Specifically for this time around: Room was made on one of the controllers for a thumbstick.
More generally: Anything that unduly abstracts interaction, i.e. anything peripheral-wise that makes me not reach out a finger to press an elevator button in the virtual world, but instead press a button on a handheld controller, in order to actuate that in-world button “by wire”.
Knuckles started out on the right track. Their bodies were made capacitively sensitive in zones, so that they can to a degree detect how far each finger wraps it, and were strapped to your hands, ostensibly beginning to allow for somewhat natural-ish object manipulation, and at long last allowing you to let go of the devices, albeit none of this anywhere near the dexterity of a data glove. While the general widget paradigm of the Vive wands was retained, it was kept at least a little bit spartan and simple in layout, with the trackpad having been considerably reduced in size, and made deeper, with a single button to either side of it, shrinking the face of the interaction surface, and thus leaving more space for one’s hand. :7
A very vocal cadre of people have long demanded thumbsticks for the purpose of moving around in games, though, because that is what they are used to using with game consoles, and they have apparently finally got their will: Recent sketches show a thumbstick added to the consequently slightly enlarged right side of the right hand controller, while an “A” and a “B” button crowd the opposite side, in a familiar configuration. Already too compromising minimalism being shouldered out of the way by thing-o-mah-bob inflation, or gizmo creep, or whatever one might call it. :7
Now; I do not have an answer as to how we are to locomote in virtual space (generally - for specific purposes different solutions suit), but I do know one thing, and that is that we (people) are not this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/97rcsonn2.jpg
The problem is that now that the backstriving greebles are included as standard, they will (will) be used as standard, instead of new and better, and more natural interaction methods being tried,
Thankfully new configurable input frameworks will at least make it possible to remap as one desire, but the fundamental problem remains.
Note that my complaints above do not include things like steering wheels, or HOTAS, which directly represent corresponding devices in-game.
…so there were still two developers, though, who tried running Kickstarters on games for the upcoming DK1, together with the Razer Hydra, which was what was available in the form of motion conbtrols at the time. Of these, The Gallery did end up reaching their goal, and after many false starts got a much changed game out, and Loading Human finally could make their game, despite the Kickstarter being unsuccessful, with a little help from Sony. :7)
