SteelSeries World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse Review – Legendary Edition

Steel Series MMO Gaming Mouse Legendary Edition

Today we take a look at the Steel Series MMO gaming mouse Legendary Edition up for review. This is the third mouse that Steel Series has developed with cooperation from Blizzard Entertainment, the company responsible for the hugely successful Diablo, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft series with ten million users worldwide. The first mouse from SteelSeries was announced during the 2008 Blizzcon Event that has been held annually in Anaheim since 2007 and before that in October of 2005. The first generation MMO gaming mouse wasn’t tied to any certain theme other than World of Warcraft in general. The first generation MMO mouse boasted a rather large base, 15 buttons, and 16 million color combinations. The second generation MMO gaming mouse was inspired by the third expansion, Cataclysm. This mouse boasted a narrower base, 15 buttons, and 16 million color combinations to choose from.

The third generation MMO gaming mouse, the [Legendary Edition], is based off of the Legendary Thunderfury Sword, which is a weapon of legendary. Legendary quality items are very rare in World of Warcraft and represent the best of the best. Does the Legendary Mouse represent the best of the best? The Legendary Edition mouse has 11 ergonomically placed buttons for binding skills and macros to. The Legendary Edition mouse connects to the PC via a 2-meter USB cable and comes with software that facilitates in-game or out-of-game configuration. The Legendary Edition mouse comes with a 1 year warranty from the date of purchase and retails for $79.99, which is about the middle of the range when compared to gaming mice of similar quality and functionality. The sport of competitive gaming is growing and so is the hardware to maximize speed, precision, and efficiency. The Legendary Mouse is compatible with both Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems.

When we first received the SteelSeries MMO World of Warcaft Mouse: [Legendary] Edition, we were very delighted at the level of design and detail on the retail package. The packaging looks very similar to the original World of Warcraft game box from Blizzard Entertainment, which brought about a serious case of nostalgia from that moment on. The front of the package was designed nicely that shows off the design and graphics of the mouse. The package features a flip open cover to reveal the actual mouse covered with a plastic molding so you can get a feel for how it looks and how it will fit in your hand without ever having to open the package. This is a very nice feature that gives potential buyers a way to see and feel the mouse without having to open the package and pull everything out. Turning the package over we found additional information related to the mouse. The back of the package gives details (in many languages) of the mouse along with pictures that represent the software and how it relates to the hardware. We were thinking that the package felt and looked so great but would it be able to perform as well as it felt or fall short as so many others have in the past. We were anxious to see exactly how the mouse would hold up in real-world testing.

Mouse Features:

• SteelSeries software to allow in-game setup. This works for both Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X
• 11 Buttons to bind custom actions to: 130 preset actions or custom macros. The presets can be taken from the following categories:

• Movement Keys
• Chat Functions
• Action Bar Functions
• Targeting Functions
• Interface Panel Functions
• Camera Functions
• Miscellaneous Functions (things like toggle music, take screen shots, etc)

– Easy to use interface for creating macros
– Custom paint job inspired by the Legendary Thunderfury, which was the first legendary Blizzard Entertainment put into the game. Fitting since this is SteelSeries first every legendary mouse. It was easy to see how much thought was put into this product from the initial package to the game play.
– 16.8 million color options with the ability to change the pulse and the intensity. We played around with the color scheme for quite a while and found that the reds and oranges looked the best. This is all personal preference of course
– 10 profiles. We loved this feature because we are all altaholics and play several characters at a high level (IE raid/pvp). This software allows us to bind buttons to abilities for all the different characters we have.

Physical Attributes of the mouse

The SteelSeries World of Warcraft Legendary gaming mouse has 11 buttons that are ergonomically set-up for comfortable gameplay. The mouse is just over 4.5 inches long, about 3.2 inches wide and about 1.5 inches high. The Legendary Mouse weighs in at about 4 ounces. This mouse is much smaller than the previous generations of the SteelSeries World of Warcraft gaming mice. We found the mouse to be very comfortable during hours of non-stop gaming. The sleek design made resting of our hand on it very comfortable and relaxed. Any user moving from a standard mouse will easily be able to adapt to this gaming mouse. Although it has fewer buttons than the previous generation mice, it still had more than enough buttons to bind out main attacks and macros. The positions of the buttons were very well laid out. The buttons are clustered in groups to allow the thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers to easily access them during gameplay. We found that after a little time playing World of Warcraft with this mouse, we were able to find the buttons without having to look down at the mouse.

A great feature of the Legendary Mouse is the thumb control buttons. The thumb is able to control four buttons (Buttons: 7,8, 9, & 10). We were worried a little at first because we have used mice in the past that had thumb buttons that never seemed to play out like we hoped they would. On other mice that make heavy use of buttons your thumb controls, we would tend to hit them while moving and accidentally perform actions in-game that we didnt intend to do. We were happily surprised that the legendary mouse didnt have this problem. The buttons were easy to press but at the same time sturdy enough to allow us to move the mouse without accidentally pressing them. We really liked the layout of the thumb buttons. We cannot stress this enough. They were designed for ergonomics and comfort and the design definitely met functionality.

The index and middle fingers control the usual set of buttons (Buttons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6). These are the main buttons that will be clicked the most during game play. During testing, we found that they supported the fingers very well and were very responsive to pressure but like the thumb buttons, not sensitive enough to have accidental clicks while resting. The size of each button differs a bit, but once you get used to their location, they become very useful.

The last button (Button: 11) is controlled by the ring finger. This is the button that will give people problems, if they are to have a problem with this mouse. This is due to the fact that it is hard to move just the ring finger without moving the pinky finger because they share a common tendon, unlike the other fingers, which are independent of one another. Clicking button 11 takes a little getting used to but with a little practice, it become easier. For users with smaller hands, this will become more of an issue. We recommend binding something to it that doesnt require a lot of use, such as a potion or some out of combat action.