Of course, then we'll have to get into accuracy of the user's character and so on (maybe some sort of accuracy skill)...
Has any1 tried making a 3d game with mouse aiming?
If the machine's doing the 'looking' for you, you're bound to get mixed up with your current orientation (meaning, if you go forward, you won't necessarily move toward where you're looking but where your body is oriented). So if you're locked on a target and the target moves 90 degr. to your left, pressing forward will give the feeling of strafing right (from your perspective) etc.
Kinda confusing in my view.
A psuedo example is like the Mechwarrior game. Torso twisting and moving forward backwards and maintaing proper (mental) orientation of where you're facing relative to the rest of your chassis can be quite a task (especially during close combat where I twist A LOT lt/rt and I forget which way the turning/moving-forward is going to take me relative to my view).
In a FPS, the speed of combat is much much faster and instinctive so this disorientation will probably manifest itself several fold, in my opinion.
My $0.02...
First person shooters are basically games of reflex, instict, and thinking quickly. The current Quake-like control scheme found in many games is good in that it doesn't get in your way -- yet it still allows nice control where your aiming and moving. (BTW, the quake-like control scheme i'm talking about is the one where you use the mouse to look around and the AWSD keys to move forward/backwards and strafe left/right). Anyway, the problem with the control scheme Guru101 mentioned is that it doesn't give you a lot more control, and it's much more difficult to use. Besides that, it basically dictates that you have to stand still while aiming since it's so hard to shoot something while moving in that control scheme.
That's not to say that I think it doesn't have a place in some games. It wouldn't work well in an action game, but in something where you wanted more realism and with a bit less action that control scheme might work very well.
Just my 2 cents
--TheGoop
You should still be able to download a demo of it at ZDNET.
Good luck!
There's a game called Abuse which used a system that you speak of, although it was 2D.
However, thinking about the turning problem, my keys would be
WASD for movement
Mouse moves a crosshair, but if the crosshair moves too far left or right, then the player turns. (you could also have q and e for quickmove, or a 180 degree spin button, etc, etc).
Personally, I feel this would only work in a 3rd person view like Tomb Raider. Then if you used the lock on feature discussed above, you could see that your character is actually twisting their torso all the time to look at the target, but would still walk forwards, not towards the target.
Anyway, that's all for the moment...
there's also a nintendo 64 game called Jet Force Gemini which uses the switching you were talking about, and the crosshair aiming.
Basically I think it is what you're after. Check it out
Keep up the good work and all the best.
CoOlGuY
P.S JMHO