Every so often there’s a new ‘limited edition’ keyset for the Steelseries Zboard. We’ve already seen them for Battlefield, Counterstrike, Age Of Empires and many others. Well, to tie in with the release of the new expansion for World of Warcraft, Wrath Of The Lich King, there is now a Wrath Of The Lich King keyset for the Zboard.
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If you’re familiar with the Zboard then you’ll know the typical layout for these keyboards. Movement keys and other common functions go on the right, while the main keyboard area has other game functions tied in to the Ctrl and Shift keys. These are colour coded to make it easier to use the keyboard.
What’s Good About The WoTL Keyset?
The WotLK keyset drops easily into the Zboard with minimal fuss, and that’s the installation complete (assuming you’ve already got your Zboard drivers installed). Once the keyset is in place the keyboard runs a quick scan and sets itself up ready for the game.
The keyset already has buttons for emotes, PvP, raiding, chatting, rolling and even a button for voice. Once you’ve got your own personal macros defined and tied to keys (using the Zboard software) you’re ready to go adventuring. If you haven’t played with a Zboard before you’ll really appreciate the keyboard layout. It does help to make the game a little easier to play – it won’t suddenly turn you into the best player in the realm but it does make things run more smoothly and certainly makes it easier for new players to pick up the game.
What’s Not So Good About The WoTL Keyset?
This is not the first keyset for WoW. There was a keyset for the original game, and that was followed by a version for the Burning Crusade expansion. Each new keyset seems to bring subtle changes to some of the keys so if you’re used to the previous keysets you will have to adjust to the new layout.
If you’re not familiar with the Zboard and are used to Logitech or Razer keyboards you may be disappointed by the quality of the keyset. It feels light and flimsy, as if it’s been made out of cheap plastic and could snap in a minute. But don’t let that initial perception put you off, the keysets are tougher than they seem.
The main problem I encountered was the action of the ‘7’ and ‘n’ keys, which sit over one of the folds in the keyset. They do work, but require a firmer press than you might expect and that can sometimes lead to a few missed keypresses.
Conclusion
If there’s one change I would ask Steelseries to make it would be to get rid of the folding meachanism in the keysets and make them one fixed piece. Other than that there’s very little wrong with this new keyset and it’s all that you would expect. The new layout is slightly improved on the previous Burning Crusade version, but otherwise it’s more of the same. If you’re a fan of WoW and you haven’t already got a WoW keyset you could do a lot worse than buy the Wrath Of The Lich King keyset.
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