Via reddit to a forum:
This really took me by surprise. Just bought a new Naga 2012 mouse, installed the software and get greeted by a login screen right after. No option to bypass it to use the software to configure the mouse, set the options, sensitivity, shortcuts, macros etc.So I go ahead and create an account and try to log in. Nothing. Try several more times, and still nothing. Try to make new accounts with different email addresses and it still wont work.
Finally call Razer who tells me the activation server is down, and I wont be able to use the mouse until it goes back up and will only be able to use it as a standard plug and play mouse til then. I ask about a workaround to use the mouse offline and they say there is none. Supposedly once the mouse is activated on the computer offline mode will work, but it needs to upload my profile and activate my account first and since their server is down its not going to happen. I ask for a supervisor to confirm this is the case and ask again for a workaround to use it offline. He said sorry theres nothing they can do, tells me the call center is closing and hangs up on me.
Im pretty shocked Razer thought it was a good idea to do this to customers. Nowhere on the box does it say anything about needing an internet connection to "activate" a mouse. If the servers go down in the future, anyone who buys this mouse is out of luck.
Honestly the last time I buy a Razer product. Absolutely ridiculous.
**Update**
Thought I would clarify a few things since Ive been asked about this a lot.
More here (10 pages already)
Read through a few pages and seems legit. Sticking to Logitech for now
And I was actually looking for a replacement mouse and looking at Razer as
an alternative. No way now.
I love my g500.
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I think they are worried about pirates torrenting their drivers.
Or perhaps you can hack the mouse to reverse all the buttons ;P
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I think their idea of store-stuff-on-the-net-so-you-have-all-your-profiles-anywhere is fine enough. Their implementation, on the other hand, is so brain damaged that I don't know what to think. (Of course, that's not super surprising: While I like their hardware, their software has always been really crappy.)
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Good point, except that it is a piece of physical hardware. Put some flash in it and store the profile right there where it will be needed anytime you want to use it.
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Seems like a Tech forum topic?
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Yeah. Their argument is that they've had to keep adding more and more flash to store larger and more numerous profiles (I don't personally *use* profiles, so I don't really get this), which is why they want to move to storing them somewhere other than on the device itself.
Actually, I just realized why that's important--not for the mice, etc., but for the keyboards with the customizable key images and trackpad images and stuff. Those would start to take up a reasonable chunk of space, if you've got profiles for multiple games stored away.
Still: Bad bad bad implementation.
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Razer is run by pretty good guys with gamers in mind..they will fix this pretty quick
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Is it possible to use an older version of the software? I bought a Naga late last year and didn't have to do this.
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I bought a Naga in July and never bothered installing the software or setting up an account because I didn't think the handful of fiddly bits in the software was worth the time it took to go through the process. I just wanted extra buttons to facilitate the more action-y combat in The Secret World.
Turns out it works great for GW2, as well.
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That's what I was thinking as well. But it will have to be fixed and changed to something acceptable.
So far I've only heard good things about their hardware.
Yes, not as controversial as I was hoping.
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I was in dubio about it. Could be both, chose for this option. Hardware vendors doing these kind of tricks is
controversial in my book
I think they said on their Facebook page a fix is in the works. But their drivers have been terrible. Only once I moved to Synapse did the problems go away, but I hate using Synapse compared to the old interface, especially since it actually takes enough CPU cycles to show up as a 1% CPU utilization in the task manager.
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I've had both good and bad experiences with Razer products but yeah, they aren't Ubisoft and they don't have a real reason to require an Internet connection. This honestly feels like a dumb design decision in making their latest software version that for some reason made it through testing with no one questioning it. I'm certain they will patch this and end up apologising. The hardcore PC community is what keeps them in business, they aren't going to purposefully piss them off.
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Wouldn't you need an internet connection to get the latest version of the driver software to fix this? If the problem is the driver on the mouse, they can't fix already shipped devices.
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On other forums people are saying this is a blatant data mining exercise whereby they want to grab as much info about their customers as possible.
To be honest, I'd hate this in a product I bought. To have to register to be able to use the basic functionality of the device (profiles and whatnot for the games) or have it locked out if I didn't go online or have the work offline box ticked when there was a problem with their servers... I'd be rightly pissed off.
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steam profile
I've had good luck with Razer hardware (And really, the hardware switched buttons on their left-handed deathadder is a godsend. You would be *amazed* at how many games and how much software outright ignores the OS set mouse handedness.), and their customer service has always been pretty great. This seems like just a really, really bad idea that everyone missed for the trees, and not some maniacal slide into terrible buisness practices. If they keep it up and don't actually fix it, I'm willing to revise my opinion, though.
It's like looking at a mobius strip of hypocrisy, really.
I saw an article somewhere that pointed out that this was probably the marketroids at Razer -- they'd love to have all that info, so requiring it from you before they give you an account serves their purposes very well.
It doesn't, however, serve yours. It's a locked-down mouse that you need permission to use, just like iOS and Metro. Locked hardware is not for your benefit, it's for the benefit of the company.
Oh, and they spouted a bunch of bafflegab about 'the increasing cost of memory', which is a ridiculous pile of garbage. Memory costs drop by half about every eighteen months, and if you need more than, say, 32K of permanent storage in a mouse, you've probably got a design problem.
I'd be willing to spend an extra ten cents to get a mouse with all the memory it needs.
Razer is like a hot hookup that turns into a terrible girlfriend. I buy their stuff because it's sexy and fast, and then shortly after I regret it because it breaks down or the crazy comes out and stuff inexplicably just doesn't work properly. Yet I keep coming back like an idiot, because their stuff just feels nice in the hand.
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I'm really happy with my Abyssus mouse.... granted it's a the most simple two-button, three sensitivity setting thing on the planet but I'm still happy with it! :p
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steam profile
Is there any new news regarding this situation?
I just got a Deathadder, figuring that a model that had been around for a couple of years wouldn't require Synapse. Except that the non-Synapse Mac drivers won't install under Mountain Lion, so (if I'm reading Razer's FAQ's correctly) I get to choose between installing Synapse on both my Windows 7 desktop and Mac laptop, or not being able to fully configure the mouse on the laptop.
Given that almost of all of my gaming is on the desktop anyway, it's not a huge deal, but it'd be nice if Razer has fixed Synapse.
Razer CEO says this:
Some reactions here:
And much more. So it's still waiting. Meanwhile I will stay with Logitech.
Huh that's weird; I just plugged my Naga (last years model) into my work laptop and after Windows did it's driver thing, it and the number pad on the side worked fine.
Also has anyone stated if you can just use an older version of Synapse, to make use of the macro functionality?
"Accuracy by Volume!!!"
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You can, but at least in my case all pre-Synapse 2.0 drivers were buggy as hell. Even with Synapse 2.0 I still have issues, namely that on bootup I occasionally get a small gray rectangle appearing in the upper left of my screen that only goes away when I kill the synapse task. It also takes several seconds to recognize my button settings (using a DeathAdder left handed but with the buttons in right-handed mode) after connecting it, so I have to right-click to select stuff until the driver kicks in. On top of that, the driver randomly will keep my nvidia optimus active, killing battery life.
edit: in case I misunderstood your question, I believe the driver and the app have always been tied together, so you can't just the Windows driver with the Synapse app.
"With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." - Christopher Columbus
"There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Vonnegut
Hey, you too?
Um, returning to topic: okay, I'm sticking to plug-and-play on my laptop and "legacy" drivers on the desktop until further notice.
Was it just me or did this install driver ask you guys to restart like 10 times? Jeez, ridiculous, spent like 20 minutes just installing my mouse :/
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I never install the software for peripherals. If they work when they are plugged in I'm happy.
Work & Play
Ben Kuchera investigated this issue beginning of the month. As far as I know him, he is pretty down to earth and on the dot.
Here you will find his article.
A few quotes:
on the TOS:
Read the replies for counter points.