[mstange]

Nightly and Aurora Firefox builds actually support the "code" field on keyboard events, which lets JS know which physical key was pressed on the keyboard. For example, when a Dvorak user presses the key that would be W on a QWERTY layout (for moving forwards in a game), you'll get a keydown event with e.key == "," and e.code == "KeyW".

I'd really like to know what the spec status on that is, and whether other browsers implement it.

[ultramancool]

Seems like it could be a clever way to solve the issue for players, but probably makes developers on those other keyboards quite miserable.

[ErikRogneby]

a prompt training the game controls could be quite simple... "PRESS THE KEY YOU EXPECT TO BE UP" step 2: "PRESS THE KEY YOU USE FOR FIRE"

[duskwuff]

I've seen some FPSes get the player's preferred control mappings in a really subtle, cool way: ask the player to perform some actions very early in the game (often as part of a "training" sequence), and configure the controls however necessary to make the user's input correct.

For instance, in Portal 2, to check whether the player wants inverted controls:

http://youtu.be/niE5oiRs7pY?t=45s

[scrollaway]

That does sound clever but I don't understand your example; in this case, would moving the mouse either way go the intended direction?

[JonnieCache]

I'm guessing whichever direction your move the mouse, the game looks in the correct direction for you to obey the instructions, and that mapping is then persisted.

[wingerlang]

It makes more sense for consoles / controllers. Although I am sure /someone/ uses inverted mouse controls. It could be disabled in the PC version also.

[DaFranker]

Inverted Y (vertical axis, i.e. up/down view) is a very popular setting for simulation games and FPS games on PC. It's popular enough that games with >100k players will get bad press and >20 forum complaints (even when the forum is hard to find!) over it, and many more than this will simply not play/buy the game.

In other genres / types of games, especially where you don't control exclusively one character / vehicle from a fixed first/third person viewpoint, it is drastically less common.