Very early in patch 2.4's progressive development on the PTR, the ability to send raid icons over chat was implemented. The syntax is pretty simple, you place the name of the icon in those funny looking brackets, like so: {circle}, {star}, etc.Personally, I'm not too terribly excited, it's not something you'll be typing on the fly, probably. I can't really see a Mage or Warlock(or anybody) taking the extra time to type that out properly when something goes wrong(ie death), as simple as it seems to do so. However, this could be a good tool for raid leaders, not so much the raiders. A raid leader could include these in a tanking/crowd control assignment macro. "/ra Matthew, tank {skull}. Christian, sheep {square}." That sort of thing.
Regardless of how often this will actually be used, it's a nice little feature, and I'm sure post-2.4 mods and addons will make good use of them, even if the players themselves don't.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-16-2008 @ 5:19PM
Jamie said...
Why don't they just change the icons? Why do we just have random shapes? Can't we have a little Sheep for, say, a Sheep target or some Shackles for, I dunno, a Shackle? It'd make things far, far clearer.
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3-16-2008 @ 5:22PM
Alex Ziebart said...
Because raids can require multiple sheep, or no sheep at all. Specific icons means limited use. A plethora of neutral icons means you can use them for whatever you want.
3-16-2008 @ 5:26PM
Jamie said...
Have numerous Sheep with a little number 1, 2, 3 then?
I'm not saying don't have non-specific icons at all, but the option to use task specific ones would be nice. Especially in 5-mans, then you don't need to do any icon designation, would make Group Leaders job much easier.
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3-17-2008 @ 5:33AM
Fartrooster said...
@Jamie...
"Have numerous Sheep with a little number 1, 2, 3 then?"
Then the mage would fall asleep.
3-16-2008 @ 5:37PM
TomWolf said...
I see something that might turn out to be VERY good coming from this. If we are lucky one of the major addon programmers make a great addon for assigning raid targets and include group chat commands. When you assing the skull you automaticly send
/p {skull} Kill [target] first.
That _could_ mean that we get some kind of unified usage of the raid icons. And if the programmer is really good you can change the text sent so you can use it even if you don't want to change how you use the icons today =)
But then again, might be a stupid idea.
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3-16-2008 @ 5:41PM
Heilig said...
"Yo, Warlock, seduce {condom} please."
"Seduce {Condom}"
"Seduce {Nipple}"
"Does anybody know WTF that thing's real name is?"
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3-16-2008 @ 5:55PM
Retro said...
If you'd paid any attention to the ancient and eternal sage-like advice of Grover (he WAS voiced by Frank Oz after all), the divine wisdom of Big Bird, or even the frothing rants of Oscar, you would realize that {circle} is quite frankly obvious to everyone.
L2preschool
3-16-2008 @ 6:07PM
kymali said...
It's clearly a jaffa! Or is it a Sun
Actually going to miss the various names for the circle that people come up with
3-16-2008 @ 6:10PM
Heilig said...
"Attention shoppers! Will the owner of the lost sense of humor please come to the service desk to claim it? Thank you"
Every group I have ever been in across multiple servers has referred to that thing as either a condom or a nipple. Just like the thing Blizzard terms a "cross" is called an X by the rest of the world.
L2Laugh
3-16-2008 @ 5:47PM
Matt said...
Ooo... Anyone know if we could bung these into macro lines too? I've not tried the PTR so I wouldn't know.
/target {diamond}
/cast Banish
Would be quite handy at times when one is tasked to CC multiple targets at once (e.g. Fear + Banish)...
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3-16-2008 @ 6:21PM
doyesac said...
Yesyesyes, please!
This is my biggest biggest birthday wish -- that raid icons make an appearance in the macro scripting language. But for me it would be Trap/Pet-off-tank instead of fear/banish...
If only Blizz developers read the Wowinsider comments...
3-16-2008 @ 6:46PM
Silverslide said...
oh;
/script SetRaidTargetIcon("target", 8);
Happy birthday then...
3-17-2008 @ 2:46AM
jrodman said...
Silverslide, that's kinda cute, but not what was requested. Your script macro marks the current target with a skull.
What doyesac requested was a macro to target the already skull-marked mob.
I doubt this will ever be possible because it would make some things brainless.
3-16-2008 @ 5:56PM
Quisling said...
It's a shield. Look closer.
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3-16-2008 @ 6:22PM
emodeathmachine said...
No, it's a condom. Trust us.
3-16-2008 @ 7:38PM
Aurix said...
A condom is a shield.
Dur.
Sometimes those little arrows get through anyway, then you're running around with baby skulls 'n stuff.
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3-16-2008 @ 8:23PM
Dave said...
I love that this blog is written by people who don't seem to actually play the game very often. While I suppose it gives that "don't be scared, we're just like you" vibe to the lowest common denominator of player I suppose, I'd like to think that most of the players that are diehard enough to read a blog about nothing but WoW, would be at least slightly more invested in the game than this.
This is an infinitely useful and solid upgrade to the chat system. If you can't instantly see the very visible utility with it, I'm not sure anyone can help you. Everyone has their own stupid pet names for the symbols. Some call them by their colors, which is confusing for people who say "x" or "cross". Some say condom, some say circle, some say shield. All are potentially confusing remarks either in chat or on vent.
If you're REALLY saying that you don't find it very easy to type the curly brackets (it's shift [, it's not like you're using some arcane script and magic key combination, if you can type any capital letters at all I think this is a fairly rudimentary thing to do) then I'm absolutely stunned.
Confusion is often the major point of failure in this game. I don't see how this isn't anything short of a really awesome but subtle way of eliminating one of the MAJOR barriers to success, which is understanding your targets and your encounter.
I'll absolutely have macros set up with this sort of thing as soon as possible. It's an elegant and awesome change and I'm really excited to see it and I don't know how I didn't notice it before.
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3-16-2008 @ 8:48PM
Alex Ziebart said...
I'm not saying it's hard to type the { and } all of the time. I am saying it's difficult to type them in the heat of combat after a CCer(or something like that) just died. Time is important in combat. Anything longer than "square loose" is wasted time.
3-17-2008 @ 1:06PM
Greenman said...
I'd love to see the charms included in the expansion of "%t". That saves you lots of typing and remembering all the stupid little names. Just target the next target and type "/ra everyone on %t next"
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3-17-2008 @ 4:24PM
Hoss said...
Oh I can't wait for the /2 spam:
{star}{star}{star}On Sale Now, [Bow of Searing Arrows] only 2000G!!1!, Get It NOW!{star}{star}{star}
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