Kinect, but with World of Warcraft

[Bateluer]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/28/free-kinect-keyboard-emulator-lets-you-wow-while-afk-video/

World of Warcraft is a lot of things to a lot of people, a whole lot of people, but it's never been much of an immersive gameplay experience -- casting Plague Strike doesn't seem all that unholy when it's triggered by frantically tapping a key on a keyboard. Moving an arm would be at least a bit more involving, and with the Flexible Action and Articulated Toolkit, or FAAST, from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, that's just what you can do. It's basically a software layer over your Kinect, built over OpenNI, that recognizes a skeleton and enables about 20 different motions to be mapped to key presses. This means you can lean forward to walk, raise your right arm to perform an action, and then sit down to take a breather after all that exertion. It's currently versioned .03, so don't expect miracles, but it is available for free at the other end of the source link. It's also demonstrated below, but don't tarry too long: guild meeting starts in five.

Disturbing, and yet, I'm compelled to follow this further. Might be good for people to get a little exercise while playing WoW instead of the steady diet of processed sugar.

 

[Malladine]

If I had to move my arm instead of press a key I'd get my ass kicked even more than I do already

Interesting though. In a game where everyone used this control method I can see serious potential.

Two steps closer to Minority Report!

 

[ViviTheMage]

K, that is weird...but I guess I wouldn't really know how i'd want something like that to play out.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Well this is dumb. How the hell do you play an MMO with such an unprecise control scheme.

The keyboard has a 100 buttons for a reason. You can hit them quickly and accurately.

 

[Bateluer]

Well this is dumb. How the hell do you play an MMO with such an unprecise control scheme.

The keyboard has a 100 buttons for a reason. You can hit them quickly and accurately.

MMOs are played on consoles too, with the handful of buttons on the controllers, so this isn't entirely unplausible. Just requires some redesign of the MMO interface. I'm picturing a wireless device, possibly gloves, with additional buttons and controls though.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I think the concept is great - get people up and moving rather than sitting in a chair pushing buttons. However, it's not going to work for a game that was designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard. Anyone using a different "controller" type is going to be at an extreme disadvantage, even if the UI was redesigned. They just won't have as much versatility at their fingertips. Imaging if a raid was going well, and suddenly a key figure drops out of voice chat for whatever reason; it would be nearly impossible to type a critical message to them in a timely fashion.

On the other hand, if someone can design a new MMO around this concept, I'd sign up to give it a shot.

 

[Bateluer]

I think the concept is great - get people up and moving rather than sitting in a chair pushing buttons. However, it's not going to work for a game that was designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard. Anyone using a different "controller" type is going to be at an extreme disadvantage, even if the UI was redesigned. They just won't have as much versatility at their fingertips. Imaging if a raid was going well, and suddenly a key figure drops out of voice chat for whatever reason; it would be nearly impossible to type a critical message to them in a timely fashion.

On the other hand, if someone can design a new MMO around this concept, I'd sign up to give it a shot.

Hmm. Cross wires here. We have motion sensing devices with pretty solid accuracy across a few platforms. We've got 3D flat panel displays. And we've got IBM claiming 3D holographic imaging to be common place by 2015. Holodecks inbound?

 

[brandonb]

You mean we don't have to faceroll anymore?

 

[Craig234]

Wow, 18 hours a day of exercise.

 

[Cstefan]

Wow, 18 hours a day of exercise.

Wow players will then also be competitive masturbators!

 

[blurredvision]

Well this is dumb. How the hell do you play an MMO with such an unprecise control scheme.

The keyboard has a 100 buttons for a reason. You can hit them quickly and accurately.

It's just a concept, like most other Kinect "hacks" out there. I don't think you have to worry about having to replace your keyboard just yet...

 

[aigomorla]

Well this is dumb. How the hell do you play an MMO with such an unprecise control scheme.

The keyboard has a 100 buttons for a reason. You can hit them quickly and accurately.

uhhh... mmo's arent FPS, where 1 second could mean a potential head shot.

And if you missed the entire kinetic presention, it can memorize fingers from your hand to represent things.

So if u have 1 finger pointed, it could mean gun, 2 fingers pointed could mean another gun, three fingers ect..

Its bringing sign language to our computers.

And hell im for it..
Anything to get us fat americans off our lazy boy's to burn excess calories is a pure win.

 

[zokudu]

uhhh... mmo's arent FPS, where 1 second could mean a potential head shot.

And if you missed the entire kinetic presention, it can memorize fingers from your hand to represent things.

So if u have 1 finger pointed, it could mean gun, 2 fingers pointed could mean another gun, three fingers ect..

Its bringing sign language to our computers.

And hell im for it..
Anything to get us fat americans off our lazy boy's to burn excess calories is a pure win.

You clearly have not played World of Warcraft at a competitive level then.

 

[El Guaraguao]

wow pros use macros for their rotations. so might work.

 

[Sureshot324]

IMO using motion controls to replace key presses is a bad thing. It's like when your playing Wii and you have to wave the Wiimote to do actions that could have easily been done by pushing a button. Motion controls should only be used when it can actually do the job better than other methods, and in Wow I can't think of a single use for it.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

IMO using motion controls to replace key presses is a bad thing. It's like when your playing Wii and you have to wave the Wiimote to do actions that could have easily been done by pushing a button. Motion controls should only be used when it can actually do the job better than other methods, and in Wow I can't think of a single use for it.

Exactly this.

People get up in arms about this, when when you think about it, 99% of this stuff can be done better with existing control schemes.

Exactly what kind of controls do people want that can't be already done a billion times faster, accurate, and effectively using a gamepad or a keyboard?

Sure Minority Report was cool, but it was an incredibly inefficient way of doing things. Stuff like that has existed but there is a reason it didn't take off, its just not practical for most applications.

 

[chalmers]

This won't work. WoW players use a piss bag so they don't have to get up from their 20 hour shifts, I doubt they'll be big on this.

 

[ArchAngel777]

This won't work. WoW players use a piss bag so they don't have to get up from their 20 hour shifts, I doubt they'll be big on this.

LOL... I love it! Great post!