Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[DrakeWurrum]

What about Fry's?

[Deleted]

Woohoo, more lefties!

And fine, I'll go buy more M&Ms tomorrow... *grumble grumble*

[DrakeWurrum]

Well I'm a righty, but I would rather use both hands. (giggity)

[Maconi]

I normally don't care much for Swifty, but he did the Nostromo justice... he kinda had to since he's sponsored by Razer, huh?
Yeah yeah, it's not the G13, but like I said, a Nostromo is basically just an alternate brand for what the G13 is: a gaming keypad.

I still don't understand the point. So it's like 1/4 or 1/3 of a keyboard. Other than the fancy palm rest (and the macro software, which you can use any free macro software), what's the point?

I suppose it MAY give your hand access to a few more buttons than a normal keyboard (since the D-Pad is such a small surface area and can have so many buttons bound to it), but it can't be that many more.

Has someone counted how many extra keys one of those actually give you access to (not counting macros and etc. which you can also use with a keyboard)?

[Deleted]

Yeah I'm left-handed but many things I just end up using my right hand - like with my mouse.

Thank you so much for all this info.

[DrakeWurrum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaming_keypad

A gaming keypad is a small, auxiliary keyboard designed only for gaming. It has a limited number of the original keys from a standard keyboard, and they are arranged in a more ergonomic fashion to facilitate quick and efficient gaming key presses. The commonly used keys for gaming on a computer are the 'W', 'A', 'S', 'D', and the keys close and adjescent to these keys. These keys and style of using a keyboard is referred to as WASD. A gaming keypad will not only optimize the WASD layout, but will often contain extra functionality, such as volume control, the Esc. key, and the F1-F12 keys.

[Chronius]

I still don't understand the point. So it's like 1/4 or 1/3 of a keyboard. Other than the fancy palm rest (and the macro software, which you can use any free macro software), what's the point?

I suppose it MAY give your hand access to a few more buttons than a normal keyboard (since the D-Pad is such a small surface area and can have so many buttons bound to it), but it can't be that many more.

Has someone counted how many extra keys one of those actually give you access to (not counting macros and etc. which you can also use with a keyboard)?

It's all about choice, some like them some don't. I don't, I prefer my mechanical keyboard, I do have a razer naga though.

BTW.
Did anyone test if GW2 blocks the macrosoftware? I know some MMO's do. I recall SWTOR blocking it.

[Deleted]

I still don't understand the point. So it's like 1/4 or 1/3 of a keyboard. Other than the fancy palm rest (and the macro software, which you can use any free macro software), what's the point?

I suppose it MAY give your hand access to a few more buttons than a normal keyboard (since the D-Pad is such a small surface area and can have so many buttons bound to it), but it can't be that many more.

One thing that's rather frequently overlooked. Just made this video, so take a quick look.



You see each time I press that button and the colours change? Each of those is a brand new keymap, that can be customised how you like. You dont even have to cycle like I did, you can edit the buttons to change to and from what you like, even to change to a keymap for as long as you hold a button down.

Fifteen buttons, plus a scroll wheel, a d-pad and that little clicky button. Times that by eight.

[DrakeWurrum]

For me, it's that I like using the keyboard for things like... chatting, interacting directly with the interface with character building or economy/social stuff... etc etc.

I want to get the Nostromo to separate gaming keybinds from things like that.

---------- Post added 2012-05-09 at 07:21 PM ----------

One thing that's rather frequently overlooked. Just made this video, so take a quick look.

-snip-

You see each time I press that button and the colours change? Each of those is a brand new keymap, that can be customised how you like. You dont even have to cycle like I did, you can edit the buttons to change to and from what you like, even to change to a keymap for as long as you hold a button down.

Fifteen buttons, plus a scroll wheel, a d-pad and that little clicky button. Times that by eight.

Oh yeah, I forgot the different keymaps.

[zito]

The beginning of MoP Beta:
"We want Discipline to feel different, so we're removing several of the heals you have become accustomed to using over the years and replacing them with absorb mechanics."

Currently in the MoP Beta:
"We don't want Discipline feeling TOO different so here's all your old heals back. Oh, and Spirit Shell is now a semi-useful-in-certain-situations cooldown. Enjoy."

GC:We usually start out more bold and refine things as we go along, which often means going to a known fallback position. That direction makes more sense than starting off cautiously and getting more reckless as we get closer to ship.

This is why I dumped WoW for GW2, false promises and game design goals which are designed to get players interested, only to be removed and reverted last second.

Don't disappoint me Anet!

Also scarab lord!

[Meledelion]

I still don't understand the point. So it's like 1/4 or 1/3 of a keyboard. Other than the fancy palm rest (and the macro software, which you can use any free macro software), what's the point?

I suppose it MAY give your hand access to a few more buttons than a normal keyboard (since the D-Pad is such a small surface area and can have so many buttons bound to it), but it can't be that many more.

Has someone counted how many extra keys one of those actually give you access to (not counting macros and etc. which you can also use with a keyboard)?

This was what I was getting at aswell, From my count they're about equal (depending on handsize). My hands are pretty small for a guy and I can reach 44(including modifiers) keys on my normal keyboard (of which I can hit 35ish whilst activly moving my char)

From what I can see the nostromo has 27keys and the g13 has 28 or 32 depending on what thebuttons on the top are for.
This means you lose a whopping 17 keys for the nostromo and 16 or 12 for the g13.
With that many keys lost I have to be missing something... (macros don't count since there are other programs for that if you really want that functionality)

[DrakeWurrum]

Yeah, I'm not happy with the change they made to Disc. Not that their new idea is a bad design, but I liked what they were trying to do originally.

[Deleted]

This was what I was getting at aswell, From my count they're about equal (depending on handsize). My hands are pretty small for a guy and I can reach 44(including modifiers) keys on my normal keyboard (of which I can hit 35ish whilst activly moving my char)

From what I can see the nostromo has 27keys and the g13 has 28 or 32 depending on what thebuttons on the top are for.
This means you lose a whopping 17 keys for the nostromo and 16 or 12 for the g13.
With that many keys lost I have to be missing something... (macros don't count since there are other programs for that if you really want that functionality)

Check my vid on the previous page. With modifiers, I'm hitting... 176 buttons.

And that was left handed

[zito]

Yeah, I'm not happy with the change they made to Disc. Not that their new idea is a bad design, but I liked what they were trying to do originally.

Its like, finally Disc is actually going to use shields to heal! instead of just it's cd's being shield related instead of direct heals like holy.

Blizz: opps just kidding back to disc wotlk design.

[Meledelion]

Just saw your vid, great one btw. Now I see what I was missing.
What I ment with (including modifiers) is that ctrl, alt, shift are part of the 44. So you actually get 123keys to hit (theoreticly, alt+f4 isn't a good keybind =D) all with the left hand.

I finally understand the use of the G13 and Nostromo thanks to your vid though, you get about 600keys of which a far greater % will be easy to acces.

[Kelesti]

Yeah, I'm not happy with the change they made to Disc. Not that their new idea is a bad design, but I liked what they were trying to do originally.

...umm...? Why are we having this discussion here, instead of over there at my place?

[DrakeWurrum]

...umm...? I'm missing something here.

Original Spirit Shell: casted absorb

Current Spirit Shell: 60-second cooldown that causes your normal heals to apply absorbs instead of heals for 15 seconds

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[Fencers]

Its like, finally Disc is actually going to use shields to heal! instead of just it's cd's being shield related instead of direct heals like holy.

Blizz: opps just kidding back to disc wotlk design.

The problem is that in WOW, this was something EQ struggled with as well, the class design was inherently predicated on requiring other classes of a particular stripe. Seeing as how WOW originally took it's design cues for classes from 989/Verant- that doesn't surprise me Blizz would need to playtest the extremes first then pull in. Truthfully, they have no other choice.

There are a lot of changes they made over the years to facilitate looser gameplay styles. Yet they do keep some of the original design here & there.

TLDR: World of Warcraft is old & struggles under it's own weight/legacy.

[DrakeWurrum]

I finally understand the use of the G13 and Nostromo thanks to your vid though, you get about 600keys of which a far greater % will be easy to acces.

It's not about the number of keys, but about the key layout mostly, as far as I'm concerned. For much the same reason that WASD movement become popular (although lately many gamers are turning towards ESDF).

[Kelesti]

Original Spirit Shell: casted absorb

Current Spirit Shell: 60-second cooldown that causes your normal heals to apply absorbs instead of heals for 15 seconds

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Oh I'm aware. See edit: Why are we having this discussion here, instead of over there at my place?