about the same thing: rotate buttons being added to Move Pad. I realize a lot of you guys probably don’t really understand why it’s important for them to be added, so let me elaborate.
Would Rotation Help Much?
My days in Azeroth are probably not that different from yours. I log in, do garrison missions, travel, and raid. How I play is probably unique compared to most though. Since I can no longer use a traditional keyboard I rely heavily on various other things to play at a level where raiding is still part of my week in Azeroth. I don’t just use one thing in general, I use many from on-screen keyboard to keybinds, and macros to addons. My setup is definitely different!
Why Add Rotate to Move Pad?
Recently I’ve had to start relying more on Move Pad as my disease has progressed to a point where right clicking to move isn’t always possible. Even though moving with on-screen keyboard and keybinds is sometimes slower than what the mechanics require. The more I used it the more I noticed one thing: I couldn’t turn! I can run; backup; and strafe, but no turning. The more I used it the more of a problem it was. At first, it was just annoying little things like steering vehicles or trying to navigate spiral staircases. However, bigger issues appeared with this raid tier. One boss fight in particular is Gorefiend in Hellfire Citadel.
Gorefiend the Revealer
There are two mechanics on Gorefiend that play off each other, and being able to rotate is important to the life of my raid team. If you are familiar with the fight you know you get sucked into the belly of the boss, but you might not realize when that happens your camera direction resets. So sometimes I would come out and instead of my camera being behind my character it would be somewhere totally different. When I strafed I would go in a random direction instead of where I needed to go. I’m no amateur though. I knew if I locked my camera to always adjust to stay behind me I should be okay. That’s where my rotating issues really came to light.
Since the camera was locked I couldn’t pre-turn it to make it easier to get to someone quickly if I was hit with Shared Fate. You have to move so quickly when you get it. While I could start running with move pad, if I wasn’t already facing the right direction when it hit I was in trouble! I’m forced to have to rotate first. I have the rotate key bound, but by the time I move from game screen to on-screen keyboard I had basically already blown up a raid member. I need a rotate button close to the run button. This isn’t the only reason why I Tweet developers every week, but I feel like it’s a good example of situations where a rotate button would make a huge difference.
A Move Pad Plea: a Little Rotation Is All
Gamers who are disabled in Azeroth depend on all the accessibility features Blizzard offers. While many use Move Pad for movement successfully, why not make it as functional as possible? Can you imagine navigating winding roads with strafe? How about spiraling staircases? We need to turn! I know what some of you are thinking and no it wouldn’t be wasting time Blizzard could be using to develop Legion. There’s already plenty of room on the existing interface to add rotate buttons it’s just a matter of adding to it. So, Ability Powered gamers, help me in my mission of convincing Blizzard to update Move Pad with rotate buttons, so navigating Azeroth is easier us willing adventurers. Tweet @WarcraftDevs today and ask about adding rotate buttons to Move Pad! Check out our Opinion column for more WoW thoughts from me!
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