| Archive for moonguardfirp.myfreeforum.org A place for WoW Moon Guard Full Immersion Role Players to meet and talk |
| Onaron |
Macros and me - RPing aidsGreetings all,I wanted to share my experiences with macros in RP here and see what anyone else was doing with them. How do they make your life easier, if at all? Below are examples and anecdotes regarding the creation and use of macros from an RP perspective. Greetings! A very useful macro lets me greet different people in a random way. To do that, the macro code is: /run SendChatMessage(GetRandomArgument("Quote1","Quote2", "Quote3"),"SAY") Replacing, of course, each 'quote' with whatever you character would say (keeping the quotation marks though). This will make your character say one of the phrases (at random) when clicked. I find this incredibly useful when just sauntering around Stormwind, for instance. I can say things like "Greetings", "Good day" and the like with the click of a button. I like to have gone a step further by adding in an emote along with the greeting. To do that randomly, the code is much the same, with one small difference: /run SendChatMessage(GetRandomArgument("Emote1","Emote2","Emote3"),"EMOTE") See that? The 'EMOTE' at the end instead of the 'SAY'. So, with these two things in the same macro I could have my character waving and saying hello, or a number of other things at random. It may be important to note here that these things should say in character, and as such they should stay relatively similar. For example, my character is quiet, but likes to engage with people; therefore his EMOTEs mainly cosist of 'smiles' and 'nods' as opposed to 'waves' or 'leaps for joy at seeing so-and-so'; and his SAYs are usually mono-syllabic. It's important to tailor these to your own character, and do not use them if your character would not be interested in meeting people at random, or if they're not particularly outgoing. Otherwise, they're good for meeting new people. I've met some interesting and engaging characters, just by saying 'hello'! Of course, you don't want to go around badgering everybody as well. Just because you have a shiny new, easy to use macro, it doesn't mean you're allowed to bug everybody with constant greetings. If your character would generally rebuff the advances of a stranger, perhaps a negating macro would be required? If someone attempts to engage you and you have either IC or OOC reasons for rebuking them, pehaps you have an EMOTE macro to help? EMOTEs such as "/em is too busy fretting to notice the advances of %t.", "/em doesn't seem to notice %t." or "/em looks disdainfully at %t and then turns away." Of course, this latter one may engage you more than you wanted to in the end... %t This brings us to the '%t' command. Basically, this inserts the name of whatever you're targeting into the EMOTE or SAY. So, for example, if I typed "/em stares blankly at %t" it would come out as "Onaron stares blankly at PwnGodzor" if that's who I was looking at. Be careful with this one, however, as if you don't have anyone targeted, it'll come out as "Onaron stares blankly at <no target>", and that's just awkward. To cover this, I have two greeting macros, one for when I'm greeting random people (with no '%t' commands in the SAY part), and another for greeting friends (peppered with the '%t' in both the EMOTE and SAY part). Spells and incantations Of course macros aren't just limited to greetings! How about, when you cast a fireball you say something appropriately arcane to go with it? To do that your macro needs to read thusly: /cast "spell name" (without the quotation marks) /say Klaatu Verada Nikto! This would have you saying "Klaatu Verada Nikto" when you cast whatever the spell was. This is another place to be careful as well - there is no margin for error. The computer either knows what you're telling it or not, so if a capital letter is in the wrong place, nothing may happen. To get around this, one thing you can do is type /cast, whack in a space, and then open your spellbook. Shift clicking on the spell you want to cast will get it to import into your macro. It will have brackets at the end of it showing the rank - you can just delete that to make sure that your macro casts the highest possible version of the spell every time. Pets and commanding them Macros are also good for those of you with pets, allowing you to actually command them in battle. For example: /petattack [target=pettarget,noexists] /say Go, Fido, attack that %t! Will make your pet attack whatever you're targeting whilst your character says "Go, Fido, attack that Enraged Quillboar!" Now, this can be problematic. Grammar-wise, it can be tricky. If you used the above macro on a named enemy, your dialogue would read "Go, Fido, attack that Fenris The Cruel!" or some such thing. It can also be strange if, instead of just saying, for example, "Attack that Lion!", you say "Attack that Starving Mountain Lion!" - a little strange, no? Me, I like grammar, so I generally try to keep the %t command out of pet attacks. These macros are also good for hunters who need to feed or heal their pet. If I type the code: /cast Feed Pet /use "food name" /say "Good boy, you've earned this." I will feed my pet with that bit of food if I have it in my bag. If you always store your pet food in a certain bag slot, you can use that instead: /cast Feed Pet /use 0 1 /say "Good boy, you've earned this." This will use the first (top left) slot in your backpack. Bags are numbered from right to left, starting at 0 with the backpack. The slots in them, however, are numbered left to right, starting at one with the top left slot. As long as I have meat in the top left corner of my backpack, my pet will be fed. It's important to note here that your character will say whatever it is you're having them SAY (or EMOTE if you've gone that route as well), regardless of whether you have food in the slot or not, so make sure you keep it stocked! A good thing to do with any of these pet macros is to use the random code above, so instead of saying "Attack, Fido!" everytime, sometimes you might say "Sick 'em!", "Go for the throat!" or even "" - that last one is important. It will mean your character actually says nothing some of the time, which will really keep things fresh, and could be added into any of the above examples. Languages Another RP tool is the use of languages. Many characters speak various dialects, switching fluidly between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. For example, I have two greeting macros. The first for general greetings, and the other for greeting fellow Draenei in our common language (some of which include references to our shared race). The code for this is: /script SendChatMessage("Quote","SAY","DRAENEI") Or, for random sayings: /run SendChatMessage(GetRandomArgument("Quote1","Quote2", "Quote3"),"SAY","DRAENEI") You insert your own language at the end of the code there. The languages are: "COMMON", "DARNASSIAN", "DWARVEN", "DRAENEI", "TAURAHE", "ORCISH", "GUTTERSPEAK", "DEMONIC", "DRACONIC", "KALIMAG", "TITAN", "GNOMISH", "TROLL" This is one way to do it. As with with the other greeting macros, however, you're basically limited in the amount and variety that you can say. And I'm sure that you'd like to do a lot more that just say 'hello' or 'goodbye' in your own language. To get around this, you can make a macro that changes your chat language to another. That code is: /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME.editBox.language = GetLanguageByIndex(x) You replace the 'x' with either a '1' for common or orcish, and a '2' for your race language. So, I can click that macro and then type out a SAY and have it come out in whichever language was numbered. Now, at the moment I don't know of a code that will allow you to switch between the two languages with the same macro, but if anybody knows one, feel free to post it! Equiping and unequiping items and clothing This is useful for a myriad of reasons, but I use it to switch between clothes. Onaron has discovered that walking around in hard leather and wielding a large staff all the time is tiring, therefore, he spends most of his time now in lighter attire. To change between these sets, I could place each on my character manually, or I could create a macro to do the heavy lifting for me. The code to equip an item is simple: /equip "item name" (without the quotation marks) To get the item name spot on, you might do well to do what you can with your spells. That is, put a space in after the "/equip" part and then shift and click on the item in your inventory. The name of the item should pop up in the macro and then it's ready to go! But what about unequiping? Well, to do that it's a little bit trickier - but not too much: /run PickupInventoryItem(x) PutItemInBackpack() If anybody knows a shorter way to type this, I'd be happy to hear it. In the meantime, this will take an item from your inventory and put it in your backpack; so make sure you have the space for it. To tell the macro which item you would like to take, replace the 'x' with the number of the slot. Which numbers corrospond with which slots? Check here - http://www.wowwiki.com/API_PickupInventoryItem - for the answer. With a little experimentation, you can get a working system that let's you switch between costumes. I use a seperate macro for each of my two outfits, but you may have a better way of doing it. Tracking Useful for many gathering professions and classes, particularly the Hunters. The drawback is having to switch between the different types of tracking. For myself, I merely had to switch between two (finding herbs and fish) and even that became a little tedious, especially given the little RP aspect I connected to it (but more on that later). The macro to allow you to scroll through your various tracking types is relatively easy: /castsequence Item 1, Item 2, Item 3 (etc. without the quotation marks) (The different options are: Find Minerals, Find Herbs, Track Beasts, Track Demons, Track Dragonkin, Track Elementals, Track Giants, Track Hidden, Track Humanoids, Track Undead) With this macro, you will track the next item on the list each time you click the button. Now, what was I talking about before in regard to the RP aspect? Well my Shaman, he can't track anything unless he's in his wolf form (in which case he can smell the herbs and hear the fish). Now, it took me a long time to find a code that would allow me to track nothing when clicking it (for when I revert back to my regular Draenei self). The code is this: /script SetTracking() All well and good. In case you're wondering, you can also place any of the above tracking items in the brackets to switch you tracking to that if making your own macro). The problem with this code, because the code is a 'script' I believe, is that it comes with certain provisos; I couldn't bind it to the second button on the mouse, for example. That doesn't mean that it can't be done, just that I couldn't find a way to do it (if you know a way, please let me know). To get around that, my tracking macro in it's entirety looks like this: /castsequence [button:2] Find Herbs, Find Fish /script SetTracking() If I left click on this macro, I will track nothing. If I right click on it, I will cycle between tracking fish and herbs. There is also a button '3' option if your mouse has it. This macro saves me a bit of time when switching between forms, especially as I have put the wolf form and tracking macros side-by-side. I couldn't include them in the same macro (as I had originally intended) because of the Global Cool Down effect. Fishing While we're on the subject of tracking fish, I thought I'd throw this one in there. It makes my life a little easier, anyhow: /script SetTracking() /equip Fishing Pole /cast Fishing This macro will equip your fishing rod (as described in 'equipping items' above) and cast a line. It will take two clicks if if you're rod isn't already equipped (this first click doing the equipping and producing an easily ignored error message), after which each click will continue to cast the line (without the error). For myself, I've included the first line regarding tracking because quite often I'll switch out of wolf mode to fish. Attempting to fish changes my form automatically and this with this little entry this macro also clears the tracking for me - two birds, as they say. If you don't want to clear your tracking, feel free to delete that line. Happy fishing! After all is said and done, there is one point I would like to stress: Use macros sparingly! I'm referring in particular to the macros regarding conversation and interaction. I'm not sure I can think of a more counter productive RP tool than flooding the SAY channel with various oddities. It will only hinder your character in the long run. And try not to use them for YELLs, even if your character is actually screaming. Furthermore, you do not need macros for everything that you do. Quite often 'less is more'. If it's obvious that you're using macros, they've just become counter productive. I use them for some greetings, some farewells and sometimes (though less and less often) for battle cries. The benefits are, of course, the speed with which you can relate certain simple lines of dialogue. The detriment, however (and it's a big one), is that it can lead to your character using it's fluidity and individuality. Be wary of it becoming too easy to just click a button to talk IC. We're not playing robots after all... unless... *Onaron shakes his head* No, that'll never work... Well, I hope this has helped. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm no macro expert (I've cobbled all of this together from various sources, most notably the macro forum on the WoW website (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11114&sid=1) and the WoWwiki macro section (http://www.wowwiki.com/Macros)) but I'm sure we can answer any questions together. If any of you have your own interesting macros that aid you RP experience, please share them! In the meantime, take care. |
| Brenry |
Amazing macros! I kept thinking you had multiple macros for every emote and greeting you did. |
| Onaron |
Hehe, not everyone. I really try to keep them to a minimum. I do say things like "I see..." and 'nod' alot, but that's just me 
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| Onaron |
I have an update. I'll add this into the first post, but I'll put it here as well so that people don't have to trawl through all that text again:
Languages. Many characters speak various dialects, switching fluidly between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. For example, I have two greeting macros. The first for general greetings, and the other for greeting fellow Draenei in our common language (some of which include references to our shared race). The code for this is: /script SendChatMessage("Quote","SAY","DRAENEI") Or, for random sayings: /run SendChatMessage(GetRandomArgument("Quote1","Quote2", "Quote3"),"SAY","DRAENEI") You insert your own language at the end of the code there. The languages are: "COMMON", "DARNASSIAN", "DWARVEN", "DRAENEI", "TAURAHE", "ORCISH", "GUTTERSPEAK", "DEMONIC", "DRACONIC", "KALIMAG", "TITAN", "GNOMISH", "TROLL" This is one way to do it. As with with the other greeting macros, however, you're basically limited in the amount and variety that you can say. And I'm sure that you'd like to do a lot more that just say 'hello' or 'goodbye' in your own language. To get around this, you can make a macro that changes your chat language to another. That code is: /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME.editBox.language = GetLanguageByIndex(x) You replace the 'x' with either a '1' for common or orcish, and a '2' for your race language. So, I can click that macro and then type out a SAY and have it come out in whichever language was numbered. Now, at the moment I don't know of a code that will allow you to switch between the two languages with the same macro, but if anybody knows one, feel free to post it! |
| Onaron |
Another update! I've tried to make the above form a little easier to read (with headings and colours - tell me if this is a hinderance) and I've added the following inclusion regarding equiping and unequiping items:
Equiping and unequiping items and clothing This is useful for a myriad of reasons, but I use it to switch between clothes. Onaron has discovered that walking around in hard leather and wielding a large staff all the time is tiring, therefore, he spends most of his time now in lighter attire. To change between these sets, I could place each on my character manually, or I could create a macro to do the heavy lifting for me. The code to equip an item is simple: /equip "item name" (without the quotation marks) To get the item name spot on, you might do well to do what you can with your spells. That is, put a space in after the "/equip" part and then shift and click on the item in your inventory. The name of the item should pop up in the macro and then it's ready to go! But what about unequiping? Well, to do that it's a little bit trickier - but not too much: /run PickupInventoryItem(x) PutItemInBackpack() If anybody knows a shorter way to type this, I'd be happy to hear it. In the meantime, this will take an item from your inventory and put it in your backpack; so make sure you have the space for it. To tell the macro which item you would like to take, replace the 'x' with the number of the slot. Which numbers corrospond with which slots? Check here - http://www.wowwiki.com/API_PickupInventoryItem - for the answer. With a little experimentation, you can get a working system that let's you switch between costumes. I use a seperate macro for each of my two outfits, but you may have a better way of doing it. |
| Lyssira |
Onaron!
Wow, you are really providing a wealth of information here on macro usage. Thank you so much! Now, if I can find he time to experiment with some of this stuff... But I really do appreciate your effort! Keep it coming if there's more. 
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| Onaron |
To be honest, I'm not sure how much more there'll be - I've basically reached the frontiers of my macro knowledge 
I'll be sure to add anything as I think of or discover it, and encourage everyone else to do the same. In the meantime, I hope these make life a little easier for those who choose to use them. And thanks for the encouragement, it is appreciated 
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| Brenry |
The macro my main is most known for...
(\_/) (o.o) (> <) (")_(") |
| Onaron |
Hehe - very nice bunny. Can I track him!?
New update! Tracking Useful for many gathering professions and classes, particularly the Hunters. The drawback is having to switch between the different types of tracking. For myself, I merely had to switch between two (finding herbs and fish) and even that became a little tedious, especially given the little RP aspect I connected to it (but more on that later). The macro to allow you to scroll through your various tracking types is relatively easy: /castsequence Item 1, Item 2, Item 3 (etc. without the quotation marks) (The different options are: Find Minerals, Find Herbs, Track Beasts, Track Demons, Track Dragonkin, Track Elementals, Track Giants, Track Hidden, Track Humanoids, Track Undead) With this macro, you will track the next item on the list each time you click the button. Now, what was I talking about before in regard to the RP aspect? Well my Shaman, he can't track anything unless he's in his wolf form (in which case he can smell the herbs and hear the fish). Now, it took me a long time to find a code that would allow me to track nothing when clicking it (for when I revert back to my regular Draenei self). The code is this: /script SetTracking() All well and good. In case you're wondering, you can also place any of the above tracking items in the brackets to switch you tracking to that if making your own macro). The problem with this code, because the code is a 'script' I believe, is that it comes with certain provisos; I couldn't bind it to the second button on the mouse, for example. That doesn't mean that it can't be done, just that I couldn't find a way to do it (if you know a way, please let me know). To get around that, my tracking macro in it's entirety looks like this: /castsequence [button:2] Find Herbs, Find Fish /script SetTracking() If I left click on this macro, I will track nothing. If I right click on it, I will cycle between tracking fish and herbs. There is also a button '3' option if your mouse has it. This macro saves me a bit of time when switching between forms, especially as I have put the wolf form and tracking macros side-by-side. I couldn't include them in the same macro (as I had originally intended) because of the Global Cool Down effect. Well, there you are. Hope this helps. If you have any annotations, additions or subtractions, please feel free to post them! Take care. EDIT: Annotation Fishing While we're on the subject of tracking fish, I thought I'd throw this one in there. It makes my life a little easier, anyhow: /script SetTracking() /equip Fishing Pole /cast Fishing This macro will equip your fishing rod (as described in 'equipping items' above) and cast a line. It will take two clicks if if you're rod isn't already equipped (this first click doing the equipping and producing an easily ignored error message), after which each click will continue to cast the line (without the error). For myself, I've included the first line regarding tracking because quite often I'll switch out of wolf mode to fish. Attempting to fish changes my form automatically and this with this little entry this macro also clears the tracking for me - two birds, as they say. If you don't want to clear your tracking, feel free to delete that line. Happy fishing! |