PLEASE mouse-orientated control system

Ok... lets face it, once you begin to tire of the joys of soaring around in the skies and finally come to ground you're in for a bit of a shock. The current control system in Second Life is APPALLING.

I know a lot of people blame tricky movement on lag, but I really don't think thats technically true - after all, you don't FLY like a spasticated penguin do you?

Besides, for me thats simply not the issue. The problem isn't so much movement, but more your ability too look around. Second Life badly needs a analog-orientated control system, so that just like on Splinter Cell or Max Payne you can use your mouse to gaze around you with sublime ease AND move at the same time with the keyboard. For a game thats got such a huge vertical element in its virtual space its shocking that second life doesn't allow you to easily LOOK UP AND DOWN WHILE MOVING. Hell, even looking left and right is a bit of a bugger - because its based on a digital input system thats tied down by lag. Incidently, I don't see why this should neccesarily cause any interaction problems - if you want to interact with something you're going to need to look at it first right?

For the most part any eventual fix for this could be largely lag independant as its not THAT important to see where someone else is looking, at least not on a very frequent basis (as is required for movement). It could simply be updated in a series of less frequent steps, when bandwidth allows - hell this is how first person shooter orientation has been handled for AAAGGGEEESSS.

One last pre-emptive point and I'll rap up this rant:

I know that I will probably get a load of replies pointing out that you can do most of this with mouselook - you can look around and move at the same time in this mode. However, mouselook is a bit of an incomplete solution. The whole point of Second Life is that its a "second life", not a second world, and as such I want to see my avie on screen when I play. If I move around using mouselook I'm not going to see my avie for the vast majority of the time - you move around a lot after all. So don't tell me a solution is already in place.

Anyway I'll end with PLZ MK IT LIKE SC WOOT!!!!1!1!1!!!1

There is an option to see your AV in mouslock under EDIT>PREFERENCES. Can't remember what tab. I would look but SL is down.

There are also keyboard control that if you learn to use them, come in very handy.

ALT will rotate the camera around the point you select and zoom in and out
ALT+CTRL rotates the camera aorund in up and down
ALT+CTRL+SHIFT pans the camera

I have my finger on those combinations 95% of the time.

Hmmm.... well I'll check out that option when its back up and see what its like.

Oh, and cheers for the info about ALT etc., I use those also (how can you not?! ) but my issue with that technique is that while using them you're routed to the spot. Then when you move off the camera goes back to normal. So its a bit of a case of stop-start movement as you move, look, move, look etc. NOT very dynamic at all (Quake 1 controls better) - we need some kind of free flowing system here, empower the people!

You can also go into Mouse-Look mode.

you're right, the third person camera needs improvments . Alt rotating around yourself or other things works okay but it's impossible to do while moving because not only does alt cause your mouse to move your view, it also causes the movement keys to do so instead of controlling your movement. That and the veiw snaps back when you start moving. also in tight spaces the camera is horrible, but in that case mouselook is good.

I'm not co-ordanited enough for that kind of movement system is why I never got into SWG I kept looking at the ground. So if they do this please make it optional because I already bump into enough stuff now with the system we have.

I just checked out that mouselock thing and when you swtich it to show AV in mouselock. It doesn't seem to change anything...

I've checked out that option now as well but unfortunately its not what I'm after. If you look down low enough you should be able to see your legs, so you can see yourself in mouselook, but its still from a first person viewpoint.

What I'd love would be to have the same system but from a third person viewpoint - mouse control to look around AND TURN, and keyboard to move backwards and forwards and SIDESTEP left and right.

The only reason why I think this might not be currently possible is because I suspect that the avies upper body and lower body are completely dependant on each other animation wise. Therefore, the upper body cannot slightly rotate before the WHOLE body has to do a turn/walking on the spot animation.

Second Life is such a joy because it lets you edit so much of it... unfortunately this is something that only Linden Labs can address.