Although it might seem kind of silly now, a lot of people used to play
first-person shooters with the
keyboard.
Mice have been a popular computer accessory since the mid 1980's, usually bundled with
paint programs or
operating systems. Still, when it came to games, people just continued to
push buttons, just like they did on their
SNES or
Sega Genesis. Using a
mouse seemed like an awkward way to play anything but a
strategy game.
There was a game put out by
Electronic Arts in the early 1990's called
Magic Carpet. You were a
sorcerer who flew around the world on a
magic carpet killing
evil monsters and such with your
magical powers. It was a fully-textured 3D game, not unlike
Descent in that matter, but what was clever was the controls. You steered the carpet using the
number pad or
arrow keys, and you aimed and shot at things with the
mouse. It took a while to get the hang of it, but once you did, those creepy
monsters didn't stand a chance.
Maybe I just played this game too much, but whatever the case, I was hooked on the mouse+keyboard combo. This was, of course, completely impractical in
Doom since the whole idea of
Mouse Look hadn't been built into it yet. When
Quake came out, though, things got really interesting.
I may not be the best
Quake player, but out of all the people I played with at the time
Quake came out, which was a bunch in an
ISP's
tech support department, I was the only one who used the mouse. I was an average player against all those
keyboarders, save for a single level, called
The Ziggurat, which was a "
low gravity" one where when you jumped, you would fly around for a long time.
Since most of the players were somewhere in mid-air at any given moment, aiming at them with the keyboard was virtually impossible.
Mousers completely ruled that level, and the
keyboarders hated it with a passion. I would be there blowing up endless
keyboarders, one hand on the
mouse look button (backslash) and the other on the mouse where I had configured the
middle button as run. At the time, I don't even think there was an option for locking
mouse look on.
By the time
Quake II came out, I think most people had realized the
superiority of the
mouser and had adapted.
Mouse look became a standard feature, probably only turned off by people who still prefer
rotary dial telephones.