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seeking help finding fun mmo's I can play with my unique input and health limitation
dreadlordnaf
Member UncommonPosts: 88
Awhile back I developed very bad repetitive strain injury (RSI) on my wrists and arms due to excessive computer use. This isnt quite like carpel-tunnel but the general concept is the same of nerve damage injury due to excessive repetitive motion on the computer. It wasnt necessarily gaming that caused this but, like many gamers over the years, I am all grown up now and have a job where i use the computer 8 hours a day. I would then go home and game and basically never gave my wrists and arms any downtime. Long story short I developed very bad RSI where I couldnt use a computer for more than 20 minutes without extreme pain and had to take 6 weeks off work to heal up.
I am much better now thanks to radically redoing my ergonomics and just being very careful nowdays of excessive use though I will never be 100% again. I can game without any health problems by being aware of my limitations and mainly this means I can only play games now which don't rely heavily on the mouse for input. For whatever reason using the mouse excessively and intensely for minutes a time, like with an RTS is painful on my hands and on the nerves in my wrists and arms.
An example of a game that is great for me and does not aggravate my injury would be guild wars 2. Most the game I can play primarily from the keyboard with my left hand doing movement and hot keys, and I only have to use the mouse moderately to select targets, and occasionally manage inventory. The thing is I just dont really like GW2 that much. On the flip side an example of a game I would love to play but cant is EVE online. The whole game is mouse input driven making it impossible for me to play without aggravating my RSI on my hands and wrists.. Same with League of Legends which I love but is just so mouse driven, ruling it out.
Summary, or tldr the above: Due to injuries with my hands I am looking for any suggestions for fun MMOs which have inputs for the controls that are primarily keyboard based with only very light to non-existent mouse usage, such as just for targeting selection. I guess another option would be any MMOs I could easily play with a gamepad using a key mapper. Any and all suggestions welcome and appreciated. I love playing MMOs and want to keep doing so even in my new limited state, I just have to be more selective in the games is all. Thanks.
Comments
If you can use a gamepad, there are games that have the option for it - TERA and DDO, to name two. It's likely that LOTRO also has it, though it's been a couple of years since I last played and I never did try.
I'm actually surprised this is not more of an issue on gaming forums. Over the years I've also developed wrist issues to the point playing any game became painful.
My solution was to change the mouse I used. I discovered the Evoluent Mouse. This is a vertical mouse and you grip it as if you are shaking someone's hand. Instead of pronating the hand, you are keeping the hand in a straight line without any twisting. This has allowed me to play games like Torchlight 2 without any issues for extended periods of time. You can buy directly from Amazon and they even have a website. Of course, I do not know if this would solve your specific issue, but I have told other gamers about the mouse and they have had success using it.
Also DCUO is ment to be played with a gamepad.
Another thing to possibly consider is looking into a good trackball mouse with good feedback. It might take some getting used to but imo its better then giving up mouse gaming all together.
Pretty much any WASD controlled game should fit you.
The secret world for example can be played completely mouseless. A and D turn both the character and camera, V to loot, tab or reticule to target. Inventory is insanely big (50-250 slots) so not much effort required to manage it.
The key is to vary your motions. If you need to use a mouse more, you may want to look into getting a trackball or using a thumbstick of a gamepad. You may also want to try using your other hand.
But better yet is to avoid using a mouse at all, as mice are ergonomically horrible. Keyboards and gamepads are much better. I play Guild Wars 2 on a gamepad, which isn't ideal, but it works. Champions Online works pretty well with a gamepad, too. In Spiral Knights, using a gamepad is actually a substantial advantage over keyboard+mouse.
Yea, the old Age of empires games did me in and that was 15 years ago!
Age is a b**tch! Ya gotta play thru the pain! Or the alternative is this:
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Quite the opposite, actually. You have to figure out what types of pain are bad news and stop when you feel them.
I had a few problems at one point too, but once I realized "if it hurts, you're doing it wrong", I experimented around with elevating my mousepad and found a posture that made my wrist much, much happier.
Dragon's prophet
Very new game. Movements are with wasd, you can also put spammable skills in QERV buttons. I actually quit it cuz it had to much things going on with keyboard and it was confusing for me, but might be good for you. All world is all around dragons, you can make your class into DPS, tanks, healer or specify into dragon master.
Thanks all these are some good suggestions. I had heard of many of these games like TERA and secret world, just never tried them, maybe i will now.
As for all the suggestions on ergo type mouses and switching hands etc, I have actually tried most all that and then some. End of the day mouses simply suck for ergonomics and hand/wrist health and I just need to minimize my usage of them.