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Rating : - Some technical issues with the N52 and WoW
I've used the N52 for a number of years. I used it in Everquest, and now I use it in WoW. I apologize for the length.

When you install the N52, Windows will see this as four devices under two bases. There is a mouse device that just provides a place for mousewheel functions, a keyboard, a joystick, and a mouse that provides a place for other mouse functions.

The technical capabilities of this keyboard and its driver software are phenomenal. In Everquest, casters had to practice casting spells, and I could enter a series of casts and pauses to allow the commands to complete - the same keys I'd normally enter would just be recorded and played back through the N52. A macro can be set to act once or repeat - so I'd sit in the guild pool and cast all night, driven directly off my keyboard.

In wow, I can avoid an inactivity disconnect by letting a macro loop that has me move a little every few seconds, then turn around and move back.

The eight way rocker can be a directional pad, OR a Joystick, OR a mouse -or it can be a directional pad in one shift, a mouse in another, and a joystick in another - and it could be a mouse in some directions and a joystick in others. Another reviewer made the directional pad his shift pad. I use the wheel as my shift because I have a wheel on the regular mouse. The eight positions on the d-pad can be bound to anything that any other key can. All the keys on this keyboard are equal. In WoW I use the eight way pad solely as a movement pad. You could use the wheel, for example, as a throttle, and any key could be a joystick button (from 1 to 24).

The keys can be a single key - or a series of keystrokes of arbitrary length, or a mouse button, or a joystick button, or tied to a mouse or joystick axis. If a single key, the key makes when you push it and breaks when you release it so you can make a key the "alt" key and it works as a shift. It can be told to repeat for as long as you hold it - or until you push it again. The problem is that without delays, the sequence of keystrokes does not reliably work in WoW. In Everquest, you were limited to the spells in your "gems" so casting was no problem. In Wow, you can have an action bar position tied to a spell - or an in game macro - or you can type on the keyboard:

/targetenemy
/cast [nostance:1] shadowform
/cast [harm] Vampiric Embrace

That is a simple action, targets the nearest enemy, shifts you into shadowform if you are not already there, and then casts Vampiric Embrace so that you or your party gets healbacks when you do shadow damage. At some levels a shadow priest might start almost every solo combat that way, as well as many group combats - so it makes some sense to make it a macro. But you have limited macro slots and you have a lot of spells. and many of your macros are going to be used to stack multiple spells onto a single key.

And you should be able to program this into the N52's profile editor so as to save in game macro positions and allow a real richness of action, and in fact you can, but it does not work, at least not "instantly". The input scheme in WoW tosses away keystrokes if they come in too fast. You can make it work - by inserting some delays so that the keystrokes don't arrive all at once. But for most purposes that is way too slow.

Now, it should be possible to use a program like "AutoHotKey" (free software - define anything on your keyboard as anything else, make any key sequence a hot key that can do anything and which reacts contextually) to overcome this. For a while I tried to use a joystick with WoW with my N52, and I used AutoHotKey to make the joystick simulate a mouse and I hooked buttons on the joystick to actions like "/targetenemy{enter}/changeactionbar 1{enter}/cast [nostance:1] shadowform{enter}". Autohotkey could get WoW to take a string like this. The N52 can't, unless you put in large amounts of delay. But if the Nostromo can send unique keystroke sequences, it should be possible to get it all working with Autohotkey.

But that is not my approach.

I am now using the N52 in my left hand and a Logitech MX mouse in my right. The MX has, functionally, 11 buttons plus the forward and back roll on the wheel. Using left click, right click, the mouse wheel's down click as center click leaves you the left and right tilt on the mouse wheel, the extra top button, the two left buttons, and the left wheel which is functionally three related buttons. All can be contextually programmed to a unique keystroks (like cntl-shift-9) that then can be bound to an action button in WoW.

All the keys on the N52 are defined as simple keys or as simple shifted keys, and I have allocated the first right actionbar to actions needed by the keyboard and the mouse, and those actionbar entries are almost all bound to macros. I play a priest (as did one of the other respondents), so I use two shifts on the N52, one for party healing, and the other for soloing or offense. The "mouse wheel" I have programmed as a cycle shift so that I can get to all of the shifts if I need to, and the button there is center mouse. Macros change the main action bar from the offensive action bar to the buff and prep action bar. The first 5 keys are pfkeys for targeting the group for buffs and heals, and the buff and heal keys are all 6 or higher on the action bar so that they do not have to change.

In offense mode, the 12 keys on the left cast the first 12 action bar entries. If they could, I'd have had them cast the spells directly, but they can't as I explained (well, they can - if I put enough delays in the typing simulation - but it just takes too long). The two on the right call out the macros that target enemy or friend, shift to the action bar I want, and adjust stance if needed. Many of the spells cast differently in combat, and the button under the rocker near the shifts is an alt key to adjust the actions of the macro to the non-combat version or to reset /castsequence.

I've looked at some of the gaming keyboards, and I started playing WoW on a regular keyboard. Then I dug through my old computer parts and got out my N52.

BTW, I had an N52 break once, I called Belkin, and they gave me an RMA. About 20 days later I got a new one. Not everything is perfect but they made the return simple enough.

Of course, the mouse in my setup can do a bunch of things. It is set up to target enemy, friend (same macros) open bags, summon mount, has an escape key, targets without changing bars, casts a bubble on me no matter who is targeted without changing targeting, and also has the two main mouse buttons, the center button and forward and back mousewheel. And the MX software has the same sort of setup as the N52 - the software can detect which program you are running and automatically shift the translation of the mouse buttons - so making all the whacky things happen in wow.exe doee not break the mouse when I'm using the mouse in a browser.

The point of this is to not have to touch the keyboard normally. I move around with the N52 8 way pad, cast spells, buff, target and fight with one hand on the mouse and one on the N52.

I could see one other use for the N52 - as the second keyboard for two boxing. Consider that if you are two boxing, many of the things you want to do with, say, the priest that is supporting your warrior are repetitive and may not need to be that fast. You might be able to use a KvM switch when you want to sent tells from that character, while doing most of your healing from this compact keyboard.

I guess my point is that while the keyboard has some problems, it beats anything else that is out there. I see reviews of other pads talking about modes and shifts - and, at least for WoW, you can use some of the keys as in game shifts so that you could, well, get more keys than you could possibly bind. I can't speak to the flexibility of those other keyboards, but this one has more function than I can figure out how to use. The sort of game I like to play is based on a keyboard interface, so almost every function I use is based on keystrokes. Were this a flying game, it might be sensible to define the wheel as a throttle to go with the joystick I'd be using. Or some additional fire buttons. This device gives you that flexibility - all the flexibility you can stand, and more.