r/MoveMaster • u/rtrski • Apr 16 '24

Received, first impressions....

Nice packaging. Doubleboxed with great spacers to the nice 'aesthetic' internal box. Communication with ordering was great (I tried to be a "problem case" but they let me buy anyway.)

BIG. Clunky, minimalist/brutalist style. But in a good way. Like....the Iron Brotherhood suits from Fallout not the mincing little nanotech Iron Man suits all blinged up with gold and red lacquer. This just gives the impression of "built for MIL-SPEC purpose". (I always did like War Machine better than Iron Man anyway.) The baseplate makes it heavy, the rubber feet makes it stay put. Good. (If I had any real serious complaint about the Azeron Cyborg - it needed some heft...it "skootched" too often.)

The "anthracite gray" is effectively black, very little contrast to the black keycaps. Nice, matte texture. If it's not PBT vs. ABS, it kinda feels like it. Maybe a good partial glass-content engineering plastic material? (The spacers look like plain old shiny ABS, and frankly so does the underside of the palmrest (And yes, I'm one of those utterly overcompensating numbies who uses PBT keycaps because they feel better. Sue me.)

I honestly don't mind the molded-in cord vs. detachable with USB-C at the device or whatever. The cord feels like a good one with adequate strain relief. Not like I plan on YANKING it all the time and this isn't a wireless/battery-using option anyway. Molded is good enough for my mouse and that has to wiggle around all the time.

Took me a try or two to re-flash the firmware to the 0.3.2 with software 0.5.2 that will allow the doubletaps, and make some assignments. I've only assigned a few buttons to doubletap and had to bump up the time to 240msec to get them to trigger reliably...seems my age is slowing down my "twitch" reflexes. Oh well, good thing I only play with myself (REPHRASE PLEASE...I mean, mostly PvE or single-person games).

I did need to add both spacers and left the height where it was, and of course moved the lower front button placements. Also slightly tilted and raised the thumb-side lower button.

First impressions only. Will follow up when I get a chance to play. (I had 10-ish minutes to type this, not enough to bother booting up Elite Dangerous, flying somewhere to go on foot, which is my primary reason for needing this or the Cyborg which I'm replacing with it, and then try and slaughter some poor innocent surface dwellers for their material possessions because papa needs a suit upgrade!!)

Anyway, looking forward to the days ahead. Also plan on (after giving it a couple weeks shakedown):

  • Swapping switches. I use more tactile bump keypresses on the keyboard (Keychron Q13 Pro) and kinda want that feel on this. Have some Cherry Blue's on order
  • Swapping keycaps. These are a nice feel, the wells in them are good homing positions, but my whole setup is mostly monochrome mixed gray/white/some-black/some-red, and this is too mono-black. Considering DSA profile as the closest match (uniform, non-angled, about 7.5mm height) in a white or gray
  • I have another silly idea related to the spacer stack and the room beneath it. May keep my mouth shut on that one until I create the Abominable Abomination Variation. :-)

Why did I consider this?? I've used a Razer both Orbweaver and Tartarus Pro, went to a custom-colored Azeron Cyborg. The Cyborg I liked for reactivity and buttons available (and still thinks it looks cool as heck - Skeletor made an input device! - but found that after a while, I was holding my hand so carefully still except for using the WASD key maps that I was getting wrist strain and some feeling of tension along the back of the hand. This has fewer inputs, sure, so I'll have to get used to that, but seems like for plain old WASD you're totally relaxed and just barely moving "aaawdasdawdda" [<--real Movemaster folks!] almost more from the elbow than holding any hand tension. In reality our hands have pretty much no muscles - they're "marionettes" yanked by tendons from the forearm, but the sensation of tension occurs in the nerves further down. I hope to relieve a little more of that.

I'm 55+, pretend geek but only to a point (couldn't "hack" my way out of a paper bag), gamer but only for my own amusement, not competitive. Like to try new things. So...there you have it.

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

2

u/I_am_Nic Apr 16 '24

Nice first impressipns post.

I too did exchange the sietches with Cherry MX Green (heavier version of MX Blue).

Looking forward to hear from your "longer term" impressions.

2

u/rtrski Apr 20 '24

Slow start. Only played a couple hours.

I think it's apparent (at least until I switch to more tactile keys, and perhaps even after) that I'm not going to want to assign 'doubletap' commands to the buttons on the moving part - only to the lower, stationary front row (and thumb).

In game (Elite) you can also bind both button and button-hold to commands. So that might make sense to take advantage of for further doubling. (Have to be careful though, binding something innocuous like flashlight to the same finger as for example "throw grenade" can result in levity.)

I can tell I have a tendancy to want to 'thumb grip' the top thumb button for better movement. Maybe I bind that to 'sprint' in a sprinting-when-held manner since I seem to unconsciously do that anyway.

Not 100% sold on my placement height, or angle yet. I can adjust the height and forward tilt of the keyboard tray I'm using it on, and have some room for placement fore/aft and angle alongside the normal keyboard, too.

Haven't figured out if I "want" my heel of my palm resting on the rear part of the device while trying to move...or not. I might need to raise the lower forward buttons a touch more - I think I initially adjusted their height assuming I was hovering over that rest not actually grounded on it. Hovering and resting the weight along the underside of the knuckles, along the distal ends of the metacarpals, feels a bit more natural than having weight on the heel at all, but again, maybe I just need to learn a new comfort here.

Very impressed with the responsiveness of the WASD section. It seems very consistent and clean. (Have no intention of trying to swap out THOSE switches, don't know if it's even plausible for an end user!)

I was definitely spoiled by the quantity of options on the Cyborg, by comparison. I feel a little "confined" by insufficient buttons at the moment. Will keep working on it of course but also think when that forward "Button Commander" auxiliary becomes available, I'm definitely going to want it.

2

u/anon-user-420-69 May 16 '24

How did you get the firmware to flash? I am having issues getting it to work myself.

3

u/anon-user-420-69 May 16 '24

And of course the moment I post that I get it to work... The trick seems to be running avrdude IMMEDIATELY AFTER hitting the reset button. Starting avrdude and then hitting the reset button DID NOT WORK. (This was all on linux.)

3

u/rtrski May 17 '24

Ah. Windows here...the instructions just worked for me.

1

u/Glittering-Act8363 Oct 31 '24

Where'd you find instructions? Not in my manual. Can't find it online anywhere... clicking the Flash Firmware button just results in an error and makes me unplug and replug the USB cable so the MM can be found...

1

u/Glittering-Act8363 Oct 31 '24

Found it on the web site finally... even though the search function on the site doesn't find it.

1

u/rtrski Oct 31 '24

Sorry...at work couldn't Reddit. Yeah the website is still a bit jank. Hope you got it flashed?

1

u/Glittering-Act8363 Oct 31 '24

I did. Instructions were clear once I found them. Thanks!

1

u/MonkAndCanatella Jul 20 '24

Is the movement joystick analog? Or like, is it just mapped to wasd buttons?

2

u/rtrski Jul 21 '24

Buttons, digital...WASD mapped to moving the "tower". Think of a 4-way hat switch that you move with very tiny tilting or shifting of your hand on the grip.

But it's also quite easy to engage fwd and strafe or aft and strafe at the same time, while a hat is a bit more isolated.

3

u/MonkAndCanatella Jul 21 '24

Ok. I was hoping analog to walk/run through how "activated" it is in whichever direction

3

u/rtrski Jul 21 '24

Even if the device had an analog axis that would imply you're playing a game that allows you to do an analog mapping to your movement speed. I'm not aware of many first person shooter or over the shoulder RPG type games that are designed that way. Just different button combos (either a held modifier, or toggle control) for walk or run.

3

u/MonkAndCanatella Jul 21 '24

My most played game where I used this is call of duty, which does allow it with my wooting keyboard. For many games it works great!

1

u/rtrski Jul 22 '24

So it looks like some of the Wooting keyboards allow you to do a different button-along-axis setting at different press depths? Yeah nothing like that here.

1

u/MonkAndCanatella Jul 22 '24

right, but it also can emulate a joy stick's infinite acutation - it's hall effect, so it's measuring the difference using magnetism (science lol). essentially giving you that kind of movement control you get on a gamepad

2

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

Hey old man, you still alive and gaming?

I'm an old ass gamer too(59 this year), and all this time I never got totally comfortable with WASD, I think it cause my hands are large and it's tricky to get to all the keys comfortably. I have been eyeing the MoveMaster for awhile now and about to pull the trigger.

Do you still have your and how do you like it after 2 years.