I gots me a new toy!!!!

Christmas time all over again!

I arrived home from work last night and there was a mysterious box sitting on my front doorstep.
Was it my nutrisystems? Nope.
Could it be the Japanese De-tox Foot Pads I ordered? Huh-Uh.
Did the IRS decide to pay my tax return in Pennies? Pahleeze

It was in fact my brand spanking new Belkin SpeedPad n52!!
Holy Crap!!! Now I too can Crush the Competition; it says so right on the box!

So I take the box inside very casually; we can't be letting the new device know that it is in fact a little intimidating to us, the noobish gamer.
I know that this will take a little time to fully integrate into my playstyle, but shhhh!
The device is listening. They know I tell you! They do!
It is like that animals smelling fear thing.

An hour passes and I have the n52 up and running on my Mac. It was easy enough to install, just a quick download of the current driver and the interface appeared in my System Preferences window.

So to begin I thought it best to google the device for forum entries. Wouldn't you know it there is one right in my backyard on the BRK forums (fora?). You can read it here: BRK n52 discussion thread.

There is a particularly nice post by Vorian where he simply lists how he mapped his keys. I think I will follow suit by starting with my hunter alts and moving upwards level wise as I add skills.

If you are contemplating the purchase one of these the first thing you need to know is that the device will come completely unmapped. You will need to assign each individual keystroke, and that can be a big learning process which I will document here for two reasons, first I don't want to forget what I did; and second, I hope it might help others.

For me the best place to begin is basic movement. I have mapped my movement thusly:

Top Row Keys:
3 = walk forward (w)

Directional Pad (DPad)
Up = Auto Run (num lock)
Right = Turn Right (d)
Down = Move Backwards
Left = Turn Left (a)
Up Right = Strafe Right (e)
Up Left = Strafe Left (q)

To practice I logged onto my Belf bank character. The Bazaar in Silvermoon City is quiet with large open areas to practice movement in with no fear of Mobs attacking. I spent about a half hour running around the Bazaar, figure eight-ing around some poles, and pretending to strafe the NPCs. I even played peek-aboo with a few real live people, while pretending to be on a battleground.

So far so good. Next update will be adding shot rotations and traps.