Horrors of WoW interface?

[sinij]

Is there a way to bind 'use item'/'cast spell'/'use ability' to key combination outside of 1...0,-,+ toolbar?  Is there a way to make mouse look default and un-attach camera from your character rotation and movement direction so click-and-move is possible?

After playing in Open Beta I found myself enjoying WoW for being very simplistic but fun bush-them-up game so I plan to give it a whirl in retail. Thing that bugs my most is that while in every other aspect WoW went with safe and simplistic implementation they severely botched interface and controls of the game. It is plain simply ass-backwards. You can’t move well with just keyboard and you can’t move will with just mouse – you need to use combination of both leaving you unable to do anything else while moving making your character literaly unable to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.

[MrHat]

Is there a way to bind 'use item'/'cast spell'/'use ability' to key combination outside of 1...0,-,+ toolbar?  Is there a way to make mouse look default and un-attach camera from your character rotation and movement direction so click-and-move is possible?

After playing in Open Beta I found myself enjoying WoW for being very simplistic but fun bush-them-up game so I plan to give it a whirl in retail. Thing that bugs my most is that while in every other aspect WoW went with safe and simplistic implementation they severely botched interface and controls of the game. It is plain simply ass-backwards. You can’t move well with just keyboard and you can’t move will with just mouse – you need to use combination of both leaving you unable to do anything else while moving making your character literaly unable to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.

I actually just have autorun bound to my middle mouse button.  I can play w/ the mouse only and it works fine.

[Morfiend]

Creating a Macro

Type /macro or click on the talk button and select macro. A box will pop up with your current macros. You should have no macros to start.
Click on "New" at the bottom of that box. Another box will pop up, with a place to enter the macro name and a choice of an icon for the macro.
Name your macro. Select a name that will make sense to you when you see it again. For example, "Assist".
Select an icon. Let's pick a sword.
Select "Okay" - You should now see the icon you selected (sword) along with your icon name in your current macros box (assist).
Now Left-Click on the assist icon to highlight it. There is a button there to change the name or icon for your macro if you later decide to rename it or select a different icon.
Once your assist icon is highlighted, move your mouse pointer into the "Enter Macro Commands" box. This is where you can type what you want the button to do when you press it. You will need to add a "/;jsessionid=A61C739FAEB261345093A222B583BEEA.app03" in front of the command, if it is a slash command, just as you would enter in your text entry box.
Type "/Assist Nebu".
Move your mouse pointer back over the sword icon (assist) and left-click and hold down the button over the icon.
Now, drag the icon over to an empty slot on your action bar.
To use your new macro icon, press the number associated with that action button, or right-click on the button itself.
You now have a macro button that will assist another player (Nebu) in their attack. When Nebu attacks a player or monster, press your Assist macro button and you will automatically select the same target Nebu is attacking.
Finishing Macros
When you are done editing or creating macros, click the "x" in the top right-hand side of the box to close the macro window.
Editing Existing Macros
Type /macro then left-click on the macro button you wish to change. You can now make changes in the "Enter Macro Commands" box. Click the "x" to close the macro box when you are done.

Macro Limit
There is a character limit for each macro you create. If your message is too long, make it shorter!

Macro Suggestions
Use any slash commands

Here are other possible uses for macros:

repeat text you don't want to type again

repeat text for online auctions

make a funny saying

perform a list of commands such as:
/leave 1 /leave 2 (to leave channels 1 and 2)
/join wowtraders (joins channel wowtraders)
/g Hello everyone! (says hello to your guild chat channel)

Other Information

You can use "%t" in your macro text to insert the targeted monster, creature, player that you wish to be inserted in your sentence. For example, "/say Hi %t" will say "Hi Nebu" if you have the player Nebu selected.

/cast allows you to cast spells by name. Type /cast (spell subtext) - Example: "/cast Fireball (Rank 1)". To add spell casting to a macro you can type it manually, or shift-click a spell in your spell book to add the proper /cast line to the macro.


1.) Cast purify during combat and continue combat - courtesy of Tryx.

/target "player"
/cast Purify(Rank x)
/script TargetLastEnemy();

2.) Open/Close ALL bag slots - courtesy of Darksalus.

/script ToggleBag(0); (this is the backpack)
/script ToggleBag(1);
/script ToggleBag(2);
/script ToggleBag(3);
/script ToggleBag(4); (this is my Quiver so i omit this line from my macro)

3.) Hunter Macro - courtesy of Darksalus.

/cast Hunter's Mark(Rank 2)
/script PetAttack();

My very slight modification of this for my warlock and voidwalker attack is:

/cast Shadow Bolt(Rank 3)
/script PetAttack();

4.) Switching Hotbars with a macro - courtesy of Sarf.

/script CURRENT_ACTIONBAR_PAGE = X;
/script ChangeActionBarPage();

Change X to the action bar of your choice.

5.) Switching from 1H weapon/shield to 2H weapon - courtesy of Sarf.

Basically, you have two commands known as PickupContainerItem(bag, slot) (bag goes from 0 to 4, slot from 1 to the number of slots in the bag) and PickupInventoryItem(index) (16 is mainhand, 17 is offhand).

While both commands are named PickupWhatever they work like this : if nothing in cursor (mouse cursor), pick up item from slot, but if somethign in cursor, put down item in slot (which means putting any item already in the slot into the mouse).

Also, if you put a 2-handed weapon into your main hand, your offhand item will go directly to the inventory, so :
If equipping 2H weapon, move offhand weapon to your desired inventory slot first.
If equipping 1H-weapon + offhand item, move 1H-weapon to main hand then 2H weapon to desired inventory slot first.

I assume in my example script that your weapons are stored in these places:
1H-weapon : bag 4 (last bag) slot 1
offhand item : bag 4 (last bag) slot 2
2H-weapon : bag 4 (last bag) slot 3 (could be placed in slot 1)

Example script to put on 1H-weapon and offhand weapon when you are wearing 2H-weapon:
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 1);
/script -- 1H weapon now on cursor.
/script PickupInventoryItem(16);
/script -- 1H weapon now equipped, 2H weapon on cursor.
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 3);
/script -- 2H weapon in inventory, no item on cursor.
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 2);
/script -- offhand item on cursor.
/script PickupInventoryItem(17);
/script -- off hand item now equipped, no item on cursor.

Example script to put on 2H-weapon when you are wielding 2H-weapon:
/script PickupInventoryItem(17);
/script -- off hand item now on cursor.
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 2);
/script -- off hand item now in inventory
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 3);
/script -- 2H weapon now on cursor.
/script PickupInventoryItem(16);
/script -- 1H weapon now on cursor, 2H weapon equipped
/script PickupContainerItem(4, 1);
/script -- 1H weapon now in inventory, no item on cursor.

Defensive Stance:
/stance 1
/equip Wingblade
/equip Glinting Shield
/me ** Defensive Stance **

Battle Stance:
/stance 2
/equip Arced War Axe
/me ** Offensive Stance **

Polymorph:
/cast Polymorph(rank1)
/yell ** Polymorphing %t (%tl) **

Use Potion:
/usetype Food
/usetype Drink

/script if (getglobal("wt")=="set") then Equip("1 hander name") Equip("shield name") setglobal("wt","unset") else Equip("2hander name") setglobal("wt","set"); end

was a working macro (up until the last patch at least) to switch weapons between 1hander/shield and a 2 hander, or 2 1hand weapons and a 2 hander. (just put the names of your weapons in where the name spots are in the macro)

i haven't tested it this patch, and am not sure if it still works..(if it doesn't i'd love it if someone who knows more about macro making than i do could fix it if it is possible.. - i didn't make this, just happened across it one day on the forums.)

Hunter Melee Macro
/cast Aspect of the Monkey
/script PetAttack();
/script Attack();


/script TargetNearestEnemy();
/p Pulling $t
/script AttackTarget();
/v inc

/assist
/script AttackTarget();

[sinij]

I don't understand how WoW passed alpha, closed beta and now open beta without anybody noticing that you can't create your custom keyboard layout.

[Mesozoic]

Certainly they noticed.  They just don't seem to care about it.

[stray]

Hmm..I like the interface myself. There is a way though, through the option menu (the same menu where video and sound options are) that lets you use point to click movement ala Diablo/Shadowbane.

[Trippy]

I don't understand how WoW passed alpha, closed beta and now open beta without anybody noticing that you can't create your custom keyboard layout.

I'm confused by this. Are you saying if you do ESC -> Key Bindings that you can't change your keyboard and mouse button mappings?

[Alkiera]

Thing that bugs my most is that while in every other aspect WoW went with safe and simplistic implementation they severely botched interface and controls of the game. It is plain simply ass-backwards. You can’t move well with just keyboard and you can’t move will with just mouse – you need to use combination of both leaving you unable to do anything else while moving making your character literaly unable to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.

*boggle*

Odd, I thought that pretty much everyone agreed that since one of those Jedi games came up with it, that WASD+mouse look was the greatest thing to happen to 3d games EVAR.

I generally played in 3rd person in OB.  The only character I had that really benefitted by moving while doing things was my rogue, to circle so he could backstab mid-combat after a stun.  Otherwise, I could mostly stand in one place while fighting...  For casters, nuke+run really isn't productive, the time is better spent getting your next spell off...  since you can be most of the way thru casting the next spell before the first one hits.

I've had no problems hitting he occasional attack key in the 1-5 range while moving(chasing runners with melees).  It helps that your character auto-turns to face the mob, you don't even need to be facing the right direction when you attack.

Another time I'd do stuff while moving is poking thru bags while traveling, and with num-lock to auto-run, it's really pretty easy.  I just don't understand what you're tring to accomplish.  Perhaps something PvP related?  I'm not a big fan of PvP, didn't do any in WoW. *points at avatar*

Alkiera

[Signe]

Of course you can change your keyboard mappings.  Mine are completely different than what the default was.  The guy that said that was mixing up his words or something.  Don't let him trick you into sounding as silly has he does!


I use CTMod right now, but GypsyMod actually looks better.  I might give that a go in release if they still allow those sorts of things.  The WoW interface the way it is now, is terrible.  I don't need a chat window that takes up a quarter of my screen and can't be resized or moved.  I HAVE to have more bars to put my stuff... it is imperative.  GypsyMod has my vote right now as it's the only one that completely removes the artwork borders and you can make things small enough to free up loads of space on your screen.

http://gypsymod.the-mad.net/images/preview_current.jpg

As for movement and all, I have no problem with WoW in that respect.  I can use WASD, arrow keys, mouse movement or a combination.

[Jamiko]

GypsyMod is great. Major kudos to Blizzard for making it easy for people to make mods for the GUI. Smart too, as it allowed them to get outsiders to do some development work. If you don't like the way the GUI is, you can change it. All of it.

[Alkiera]

GypsyMod is great. Major kudos to Blizzard for making it easy for people to make mods for the GUI. Smart too, as it allowed them to get outsiders to do some development work. If you don't like the way the GUI is, you can change it. All of it.

As a side note, a recent patch for EQ2 resulted in UIBuilder.zip being dropped in the EQ2 directory... it has a large .doc file detailing the XML setup of the UI for EQ, and an executable (UIBuilder.exe) that apparently is useful for such.  They also discuss methods for providing your own in-game fonts, and other stuff for designing custom UIs.

This is more support than the EQ1 customizable UI ever got.

Alkiera

[sinij]

There are two way to look around with your character – keyboard and mouth look. Keyboard look has difficulty with camera position and mouse look requires holding mouse button and also rotates your character along with it. There is click-and-move functionality in WoW but it is interrupted by any camera movement and any action and as a result to get reliably good view you need to operate camera with a mouse while move your avatar with keyboard. You can move with just keyboard but you can't easily adjust camera position leaving you without periferal vision. On top of that WoW likes to toss camera around in combat in most akward ways, so if you use just keyboard movment expect dragons and large enemy groups sneak up on you unnoticed. You can move with just mouse but adjusting your view or doing anything, like attacking, will interrupt it making it really poor choice. Also auto-close in WoW is so poor you will not be able to close-in with your melee character on anybody if you are using mouse to move. You can change what keys are used for movment but you won't be able to change need to use mouse and keyboard - leaving you without a good way to use any abilities while moving.

There is ‘toolbar’ that can hold 12 various spells or items and you can customize what keys you use to trigger toolbar options. Other than this ‘toolbar’ there is no easy way to bind a key to your ability or spell. As a result you are VERY limited in abilities/spell you can readily use at any moment.

 Other games have functional interface where you have freedom to look around and use your custom keyboard layout for your spells and abilities but WoW will leave you struggling with interface.

[Dren]

All a matter of opinion I guess.  I found WoW's UI to be very good and intuitive.  The few differences to other games were quickly realized and accomodated for.  There isn't anything I can't do with quick reaction after I've set up my keys for it.

I have no complaints.

[Trippy]

I'm still not sure what it is you are asking for. On the mouse side by default you can hold down the left mouse button to rotate the camera around your character if you simply want to look around yourself without changing your facing. If you just want to just use the keyboard you can setup your own custom camera views and bind those to keys to quickly swap views around your character. It would be nice if there were keyboard commands for handling camera movement around your character (maybe there are as undocumented commands) but the mouse is frankly faster, easier, and more accurate for that sort of thing. So moving and turning with the keyboard and rotating the camera with the mouse and left mouse button would seem to be what you are asking for but again I'm not sure what it is you are trying to do.

As for moving, turning your character, and rotating the camera around your character all at the same time with just the mouse so you can use the keyboard to just activate abilities, I haven't played any game that let's you do all that though I suppose it would be possible to do if you used your mouse wheel to rotate the camera around your character but then you don't get the full range camera movement. What game are you playing that has the ability to all that with just the mouse?

Your complaint about the toolbar is an almost universal one, hence the popularity of UI mods such as Cosmo and the ones Signe mentioned. Even though Blizzard copied some of the functionality that was in Cosmo such as quest sharing, having multiple toolbars on screen at once was not one of them for some odd reason.

[sinij]

On the mouse side by default you can hold down the left mouse button to rotate the camera around your character if you simply want to look around yourself without changing your facing.

You do change your facing by simply rotating camera.  Not only that but changing facing interrupts your click-to-move motion. Holding button for mouse look should not be there, it should be toggle. Mouse look should not change the way your character faces, your character should always face toward direction of motion. Combat close for melees should be more intelligent.  It should NEVER rotate camera for you during combat, leave that to players.

[Trippy]

On the mouse side by default you can hold down the left mouse button to rotate the camera around your character if you simply want to look around yourself without changing your facing.

You do change your facing by simply rotating camera.

Not if you hold down the left mouse button.

[Margalis]

On the mouse side by default you can hold down the left mouse button to rotate the camera around your character if you simply want to look around yourself without changing your facing.

You do change your facing by simply rotating camera.

Not if you hold down the left mouse button.

I found holding down left mouse or right mouse had no effect. I'm with sinij, I could not figure out how to change my camera view while moving without also having my character move.

You may be right but there must be something wonky about it because I tried each mouse button, both at the same time, as well as ctrl, alt, shift, etc and couldn't figure it out.

[Trippy]

I found holding down left mouse or right mouse had no effect. I'm with sinij, I could not figure out how to change my camera view while moving without also having my character move.

Very odd. Did both of you start playing before the Open Beta? Maybe they changed the default keybindings at some point. This is how my mouse buttons were setup in my bindings-cache.wtf file:

bind BUTTON2 TURNORACTION
bind BUTTON1 CAMERAORSELECTORMOVE
bind CTRL-BUTTON1 CAMERAORSELECTORMOVESTICKY

[Alkiera]

On the mouse side by default you can hold down the left mouse button to rotate the camera around your character if you simply want to look around yourself without changing your facing.

You do change your facing by simply rotating camera.  Not only that but changing facing interrupts your click-to-move motion. Holding button for mouse look should not be there, it should be toggle. Mouse look should not change the way your character faces, your character should always face toward direction of motion. Combat close for melees should be more intelligent.  It should NEVER rotate camera for you during combat, leave that to players.

A) I think part of the issue is the use of click-to-move.  I don't think any of the rest of us used that, prefering the more fps-like option.  The issues you're having may be specifically related to that.

B) I think in options you can turn off the 'smart camera'.

C) I haven't played in a couple days, but I'm pretty sure I could have more than one bar...  Then again, I played EQ, and got used to shift-# to switch hotbars there.  So I may have used that, and have a faulty memory.  EQ2 and WoW are similar enough, too, that the betas run together a bit in my head.  EQ2 definately allows more hotbars.

Alkiera

[Dren]

I'm with Trippy.  Mine was set up like that by default.

Left mouse button for looking without changing direction.
Right mouse button for moving my forward direction.
Use both together to moving foward and move mouse to change direction moving and camera up/down.
I use AWD along with the mouse buttons and movement to get all I need.  To strafe I use A or D with both mouse buttons pressed.

Most times while hunting though I use the first 5 numbers on top of the keyboard with my pinkie on TAB.  I use TAB for autotargeting mobs around me.

I will probably bind the middle mouse button to something for release to get more functionality into this.  I never messed with macros, but I will eventually.

[Phred]

Odd. By default my L mouse button didnt let me look around without turning unless I was sitting down. I was looking for a free camera mode key in bindings. Didn't find it.

Signe you can resize the windows though it's totally non intuitive. Unlock the General window by right clicking on the tab, then move the mouse pointer near the border of the window and click and drag. I split off the combat damage window and put it in the middle of the screen, between the chat window and where my backpack opened, then I shrank the combat window down to a smaller size and changed the font size to smaller as I used to use a similar setup in EQ.

I'm going to grab that ui mod though, having access to 3 bars of hotkeys would be a real plus for me with a few characers.

Is there any way to bind macros to keys or are they only dockable on the hotkey bar? I saw someone mention /bind. Any pointer to docs on /bind commands? If it was on the closed beta boards can someone repost? I'd love to get my autoattack key bound to ` like I used in EQ. I'm so used to backstabbing with my 1 key I had to move auto attack or I ended up standing around out of combat, while the mob got free hits in.

[Soukyan]

For those of you who like/want to mod your WoW UI: Cosmos UI

Excellent mod with lots of features.

[sinij]

My issue with moving with two hands is PvP. In PvP I need one hand just for casting spells and using items, I can't afford delay needed to stop every time to use an item or spell that is instantcast or instantuse. I liked SB interface - it allowed you to effectivly move with one hand -  just click anywhere on the screen or minimap and your character will pathfind there while you are free to concentrate on other things, be it using your spells, abiities or just looking around. In WoW PvP is very much based on first hit - with sheeping, fearing tons of way to root and stun first strike very often decides who going to win otherwise even encounter.

That and IMO sheep, fear and root spells should have some casting delay so they can be interrupted.

[Margalis]

Odd. By default my L mouse button didnt let me look around without turning unless I was sitting down. I was looking for a free camera mode key in bindings. Didn't find it.

Yup. Sitting down was the only way I was able to move the camera to any position other than directly behind my character.

[Dren]

Odd. By default my L mouse button didnt let me look around without turning unless I was sitting down. I was looking for a free camera mode key in bindings. Didn't find it.

Yup. Sitting down was the only way I was able to move the camera to any position other than directly behind my character.

You should be able to change that since mine wasn't set up that way.  As to how, I can't tell you, sorry.

[Trippy]

My issue with moving with two hands is PvP. In PvP I need one hand just for casting spells and using items, I can't afford delay needed to stop every time to use an item or spell that is instantcast or instantuse. I liked SB interface - it allowed you to effectivly move with one hand -  just click anywhere on the screen or minimap and your character will pathfind there while you are free to concentrate on other things, be it using your spells, abiities or just looking around. In WoW PvP is very much based on first hit - with sheeping, fearing tons of way to root and stun first strike very often decides who going to win otherwise even encounter.

Okay, well depending on whether or not you can separate out some of the functions that are bound to the mouse buttons, it may be possible to do what you want. I can't test any of this out right now but it looks like the main stumbling block to what you want to do is that click-to-move and rotate camera are both bound to button 1, at least in my configuration:

bind BUTTON1 CAMERAORSELECTORMOVE

So assuming I understand the syntax correctly and assuming you can actually remap the button functions you could change things around to something like:

bind BUTTON1 SELECTORMOVE
bind BUTTON2 CAMERAORACTION

You give up being able to rotate your view with the mouse but you don't seem to need that if you are using click to move.