Macros are a Role Player's best friend in WoW. There is almost zero downtime in the early levels and consequently it leaves less time for RP banter. However, I have enjoyed setting up and tweaking my macros to inhance my Roleplaying as well as my ability to effectively communicate in battle.

Macros are not new to MMORPG gaming. However, Blizzard seems to have embraced them openly, by giving you an easy to use interface for creating them. Just by typing /macro you pull up an interface which lets you skip most of the scripting associated with macros from other games. As you see in the screen shots, you have quite a few slots for them.

Adding one is as simple as clicking new, adding a name for it and selecting an icon for it. The icons that are given are shared with all the different ability and spell icons that are in the game so far. At first this didn't seem like a big deal until I started using them. After a while you start looking for the picture rather than the name. My brain recognizes the chicken pic faster than the letters FLEE, and when I am screaming for my party to run, that's a great thing. So when you make yours try to pick pictures that relate to the topic in some way.

What adds a lot to all of these is the small listing of voice emotes Blizzard has so far. They have said they are adding more and I am dying to hear them. When I use them I tie them in to my written statments as they are the RP part, but having a voice say these things out loud adds extra emphasis. When I demand some healing with the /v heal it gets more attention than a message scrolling by in the window. Also when your group is fighting frantically and one of your party members runs off, its nice to hear "Attack!" out loud as you send a message to "stand your ground". I've seen battles get swung by one of these. My only complaint is that they are all combat oriented. No "For Lordaeron!" or "For Khazmodan" emotes here. Hopefully Blizz will give a nod to the RPers with their next bank of voice emotes.

The way I go about using macros as a Role Player is to base them on statements that non roleplayers use like "INC", or "ADD" or "Run!". Using acronyms can poison the soul of a RPer. What I do to avoid the alphabet soup of MMORPG acronyms is to come up with statements which serves the same purpose but gives off a little of what my character is all about. For example I've got an icon with a picture of chicken on it that says FLEE. This one is often pressed in rapid succession as my warrior gets chewed on. What I entered in to the macro screen is below.

/v flee
"RUN FRIENDS! Your blood will not be on my hands!"
/e tries to hold off the %t as long as possible.

The first line makes my character activate the voice emote "flee" which actually has my character say "Run!" out loud. I wish it sounded a little less like I was crapping my pants but then again it IS nice to hear my character for once. The second line will pop in to whatever chat channel I am in since I did not put in /say or /party. That way if I am soloing, but just dropped a train on someone, the words come out instead of a "you are not in a party message" that I would have if I put /party in my macro. The third line shows up as an emote with my character name in front and my target in place of the %t. My warrior tries not to run unless its absolute suicide so the quick click of a key helps not only tell them to run, but also lets them know that the reason I am not running is to try and save them. Many deaths happen in WoW because people don't know if the group is running or just pulling back to make sure no more mobs join the fight.

If you look at the screenshots you can get a quick sense of the macros I have set up. I try to find those situations that you run in to often, in which you don't have much time to roleplay/type. I have one called WORRY which says "I am not sure about this friends...be prepared to run!". Its one that I click right as the warlock's pet wanders in to a camp full of nastiness or when some shmuck runs by with five mobs on his heels. ADD lets everyone know that another mob has joined the fight. I have one that tells everyone "BEAT THAT CASTER DOWN!" because casters can drop a member of you party with a quickness. I have another that says "Get that %t off our caster!" for when our priest or mage is getting smacked around. My macros wouldn't be complete without GLOAT, its the one I click after a big hairy battle that nearly kills us. I find myself changing this one often just to mix things up. You get the idea though, the trick is to find ones that come up often enough to justify taking a spot in your macro bank.

So far you've seen a lot of glowing praise for WoW, which it definitely deserves, however now that I have played for a while there are issues creeping in to my mind that I'd like to raise. Check back next time for some of the darker side of the WoW experience.

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