Players raid in the PC MMORPG for years with a controller and nobody notices

As part of our “Gaming Stories” call to the community, the reader Daniel contacted us. He wrote to us about how, against all the problems and prejudices, he successfully played the . SWTOR with a controller for years.

What are gaming stories? Usually in our articles we tell a lot of stories from the gaming community, about streamers, eSports enthusiasts or just gamers who made something cool.

But we are also interested in your stories. We want to know what special or unusual experiences you’ve had while gaming. That’s why we’ve launched a call for you to send us your own stories.

Such a mail came from the MeinMMO reader Daniel, who played the . Star Wars: The Old Republic with the controller for a long time despite all the obstacles.

SWTOR is one of those games that does not offer native controller support. Accordingly, the players either have to put up with the keyboard controls or look for ways to get a controller to work.

In our interview, Daniel reveals how this works.

Progress raiding with a controller and no one notices

MeinMMO: Hello, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Daniel: Hi, my name is Daniel and I’m from Kaiserslautern. When I’m not gaming on the console, I’m helping my wife raise our little 2-year-old or streaming. I started DJ streams about 1 ½ years ago. I mainly play synthwave.

I also love pen & paper role-playing games, but I’ve had to neglect this hobby a lot lately. There just aren’t enough days in the week.

MeinMMO: In your email to us you wrote that you started as a console player. What exactly bothers you about the keyboard controls?

Daniel: Generally, I don’t mind the keyboard controls, having played on the 486 in the 90’s, but I prefer the convenience of a gamepad when playing from the living room couch (my favorite gaming spot).

MeinMMO: You said that you used the controller to run raid content in SWTOR for a long time. Can you tell us how your team members reacted when you told them? Did you even notice?

Daniel: I probably kept my controls to myself back then, since I was well aware of the settings for the “PC Master Race” at the time.

Only after the instances, should a conversation develop, did I “confess” to the others in the group that I was playing with the gamepad. They were actually always very surprised, because I didn’t notice it.

In SWTOR that never happened, because nobody expects that you won’t play with a mouse and keyboard. Even before the endgame (that was before the release of Rise of the Hutt Cartel) I came across a wonderful guild that focused on having fun. Dark Sun was the name of the troupe around Emperor Helron and was only on the Empire side.

Even within the guild, I always let people see me play before I told them that I was using the gamepad. I initially went raiding within the guild with content that most of them had already mastered internally. So I was part of a group of “latecomers”.

Little by little I was able to convince the officers in the guild that I could be used as a tank and after a while I was invited to one of the progress groups. Outside of my guild, I never raided back then. We were big enough that it would never have been necessary.

Everything works with the right tools

MyMMO: In order to be able to play the . SWTOR, you have specifically installed an emulator. What is the name of the emulator? Can you briefly explain how exactly it works?

Daniel: At that time I had two emulators running: motionjoy and X-Padder. With motionjoy I was able to assEsports Extraseither a keyboard or a mouse button to each gamepad button.

At that time I had assigned the numbers 1 to 8 on the keyboard to the directional pad and X, O, triangle, square of my DualShock 3 controller and the keys R2 and L2 to Alt and Control respectively. So I was able to distribute 32 skills on it. WSAD have been assigned to the respective axes of the left stick.

With X-Padder, I was able to use the right stick to move the mouse pointer and toggle between mouse button down and mouse button down when I pressed R3, allowing me to use the right stick to control the camera or the mouse.

I wanted to cover as many keys as possible. The idea of ​​Alt and Control came to me because many PlayStation games use L2/R2 to cover skills, Demon Stone, Dragon Age and Mass Effect spring to mind.

MyMMO: Which controller did you use? Was it your first choice or did you have to try several before it worked?

Daniel: Coming from the Playstation, my first choice was of course the DualShock 3. A lot of people complain that it’s too small for their needs, but I was super happy at the time. However, I wouldn’t want to part with my PS5 controller today (laughs). Everything worked great back then.

MeinMMO: What were the biggest difficulties?

Daniel: The biggest hurdle was moving the camera. But thanks to X-Padder and the toggle effect, this was also possible.

MeinMMO: Did you have to do without certain controls because the buttons were missing?

Daniel: Not really. Of course, I had to get a small Bluetooth keyboard to be able to communicate in the game’s various chat channels. But I joined a guild fairly early on that had a very active TeamSpeak server at the time, so I didn’t have to use the keyboard that much.

MyMMO: Also, what other MMOs have you played with the controller through the emulator? Were there any that didn’t work at all?

Daniel: No. I switched with the re-release of Final Fantasy XIV (A Realm Reborn) and the game was designed to be controlled with a gamepad. I was happy to see that the developers had almost the same idea for gamepad controls. So I felt right at home in the game.

I quickly got my wife interested in Final Fantasy, even though she’s not actually a gamer. So whenever she was online, I played on the PS3 while I let her have the PC.

When the PS4 version came out, I switched to this version because it was equivalent to the PC version at the time. And I loved the ability to remotely play from the bedroom using the PS Vita.

We would like to thank Daniel for the interview and the explanation about the controller control of SWTOR. If you also have an unusual story that you want to share with us, send us an email to [email protected]

Final Fantasy XIV: Player uses 24 accounts at the same time, pays over €300 a month