WoW Guide Part IV
Chatting
The enter key will automatically open up the text box so you can chat in game. There are several different channels in WoW and you can join or leave any of them at any time. Normal channels are all numbered. So for instance, trade chat is 2, local defense is 3, etc.
To type in trade chat, you'd open the text box and type "/2" and you'll be in trade. To leave a channel, just type /leave and then the channel number. So to leave trade you'd type /leave2.
Other channels are not numbered (say/yell/party/guild, etc)
Say - This is stuff spoken out loud by your character. When you say something in game, it will not only appear in the chat box, but also in a speech bubble over your head. You can disable the speech bubbles, though. Things said in "say" will appear as white text as "Your character says: text".
Thomas says: Hello!
Yell - Like a say, but broadcast over a larger area. If someone in a city yells, the entire city will be able to see it. Like with say, you will get both the chat text, and the speech bubble. Yelled text appears in red.
Thomas yells: Hello!
Whispers - A private message sent between two people. To whisper someone, target them in the game by clicking on them, then right click on their picture and select send whisper. You can also click on a persons name in the chat box to whisper them. To respond to a whisper sent to you, open the chat box and press "r". This will recall the last person that whispered you. Whispers appear in pink and do not have speech bubbles.
If Bob sends a whisper to Thomas, on Bobs end it will appear as
To [Thomas]: Hey man.
[Thomas] Whispers: Whats up?
On Thomas's end it will appear as
[Bob] Whispers: Hey man.
To [Bob]: Whats up?
Party Chat - Private messages between a group of up to 5 people. When you join a group for a quest or a dungeon, you will be placed in a party with those people and you can all talk to each other without anyone outside of your party seeing your conversation. Party chat will appear in blue and it has speech bubbles.
[Party]Thomas: Yo. Look at this party chat.
[Party]Bob: Yeah, its pretty awesome.
[Party]John: You guys need to get out more.
Raid Chat - Like party chat, but with a larger group (up to 25 players). Raid chat appears in orange and does not have speech bubbles.
[Raid]Bob: We're being used in a lot of examples.
[Raid]Thomas: Its cool man. Someones paying attention to us.
[Raid]John: I'm so lonely.
Guild Chat - Only available if you're in a guild. I will go over guilds next. It will appear in green and only the people in your guild will be able to see it. It has no speech bubbles.
[Guild]Thomas: Wheeee!
[Guild]John: I don't even know why I'm here.
Guilds
A guild is a group of people united under a specific name and tabard. You can create your own guild or join someone elses and have access to guild tabards, items, and rewards.
To create your own guild you must think up a name for it that hasn't already been taken then you need to find the Guild Master NPC in one of the capitol cities and buy a Guild Charter. Then you have to get 4 random players to sign your charter. After that, take it back to the Guild Master and your guild will be created. Then you can design your own guild tabard.
To join someone elses guild, find one thats recruiting (there are usually guild recruitment channels in the game) and ask to join. Some guilds have requirements for their members such as raid or pvp experience.
Theres not much to say on guilds really and you don't HAVE to join one to play the game, but if you want certain items and abilities, then you're gonna have to.
Once you're in a guild, the guilds name will appear under your characters name above your head. So if your characters name is "Thomas" and your guilds name is "The Awesome Guild", then above your character you will see
Thomas
<The Awesome Guild>
Emotes
Emotes are random actions you can perform in the game by typing the corresponding text into the chat box. Some examples are, typing /wave will make your character wave, /bow will make them bow, etc.
Some basic emotes are
/wave - Makes you wave
/nod or /yes - Makes you nod and say "Yes" or some variation of agreement.
/no - Shake your head and say no.
/bow - Bow
/poke - Poke someone
/hug - Hug someone
/laugh - Makes your character laugh
/dance - Makes your character dance
/silly - Makes you tell a joke
Emotes will be displayed differently depending on whether you have a target or not. If Thomas types /hug into the chat, but he has no one targeted, then in the chat it will be displayed as; Thomas needs a hug.
However, if he targets Bob and does /hug it will be displayed three different was.
To Thomas himself it will read as; You hug Bob.
To Bob it will be; Thomas hugs you.
To everyone else it will be; Thomas hugs Bob.
Custom Emotes
Unlike standard emotes, these don't have animations and are entirely written by you, the player. Opening the chat window and typing /me (followed by your action text) will create a custom emote. This is mostly only used by RPers to display actions in text that they can't display with regular emotes.
For example, Thomas and Bob are RPing together and Bobs character is nervous about something and wringing his hands together. To display this with a custom emote he would type "/me wrings his hands together and glances around nervously." (without the quotes)
In the chat it will be displayed as; Bob wrings his hands together and glances around nervously.
Drunken Text
Mostly for fun, but it does effect your chatting, so I'm tossing it in here. You can get drunk in the game by consuming alcoholic beverages. The type of drink will determine how many you need to get drunk. Being drunk has several effects on your game play.
1) If you have a good graphics card you will get a drunk effect on your screen. Everything will get blurry until you can barely see.
2) Enemy levels will appear lower to a drunk character. So a lv40 may appear as a lv35 if you're drunk.
3) Your ability to walk will be hindered and your character will veer to the left or right, unable to walk a straight line.
4) You chats will become slurred. Your "S"'s will be come "Sh"'s and "hic" will sometimes be placed at the end of your sentences.
So if you tried to type "This is some drunken text", when you hit enter it would automatically be changed in the chat window to "Thish ish shome drunken text... hic!"
Chat Terms
These are just a few random terms that get tossed around in WoW. I'm not listing all of the random acronyms and stuff, since theres far too many. Every single dungeon in the game has its own acronym. For instance, the dungeon Shadowfang Keep is just called SFK. Icecrown Citadel is called ICC, and so on. I won't be listing every single dungeon acronym because there are way too many.
Adds - Random enemies that wander into a fight. If you're fighting a bear and a wolf happens to wander by and jump into the fight as well, the wolf is an add.
Aggro - The amount of threat you have from an enemy. Having aggro means the enemy is focued on attacking you. In a dungeon its the tanks job to hold aggro away from his party members.
AH - Aution House. You can buy and sell items to/from other players here. Both factions have their own auction houses that only they can use, but there are also neutral auction houses that can be used by both factions.
AoE - Area of Effect spells that target multiple enemies at one time.
BG - Battleground. Out door instance for PvP.
BoP - Bind on Pickup. Some items (such as armor and weapons) become soulbound to your character the moment you loot them. Once an item is bound to you, you can not trade it or put it on the AH. You can still sell it to an NPC vendor for a small price.
BoE - Bind on Equip. Same concept as BoP, but these items don't become bound until you put them on or use them. As long as you never wear or use a BoE item, you can trade it or put it on the AH. But the moment you equip it, it becomes bound to you.
BoA - Bind on Account. These items are not just bound to one character, but every character you have on that server, regardless of faction. You can mail these items between the Alliance or the Horde, but only to your own characters.
Buffs - Things that temporarily enhance your abilities. Buffs can boost your stats for a certain amount of time.
Corpse Run - The process of running back to your body to resurrect yourself after you've died.
Cool Down (CD) - The amount of time you have to wait before you can use an ability again. Some spells and abilities are instant cast and have no cool downs. Others you can only use once in a specific time frame. For instance, a spell may have a 10 minute CD, meaning you can use it once, then you have to wait 10 minutes before you can use it again.
Crowd Control (CC) - Temporarily taking an enemy out of a fight. Useful when fighting several things at once.
Debuffs - The opposite of buffs. Negative spells that decrease your abilities.
DoT - Damage over Time. A spell that, while active, slowly ticks away a persons hit points. An example of a DoT is a spell that takes away 5hp every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. When someone says to put DoTs on something, it means to cast Damage over Time spells on it.
DPS - Damage Per Second. Can refer to both a class as well as someones damage output. A mage is a DPS class. You could also say "My DPS is really high."
Escort Quest - The most horrible type of quest in the game. (NPC) is way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere and you need to go and find him and then escort him back to some other place. Also, he will walk really slowly and aggro everything around you.
Fetch Quest - Typical quest to go collect random items for someone.
Hearth - To return to your home location. Everyone gets a Hearth Stone when they create a character. Using it will teleport you back to your starting point. You can also speak to an inn keeper in any city and set your hearth there. From then on, it will teleport you back to that inn. Hearth Stones have a 30 minutes CD.
HoT - Heal over Time. Works the same way as the DoTs, but with healing. A spell that heals a little bit over an certain amount of time.
LFG - Looking For Group.
LFM - Looking For More.
Mats - Materials. Things you need in order to create stuff.
Mob - An enemy or monster. Something you fight.
Ninja - Someone who steals loot in a dungeon. These people are hated in WoW.
OP - Over Powered. Some people think certain classes are pretty OP.
Port - Portal. Mages have the ability to teleport themselves or other people to any major city. They often get asked for ports by random people.
Respawn - A mob thats died and come back to life later on. Nothing stays dead in the game, it will just disappear for a bit after its killed, then come back later. Respawn time varies. Out in the world a mob can take anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes to respawn. Unless its a rare in which case its on a timer and may not respawn again for hours or even days. In a dungeon mobs will not respawn until you leave the dungeon and reset it.
Friends List and Real ID
If you like talking to someone or have a friend that plays on your server, you can add them to your friends list. Once a person is added, you will be notified when they log on or off, and you can see where they are in the game world when they're online.
Real ID is a newer feature that Blizzard implemented that a lot of people tend to hate, but its entirely optional. To add someone to your real ID list, simply go to the add friend panel and type in the email address they use for their WoW account. This will send a confirmation to them and if they accept, their real name will appear on your friends list. You can chat cross faction and cross game with other Blizzard games.
So for instance if you're playing Alliance and a friend is playing Horde, you will still be able to whisper each other. Or if you're playing WoW and your friend is playing Starcaft, you can still chat. This is the only way to communicate cross faction in WoW, but only you and the person you're talking to will see the conversation. Its recommended that you only give out your real ID information to people you know as it will display your full real name to them.
Addons
Addons are user created mods that alter the game in some way. The majority of them are perfectly legal and accepted by Blizzard for use in the game. Any mods that give a person an unfair advantage over others or attempt to allow cross faction communication are not allowed and can get you banned. There are, however, mods that will simulate other languages, but not actually allow you to speak or understand them, it just looks like you're speaking them for RP purposes.
There are all sorts of addons you can download from curse.net to enhance your game play. There are mods to rearrange the UI (as we've already covered), mods for tracking quests, mods for roleplay, mods that allow you to teach companion pets tricks, mods to keep track of gear and weapons, PvP and raid mods, mods that help you heal or keep track of how much damage you do, etc.