The other day I received a Belkin n52te in the mail. I managed to find it used at a good price and decided to go for it.
For those unfamiliar, the n52te is a gaming controller. It’s goal is, really, to replace a keyboard with a simpler, single-handed device. Its design emphasizes speed and its software, I feel, emphasizes macro use. Its layout follows the coutour of a human hand, although your mileage may vary there depending on the size of your own hands.
So why get this device? The most honest response is that I felt it looked interesting. I figured there was little risk to boot. If I disliked it, I could sell it on eBay without a loss. The other reason was for LotRO, which as of late is the only game I play regularly on my computer beyond Spelunky.
Most MMORPGs force you to fill your screen with icons and LotRO is not reinventing the wheel in that regard. I don’t have any significant trouble with this, but I’d be lying if I said it was intuitive. I memorize my key layouts eventually, but I find myself jumping between mouse and keyboard selection for the same skills. When you have skills on screen requiring you to jump between ctrl+shift+1 and ctrl+shift+0, it’s simply not possible to do anything without moving your hand from the mouse to the keyboard and back again. The whole process just seemed silly to me.
I thought with the n52te that, perhaps, I could create a key layout that I felt was more intuitive. Instead of pressing ctrl+shift+1 to activate an ability, I could press a single button. Instead of pressing tab to cycle through enemies, I could roll up on the scroll wheel.
Once you have the n52te installed, coming up with how you’d like to layout your control system is a job in and of itself. This is largely because it’s going to take some time to figure out what makes the most sense to you. I decided very early on that I wanted my ability icons onscreen to mimic the layout of the n52te itself. This meant turning on all of the quick slot bars in LotRO’s options, making sure all of them were assigned key presses in the game and moving them around (alt+\ allows you to do this) to match its key layout while still allowing me to have access to as many abilities as possible.
The n52te lets you cycle through three different key maps at the press of a button. They are identified by a series of lights on the lower-right hand of the unit that are colored blue, red and green. With my Rune-keeper, I decided to group my skills into three sets because of this. I thought healing/support skills would best be identified by green, attacks by red and anything else by blue. You can see my thought process in the following image:
The idea here is when I switch to the blue light on the n52te, the buttons will access what I have outlined in blue on the left. I can quickly switch between the three whenever the situation demands it.You can see the actual keystrokes I’d have to make on a keyboard in the left-half of the image. I don’t have to really get into why pressing 05 on the n52te is easier than pressing ctrl+shift+2. I doubled up Shocking Touch (the yellow hand icon) just because I find it useful in both situations.
So what about the rest of the device? Well, I made the joystick (actually a digital directional pad with a cap on top) control my character’s walking direction. The round button above that activates auto-walk (also known as numlock!). Button 15 (the one directly beneath the stick cycles through my three key maps. The scroll wheel has three functions: pressing it like a button initiates attack (which I rarely have to use, as my in-game settings have me automatically attack a target when using attack abilities); scrolling it up cycles through nearby enemies; and scrolling it down cycles through nearby Fellowship members.
I’ve been happy with the results. It takes some getting used to the basic idea, but I’ve memorized the key layouts more quickly than I have on a normal keyboard. Having the on-screen icons match up to the key layout makes this a snap. I love that I can quickly cycle through friends and enemies and do what’s needed of me quickly. It still leaves the mouse open for other things as needed too.
The software allows you to make multiple profiles as well. You can have these load up with a specific executable if you wish, or you can turn them on manually. This means you can have a layout programmed for each of your characters if you wish. It also means you can easily shift between a FPS and a MMORPG.
Macros are easily programmed and the software allows for ones far more complex than what I’ve detailed thus far. You can include pauses between keys if you wish, allowing you to create a chain of skills under a single button press. This isn’t something I felt I needed for LotRO, particularly as I find my needs in each battle to be different.
There are other similar devices out there and all have their ups and downs. Logitech recently released the more expensive G13 unit, complete with its own LCD screen. Belkin also has the predecessor to this unit, the n52. It lacks the back light and foot grips of the n52te, but many claim it has superior software (on the n52te, this is a bit of a downside: the software works and I was able to program it easily, but it has some nagging issues that could definitely be improved). The original n52 also has the added benefit of being ridiculously cheap on eBay at times.
Should you run out any buy one of these? It’s difficult to say. I’m happy with it, but I also watched several videos of it in action, read reviews and browsed forums before making my decision. Research your purchases! I imagine the n52te will appeal to many people, but I also imagine that most are totally fine with their current keyboards.
