I've stopped playing WoW so much and have been playing other types of games recently. Now that the buttons can be remapped this Razer naga works well for any game. It's great for shooters because I can swap weapons without having to reach for the F-keys. I've grown to appreciate how ergonomic it is. It fits my hand perfectly. I'm fully acclimated to the button placement and can hit the right one without thinking. Razer was right that it takes 15-20 hours for it to become second nature. I have found that for my short fingers only 9 of the 12 thumb buttons are an easy reach. I try to put the less important functions on the top row.
As an avid WoW player I'm always on a quest for mice with more buttons. MOAR! Most mice are limited to 5 mappable buttons that my fingers can actually reach. Some do cram more buttons on the mouse but place them in awkward locations that are only practical for infrequently used functions. I had high hopes for the SteelSeries WoW branded mouse but it's built poorly and the thumb buttons are hard to press individually without fat fingering the next button. Another mouse I wanted to like was the Sandio 3D but it's way too large for my hand. Plus, the hat switches are good for movement but not so good for mapping to four individual functions. I've been using Logitech MX series mice that have 8-9 mappable buttons. These are comfortable and the software is very flexible in how the buttons are mapped. I've been content with them but am always looking for more.
Enter the Razer Naga. I thought this was a Photoshop joke when I first saw the picture. But they really have put a cell phone style keypad on the thumb side for a total of 17 buttons. What's amazing is they've done this while keeping the mouse a reasonable size and having all but one button within easy finger reach. The mouse feels very high quality. It's very comfortable with good tactile feel. The scroll wheel is the nicest I've ever used. It's clear that Razer puts a lot of effort into creating a functional design, not just something that looks good in the box. My only complaint about the physical aspect is that it's rather lightweight.
The thumb buttons will take getting used to and I'm still working on it. I'm not going to raid with it out of the box because I don't want people to die. But even after a short while playing around with it in battlegrounds I'm improving and I can tell that the muscle memory will build up quickly until it feels natural - just like with a keyboard or gaming pad. Thoughtfully, Razer includes rubbery stick on nubs that you can place as tactile landmarks to train yourself. Razer claims 88% of gamers are fully comfortable after 18 hours of play.
The Windows driver is simpler and less flexible than I expected. The thumb buttons map to either the number row above the keyboard or the right number pad. The 5 main buttons map to the standard windows Left/Right/Middle/Back/Forward actions. There is no custom button mapping. Razer expects you to use an in game interface to map your actions to the fixed buttons. This is fine for WoW but could be a limitation on other games.
Razer supplies a custom WoW addon that is available at [...]. It's just a branded version of Dominos - an established addon. It's good that Razer licensed something that is fully featured and well tested rather than creating something new that probably wouldn't be as good. I'm unable to use it, however, because it conflicts with Bartender4. There is no need to use the Razer addon as the mouse is just acting like 12 keyboard buttons. Since the default behavior is to just map the 12 numbers above the keyboard you could just use standard WoW action bars and keybindings with zero configuration.
If it's not clear by now, I think this is a great product. I've been waiting for a mouse like this for 5 years and Razer has delivered!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Razer Naga MMOG Laser Gaming Mouse
My first impressions review of the Razer Naga was pretty grim. Having come from using a Logitech G7 for years prior, the Naga felt clunky at best and the complete lack of any key rebinding support for a mouse intended for MMO use left me scratching my head. In the days following that initial review, Wave of team Naga left me a comment (as seen in the comments section of this review) stating that they were intending to address the later with an upcoming driver release. A few months later, just as he had promised, version 2.0 hit... and it hit hard!
Before I get into all that, let me tackle the ergonomics. As I mentioned, at first I felt this mouse to be very clunky. Now, months later, I could not have been more wrong. When they said this mouse was designed for long gaming sessions with minimal hand fatigue, they meant it. My only real complaints in this department is about button placement. No, no, not the 12-button thumb pad... those are perfect! My beef is with the two additional index finger buttons, which for me, are at best awkwardly placed and at worst completely unusable.
But lets cut the nonsense, if you are reading this you care about one thing and one thing only... the 12 buttons on the side of this bad-boy.
I'll be straight with you, at first it is awkward as hell and comes with a bit of a learning curve. Don't expect to pick this mouse up and be some kinda of button-pressing Mozart by morning. Now months after my purchase I am still second guessing myself from time to time when reaching for the 8 and 9 key, mostly because I don't use them in very many games. As I alluded to earlier in this review, they are placed such that I don't have any issue at all reaching any one button (though 11 and 12 require a funky move that can mess with my cursor precision.)
The 2.0 driver also brought with it two additional features that came as a bit of a surprise to me... profiles and macros! The profiles are just what you would expect and though very basic in their functionality, the macros should get the job done nine times out of ten. If you are familiar with the Logitech G15 or Nostromo N52, then you know what I am talking about. If not, well, it's little more than pre-recorded keystrokes with custom delays between them. Nothing fancy, but far from useless.
Now that the issue of rebindable keys has been taken care of, I struggle to find anything at all wrong with this mouse.
If I absolutely had to give it a con, hmmm... I suppose it requires a bit more care than other mice in order to keep clean. Lots of buttons means lots of places for build up. Fortunately the fit/finish on this mouse is tight enough that cleanup is a breeze.
Before I get into all that, let me tackle the ergonomics. As I mentioned, at first I felt this mouse to be very clunky. Now, months later, I could not have been more wrong. When they said this mouse was designed for long gaming sessions with minimal hand fatigue, they meant it. My only real complaints in this department is about button placement. No, no, not the 12-button thumb pad... those are perfect! My beef is with the two additional index finger buttons, which for me, are at best awkwardly placed and at worst completely unusable.
But lets cut the nonsense, if you are reading this you care about one thing and one thing only... the 12 buttons on the side of this bad-boy.
I'll be straight with you, at first it is awkward as hell and comes with a bit of a learning curve. Don't expect to pick this mouse up and be some kinda of button-pressing Mozart by morning. Now months after my purchase I am still second guessing myself from time to time when reaching for the 8 and 9 key, mostly because I don't use them in very many games. As I alluded to earlier in this review, they are placed such that I don't have any issue at all reaching any one button (though 11 and 12 require a funky move that can mess with my cursor precision.)
The 2.0 driver also brought with it two additional features that came as a bit of a surprise to me... profiles and macros! The profiles are just what you would expect and though very basic in their functionality, the macros should get the job done nine times out of ten. If you are familiar with the Logitech G15 or Nostromo N52, then you know what I am talking about. If not, well, it's little more than pre-recorded keystrokes with custom delays between them. Nothing fancy, but far from useless.
Now that the issue of rebindable keys has been taken care of, I struggle to find anything at all wrong with this mouse.
If I absolutely had to give it a con, hmmm... I suppose it requires a bit more care than other mice in order to keep clean. Lots of buttons means lots of places for build up. Fortunately the fit/finish on this mouse is tight enough that cleanup is a breeze.
A mouse and a phone got drunk: the Razer Naga MMO mouse
Razer has a history of making hardware designed for gamers, but the company's newest offering does something new; the product is a mixture of both software and hardware set up to make your raids a little more pleasant. While the Razer Naga mouse may simply look like a piece of gaming hardware with a number pad fused into it, the truth is actually much more intriguing.
No software is worth it if the hardware is not up to snuff, and luckily the Razer Naga is a sexy mouse. Yes, it lights up and the blue logo pulses in the dark—very impressive at LAN parties—but more importantly, the mouse features a 5,600dpi sensor, 1ms response rate, and a scroll wheel with 24 click positions. That's a lot of numbers that all mean that the mouse is ultra-precise and smooth in action.
The mouse itself feels good in your hand, although if you're a fan of larger, heavier mice you're out of luck here. I have moderately sized hands and was able to cup the entirety of the mouse very easily, and the hardware is light and easy to move. These are preferences more than issues or strengths with the product, but worth pointing out. The Naga is molded with places for your index, middle, and ring finger, and frankly this mouse is a joy to put your hands on. Even the cord hasn't escaped the notice of the designers; it's made from a braided material, not simple plastic. This would be an impressive mouse on its own merits, but the things that set it apart for MMO fans are noteworthy.
The pad on the side of the mouse features 12 buttons, with a selector switch on the belly of the mouse that maps them to either the top number buttons on the keyboard or the number pad on the side. It's interesting to see my laptop recognize the mouse as a keyboard, and then be able to use the number pads instantly. My wife—who is an accountant—found the idea of actually crunching numbers this way rather ghastly.
The real magic happens when you mix these buttons with Razer's software, called AddOns, which allows you to map these buttons to different actions inside your MMO game with ease. You can set up the buttons to operate like a phone keypad, or arrange them horizontally as they would be as the mouse sits on your desk. You can set it up so that your bindings on the Naga only impact certain characters. You can map the keys so that hitting them while holding the control button controls your pet. Here is a video from Razer showing how flexible the software is in World of WarCraft.
If you think twelve buttons is a lot to handle by touch, you're right. Luckily, Razer includes a series of plastic nubs, called trainers, that you can stick on any combination of buttons to allow you to navigate the buttons by feel. It's a nice touch, and shows the level of care given to the overall package. Right now the software is only available for World of WarCraft and Warhammer Online, but Razer promises more games are coming.
The downside to all this? The Razer Naga is a niche product; there is no reason to get excited about the extra buttons if you're not an MMO player, and there is no way to disable them if you don't want to accidentally hit one during the course of a game. If you tend to have a tight squeeze when you play shooters or other games, this may not be the mouse for you. On the other hand, I could see the value in using the buttons to flip through your units in RTS titles by mapping groups to your number keys.
This is a product that is either aimed at you or isn't, but it's nice to have a company like Razer take something that could have been a gimmick and spend so much time to make the product really work. All that effort comes at a price, however; the Razer Naga is available now for $79.99. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Gearing up for WoW: The Razer Naga
We don't normally do hardware reviews. That's usually the domain of the guys over at our sister site, Engadget. But when Razer broke out the $79.99 Razer Naga last August 19 atGamescom in Cologne, Germany (along with a glow-in-the-dark mousepad), and previewed it a BlizzCon a few days later, we knew we just had to get our hands on it and take it out for a spin. This was Razer's first mouse aimed squarely at the MMO market, and at World of Warcraft players specifically. It isn't the first mouse that tried to appeal to the huge MMO player base -- Steelseries unleashed a World of Warcraft mouse last year, although some players found some issues with the mouse and the way it interacted with the game. In hindsight, we probably should've done our own review of that product. So when Razer announced that the Naga "wasn't going be just a great MMO mouse (but) the best MMO mouse," we weren't going to let the opportunity slip away.
[Update: Razer's Heathcliff Hatcher aka Razer|Agent responded to some concerns about the Razer Naga and how its keys currently can't be remapped right out of the box without third party applications. Razer|Agent says, "software driver remapping of keys is a standard function for most of Razer products and we do have suitable solutions that we intend to release in the near future for Naga that will enable this feature out of game." This means that the standard 123 and NUM configurations should be remappable through a future update.]
Mike wrote an excellent hands-on report on the Razer Naga when we were at BlizzCon which should give everyone a fair idea of what we're dealing with. Writing a product review for an MMO gaming mouse wasn't going to be a simple task -- one reason there aren't too many full reviews of the Razer Naga is because it takes a bit of commitment to do it. Unlike first person shooters or even real-time strategy games where about an hour or two of gameplay would be enough to give fair impressions of the mouse, properly assessing an MMO gaming mouse needs to be an immersive experience. It requires mapping keys and adapting one's personal playing style to accommodate the hardware.
As I'd mentioned in my gearing series that talked briefly about gaming mice, the features of most modern gaming mice are far beyond what MMOs generally demand. You won't need 5600dpi, insane APM (Actions-Per-Minute) values, or even fancy technologies like Razer'sHyperResponse buttons. If there's any indication that Razer is on the right track with the Naga, it's that they've loaded it with buttons. MMO players tend to press a lot of buttons. They also took the extra step of creating (or adapting) an AddOn that allows the mapping of keybindings from inside the game. When the Razer Naga finally arrived at my doorstep after a torturous tussle with an ineffectual DHL, I finally buckled down -- as Razer would say -- to get imba. Let's take a closer look at the Razer Naga after the jump.
The Razer Naga
Razer keeps a peculiar naming convention for their product lines, with keyboards named after arachnids, mousepads named after non-arachnid insects, audio gear after aquatic predators, and finally gaming mice after snakes. The cleverly named Naga is taken from the Sanskrit for cobra, but as Mike pointed out in his hands-on report, everybody who plays WoW is familiar with those snake-men that pester us all over Azeroth. Razer is taking square aim at World of Warcraft players and there's nothing subtle about it.
One of the first impressions I got of the Naga when I saw it on Razer's website when it was launched was that it looked bulky. I mean, after all, it had a full 12-button keypad on its side. After seeing it a BlizzCon and playing with it now, I found that it isn't actually the case. Compared to other gaming mice (I'd been using Razer's DeathAdder and Lachesis prior to the Naga), it's actually rather small. Pictures, as they say, add ten pounds, and this is certainly true of the Razer Naga, which is actually slimmer and more compact than the gallerysuggests.
This compact form factor should appeal to female gamers, who generally have smaller hands than most males. Considering that over 400,000 women playWorld of Warcraft in the US alone, this should be a good thing. The keypad is also the same size as that found on most mobile phones, so its size shouldn't be a problem for men, either. The Razer Naga sports 17 buttons, which is a whole freaking lot, even for a gaming mouse. These buttons are the most significant hardware feature of the Razer Naga, which we'll explore in-depth later.
It is an ergonomic mouse -- which means that lefties are out of luck -- with the keypad accessible by the thumb, three buttons for the index finger, a scroll wheel button, and the right mouse button for the middle finger. Opposite the keypad is a small curve where the ring finger can rest while the pinky can grip the side. It has a 7-foot lightweight, braided cable that terminates in a gold-plated USB connector. The braided fiber cable seems to be the new trend for Razer mice, lending itself to fewer tangles.
One other feature that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is a small toggle found underneath the Naga that allows the 12-button keypad to register as the normal number keys (including - and =) or as the numeric keypad on a full size keyboard or Advanced [NUM] mode. Combined with the regular number keys, the Naga toggled to the Advanced [NUM] mode provides more buttons than players will have use for. Combine that with the ALT, SHIFT, CTRL and combinations thereof, then there are roughly a gajillion-zillion keybindings at players' disposal. One caveat: toggling the Caps Lock will affect the Naga when in [NUM] mode.
Starting Out
One of the biggest hurdles in making the jump to the Razer Naga is adapting one's playing style to take advantage of the mouse. Most players are used to accessing spells through their keyboard, with the default action bars bound to the number keys. Many players use basic, two-button mice, and use the keyboard W, A, S, D keys to move. The Razer Naga "tips the balance, so to speak, between the keyboard and mouse," according to Steve Chevrie, aka Razer|Fakesteve. It frees up the keyboard hand to focus solely on modifier keys or even movement such as strafing to complement forward movement with the mouse.
The most basic way to use the Razer Naga after installing it is to have it toggled as the normal keypad and use the keys as you would the 12 buttons on the default action bar. The Naga's default keypad values out of the box correspond with the keys bound to the default UI from 1 to =. New players or those who like to use the default UI can use the Razer Naga to shift all spell commands to the mouse, freeing the keyboard hand for modifiers, movement, or even munching on Cheetos.
In its default settings, the action bars can be toggled using the SHIFT+X command, where X is the page of the action bar. There are a total of six action bars in the default UI, so players starting completely fresh can hit the ground running with the Razer Naga without having to configure anything and still effectively having easy access to up to 72 buttons. On Windows, the two buttons beside the left mouse button allow forward and backward movement. On Macs, these buttons are ignored but can be configured for forward and backward movement (or anything else) through the Key Bindings interface.
Right out of the box, without any configuration, the Razer Naga immediately changes one's game and can eliminate 'clicking'. But why stick with the default interface? Razer|Fakesteve says that "in order to efficiently display the many commands (World of Warcraft players) can bind to the Razer Naga," the developers had to "kick the default interface out the door." This is where the power of the Naga is truly unleashed. In the next part of our review, we'll take a look at how the Naga performs with custom UI and settings.
[Update: Razer's Heathcliff Hatcher aka Razer|Agent responded to some concerns about the Razer Naga and how its keys currently can't be remapped right out of the box without third party applications. Razer|Agent says, "software driver remapping of keys is a standard function for most of Razer products and we do have suitable solutions that we intend to release in the near future for Naga that will enable this feature out of game." This means that the standard 123 and NUM configurations should be remappable through a future update.]
Mike wrote an excellent hands-on report on the Razer Naga when we were at BlizzCon which should give everyone a fair idea of what we're dealing with. Writing a product review for an MMO gaming mouse wasn't going to be a simple task -- one reason there aren't too many full reviews of the Razer Naga is because it takes a bit of commitment to do it. Unlike first person shooters or even real-time strategy games where about an hour or two of gameplay would be enough to give fair impressions of the mouse, properly assessing an MMO gaming mouse needs to be an immersive experience. It requires mapping keys and adapting one's personal playing style to accommodate the hardware.
As I'd mentioned in my gearing series that talked briefly about gaming mice, the features of most modern gaming mice are far beyond what MMOs generally demand. You won't need 5600dpi, insane APM (Actions-Per-Minute) values, or even fancy technologies like Razer'sHyperResponse buttons. If there's any indication that Razer is on the right track with the Naga, it's that they've loaded it with buttons. MMO players tend to press a lot of buttons. They also took the extra step of creating (or adapting) an AddOn that allows the mapping of keybindings from inside the game. When the Razer Naga finally arrived at my doorstep after a torturous tussle with an ineffectual DHL, I finally buckled down -- as Razer would say -- to get imba. Let's take a closer look at the Razer Naga after the jump.
Gallery: Razer Naga
The Razer Naga
Razer keeps a peculiar naming convention for their product lines, with keyboards named after arachnids, mousepads named after non-arachnid insects, audio gear after aquatic predators, and finally gaming mice after snakes. The cleverly named Naga is taken from the Sanskrit for cobra, but as Mike pointed out in his hands-on report, everybody who plays WoW is familiar with those snake-men that pester us all over Azeroth. Razer is taking square aim at World of Warcraft players and there's nothing subtle about it.
One of the first impressions I got of the Naga when I saw it on Razer's website when it was launched was that it looked bulky. I mean, after all, it had a full 12-button keypad on its side. After seeing it a BlizzCon and playing with it now, I found that it isn't actually the case. Compared to other gaming mice (I'd been using Razer's DeathAdder and Lachesis prior to the Naga), it's actually rather small. Pictures, as they say, add ten pounds, and this is certainly true of the Razer Naga, which is actually slimmer and more compact than the gallerysuggests.
This compact form factor should appeal to female gamers, who generally have smaller hands than most males. Considering that over 400,000 women playWorld of Warcraft in the US alone, this should be a good thing. The keypad is also the same size as that found on most mobile phones, so its size shouldn't be a problem for men, either. The Razer Naga sports 17 buttons, which is a whole freaking lot, even for a gaming mouse. These buttons are the most significant hardware feature of the Razer Naga, which we'll explore in-depth later.It is an ergonomic mouse -- which means that lefties are out of luck -- with the keypad accessible by the thumb, three buttons for the index finger, a scroll wheel button, and the right mouse button for the middle finger. Opposite the keypad is a small curve where the ring finger can rest while the pinky can grip the side. It has a 7-foot lightweight, braided cable that terminates in a gold-plated USB connector. The braided fiber cable seems to be the new trend for Razer mice, lending itself to fewer tangles.
One other feature that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is a small toggle found underneath the Naga that allows the 12-button keypad to register as the normal number keys (including - and =) or as the numeric keypad on a full size keyboard or Advanced [NUM] mode. Combined with the regular number keys, the Naga toggled to the Advanced [NUM] mode provides more buttons than players will have use for. Combine that with the ALT, SHIFT, CTRL and combinations thereof, then there are roughly a gajillion-zillion keybindings at players' disposal. One caveat: toggling the Caps Lock will affect the Naga when in [NUM] mode.
Starting Out
One of the biggest hurdles in making the jump to the Razer Naga is adapting one's playing style to take advantage of the mouse. Most players are used to accessing spells through their keyboard, with the default action bars bound to the number keys. Many players use basic, two-button mice, and use the keyboard W, A, S, D keys to move. The Razer Naga "tips the balance, so to speak, between the keyboard and mouse," according to Steve Chevrie, aka Razer|Fakesteve. It frees up the keyboard hand to focus solely on modifier keys or even movement such as strafing to complement forward movement with the mouse.
The most basic way to use the Razer Naga after installing it is to have it toggled as the normal keypad and use the keys as you would the 12 buttons on the default action bar. The Naga's default keypad values out of the box correspond with the keys bound to the default UI from 1 to =. New players or those who like to use the default UI can use the Razer Naga to shift all spell commands to the mouse, freeing the keyboard hand for modifiers, movement, or even munching on Cheetos.
In its default settings, the action bars can be toggled using the SHIFT+X command, where X is the page of the action bar. There are a total of six action bars in the default UI, so players starting completely fresh can hit the ground running with the Razer Naga without having to configure anything and still effectively having easy access to up to 72 buttons. On Windows, the two buttons beside the left mouse button allow forward and backward movement. On Macs, these buttons are ignored but can be configured for forward and backward movement (or anything else) through the Key Bindings interface.
Right out of the box, without any configuration, the Razer Naga immediately changes one's game and can eliminate 'clicking'. But why stick with the default interface? Razer|Fakesteve says that "in order to efficiently display the many commands (World of Warcraft players) can bind to the Razer Naga," the developers had to "kick the default interface out the door." This is where the power of the Naga is truly unleashed. In the next part of our review, we'll take a look at how the Naga performs with custom UI and settings.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Razer Naga MMO Gaming Mouse Review
When one thinks of gaming mice, some brands come to mind and Razer has produced quite a splash within the past few years. There have been some lovely additions, too as some I didn't carea time, it is coming down to a case of diminishing returns as we get into minute differences. I wonder if 4800 / 5200 /5600 dpi sensitivity in a mouse actually makes a difference in MMO gaming, so I was a little skeptical when I received the Razer Naga, a mouse purportedly produced for MMO gamers. Right-handed MMO gamers,Aion power leveling, by the way, there is not a left-handed version.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, but the simplicity of the style of the Razer Naga hides the phenomenal amount of engineering that has gone into it. Taking a take a look at the fit and finish, it is really an improvement from the Razer Diamondback that I bought in 2005 and still use. The cord is now covered in a woven fabric to greater avoid kinking. The rubberized texture of the mouse feels great to the touch, and does not attract finger prints or slip under tight gaming conditions and sweaty gamer hands. It looks excellent. Razer mice constantly looked classy and felt solid. From packaging to product, the Razer Naga is an appealing package. Mouse clicks are smooth as well as the absence of huge grooves to accommodate separate right and left mouse buttons means that it collects much less dust and fuzz bunnies. It looks very good, feels solid and with their own patented Teflon feet, moves over my cat hair covered mousepad without missing a beat. Yes, for some unfathomable reason, my cat Daisy loves the Naga and curls up around it on my mousepad. She didn't do that with the Diamondback.
I like how the Naga fits my hand. It can be a bit far more rounded and rather petite looking when compared to the Diamondback along with the Deathadder. With the flatter Diamondback, my hand lays flat with the mouse buttons at my finger ideas. With the Naga, my hand curves over it and my finger guidelines curl up higher on the buttons which enables my thumb to rest naturally too, proper there where it ought to be, over the 12 button thumb grid. With personal input devices such as mice and keyboards, personal ergonomic fit and experience counts for how each and every device fares with each individual gamer ? i.e. apart from technical specs, how effectively a gamer likes a mouse is purely subjective. I liked a heavier mouse until I got utilized to the light and twitchy Diamondback (I had paid very good money for it and darn it, I was going to obtain used to it!)
Finally, we go on to what they did to designate it an MMO-centric mouse; that is the 12 button thumb grid. This replicates the number bar across the top of your keyboard, or with a flip of a switch underneath the mouse, the number key-pad to the correct of your keyboard. Razer estimates that it takes about 18 hours of game play for the average gamer to retrain the muscle memory and reflexes on how they play a game, and provides trainers - adhesive rubber dots that you can stick to the 12 button grid to assist yourself get employed to button placement. I started it out with the great old regular, EverQuest where all I genuinely used was 6 buttons, moving to EverQuest 2, LoTR, Final Fantasy, Global Agenda, Star Trek, several media tours of diverse games and I like it ? specifically considering that I mostly use the WASD keys to move and I actually liked becoming able to do things like alter weapons whilst running. I played very a bit of Global Agenda with this mouse, equipping the jetpack and leaping off buildings with out a hitch in my stride. Also convenient was remapping the a variety of keys in Star Trek Online to the number pad and making use of the thumb grid.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, but the simplicity of the style of the Razer Naga hides the phenomenal amount of engineering that has gone into it. Taking a take a look at the fit and finish, it is really an improvement from the Razer Diamondback that I bought in 2005 and still use. The cord is now covered in a woven fabric to greater avoid kinking. The rubberized texture of the mouse feels great to the touch, and does not attract finger prints or slip under tight gaming conditions and sweaty gamer hands. It looks excellent. Razer mice constantly looked classy and felt solid. From packaging to product, the Razer Naga is an appealing package. Mouse clicks are smooth as well as the absence of huge grooves to accommodate separate right and left mouse buttons means that it collects much less dust and fuzz bunnies. It looks very good, feels solid and with their own patented Teflon feet, moves over my cat hair covered mousepad without missing a beat. Yes, for some unfathomable reason, my cat Daisy loves the Naga and curls up around it on my mousepad. She didn't do that with the Diamondback.
I like how the Naga fits my hand. It can be a bit far more rounded and rather petite looking when compared to the Diamondback along with the Deathadder. With the flatter Diamondback, my hand lays flat with the mouse buttons at my finger ideas. With the Naga, my hand curves over it and my finger guidelines curl up higher on the buttons which enables my thumb to rest naturally too, proper there where it ought to be, over the 12 button thumb grid. With personal input devices such as mice and keyboards, personal ergonomic fit and experience counts for how each and every device fares with each individual gamer ? i.e. apart from technical specs, how effectively a gamer likes a mouse is purely subjective. I liked a heavier mouse until I got utilized to the light and twitchy Diamondback (I had paid very good money for it and darn it, I was going to obtain used to it!)
Finally, we go on to what they did to designate it an MMO-centric mouse; that is the 12 button thumb grid. This replicates the number bar across the top of your keyboard, or with a flip of a switch underneath the mouse, the number key-pad to the correct of your keyboard. Razer estimates that it takes about 18 hours of game play for the average gamer to retrain the muscle memory and reflexes on how they play a game, and provides trainers - adhesive rubber dots that you can stick to the 12 button grid to assist yourself get employed to button placement. I started it out with the great old regular, EverQuest where all I genuinely used was 6 buttons, moving to EverQuest 2, LoTR, Final Fantasy, Global Agenda, Star Trek, several media tours of diverse games and I like it ? specifically considering that I mostly use the WASD keys to move and I actually liked becoming able to do things like alter weapons whilst running. I played very a bit of Global Agenda with this mouse, equipping the jetpack and leaping off buildings with out a hitch in my stride. Also convenient was remapping the a variety of keys in Star Trek Online to the number pad and making use of the thumb grid.
Drivers aren't shipped with the mouse and to obtain essentially the most out of the Naga, players will need to download drivers off the Razer site. At this time, drivers are offered for both Mac and Windows and also the most recent drivers give full re-mapping and macro ability for all 12 buttons on the thumb grid, placing macro control literally, under your thumb. In-game custom interface add-ons are also obtainable by way of the Razer http://razernaga.info/ web-site for World of Warcraft and Warhammer and a lot more are planned.
I've discovered the Razer Naga to be one sweet mouse for MMO gaming and it's sitting in pride of place correct now, having replaced the Diamondback (all 1600dpi of it) which has been relegated to the laptop for work purposes, with the photographer within the home cackling with glee at having received the Deathadder for Photoshop work.
Razer Naga MMO Gaming Mouse Review from Razer Naga ReviewRazer Naga Introduction
The Razer Naga is the ultimate Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming mouse that shifts the balance between keyboard and mouse by putting an unprecedented number of in-game commands in one place. A multi-button thumb grid and Razer’s MMO game interface add-on combine to place every command you need in the palm of your hand. An ergonomic form shaped to maximize ease of use lets you game in comfort for hours on end. With the Razer Naga, you will Get Imba.
Razer Naga Technical Specifications
Razer Naga Tutorial Video (Add-ons)
Razer Naga key binding and add ons in-game configuration.
Razer Naga Trainer Video
Razer Naga Technical Specifications
- 5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G Laser Sensor
- 1000Hz Ultrapolling™ / 1ms response time
- 200 inches per second max tracking speed
- Zero-acoustic Ultraslick™ mouse feet
- 17 MMO-optimized buttons (including 12 button thumb grid)
- Optional MMO-specific software AddOns
- Unlimited character profiles with AddOns
- Approximate size: 116L x 69W x 41.6H (in mm)rnet connection (for driver installation
- PC / Mac with USB port
- Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® / Windows® XP or Mac OS X (v10.4 and above)
- Internet connection (for driver installation)
- At least 35MB of hard disk space
Razer Naga Tutorial Video (Add-ons)
Razer Naga key binding and add ons in-game configuration.
Razer Naga Trainer Video
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