Yay, my Nostromo is here!Follow

Googled an image of one, and I can't even figure out which way your hand is supposed to go on it :)

Looks cool though!

The Nostromo is awesome if you have the Naga for a mouse. You never end up touching the keyboard, other than to type messages. The only problem I have with mine is the thumb pad, it said it is a 8 directional pad but I can only ever get 4 directions to work. Also had to get rid of the little lego style joystick that came with it, seamed to make things worst.

Glad you like the game pad though, I'd recommended one.

The n52te?

They're exactly the same, only the Nostromo has more room for programmable stuff.



Yeah, as I said in my OP I found the Thumbpad to be buggy in itself -- I'd, say, press Up... then Left, and then Up+Left and then Left would stick even after I took my hand off the thing and my character'd still strafe left until I tapped Left again.

The Up+Left, Up+Right, etc do seem a bit *hard* to get to actually work (until they make it "stick"). I tried turning those off (having JUST up, down, left right on) and it still did the same thing.

Oddly, I could not get this to do it in Notepad at all (I bound them to WASD as an experiment) and the Diagonal directions would not work at all in Notepad (only very seldom) and the "sticking" problem didn't present itself. Thinking it was just WoW that was going wonky, I loaded up Portal2 and it stuck in that game as well.

Windows must handle keyboard inputs differently than joystick ones; that's the only reason I could think of that it would "stick" in WoW/Portal2 but not Notepad.

How did you "get rid of" the joystick? Does that actually come off, revealing JUST the + pad underneath? *tries it and blinks* d'oh. Woulda been nice to know, a little earlier. Might have to try that when I get home from work, maybe it won't "stick" with the joystick removed.

That brings me to another point: No manual. They give a small guide on how to set up its buttons with the driver program that you gotta download, but at least a small sheet explaining things (like how the joystick is removable) woulda been nice, took me some Googling to figure out what the switch underneath it does.

Otherwise, other than some minor soreness in left pointer finger and the thumbpad problems I mentioned above, I'd have to say that it worked fairly nicely.

I think my head would explode if I tried to use that thing in addition to the Naga. It is pretty though.

Out of curiosity, what's the difference between pressing WASD on the keyboard and on that thing?

You mentioned that having your fingers on WASD was uncomfortable compared to having them on the arrow keys (I'm assuming that's how you used to keyboard-turn). That doesn't make sense to me, unless you're left-handed. Having your left hand on WASD and the right hand on the mouse would give you a more comfortable position than having your left hand on the arrow keys. Unless your keyboard is very oddly positioned. Or you're left-handed, like mentioned earlier.

I'll join the fuddy-duddy group and question the practicality of such a device.
I mean, keyboard turning is keyboard turning, whether you're on a standard 101 key or a 40 key keyboard.
As a person who plays a lot of WoW, and a large variety of classes, I can't say I've ever 'ran out of keybinds.'
1-6 for REALLY commonly used abilities, Shift 1-6 for 'finishers' and defensives, 9-= and shift 9-= for cooldowns.
WASD /WSQE for movement.
Never saw why people insist on completely rewriting the standard keybinds or why people buy a 50 key pad to take up more room on their desk while they have 101+ keys sitting there doing absolutely nothing dead center.

A joystick which, apparently, doesn't even work all that well.

Edit: From what I can tell, the 'joystick' is just a fake analogue control over a set of 4-8 'keys' mapped to movement. I'm leaning more toward 4. In the middle is a nub that you can attach a 'joystick' that rolls over the misplaced WASD keys.

Edited, May 14th 2011 12:48pm by jaysgsl

I have been using the Nostromo for years now. I use it for all my gaming including Call of Duty type games etc
and simply couldn't go back to straight keyboard.

I'm on the second generation version now.
I don't use the hat control for movement. I find the basic N S E W functions fine but I bind to them
non essential or slow cast spells.
I don't use the NE NW SE SW etc binds.
For movement I use mouse and the pads wsde keys but I use arrow keys bound to those instead of the letters.
I set my right mouse button for doing the mouse quick turn.

An option for tab targeting is to use the big single key below your thumb.
All other keys on the pad are set for spell assignments for me.
Thats not enough keys total so I only assign all the essential must have stuff there.

Exception to that is the jump button since its used so often, I set that to the key to the right of the right turn key,
last key on the middle rank basically.

It takes some fiddling to get things just right but I swear by it and can't live without my Nostromo.

Custom fit shoes for an athlete is a LOT different than taking a third of your usable keys and putting them into more clutter.
It would be like adding platform cleets.

NP with being curious!

Anyways, Ergo keyboards help me type fast, and I can type for long periods of time without my wrists getting sore -- on a good day I do upwards of 80 WPM, and I can type all day long.

I try using a "straight" or "normal" keyboard, and my WPM is cut in half and my wrists start locking up and getting bad pains after about 10min or so. Oh, and I'm frequently making mistakes too.

But yes, Ergo keyboards are not really that great for WASD-style gameplay. lol.

I love this keyboard of mine, the first time I ever saw a keyboard last 12+ years of good solid (daily!) use. This keyboard has probably been used enough to type War and Peace cover-to-cover at least 100 times. Seriously.

I love my G13, like, maybe almost as much as I love Jon Bon Jovi. As to the questions of why it's better than WASD, it's true that it functions the same - I have the joystickythingamajig (sorry to be so techie) bound to the arrow keys for forward, back, strafe left, and strafe right. What makes it better is that I can use all four of those "keys" with just my thumb, freeing up more fingers and keys for other stuff. Especially if you're a healer and need both healing and offensive spells within easy reach (and/or you're a small-framed woman with little carnie hands), this is just all kinds of chocolatey awesome. I don't think I could play without it anymore.

What do you do if you're tanking and you need a taunt?
Or you're healing and you know the disc priest in the raid is going to need to bubble your heal target for a damage phase?
Do you really have to move your hand all the way from another keyboard and type that way?
It just isn't clicking with me. Seems to me as if Logitec and Belkin got together and said "How can we make people buy an expensive attachment they don't need at ALL, with as little dev time as possible?"

That's actually the range of my hands too.... that doesn't make me feel good about how manly my hands are :P
1-6 + shift 1-6 + alt or control (Whichever's easier to reach) 1-6 are HONESTLY not enough keybinds for you? I mean, more power to you if you can find a reason to use them thingies, but I'm not sure if I would take one for free. Would just seem like clutter to me.