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[Slackratchet]

I've played a lot of Dwarf Fortress over the years but I've taken a break for about six months. I downloaded it and other tools and have once again reminded myself why I love this game. The thing is I was playing for about 16 hours before I remembered I had gotten a new keyboard for Christmas. It looks like this.

It was not slowing me down.
I've either played this game too much or just enough.

[Magistrum]

I've played a lot of Dwarf Fortress over the years but I've taken a break for about six months. I downloaded it and other tools and have once again reminded myself why I love this game. The thing is I was playing for about 16 hours before I remembered I had gotten a new keyboard for Christmas. It looks like this.

It was not slowing me down.
I've either played this game too much or just enough.

It's because you are already a high master fortresser, thus don't need sight to be able to make stuff(just like the dorfs).

[Quietust]

Any sufficiently skilled touch-typist can use a keyboard like that without any problems, even if they were playing Dwarf Fortress for the very first time - it's only the "unskilled" typists that actually need to look at the keyboard while they're typing something.

[Talvieno]

Quietust makes a lot of sense here... But I'm still going with the idea that you're a dwarf. It sounds cooler.

[thegoatgod_pan]

When I describe the difficulty of dwarf fortress to people I compare it to learning a musical instrument. It is very challenging right at the start but becomes organic, comfortable, second-nature after dedicated practice.

[mastahcheese]

Of course dwarves would only make unlabeled keyboards.
It just makes too much sense.

[neblime]

Any sufficiently skilled touch-typist can use a keyboard like that without any problems, even if they were playing Dwarf Fortress for the very first time - it's only the "unskilled" typists that actually need to look at the keyboard while they're typing something.

gotta agree with this.
many many people learn to touch type, even if only for work.  And then there's people (perhaps like us) who type during their free time as well.
congratulations on freedom from looking at your keyboard!

[Necrisha]

If I didn't tend to shift hand positions every time I was hitting, g,t,c,v, or b I would have no problem either. Of course this is complicate with the fact that half the time I'm typing something out half of the word gets typed out backwards...

[Merendel]

Any sufficiently skilled touch-typist can use a keyboard like that without any problems, even if they were playing Dwarf Fortress for the very first time - it's only the "unskilled" typists that actually need to look at the keyboard while they're typing something.

gotta agree with this.
many many people learn to touch type, even if only for work.  And then there's people (perhaps like us) who type during their free time as well.
congratulations on freedom from looking at your keyboard!

I gota agree as well.  Heck touch typing does not require any particular training.  If you've got a need to type at a reasonable speed for something you want/need to do you can learn.   I prety much self tought myself how to touch type back in highschool because I got really into MUD's back then.  I've got a few bad habits that would make a typing instructor cringe but I can still do 60+ WPM without any problem.  Only thing that ever really trips me up is trying to remember which special character is associated with each number aside from the couple I use all the time.

[Talvieno]

I manage about 95 wpm if I'm really trying, and 70ish wpm otherwise. I can't imagine how some people manage 150+ wpm, it's just mindblowing.

[NAV]

Noob who has to look at a keyboard to type right here.

I can understand a keyboard with the letters missing, for a touch-typist. But what about all the other keys like insert and print screen? No way you use those often enough to completely memorize their position.

[Fluoman]

Especially since keyboard manufacturers have the annoying tendency to switch their position very often.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

Especially since keyboard manufacturers have the annoying tendency to switch their position very often.

Not sure about non-US keyboards, but a US keyboard is standardized (but there are a few standards; like QWERTY and DVORAK).

All the standard keys, alphanumeric and functions (including the Windows key) are part of the standard layout, and do not change unless it's a different format. In other words, all the keys on a one QWERTY keyboard will be the same as another QWERTY keyboard, with maybe slight differences based on the key shapes (some keyboads use just a rectangular Return key, others use something that resembles the state of Texas).

[Orange Wizard]

In the mystical land of not-America, we have Enter keys, not Return keys. Strangely, they still do the equivalent of a carriage return.

Anyway, I find that when playing DF on my laptop, I never need to look at the keys. Probably my laptop was my only computer for several years and I used it all the time. With my new computer, with a non-laptop keyboard, I need to look fairly regularly. They layout isn't very different, but the sizes are and that makes a huge difference.

[evileeyore]

In the mystical land of not-America, we have Enter keys, not Return keys. Strangely, they still do the equivalent of a carriage return.

I'm American, my keyboard was made in America (Canada to be exact), and it has 'Enter'...  granted I've been using the same style keyboard since 1995 (I got a box of them from a office cleanout).