Now, I'm stuck with a dilemma. Old RTSs generally had key bindings for building whatever you're building.
I guess they weren't really sure what key to bind these devices to, and just kinda' chose whatever letter the thing started with. So we have Listening Posts bound to L and Probes bound to P. This is all well and good, I mean, I guess it's easier to learn and stuff.
Except it isn't all well and good.
How in the fucking hell am I supposed to hit L a billion times? Moving my hand over to haphazardly claw at the right side of my keyboard in the vein hope that I'll strike the right key will almost always take longer than just clicking on the button on screen. That, surprisingly, completely defeats the purpose of a key binding what with trying to do things faster.
So, what was the goddamned point of doing this?
I've come up with three solutions:
1) I'm entirely missing some grand difference that was a standard back in the day. Obviously people had three arms ten years ago and utilizing all of their available appendages they were able to manage the mouse, left side of the keyboard, and right side of the keyboard simultaneously. I imagine this mutation was largely apparent in Korea which explains their abilities at Starcraft.
2) Key bindings were to be used exclusively for people without keyboards. This lack of keyboard drove the keyboardless to use on-screen keyboards, wherein all the key bindings would be roughly the same amount level of annoying bullshit to get to and click on.
3) RTSs played with teams of people. One operating the mouse and one on the keyboard. This would add no greater benefit to the skill of the two players, as most verbal communication would be muddled with constant commands from one to the other to build or use something or hit some key to build or use something. I imagine this process would also slow most proceeds, and, therefor, the key binding system was created in a way to keep the two-man teams on a roughly level playing field with the fucking sane people out there.