Re-Write Your Guild Note or GMOTD in Color

My guild has just discovered the joy of colored text.

Turns out the WoW client allows for the use of color codes, which means that with a little tweaking, you can paint your guild note, guild information text, or guild message of the day in any color of the rainbow.

This hack lets you change the color of any of these fields for everyone in your guild to see. It uses hexadecimal color codes ("hex codes") to replace the default gray/green colors in the WoW interface.

To change the color of your guild note:

Open up the guild list and select your character's name. Then type:
/run GuildRosterSetPublicNote(GetGuildRosterSelection(),"\124cffXXXXXXYOURNOTE")

replacing YOURNOTE with the actual text of your guild note, and XXXXXX with the hex code of your choice.

To change the color of the guild MOTD:

Type /run GuildSetMOTD"/124cffXXXXXXGMOTDHERE")

replacing GMOTDHERE with the actual text of your message, and XXXXXX with the hex code of your choice.

Note that you'll still need the correct guild permissions to edit colors. That is, if your character doesn't have the power to edit the GMOTD, you won't be able to change its color.


All that code too complicated for your taste? No problem.

Vlacula's Colorizator page can do the work for you. Simply input the words of your choice and select a color, and it will automatically generate your text for you.

From there, just follow the directions to copy and paste into WoW.

Enjoy!

Stopcasting in 2.3: A Return to Button-Mashing

New readers, please note! This post was based on theorycrafting from an old build of the patch 2.3 PTR. Button mashing is not viable in WoW 2.3. Instead, remove /stopcasting from your old macros, keep Quartz, and continue to try to start your next cast as soon as you enter latency phase. If you hit your button too early, it will not cause your current cast to fail (as it did in 2.2), but it may cause you to incur a global cooldown penalty.

GMW readers know I've talked about using /stopcasting macros with Quartz before, but with the PTRs up, it's time to take a look forward at how spell casts will be changing in patch 2.3. Here's the relevant portion of the patch notes:

"Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency."

How is this different from how casts in WoW work now?
Right now, casters who aren't using /stopcast macros lose cast time to lag on any spell which takes longer than the global cooldown to cast. Quartz is a cast bar mod with a built-in latency indicator which can currently be used to time when to hit a macro so that the client (your end) will let you force-stop your old spell and begin casting a spell before it heard back from the server saying that the spell was complete. Timed correctly, spell #1 would complete and spell #2 would start with minimal time lost due to your own lag or server latency. This requires a caster to carefully watch her cast bar and then hit her macro one time once the cast reaches the safe zone.

What does this mean for casters after the patch?
The change in 2.3 means that your client won't have to wait for a “go ahead” from the server in order for you to be able to start casting a new spell. The client will no longer lock you out of starting a new cast, which means that you'll be able to repeatedly hit your cast button until the server knows your last cast has finished. The first attempted cast which reaches the server after it registers your last cast as completed will go through. In essence, the effect will be like having v2.2 /stopcasts already macroed into all your spells. In practice, it means that we'll all get to go back to mashing our buttons instead of perfectly timing a single tap of our macros.

In spite of this change, Quartz will remain a useful tool, because it gives you a visual readout of when your spell should be finished. You can use the Quartz cast bar to spam your cast button just before the cast bar reaches the “safe zone.” Here's a look at the difference in the two approaches:

Summary
In 2.3, /stopcast macros will only be useful for interrupting spells (i.e., stopping your fireball cast to counterspell your target), and not for decreasing cast lag. Old macros which served the second function may now cancel your casts if used, so you should delete or alter them accordingly to remove /stopcast. To maximize your spell casts in 2.3 and beyond, get a cast bar with a latency indicator, and spam the button for your next spell when your cast bar approaches the latency phase.

WoW + Facebook = Rupture.com

We all love the Armory, and many of us use Facebook. Although there's at least one widget out there that will show your characters' Armory data on your Facebook page, up until recently there was no real social networking site devoted to World of Warcraft. Rupture.com is that site -- a Facebook for WoW players.

The site design is quite similar to Facebook, except that in addition to your personal page, you also get profile screens for each of your characters, where you can friend guildies or pvp teammates, or upload your favorite screenshots. (The image above is the Rupture page for Spoh, a druid on the WSVG circuit.) Most of the data about your character is pulled from the Armory, but Rupture also has its own WoW add-on that will record and upload your /played time, your bank and bag inventories, your gear sets, tradeskill patterns, which add-ons you are using, and even the outcome of every battleground or arena match you play. You can even post to your character's Rupture blog from inside WoW itself by typing /rupture blog -- the next time you log out of game, your post will be automatically posted the next time your profile syncs. To read more about it or to download the Rupture profiler, visit their site.

Site Review: WoW Reputation Calculator

Just wanted to bring this new WoW reputation calculator tool to everyone's attention. You input your character name and server, and it uses your Armory reputation page to calculate how many more instance runs and/or quests you need to get to the next rep level for each faction. Here's a shot of my mage's Sha'tar rep, which I've been trying to work up so that I can start turning in Marks of the Illidari for Shattrath Flasks of Supreme Power.