Customer Reviews

SteelSeries Special-Edition World of Warcraft Mouse

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

Length:: 2:12 Mins

I had written a hands-on review on my blog, since (even though I ordered and received this mouse from Amazon), I was unable to review on this mouse since it was incorrectly categorized as "Preorder" for quite some time.
[...]

First of all, here are the "pros" of the mouse:
* It has a LOT of buttons
* It glows and has shiny colors
* It looks expensive, and has a little WoW logo on the plastic, as well as a WoW-skinned software UI.

Here are the cons:
* It utilizes delays, loops, and timers and ENCOURAGES users to leave the delays on by default. This is against the WoW Terms of Use and can get your account banned. If you manually turn them off and know what you're doing, you'll be fine.
* The "macro system" is just insertion of keys into the keyboard buffer. That means if you want to "stopattack" a mob that just got sheeped or CC'ed, the keys will "collide" with any other keys you're typing at the time (including your "wasd" movement keys) and will type them directly into the in-game chat buffer. (see video) This is the exact same macro functionality as any other macro-capable non-WoW mouse.
* Names with extended ASCII characters are not recognized by the macro software. That means those with extended ASCII or from non-US locales won't be able to utilize the armory feature within the software.
* The software does not come shipped in the box. If you do not have the internet for some ungodly reason and plan on using this mouse on an offline PC game, you are out of luck.

The "not good, not bad" parts:
* The mouse (at least IMHO) is uncomfortable for those with small hands. I am a female gamer with small hands (5'2", 100 lbs) -- extended play sessions are not possible with this mouse since it is designed for a larger hand.



For more details, feel free to visit my blog post review or view the video. I've gotten a few not-so-friendly comments somewhat along the lines of "LOL N00B. Only a dumb girl would fat-finger mouse buttons while they're chatting lolz pwnt!". Of course, since I don't expect every video commenter on youtube to possess an IQ, I'll politely point out that the video is what's called an "example", and that the real-world scenarios (/stopattacking a sheep, /assisting another character, whatnot) would collide with your movement keys (wasd, q and e) providing you with a command much like "/stopatwwwwwack" or "/assqqqqqqissssssst"



As a 15-button mouse, you're not going to find anything like it on the market right now. If you're unconcerned with the built-in macro functionality, feel free to utilize this mouse with single-character keybindings (i.e. "f" as an in-game keybinding for assist instead of "/assist"). However, as the feature-rich designed-for-World-of-Warcraft mouse that was touted with such specially co-designed features, I'm astonished that the macro system is identical to other mice on the market, and that the mouse's user guide would recommend breaking the WoW's terms of use.

It gets 2 stars for misleading advertising, continually pushed preorder dates that continued even after I received my 2-month preorder, and the lack of "designed-for-WoW" functional and non-cosmetic features.

As a 15-button mouse, it gets 3 stars -- I hear it fails at keybinding key combinations (such as CTRL+5 or SHIFT+4), but the multitude of buttons might still be appealing. If steelseries had marketed this mouse as a general gaming mouse, they'd have had none of the problems with false advertising and might've gotten a bigger market since I don't know many MMO gamers who need 15-button mice.




EDIT: April 27, 2010
I noticed a new button under the main menu->Interface options that mentions "Detect Steelseries WoW Mouse"... it may be that FINALLY, WoW had added the advertised special functionality that was advertised for us a year ago who paid far too much to sit on a ridiculously long waiting list for something that didn't even work as advertised.... So MAYBE this actually works correctly now. I wouldn't know - I haven't used the Steelseries mouse since this review, nor would I (since it's not comfortable, so perhaps someone with the current WoW patch and this mouse could write an updated review regarding the macro issue.

However, there are also new mice on the market, like the Razer Naga, that include a LOT of bindable buttons in a much more comfortable form (at least, in my opinion). So do your market research and decide whether you really want to throw money at a company (Steelseries) that has treated its customers to a poor quality mouse with both hardware and software issues, poor ergonomics, and unreliable release dates/pre-order handling.

I'm likely to buy a Razer Naga in the near future, but in the meanwhile, I've already given away my Steelseries mouse to my boyfriend since his mouse broke and he just needed a basic point-and-click device... you know, a basic mouse. And yes, he's a main tank for the highest progression guild on our server - and while he could use as many bindable keys as he can get, I don't think he's even using any of the hard-to-reach keys on this Steelseries mouse.

Best of luck!
-Jennifer

You've probably already read that this mouse is, in general, good for Warcraft players and bad for virtually anyone else. While the mouse has some redeemable stats hardware-wise, DPI, report rate, yadda yadda, all the features that would interest a WoW player are disappointing.

The "Macros" that are build into the mouse cause the text box in the game to come up and the mouse actually types your macro letter by letter into the chat frame. Obviously this makes those macros useless, since you can probably type them faster manually. The other flaw with the macros was that when you build a custom macro and removed the time delay between keyboard inputs the macro was typed too quickly or inaccurately or incompletely to execute.

The mouse is only capable of actuating buttons on your main action bar or main pet bar. So if you have buttons on other bars you need to use a workaround, and map the mouse buttons to keyboard strokes and map your action buttons in game to the same keystrokes. It actually works very well in game, but you need to get past the idea that you're now setting your game up around the limitations of your mouse and that those buttons will still produce the same useless keystroke combos outside of the game. Alt+Shift+Q isn't all that useful outside of WoW now is it?

The software itself was a bit difficult to use, even for a seasoned WoW player. My biggest issue ended up being frustration over setting or resetting the basic mouse button functions we're used to with any other mouse on earth. I remapped the "browser back" button and there was nothing in the documentation to tell me how to get that function back. (Which you find in a drop down menu by right clicking the button in the on screen diagram of the mouse. But I got the feeling that if I remapped the right click button that I'd be uninstalling and reinstalling to get that one back.)

The buttons themselves have shortcomings as well. The ring-finger button is 2 buttons on a rocker that must be pressed with the left side of the ring-finger. This is not a particularly sensitive part of a finger with no acclaim for it's dexterity. Deciphering which of the 2 buttons you might be pressing at a given time was impossible and pushing the button required enough force to cause you to active some of the buttons on the opposite side of the mouse with your thumb. In the end, I ended up mapping both the ring-finger rocker buttons to the same function and gluing a piece of rubber to it so the button could be activated with a more natural motion, like a trigger (using the ring-finger) instead of a scissor motion between the middle and ring fingers, that alleviated the inadvertent activating of the thumb buttons.

The thumb buttons were difficult to use at best. To give you some idea about the size of hand I have, and I'm sorry this is the best I can come up with, when I select a glove size, I go for a large, but never XL, if that's any indication. Or, I could choke someone with about a 19 inch neck. The number 4 thumb button on the rocker was out of reach without using two motions to spin the mouse in my palm a bit the reach for it. It was useless for gaming. The other 3 buttons on the 4-way thumb rocker activated an adjacent button roughly 85% of the times I clicked in game. The workaround I had to use was to disable the number 2 and number 4 buttons all together (The ones closest and furthest from the base of the thumb). The 2 traditional (browser fwd/back) thumb buttons are much further apart, horizontally, than on any mouse I've ever seen, but this isn't a bad thing, it gives a bit of room so your thumb can feel its way between the 2 of them and the 4-way rocker slightly below them.

There are raised buttons on the inner edges of the 2 main, traditional mouse buttons, these are probably the most useful of any of the extra buttons on the mouse. If you have a 2 finger on top style, (left and right click with index and middle fingers, respectively) you might find they are positioned so that you want to use the extra raised buttons for primary and secondary click. They should have been placed further to the outsides of those buttons to keep them out from under finger constantly, but the elevation makes them obvious and after an hour of 2 of gaming I found I could cope with them.

The mousewheel is grippy and the force to active the wheelbutton is fine. You won't be spinning this wheel to navigate large menus or text documents though, as it has no inertia to speak of.

2 more customizable buttons near the mousewheel are safe from accidental clicking and good for DPI-on-the-fly functions but unless you're double jointed you won't be using them for frequent clicks.

The back half of the mouse sits on what amounts to rubber wings. The elevates your hand from the mouse surface. Which is great for keeping your grubby mitts off your pristine mousepad, but for those of us whose little fingers play a stabilizing roll in our gaming the wings are great for making us feel more detached from the mousing experience. I was able to cut a portion of the right wing off with metal shears without altering the glide of the mouse so the little finger could be grounded again.

The last flaw was the surface of the mouse. It's smoothe plastic. Very smoothe. So smoothe in fact that I couldn't keep the mouse in my hand when I had to pick it up off the pad to reposition it. Or I could squeeze really hard and activate any number of buttons. The point is, gamers lift their mice frequently, and this surface is slippery. It seems like there wasn't any thought put into the surface.

The LEDs are useless. She is not going to sleep with you even though your 'mouse is so cute, it looks like it's breathing.' Not only that but your hand will cover them entirely while playing, so no 3rd parties are going to write a useful program for them. What they did manage to accomplish was push the mouse over the power rating my g15 keyboard's USB hub was capable of supporting, even as the only device attached. This meant the cord, at 2 meters, was literally a drawback on a big desk.

All in all, the mouse is clunky to use with WoW, its buttons are poorly positioned, the button rockers are terrible ideas (think: very tiny Sega Genesis controller D-pad when you imagine the thumb rocker), and the mouse is too hard to keep in an average hand. So unless you're a collector or you have a gargantuan hand with bomb technician dexterity and purpose-built gamer callouses you're going to have a lot of heartache with this mouse and accurately pressing its many buttons.

I got this mouse and was disapointed that warcraft does not respond to the windows button 4 and 5. The mouse also goes out alot and I have to reset it often. Some of the macros I use in warcraft don't work when I apply them to the mouse. So if you raid or do arena this mouse can cause alot of problems. I reccomend going with another brand and avoiding all the problems associated with this mouse. I already have a new mouse on order.

For the price, I felt robbed. I could have purchased a Logitech G15 and had more functionality. Don't buy it unless you want to brag that you have one, or just need an illuminated mouse while you game in the dark.
*thumbs down*

3/25/2009 Update: Mouse turned to junk today. Logged into Wow this evening and was unpleasantly surprised: Rocker button 2 stopped responding under all circumstances, and the software could no longer remember any preset macros. I un-installed and updated the drivers, and the software continues to wipe out all presets no matter how many times you go back in and set them again, rendering the mouse totally useless. Without any programmability whatsoever, and no support from Steelseries, this is $100 dollars totally wasted. No point having 15 buttons when none of them do anything at all. :( I'm sorry I had anything nice to say about this mouse earlier. Junk.

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I purchased this mouse coz I spend an embarrassing amount of time playing WoW and while I've thoroughly enjoyed my 9 button CybaSnipa mouse (which I recommend you investigate), the thought of having 15 buttons made me buy and continue to use (and recommend with qualifications) the Steelseries wow mouse.

Note, I use a Logitech G15 classic 18 button keyboard and the utterly amazing Razer eXactMat control mouse pad along with my Steelseries WoW mouse. In-game, I use all 10 bars displayed with Bartender4, and all this is to say I live for macros and the more buttons the better.

So, the Pros:
Lots 'n' lots o' buttons. I love my super comfortable Cybasnipa 9 button mouse but find, as a wow player with a hunter, that it's very sweet to offload some of my common tasks to my mouse; hunters mark, pet passive, and 3 different MD target macros, mount/dismount, aspect swapping, pet mend and explosive trap all have been offloaded to my Steelseries mouse. I don't think I can go back to any mouse with fewer buttons now. It's just so convenient.

Downloaded software, once you mess around with it for a few minutes, is easy to use and set up simple key press actions and assign to mouse buttons. It took a bit to remember all the stuff I'd offloaded to the mouse buttons but now that I do, my game play is fast and easy.

Mouse is solidly built. My Cybasnipa mouse wheel/button combo was taking a terrible beating and eventually stopped responding. The Steelseries wow mouse is more durable and has a much better scroller/button set up. It's going to take a lot more abuse than my Cybasnipa could.


The Cons:
It's a big mouse, as it has to be to accommodate all the buttons. When i go for the forward 4-way thumb rocker button, I actually have to move my hand forward as I cannot reach the button in my resting hand position further back. The forward top thumb button and the forward ring finger rocker button likewise require a stretch which, for women's hands, can break the flow of game play during a boss encounter or arena, for instance. Men should have no trouble at all, however.

I have no idea why, but the Steelseries wow mouse suddenly becomes unresponsive, and acts as if "unconnected" to my computer. It draws so much power I have to plug it into an AC powered USB hub as my G15 can't handle the load, and still it will go dark and you have to wait and move the mouse from side to side on the pad til Windows "recognizes new hardware" again. Or I have to get up, unplug the mouse from its USB hub and reconnect it. This only happens after a few minutes of not using it and does not happen all the time. I am unable to identify a pattern with this annoying disconnect behavior but it can be maddening sometimes.

The macro button assignment software isn't as versatile as my Cybasnipa's is. If you try to assign something like /console CameraDistanceMaxFactor 50 to a button, the Steelseries will literally try to type the string out in chat instead of perform the console function. That leaves you to having to write wow macros, key bind them and then assign the keystroke to the Steelseries button. This is a hack that uses up my limited wow macro buffer, uses up key bindings I don't want to use up (coz I have them bound to other macros or default functions I can't play without), and is the biggest con I can give here.

Bottom line Pro: if you need buttons, are resourceful in macro/keybinding and can live with the cons, there is nothing on the market to beat the Steelseries.

Bottom line Con: big power hog mouse with less than perfect connectivity, with less than ideal button assignment technology.

If you need 15 buttons on your mouse (and I do), then the Steelseries is the only game in town. If not, then check out the only other competition, the highly comfortable but less robust Cybasnipa 9 button mouse.

Simply put, it does not work.

Beyond mouse-button interference with macros, after only a few hours the mouse stops working all together. The cursor jumps sporadically all over the screen, until eventually it stops responding all together. I found the only way to resolve the issue was to reinstall the driver, but this only is a fix for a couple of hours at best before it goes on the fritz again.

I left the thing plugged in over night, sat down at my machine in the morning, and the mouse did not respond AT ALL. Also the light feature was constantly on, no pulsing, and had randomly changed color.

It is just unusable, in game or out.

By far the most expensive piece of garbage I've ever bought. Thankfully these problems presented themselves immediately so a return was possible.

I would not recommend this mouse to any gamer. If you are considering buying this, I strongly recommend you first go to a local electronics store and check it out in person. The buttons / ergonomics are poorly laid out. The mouse has a very cheap feel to it. You can spend much less on a much better designed logitech, razer, or microsoft gaming mouse.

Don't let the Blizzard name or "WoW" backing on this mouse influence your decision to buy. Check it out in person to see the quality of what you're paying for. In my opinion the price is very steep for a badly designed mouse.

Let me start off by saying that I love most SteelSeries products. But this mouse was terrible. I can't imagine the shape of the mouse fitting anyone's hands well. I have large hands and it was still too big for me to use. Second, the buttons are not placed in ways that allow you to press them easily, probably because they are trying to fit too many buttons on the mouse. Third, it didn't track as well as their other mouses, the skates looked the same as the Ikari mouse but weren't as slick or something. Fourth, the mouse would only track X or Y, it would not do both at the same time. Meaning that you could move the cursor sideways or up/down, but not at angles or in an arc. Which of course makes it entirely useless for anything. Fifth, after plugging in the mouse, every 2-3 seconds the cursor would jump down 1/2"-3/4" on the screen until it hit the bottom of the screen. This was constant and if you moved the cursor back up to where you wanted it, it would start the process all over again. This only happened when the mouse was plugged in, so obviously was a problem with either the driver or the mouse hardware/firmware.

I contacted SteelSeries about the last 2 problems which were the only showstoppers for me. Tech support took 5 days to get back to me and told me that the unit was a "rare" defective unit (they actually used "rare" with the quotes in their email). I was given the choice of returning it to the store I bought it from or paying shipping and send it back to them with a 4-6 week turnaround. I sent it back to Amazon the next day with the intention of getting a new one through Amazon. After talking to 15+ people online about this mouse (I was still getting /whispers 2 hours after talking about it in the trade channel of my server), every single person experienced the same problems I did. I have decided I will stick with my Ikari Laser Mouse SteelSeries Ikari Laser Mouse (Black).

The SteelSeries Mouse shocks me very often when I first touch it, and then shuts down my computer. I've contacted the company for a replacement, but they said that one would not be available until May, when they release a new model without the problem. Do not buy this Mouse until you are sure that it will no longer shock you.

Not what I would expect from Steelseries. It seems when a company takes on a license, it means they can create a sub standard product.

When I first got the product, I had to get over how cheap it felt, compared to Logitech's gaming mice. The good idea part of this product is having all the extra buttons. I used it for 2 months until the left and right mouse buttons started sticking. It became so bad I just had to return it.

I hope they make a version 2.0 of this, I sure would buy this, if it weren't so crappy.

Update: As of 12/10 this product does not work with Windows 7 64bit. I have to install it each time before I use it. Steelseries is aware there is a problem, but very slow to put out an update. I would run away from this mouse, now!