For instance, the Steelseries World of WarCraft MMO gaming mouse, which has no less than 15 programmable buttons.

Which is a lot of buttons, but I guess enough buttons to be the official World of WarCraft mouse.

Steelseries the website unfortunately loves flash a little too much, so here’s the breakdown of the mouse:

• Macros up to 160 characters
• A total of 15 programmable buttons
• Over 130 predefined commands for drag-and-drop macro creation
• 16 million illumination choices with 3 intensity and pulsation levels
• World’s first gaming mouse designed exclusively for World of Warcraft®

I’ve been playing WoW enough that I can see that this seems gimmicky, and not in a rock band stage kit sort of way.  Which is to say that I don’t see how this can add to your experience.

On the other hand, I can see that this is for the most hardcore of fans, and I’m not the target audience.

On the other, other hand, 16 million illumination possibilities is possibly enough of a bullet point to get me to purchase this mouse, when it inevitably goes on clearance.

The Logitech G19 Keyboard however, looks positively palpable.

From a purely technical standpoint, they’ve streamlined a lot of things.  I’ve played a Warlock to the mid teens and was surprised at how much they’ve removed from the experience.  Just as an example, they’ve removed demon trainers from the game entirely.  Previously, you would have to purchase grimoires to teach your demon minions new skills.  Now, they just learn them as they level up with you.

That makes a lot of sense to me, from a gameplay standpoint.  I can definitely spend that virtual money on something else, and it removes another treadmill from the game.  I’d rather be cursing things and setting my demon minions on them.  I don’t have the time nor the impetus to teach them how to do that.

Also, from a sound design standpoint, they’ve decided to give them voices, instead of text chat, so that was surprising to me when I heard my voidwalker speak for the first time.  In a way, I preferred them to be silent and creepy, but this new characterization of the voidwalker isn’t a bad thing.

I haven’t gone back to my level 44 rogue, I just feel like the rogue class is something I’ll have to ease back into.  With the warlock, I didn’t have anything to unlearn from having a mid teen warlock from before.  On the other hand, trying to figure out the gameplay differences from two expansions and dozens of patches for one of my highest level characters would have been something else.

They did seem to speed up the leveling process, as I have only really played for a couple of sessions, and having leveled up two entirely different characters past 10 is fairly exciting to me.  I definitely ran into that wall the last time I played WoW.

Well, in for a 10 day trial anyway.  Playing a bit of World of WarCraft.  11.5 Million people can be wrong.  I just want to see the changes and then see if my characters are still there.

So far, it’s still fun and there’s a lot of streamlining that’s gone on since launch.  I may pick up a time card and hang out for a bit.

Still have a sweet spot for the aesthetics, it’s beautiful.

There were numerous reasons why I left.  The core audience just wasn’t anything I was willing to put up with.  The main reason was that I was just not willing to put in the extra forty hours a week to keep up with my friends, the people I would have wanted to play with.

I recall that when I was playing, it was difficult to get up level 60.  It was an event.  I mean, you got there and you took screenshots and opened a bottle of champagne because you earned it.

Now, not so much.  Especially with the pyramid scheme they have going on.

Free mount with convincing your friend to join for two months.  Free levels for every two levels your friend earns.  Triple experience points when you and your friend quest together.  This is of course, for very loose definitions of the word, “friend” as you are basically getting them to play an MMO with you.  (It’s called World of WarCrack for a reason.)

I recall a time when I had to beg, borrow and steal gold from people in order to buy my mount at 40.  Now they’re giving them away.  Sure, it’s two expansions later, and honestly, an entirely different game.  Some of this may be sour grapes, and I admit that.  My highest character was a level 50 rogue, and I just could not find the extra time to grind my way to 60.

However, I find the idea of rewarding other players for recruitment both brilliant and repugnant.  It’s a company out to make money, and this is a great way to bring players into a game that has already reached market saturation.

One can argue that there is no ethical dilemma at all, and there’s nothing wrong with this “game feature.”

Either way, an interesting and possibly controversial way to market an MMO.