Most mouse designs have not changed that much over the past 15 years. You point and click with one or two buttons. Most mice now have a scroll wheel in the middle that is great for scrolling web pages or zooming in and out in a game. In the past few years more mice are being developed specifically for gamers. One of the most ambitious of designs is The Razer Naga. The Razer Naga can perform all the standard functions of a traditional mouse but has the added advantage of twelve buttons on the left side of the mouse arranged almost in a cellphone style configuration. These buttons are designed to be pressed with your thumb.
The primary target market of the Razer Naga is MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) hardcore gamers who wish to execute spells and abilities more quickly. With the Naga, now your thumb has something to do rather than sitting there on the side of the mouse doing nothing.
The mouse comes packaged in a very attractive box with nicely styled inserts including a quick start guide, master instruction guide, a grid trainer kit for people who have trouble finding the buttons, stickers, a ‘Get Imba’ card, product catalog, and even a Certificate of Authenticity -- as if Razer believes someone in Nigera may start building black market Naga replicas. All of the materials are of high quality, and it is clear Razer is trying to develop a strong brand image with this product.
The mouse design itself is impressive. It fits well in the hand and the 12 right thumb pad buttons are just about the size of your typical cell phone. The buttons are very responsive and have just the right amount of feedback. Like most mice the Naga has a scroll wheel that is also clickable. It performs well and has a good feel. For the aesthetically minded the wheel is also back lit. Each of the standard mouse buttons clicks well and is contoured to fit your fingers more naturally than most standard mice.
The two small buttons on the far left next to the standard mouse button are in my opinion, the weakest aspect of the product. They are usable, but are just a little too far to the left to be convenient. Each of them is by default set to the forward and back button in your browser. In just a few hours use when I went to grab the mouse I accidently clicked the lower button on the far left. Luckily I had not typed something out in a form or forum thread as I could have lost what I had been writing. If this is a problem a user may want to unbind the back button key to make sure they don’t accidently move off a web page they are putting data into.
There is no disc or drivers included in the package. You simply go to razersupport.com and download the necessary drivers. This is very efficient and makes sense for a MMO gaming mouse that the user will most certainly have access to the Internet. Even before installing the drivers from Razer the mouse worked perfectly with Windows 7 plug and play drivers. The Razer configuration software provides you with multiple profiles and a lot of flexibility in how you use the mouse.
There is complete control over mouse sensitivity as well as the polling rate and DPI settings. You can even have independent settings for the X and Y axis. Resolution can be set as high as 5,600 dpi. There are even more complex settings that allow you to set up to five ‘sensitivity stages’. The Razer Naga control panel also lets you manage the lighting on the mouse for the logo and scroll wheel/buttons.
The Razer Naga software allows you to easily configure all the buttons on the mouse and map them to various keys on the keyboard. Multiple profiles allow you a method of keeping different buttons for different games or productivity applications. The thumb grid by default sets to row of keys at the top of the keyboard starting with 1 and ending with the ‘=’ key. A quick toggle changes the mapping to your numeric keypad. If you want to get more advanced, a nice graphical interface clearly identifies each button and a popup lets you easily select from a variety of options. These include assigning a button to macro, selecting an alternate Naga profile, or selecting different stages of sensitivity. For example you could assign your Naga 12 button to switch you to your PvP vs PvE.
One of the more advanced features of the Razer Naga’s configuration is the ability to create, record, and manage macros. There are a lot of commands like new, open, cut, copy, paste, and other common commands that you can string together and then map to buttons on the Naga. More complex commands like close window, open explorer, swap windows, lock PC, give you some interesting flexibility. Without using any additional software you can have a particular button on the Naga perform a variety of close commands, show your desktop, and the lock your pc. This is a very nice addition and will save many people from having to install 3rd party applications to manage basic macros for the Naga.
As World of Warcraft is by far the most popular MMORPG with over 12 million players as of October 2010, it is only natural people will want to know how well the mouse works with the gold standard of MMORPG’s. The short answer is that it works great and exactly as advertised. With no configuration at all the 12 thumb pad buttons are mapped to the main action bar which includes the numbers 1-10, the minus key, and the equal key.
After just a few minutes of play I found using the buttons very comfortable and easy to execute my spells and abilities. The included documentation with the Razer Naga claims that their tests suggest it takes approximately 18 hours for the average MMORPG gamer to really master the mouse. I’m thinking for many people they will notice an almost immediate benefit because it the mouse puts so many important spells and abilities within much better reach.
Even with just the default software that ships with the Razer Naga the benefit to World of Warcraft would be great. But even better, Razer has made a full World of Warcraft addon that actually replaces your action bars with a far more functional and flexible configuration. Like the Windows configuration software the addon really goes the extra mile. Buttons are easily assigned and you can keep different configurations for each character you have. You can reposition and configure the main command bar, your bags, XP bar, and spell casting gauge. There are a lot of options so it can be a bit to figure out exactly what works best but the work put into the World of Warcraft support for Naga is top rate.
With so many options, how do you get the best setup in World of Warcraft? Well I’ll tell you my approach as I figure many MMO players will find the same issues as they switch over to using a Naga for World of Warcraft. By default the number keys are going to be duplicated on your Naga. Hitting the 1 on your Naga is the same as hitting the 1 on your keyboard. As the point of the Naga is to have more spells and abilities accessible fast, this just isn’t going to be the ideal setup for most people. Even most mouse turners still use their left hand for forward and strafing and then to hit those number keys.
The first step I took in configuring my Naga for World of Warcraft was to set the mouse to use the NUM keys for the key mapping rather than the 1, 2, 3 at the top of the keyboard. This is a simple setting inside the WoW add on. Then open up the ‘key bindings’ in the Naga add-on and map each num-lock key to the action bar you wish to use for the Naga. This frees up the standard number keys to be used for other spells and abilities.
In my personal configuration I have decided to take and place all my attack oriented spells on the 12 Naga keys. Then I use the 1-5 keys for the most important defensive, potions, and CC abilities.
In addition to World of Warcraft I have spent some time configuring the Naga to work with the new MMORPG from Trion Worlds, Rift. Rift is a solid up and coming MMORPG that has a lot going for it. Over the past month I've been playing Rift and have written a review covering the game.
The Razor Naga works great in Rift. Unlike World of Warcraft there are no Rift specific addons. Still using the Naga with Rift could not be more simple. Simply open the key bindings and assign the keys you want on the Naga to the slot. One thing I really like about the Naga and Rift is that Rift really has a lot of consumables, or at least I find I use them to a far great extent than I use them in WoW. So one of my strategies is using a ctrl key to perhaps mean that each of the 12 Naga buttons will map to a given consumable. For PvP I can see lots of potential with Naga and Rift.
The best part about the Naga is you really get very quick access to many more abilities. It reduces motion while at the same time you don’t really sacrifice. Your thumb in the right hand is not being used for anything else so it can be easily incorporated into your gameplay. In addition to MMORPG uses I could also see the mouse being handy for people that frequently use the same sets of productivity software. Cut , Copy, Paste as the 1,2, 3 on the Naga may not be so bad. Perhaps down volume, mute, and up volume on 4, 5, and 6. I see could see another company such as Microsoft taking a design like this and branding it more toward productivity applications.
PROS
- High quality design and feels good to use
- Great for MMORPG gaming
- Awesome World of Warcraft support
- Great configuration software
- Can be used for applications outside gaming
CONS
- The two buttons next to the primary mouse buttons are poorly placed and not easy to use
- An upgraded wireless model costs considerably more
- For people used to gaming with the mouse in their left hand they would have to completely change
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