Here's a link to an incredible thread about mount macros!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=110633869
Thanks Troodi of Maelstrom!
Monday, August 27, 2007
New upcoming Macro commands?
I just read about some new macro commands that will be available in {an upcoming} patch. Here's the skinny:
Macro Commands
* NEW - /petautocasttoggle
* NEW - /targetlastenemy, /targetlastfriend
* NEW - /targetexact
* UPDATED - /cancelform will be recognized instantly (as /dismount is currently)
There is speculation that the thing with /cancelform will allow druids to shift directly from one form to another without visibly appearing in caster form at all, or to begin casting caster spells directly from feral form(i.e. instantly shift out when you start casting a spell like Healing Touch) I imagine a natures swiftness/healing touch macro will now be totally instant from feral form to healed. ouch to pvp opponents!
Macro Commands
* NEW - /petautocasttoggle
* NEW - /targetlastenemy, /targetlastfriend
* NEW - /targetexact
* UPDATED - /cancelform will be recognized instantly (as /dismount is currently)
There is speculation that the thing with /cancelform will allow druids to shift directly from one form to another without visibly appearing in caster form at all, or to begin casting caster spells directly from feral form(i.e. instantly shift out when you start casting a spell like Healing Touch) I imagine a natures swiftness/healing touch macro will now be totally instant from feral form to healed. ouch to pvp opponents!
Friday, August 24, 2007
How to create macros in World of Warcraft
Today, I'm going to describe the very basic steps to creating and using macros.
This article is for those of you who have never used a WoW macro because you don't know how to set one up. Perhaps you've heard about macros and wanted to try using one, but you're intimidated at the thought of (gasp!) PROGRAMMING !!! Don't worry, I'm going to hold your hand through the entire process.
First, log into the game. That seems pretty simple ;)
Next, it's often helpful to open your spellbook. You can use your spellbook to help fill in exact spell names in macros. You open your spellbook by clicking the little Book icon to the right of your action bar, or by pressing P (assuming you haven't changed the keybinding for it)
Now, type in /macro and hit enter. (You can also access macros from the game menu by hitting escape (or clicking the computer looking icon to the right of your action bar) and then clicking macro... but at this point, I highly recommend that you get used to typing in some slash commands like /macro.)
This brings up the macro window. This window has two sections, top and bottom. On the top, you have 18 button slots for macros, and two tabs across the top that essentially separate your macros into two pages. The "General Macros" tab is a page where any macros you make will be visible to every character on your account, no matter which game realm/server you play on. The "{character name} Specific Macros" tab is another page with another 18 macro slots that is unique to the specific character that you are logged in with. This means you have access to 36 individual macros per character, however 18 of those are shared by all of your characters.
When you create your macros, they will appear as buttons in one of these 18 button slots, and you can drag a copy of the button from there to your action bar exactly the same way you drag spells from your spellbook to your action bar.
The bottom section is the actual macro editor. It has a button to show you what icon goes on your macro, the name of your macro, and the macro commands that make up what your macro is. There is also a button for changing the name or icon of your macro and and indicator to show you how many characters your macro is (it can not be longer than 255 characters).
To create a macro, first choose which tab your macro should be on. If you want this macro to be just for this character, click the character Specific Macros tab. Otherwise, just select the General Macros tab.
Next, on the bottom, click the New button.
This brings up a little side window with a box into which you must type the name for your macro. The name you enter here will show up as a word on your macro button. You must also select an icon for your macro. You can select from a huge number of icons - they have just about every class's spell icons, icons for mounts and buffs, etc. You are even allowed to use an icon for a spell for a class that isn't the same as what you're playing (i.e. if you're playing a druid, you can select the mage's fireball spell icon if you want)
There is one special icon you can use. The first one, the question mark icon is special. When you use the question mark icon, the macro will automatically substitute the question mark for the actual icon of whatever spell your macro contains once you drag it out onto your action bar. The question mark icon can even automatically change itself depending on the conditionals you macro might use. More on that later ;)
Once you have chosen a name and icon for your macro, click the Okay button.
Now you're ready to start typing in the commands for your macro.
If this is your first macro, you should start with something easy. Here's an example:
/cast Fireball
This macro, when activated (by a mage) would cast a fireball spell at your current target (if you have one).
If you had your spellbook open, you can make typing this macro easier by shift-clicking Fireball in your spellbook. Then, edit the macro to remove the part that says (Rank 4).
It doesn't seem like much of an improvement over just using the usual Fireball(Rank 4) icon, but actually this macro will do something useful - it automatically selects the highest rank of fireball spell that you have. So, if you make this macro today and the highest rank of Fireball that you have is Rank 4, then when you train to get Rank 5, the macro would automatically start choosing rank 5 since it's your highest rank.
When you finish your macro, you should drag the icon for it down onto a slot on your action bar. Then it's ready to use.
To use a macro, click it's icon, or press the keyboard/mouse button that goes to that action bar slot. You can change the keyboard button for a slot by editing your keybindings. I'll talk more about that later.
That's it! You've now an expert in creating macros. Using the steps I've outlined, you can create new macros and use them on all your World of Warcraft characters.
Now that you know how to create macros, go check out some of the various macro posting on the wow message boards or other places on the net that feature WoW macros.
Good Luck!
This article is for those of you who have never used a WoW macro because you don't know how to set one up. Perhaps you've heard about macros and wanted to try using one, but you're intimidated at the thought of (gasp!) PROGRAMMING !!! Don't worry, I'm going to hold your hand through the entire process.
First, log into the game. That seems pretty simple ;)
Next, it's often helpful to open your spellbook. You can use your spellbook to help fill in exact spell names in macros. You open your spellbook by clicking the little Book icon to the right of your action bar, or by pressing P (assuming you haven't changed the keybinding for it)
Now, type in /macro and hit enter. (You can also access macros from the game menu by hitting escape (or clicking the computer looking icon to the right of your action bar) and then clicking macro... but at this point, I highly recommend that you get used to typing in some slash commands like /macro.)
This brings up the macro window. This window has two sections, top and bottom. On the top, you have 18 button slots for macros, and two tabs across the top that essentially separate your macros into two pages. The "General Macros" tab is a page where any macros you make will be visible to every character on your account, no matter which game realm/server you play on. The "{character name} Specific Macros" tab is another page with another 18 macro slots that is unique to the specific character that you are logged in with. This means you have access to 36 individual macros per character, however 18 of those are shared by all of your characters.
When you create your macros, they will appear as buttons in one of these 18 button slots, and you can drag a copy of the button from there to your action bar exactly the same way you drag spells from your spellbook to your action bar.
The bottom section is the actual macro editor. It has a button to show you what icon goes on your macro, the name of your macro, and the macro commands that make up what your macro is. There is also a button for changing the name or icon of your macro and and indicator to show you how many characters your macro is (it can not be longer than 255 characters).
To create a macro, first choose which tab your macro should be on. If you want this macro to be just for this character, click the character Specific Macros tab. Otherwise, just select the General Macros tab.
Next, on the bottom, click the New button.
This brings up a little side window with a box into which you must type the name for your macro. The name you enter here will show up as a word on your macro button. You must also select an icon for your macro. You can select from a huge number of icons - they have just about every class's spell icons, icons for mounts and buffs, etc. You are even allowed to use an icon for a spell for a class that isn't the same as what you're playing (i.e. if you're playing a druid, you can select the mage's fireball spell icon if you want)
There is one special icon you can use. The first one, the question mark icon is special. When you use the question mark icon, the macro will automatically substitute the question mark for the actual icon of whatever spell your macro contains once you drag it out onto your action bar. The question mark icon can even automatically change itself depending on the conditionals you macro might use. More on that later ;)
Once you have chosen a name and icon for your macro, click the Okay button.
Now you're ready to start typing in the commands for your macro.
If this is your first macro, you should start with something easy. Here's an example:
/cast Fireball
This macro, when activated (by a mage) would cast a fireball spell at your current target (if you have one).
If you had your spellbook open, you can make typing this macro easier by shift-clicking Fireball in your spellbook. Then, edit the macro to remove the part that says (Rank 4).
It doesn't seem like much of an improvement over just using the usual Fireball(Rank 4) icon, but actually this macro will do something useful - it automatically selects the highest rank of fireball spell that you have. So, if you make this macro today and the highest rank of Fireball that you have is Rank 4, then when you train to get Rank 5, the macro would automatically start choosing rank 5 since it's your highest rank.
When you finish your macro, you should drag the icon for it down onto a slot on your action bar. Then it's ready to use.
To use a macro, click it's icon, or press the keyboard/mouse button that goes to that action bar slot. You can change the keyboard button for a slot by editing your keybindings. I'll talk more about that later.
That's it! You've now an expert in creating macros. Using the steps I've outlined, you can create new macros and use them on all your World of Warcraft characters.
Now that you know how to create macros, go check out some of the various macro posting on the wow message boards or other places on the net that feature WoW macros.
Good Luck!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Riposte/SS macro
Here's a recent post I made on the Blizzard Forums in responce to a poster asking for a Riposte/Sinister Strike macro. Another Poster responded that it is no longer possible.
This is because you can no longer have a macro conditionally decide between two spells based on combat status such as "you just parried".
A castrandom macro could be made to randomly select between Riposte and SS, but even after you do parry an attack, the macro would still have a random chance to select SS instead of Riposte, blowing your opportunity to use Riposte. You could weight Riposte as more likely to be selected (i.e. /castrandom Riposte, Riposte, Riposte, Sinister Strike <-- this gives 75% chance to try Riposte, and 25% chance to try Sinister Strike), but what happens here is that when you haven't parried, 3 out of every 4 keypresses will result in "That ability is not ready" type of messages. If you spam the button fast enough, this could be a workable solution, but it would sure make your trigger finger tired fast ;)
These types of /castrandom macros are better suited to an ability that has a cooldown. For example, on my druid, I use "/castrandom Nature's Grasp, Faerie Fire()(Feral), Mangle(Cat), Mangle(Cat)". When I spam this macro, the cooldowns for Nature's Grasp (60 seconds) and FF (6 seconds) are usually down, making Mangle(Cat) the only workable choice. This type of macro works because if a castrandom macro fails due to the spell being in cooldown, it does NOT trigger the global cooldown, so you can spam this kind of macro as fast as you can. The extra Mangle is in there to change the weighting so that Mangle has a 50% chance of being selected and the other two spells each have 25% chance of being selected. This makes sure I will eventually get them off, but priority is on Mangle.
What makes these work differently than the Riposte/SS random is that neither NG or FF have an opening requirement, so when they do come up, they will work - eventually. Since Riposte has an opening requirement, it might not go off. If I remember correctly, these conditional spells have a "window of opportunity" where they are available for a few seconds when the condition happens. If that's the case, then a castrandom with Riposte would work, but don't be angry if you happen to get a streak of bad luck and your castrandom macro decides to SS every time GCD is up instead of using Riposte.
My recommendation: keep your conditionals on their own buttons, or change your macro so that you Riposte when you press a modifier key like alt, ctrl, or shift. Then, use something that will alert you to the opportunity like Scrolling Combat Text (SCT), and just be on your toes ;)
Replacing the SwiftShift addon
Well, first things first. This first macro post is for my Druid readers.
I was the author of SwiftShift, and I've fully replaced SwiftShift with the new in-game macros. Here I will introduce the macros that I have been using in game to replace it.
Here is my Bear Form macro. It actually combines Bear Form and Feral Charge into one macro, which I find to be very helpful.
#showtooltip Feral Charge
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge; [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cancelform [stance:2/3/4/5]
This macro is designed to be spammed until it works. If you just want to get into bear form, spam the macro until you're in bear. If you also want to Feral Charge your target, keep spamming the button until you charge. It will take you out of any other form and put you into Bear Form. The tooltip part is nice because it lets you see the cooldown of Feral Charge on your bear button.
Note that if you are under level 40, simply remove the word "Dire" from the macro.
Ok, next is my macro for Cat Form. This macro combines Cat Form and Prowl into one macro, which makes for a very useful "oh crap! HIDE!" macro.
#Showtooltip Prowl
/cast [stance:3,nostealth] Prowl; [nostance] Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:1/2/4/5]
This macro will put you in Cat Form from any other form. Again, the Tooltip part is to allow you to see the cooldown on your Prowl.
Next is the mother of all shape-shift macros, my All-terrain Travel Form macro.
/cast [nostance:5, flyable, nocombat, outdoors, noswimming] Flight Form; [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form; [nostance:4, outdoors, combat] [nostance:4, outdoors, noflyable, noswimming] Travel Form
/cancelform [stance:1/3] [stance:4, nocombat, flyable]
This macro is awesome! Again, it's designed to be spammed until you get what you need. First, if you're in Cat Form or Bear Form, it will shift you out of either of those forms. If you're in Outland, and you're in a place where it is legal to fly, and you are NOT in combat, (and you have it...) it will shift you into flight form. If you ARE in combat, it will shift you into Travel Form instead. If you keep spamming it, as soon as you come out of combat, it will shift you out of Travel Form and into Flight Form. If you happen to be swimming, it will put you in Aquatic form instead. If you are not in Outland, it will only put you into Travel Form instead of Flight Form.
I'll come back to this macro at a later time to do a complete breakdown of how it works. WoW macros are really cool these days.
One more macro: For players who are under level 68 and don't have flight form yet, you should use this macro instead, as it will put you into Travel Form even when flight form would be available
/cancelform [stance:1/3]
/cast [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form;[nostance:4, outdoors, noswimming] Travel Form
This one does the same as above, but only uses Aquatic Form and Travel Form, even when you're in Outland. Upgrade to the other macro as soon as you hit level 68, and get flight form. Good luck collecting the 600 gold for Riding Skill 150. (as a bonus, Flight Form automatically bumps you to 225 riding skill for FREE!!! 300 Riding skill will still cost you 5000 gold)
That's it for tonight, check back for more Macros!
I was the author of SwiftShift, and I've fully replaced SwiftShift with the new in-game macros. Here I will introduce the macros that I have been using in game to replace it.
Here is my Bear Form macro. It actually combines Bear Form and Feral Charge into one macro, which I find to be very helpful.
#showtooltip Feral Charge
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge; [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cancelform [stance:2/3/4/5]
This macro is designed to be spammed until it works. If you just want to get into bear form, spam the macro until you're in bear. If you also want to Feral Charge your target, keep spamming the button until you charge. It will take you out of any other form and put you into Bear Form. The tooltip part is nice because it lets you see the cooldown of Feral Charge on your bear button.
Note that if you are under level 40, simply remove the word "Dire" from the macro.
Ok, next is my macro for Cat Form. This macro combines Cat Form and Prowl into one macro, which makes for a very useful "oh crap! HIDE!" macro.
#Showtooltip Prowl
/cast [stance:3,nostealth] Prowl; [nostance] Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:1/2/4/5]
This macro will put you in Cat Form from any other form. Again, the Tooltip part is to allow you to see the cooldown on your Prowl.
Next is the mother of all shape-shift macros, my All-terrain Travel Form macro.
/cast [nostance:5, flyable, nocombat, outdoors, noswimming] Flight Form; [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form; [nostance:4, outdoors, combat] [nostance:4, outdoors, noflyable, noswimming] Travel Form
/cancelform [stance:1/3] [stance:4, nocombat, flyable]
This macro is awesome! Again, it's designed to be spammed until you get what you need. First, if you're in Cat Form or Bear Form, it will shift you out of either of those forms. If you're in Outland, and you're in a place where it is legal to fly, and you are NOT in combat, (and you have it...) it will shift you into flight form. If you ARE in combat, it will shift you into Travel Form instead. If you keep spamming it, as soon as you come out of combat, it will shift you out of Travel Form and into Flight Form. If you happen to be swimming, it will put you in Aquatic form instead. If you are not in Outland, it will only put you into Travel Form instead of Flight Form.
I'll come back to this macro at a later time to do a complete breakdown of how it works. WoW macros are really cool these days.
One more macro: For players who are under level 68 and don't have flight form yet, you should use this macro instead, as it will put you into Travel Form even when flight form would be available
/cancelform [stance:1/3]
/cast [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form;[nostance:4, outdoors, noswimming] Travel Form
This one does the same as above, but only uses Aquatic Form and Travel Form, even when you're in Outland. Upgrade to the other macro as soon as you hit level 68, and get flight form. Good luck collecting the 600 gold for Riding Skill 150. (as a bonus, Flight Form automatically bumps you to 225 riding skill for FREE!!! 300 Riding skill will still cost you 5000 gold)
That's it for tonight, check back for more Macros!
Friday, August 10, 2007
A little about myself
Let me tell you a little about myself.
I've been playing WoW since before it's release. I got in to the beta during the final stress testing phases of the game, and have been playing ever since.
I am the creator of a few "Addons" for the game, namely Buffbot, Swiftshift, and my most important - Mouselook. All of which were specifically intended to improve the user interface as I played the game.
Before WoW, I played Dark age of Camelot, which is another Mmorpg. In that game, I played an Albion Highlander Minstrel known as Jjoe Nitro, and I became famous for charming high level mobs and running around with them in Emain Macha killin' Hibbies. :) Doing that required deep knowledge of how the keyboard worked with the game, and a deep knowledge of how the spells of the Minstrel actually worked.
When I started playing WoW, I found the controls to be strikingly similar, but subtly different enough to cause a problem. I still remember the very first day AFTER the very first night I played the beta of WoW - my right arm practically fell off my body. zOMG it ached sooo badly, I wished I could have ripped it off my body.
Why did it hurt so badly? Simple. In WoW, to look around using the mouse, you simply hold down the right mouse button. The problem is that I was holding down that button for 4 hours straight. You see, In DAoC, I played using the mouselook feature turned on full time, and used a "mouselook toggle" button to play. That means normally my mouse cursor was NOT on the screen, and I had to hold down a button when I wanted to click things with the cursor. This worked well for me since I executed every command using hotkeys - that is commands bound to the keyboard. When I tried to play the same way in WoW by holding down the mouse button, after several hours, my whole arm from my middle finger up to my shoulder ached.
It didn't take me long to discover that the user interface in WoW was fully customizable, and that a mod called LookLock already existed to do what I needed. It was part of the Cosmos suite, a UI addon compilation that has been available to the game since before even I started playing it. Once I downloaded LookLock, I realized it was close to what I wanted, but not quite...
So, I modified it. I took the code from LookLock and threw away most of it and kept just the part that engaged the mouselook mode, and dynamically assigned the left and right mouse buttons to move backward and move foward respectively - Just like how it works in DAoC. Over time, Mouselook has evolved into what it is today. I still use it, and frankly if I didn't have it, I wouldn't play the game. period.
When Blizzard prepared to release the expansion, The Burning Crusade, they released a massive update to the way UI mods work that threatened to kill Mouselook completely. They made it so that Mouselook would not be able to dynamically remap the mouse buttons while combat was happening! Talk about gimping you at the worst possible moment! I was ready to cancel my account and not look back. Anyway, I worked with one of the greatest Blizzard guys - Slouken - and we came up with a way to keep Mouselook working without it being considered an exploit. Thank you Blizzard!
Today I still play a Druid, although it's the 5th druid I've started. I play with some personal friends of mine on the Illidan server, on the Horde side. I've also played on Thunderlord, Arthas, Skullcrusher, Warsong, Dark Iron, and a few other servers.
That's enough for now, I want to go play :P
I've been playing WoW since before it's release. I got in to the beta during the final stress testing phases of the game, and have been playing ever since.
I am the creator of a few "Addons" for the game, namely Buffbot, Swiftshift, and my most important - Mouselook. All of which were specifically intended to improve the user interface as I played the game.
Before WoW, I played Dark age of Camelot, which is another Mmorpg. In that game, I played an Albion Highlander Minstrel known as Jjoe Nitro, and I became famous for charming high level mobs and running around with them in Emain Macha killin' Hibbies. :) Doing that required deep knowledge of how the keyboard worked with the game, and a deep knowledge of how the spells of the Minstrel actually worked.
When I started playing WoW, I found the controls to be strikingly similar, but subtly different enough to cause a problem. I still remember the very first day AFTER the very first night I played the beta of WoW - my right arm practically fell off my body. zOMG it ached sooo badly, I wished I could have ripped it off my body.
Why did it hurt so badly? Simple. In WoW, to look around using the mouse, you simply hold down the right mouse button. The problem is that I was holding down that button for 4 hours straight. You see, In DAoC, I played using the mouselook feature turned on full time, and used a "mouselook toggle" button to play. That means normally my mouse cursor was NOT on the screen, and I had to hold down a button when I wanted to click things with the cursor. This worked well for me since I executed every command using hotkeys - that is commands bound to the keyboard. When I tried to play the same way in WoW by holding down the mouse button, after several hours, my whole arm from my middle finger up to my shoulder ached.
It didn't take me long to discover that the user interface in WoW was fully customizable, and that a mod called LookLock already existed to do what I needed. It was part of the Cosmos suite, a UI addon compilation that has been available to the game since before even I started playing it. Once I downloaded LookLock, I realized it was close to what I wanted, but not quite...
So, I modified it. I took the code from LookLock and threw away most of it and kept just the part that engaged the mouselook mode, and dynamically assigned the left and right mouse buttons to move backward and move foward respectively - Just like how it works in DAoC. Over time, Mouselook has evolved into what it is today. I still use it, and frankly if I didn't have it, I wouldn't play the game. period.
When Blizzard prepared to release the expansion, The Burning Crusade, they released a massive update to the way UI mods work that threatened to kill Mouselook completely. They made it so that Mouselook would not be able to dynamically remap the mouse buttons while combat was happening! Talk about gimping you at the worst possible moment! I was ready to cancel my account and not look back. Anyway, I worked with one of the greatest Blizzard guys - Slouken - and we came up with a way to keep Mouselook working without it being considered an exploit. Thank you Blizzard!
Today I still play a Druid, although it's the 5th druid I've started. I play with some personal friends of mine on the Illidan server, on the Horde side. I've also played on Thunderlord, Arthas, Skullcrusher, Warsong, Dark Iron, and a few other servers.
That's enough for now, I want to go play :P
Welcome to World of MACROcraft
Welcome to World of MACROcraft!
This blog is about the game World of Warcraft and specifically, how you control the game.
I intend to discuss the in-game macro system, keyboard and mouse control, addons/mods, and anything else that might relate to how you interact with your computer while playing the game.
To me, a good user interface is like a musical instrument. Over time, your hands (or whatever you use) will learn to translate your thoughts into actions instantly without looking at the keys or thinking about how to push the right buttons to do the action you want to do - you think of the action and it happens on screen.
I invite any questions or comments from anyone who happens to read this blog. I truely hope that I can contribute something useful to the WoW community.
-Trimble
This blog is about the game World of Warcraft and specifically, how you control the game.
I intend to discuss the in-game macro system, keyboard and mouse control, addons/mods, and anything else that might relate to how you interact with your computer while playing the game.
To me, a good user interface is like a musical instrument. Over time, your hands (or whatever you use) will learn to translate your thoughts into actions instantly without looking at the keys or thinking about how to push the right buttons to do the action you want to do - you think of the action and it happens on screen.
I invite any questions or comments from anyone who happens to read this blog. I truely hope that I can contribute something useful to the WoW community.
-Trimble
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