This is an extremely impressive mouse. The paint job on this mouse is so awesome, combined with the glowing World of Warcraft logo (that is only further accented by a ring of runes inside the LED display), that one of my step kids (running off to their room) actually stopped, came back, and commented on how cool this mouse looks. Indeed, it’s quite striking visually. I thought Razer were the kings of aesthetic style, but I believe a new challenger has arrived. This is probably one of the best “in hand” feeling mice I’ve ever used. The paint job is protected by a silky smooth acrylic base, meaning your hand just glides across the surface of the top, allowing for full finger focus on the 11 mappable buttons located on the top and sides of the mouse. In fact, I fully expected the button located on the right hand side of the mouse to have a sharp/jagged edge, so I carefully slid my finger over to the button, but found that the button is actually shaped to fit the curve the design perfectly, resulting in maximum comfort for marathon gaming sessions; and let’s face it – you’re going to want that comfort whether you’re raiding or smashing murlocks just to make em giggle.

The raised notches on the wheel help for finger traction, allowing me to easily scroll when I wanted to instead of accidentally moving the camera in an undesired fashion. The mouse has 11 different buttons: The usual 3 (left, right, and middle click), four are located on the left side (in an up/down/left/right fashion, with the left/right being up closer to the left edge of the mouse), two are located behind the scroll wheel on either side, one is located behind the scroll wheel, and one is located on the far right, where your ring finger would normally rest. Although this layout felt strange at first, I found myself really enjoying the comfort of the button placement. There’s not a single button on this mouse that’s hard to press. Everything is in a natural location (at least for me), the hardest part was just getting used to it.

I was a bit disappointed with the mouse out of the box, as there aren’t any clear instructions that come with the device (though the packaging is very cool). The mouse is 100% plug and play, as you’ll plug it in and Windows will automatically detect it as the Steelseries WoW MMO Mouse, but in order to customize your macros and change the color of the glowing light, you’ll need to install the steelseries external program, which isn’t mentioned anywhere in the packaging, but I was able to find the software via a search of their website. Perhaps an oversight on my part, as this is the first Steelseries product I’ve ever owned, but perhaps include a piece of paper or some printing on the box that says “This product may have additional software available at Steelseries.com” or something along the lines of. If it is there, I apologize, but I didn’t see it written anywhere on the box, nor was there anything inside the box other than the mouse.

Once you’ve gotten the mouse set up, and the software installed, you can do a lot of really cool things. The DPI sensors are controlled through the software, so you can change your sensitivity on the fly which is always appreciated by me as I play many different types of games. The software also allows you to pick one of 16.5 million colors, so you’re able to make the WoW logo circle whatever color you want, though I preferred the look of the orange since it looks so good with the lightning painted on the mouse. You’ll find 10 different profiles, so you could literally have a layout for each of your characters, or even for other games, though keep in mind that this mouse isn’t nearly as impressive with other games as it is with WoW. Once you’ve launched WoW, you can enable the MMO Gaming Mouse in the settings, allowing you to change your layout in-game instead of having to return to the mouse software in your system tray. I loaded up my long since forgotten WoW account and made some neat macros, enabling my level 70 hunter to pull off some slick combos, and kill pretty much anything I got near (I stayed in areas appropriate to my level) without having to worry about doing anything with my left hand other than move around.

Outside of WoW, few games only recognize the two buttons going left/right on the side of the mouse. In games like League of Legends, I was hoping I could bind recall to the right side button, but sadly this wasn’t possible. I also tested the mouse with a few other titles, such as Hard Reset, Tropico 4, and Rift: Planes of Telaria, and while the mouse is a terrific mouse, most games don’t allow for customization of the majority of the buttons, rendering almost all of them completely useless. A small gripe, but nothing that would discourage my recommendation of this mouse.

Overall, this mouse is extremely well-built. The aesthetics are great, though perhaps a bit cheesy as I’m not an avid WoW-head, but still good enough to catch passing eyes. The mouse is built well, moves smoothly, feels great (no jagged edges!), and – at least in the case of World of Warcraft – is a game changer. You know all of those Rogues that piss you off in PvP because of their ability to roll your face while you sit there and do nothing? This mouse will give them the power to do it, one-handed, and ready move on to their next poor (sapped) victim.

The World of Warcraft [Legendary Edition] MMO Gaming Mouse should be available very soon from here, and was provided for review by Steelseries.

Steelseries World of Warcraft [Legendary Edition] MMO Gaming Mouse originally appeared on GamingOgre on September 28, 2011.

For those who decide that their greatness can no longer be held back by the level cap, Blizzard is offering up the digital battlechest that includes the core game and the Burning Crusade expansion for a cool $20.

World of Warcraft now free to play until level 20 originally appeared on GamingOgre on June 29, 2011.

Recently a large list of 62,000 user emails and passwords began circulating the internet. They did not pertain to any specific service, and included user information for Xbox Live, Paypal, and World of Warcraft accounts. This is hot on the heels of the recent hackings of EVE Online, Bethesda, Codemasters, and other game companies.

It’s not actually been confirmed that any of the services listed above in connection to the 62,000 accounts were actually hacked by Lulzsec, thought I can’t imagine many other ways they could obtain all this info (of course, they might just barely be in the process of figuring it out like Sony and Nintendo). This is merely a list of possible passwords and username combinations, but one gamer has apparently already complained about his credit card being used for $100 and being locked out of his account. Hopefully we won’t hear more stories like that come out of this, but only time will tell.

When Anonymous was the only major hacking entity on the internet, the worst that would happen is a DDoS attack. Everytime I hear any news about Lulzsec I need to go change a password in someplace or other just to be safe. Likewise, I advice any other gamers with accounts under XBLA, Paypal, and WoW to change their passwords, just in case.

More user info compromised by Lulzsec originally appeared on GamingOgre on June 19, 2011.

You can pick up your own little hatchling at the Blizzard Pet Store.

Blizzard offers exclusive WoW pet for charity originally appeared on GamingOgre on May 3, 2011.