Thread: How to Macro! (A.K.A. The /alias Command)

So today I was messing around a little bit with the macro feature in LotRO. Personally it seems really limited in functionality, but there are some benefits in setting up some macros. I'm going to go through and explain a little bit about them to those of you that don't know what they are, or how to use them. Now, if anyone sees any mistakes, errors, or anything else incorrect, please let me know. This basically expands on the ;target macro thread, hopefully this one can be made into a Sticky as well!

What is a "Macro"?
When I'm talking about Macros in LotRO, I am referring to the built in "Alias" command system. This system basically allows you to "store" long messages in a short format for easy recovery and entry.

How do these "Macros" benefit me?
Even though we use vent most of the time, sometimes its easier to get your message across by typing it. Someone may be already talking in vent, someone may not be in vent. Plus, it's really annoying to have someone SHOUT over everyone in vent, or have MULTIPLE people trying to SHOUT over one another. Using this "Macro" system allows you to "spam" your message if necessary (although you shouldn't have to repeat it more then 3 or 4 times for it to be noticed).

Here are a couple examples off the top of my head:

1) Tank is fighting the Seers in the Thrang fight, when asked which Seer should be taken by the other tank, he can simply press ONE key to say "Take the Seer to my right", or "Take the Seer to my left".

2) During the Balrog fight, instead of everyone shouting "HIDE HIDE HIDE" on the jumping stage, we could have one of the classes hiding at the pillars (Hunters, Minstrels, Lore-Masters, etc) spam one key to say "The Balrog is in the air, HIDE!".

3) You're group is fighting many mobs at once and you need to be able to single out a mob that will be mezzed.

How to setup these macros:

There are basically 3 steps to setting up one of these macros. The first step tells the game that when you enter in "x", it needs to output "y". The second step is adding "x" to a hotbar location as a shortcut. The final step is using the keymapping to assign ONE keystroke to activate "x".

The "Alias" command.
The "Alias" command is the command that LotRO uses to bind a lot of text to a simple, shortened version of the text. The game has some vague information on how to use the "Alias" command if you type "/help alias", but it's not very helpful.

An example alias command would look like so:
/alias add ;x y

/alias is starting the alias command.
add is telling the alias command to add a new alias.
;x is going to be the shortened "alias" of "y". This is the text that you will enter to display "y", only without having to type out all of "y".
y is the long text that you want to display, this can include game commands (such as /f, /ra, /emote, etc).

All of the alias commands are:
/alias - Adds a new alias.
/alias add - Adds a new alias, the same as /alias.
/alias remove - Removes an alias.
/alias list - Lists all alias'.
/alias clearlist - Clears ALL alias' in the alias list.

Lets make an example "Alias"!
Now that you know all of the alias commands, we can start making an alias. I'm going to demonstrate a VERY BASIC alias, all it will do is output some text.

Type "/alias add ;h Hello" in your chat window.

/alias is starting the alias command.
add is telling the command to add an alias.
;h is my abbreviation (referred to as an alias as well) for "Hello".
Hello is the longer message that I want to display.

Now, if you typed the command right, you should be able to type ";h" in your chat window, and have it output "Hello" instead of ";h".

Combining "Alias" commands!

Now that you know how to make an alias for some text, I'm going to move on to a slightly more advanced subject. Combining alias' together! Now, hopefully you still have the ";h" alias in your list. If you don't have the ";h" alias in your list, please add it again as we will be using it for the next step!

Type "/alias add ;w World". The ";w" alias should now output "World". If you've ever taken any coding classes, you may see where I'm now going with this... If you type ";h" in your chat window it will output "Hello", if you type ";w" it will output "World". If you type ";h ;w" it should output "Hello World"!

Now, instead of typing ";h ;w" to output "Hello World", we are going to create an alias that will do it for us.

Type "/alias add ;hw ;h ;w" in your chat window. This will bind the pre-created alias' ";h" and ";w" to a new alias named ";hw". If you type ";hw" in chat, it should output "Hello World"!

"Alias" shortcuts.

You may already know that there is a built in "shortcut" command in the game. For instance, you can type "/shortcut 1 /follow" and it will add a button to your first quick slot (hot bar, what ever) position.

Now, the alias shortcut command is a little different, but it's the same principle, you add your ";alias" to a quick slot so that you can simply click on it instead of typing your alias command. To do this you have to do the following:

Type "/alias shortcut ;hw 1"

/alias is starting the alias command.
shortcut is telling the alias command to make a shortcut to an alias.
;hw is the alias that you want to add to a quick slot.
1 is the number of the quick slot that you want to bind the shortcut to.

This will bind the ";hw" alias (Hello World) to your first quick slot. You can change what quick slot it uses by changing the number, here is a list of all the quick slot bars and their numbers:

Main Quickslots:
1-12

Bar 1:
13-24

Bar 2:
25-36

Bar 3:
37-48

Bar 4:
49-60

Bar 5:
61-72

So if you wanted to add the ";hw" alias shortcut to the last spot on Bar 5, you would have to type "/alias shortcut ;hw 60" instead of "/alias shortcut ;hw 1".

Binding "Alias" shortcuts to a single key

Now that we have our alias setup, as well as a shortcut to the alias on one of our quick slots, we can go ahead and bind the alias to a single key. To do this we are going to go to the game options (hit "Esc" and click "Options", or press the "Options" button) and then into the "Keymapping" sub section.

Now, scroll down until you find the sections referring to quick slots. Find the quick slot that your shortcut is on and change the key to a single, unused key (for instance the "[" key). Now, close the game options and press the key. If the game outputs "Hello World" into the "Say" channel you have just made a great success!

Sorry but, what did you just say?

This system is entirely too unweildy for how little it is capable of doing.

I've been in construction my entire life and the last time I was in school computers took up entire rooms. Never once outside of my own home have I interacted with a computer. It's a little late in life for me to return to school to take classes in programming just to be able to create a macro that says "Hello World".

EQ1 is ancient in the MMO world and their macro system is far simpler and capable of so much MORE.

A simple right click on an empty quickslot will bring up an interface and all you need to do is name it, type in the commands/text you want and you're good to go.

As a rogue with one keypress I could gather the corpse of a guildmate, inform him via /tell that I had found it and was on my way to the healers with it and inform the rest of the guild's rogues that I had located the person in question so they can cross that one off the list of missing bodies. Healers could send you a tell that they were casting spellX on you, cast the spell and inform the Healing channel who they were healing all with ONE keypress.

The one thing I miss the most from EQ is the macro system. LotRO needs an intuitive and useful macro system more than it needs ingame voice chat.

There is another guide to Alias commands that was made back in April, 2007, How to make shortcuts and aliases. It's linked from the Reference Links for LOTRO Players Sticky.

Originally Posted by RunetheDwarf

Sorry but, what did you just say?

This system is entirely too unweildy for how little it is capable of doing.

I've been in construction my entire life and the last time I was in school computers took up entire rooms. Never once outside of my own home have I interacted with a computer. It's a little late in life for me to return to school to take classes in programming just to be able to create a macro that says "Hello World".

EQ1 is ancient in the MMO world and their macro system is far simpler and capable of so much MORE.

A simple right click on an empty quickslot will bring up an interface and all you need to do is name it, type in the commands/text you want and you're good to go.

As a rogue with one keypress I could gather the corpse of a guildmate, inform him via /tell that I had found it and was on my way to the healers with it and inform the rest of the guild's rogues that I had located the person in question so they can cross that one off the list of missing bodies. Healers could send you a tell that they were casting spellX on you, cast the spell and inform the Healing channel who they were healing all with ONE keypress.

The one thing I miss the most from EQ is the macro system. LotRO needs an intuitive and useful macro system more than it needs ingame voice chat.

Like I said, the system is way to limited. All you can do is simple text alias', nothing more complex then that can be accomplished at the moment.

Originally Posted by Cherubina

There is another guide to Alias commands that was made back in April, 2007, How to make shortcuts and aliases. It's linked from the Reference Links for LOTRO Players Sticky.

That isn't really as complete of a guide as mine, I actually explain what you're doing and why.

Originally Posted by Xero852

That isn't really as complete of a guide as mine, I actually explain what you're doing and why.

True. I'm not sure they'll sticky this one though, as the player created guides are being moved to the Lorebook, and those stickied now will probably be cut loose when the process is complete.

You can read more about it here: Migrating User Guides to Lorebook - Discussion

You may want to create it in the Lorebook, or have someone do it for you. You could post a link to this in that thread asking for help, if you aren't familiar with wiki markup.

Originally Posted by Xero852

Like I said, the system is way to limited. All you can do is simple text alias', nothing more complex then that can be accomplished at the moment.

The limited functionality of the alias system is a working exactly as intended, and is unlikely to be expanded much if at all. It is to limit the possibility of having the game played while you are not sitting at the keyboard.

It also effectively kills automatic combat scripts via in-game macros. Notice that if you get attacked, you don't automatically attack back?

Originally Posted by Xero852

Bar 1:
1-12

Bar 2:
13-24

Bar 3:
25-36

Bar 4 (Optional Bar):
37-48

Bar 5 (Optional Bar):
49-60

One quick edit i would like to make after just trying this myself, you are one bar short, you are missing the main bar down in the ui.
Main Quickslots: 1-12
Bar 1: 13-24
Bar 2: 25-36
Bar 3: 37-48
Bar 4: 49-60
Bar 5: 61-72

Alias system in LotRO = weakest link. And that's a shame.

Originally Posted by MMSAGERUSN

One quick edit i would like to make after just trying this myself, you are one bar short, you are missing the main bar down in the ui.
Main Quickslots: 1-12
Bar 1: 13-24
Bar 2: 25-36
Bar 3: 37-48
Bar 4: 49-60
Bar 5: 61-72

Right, thanks for that!

Good thread on the /alias command so I'm saving it from the forums incinerator.

guys this isnt that hard even if you don't know programming...(though i am a programmer..) but this is so easy and clear... thank u for this forum

I find this alias system too much of a hassle to do a whole lot with, so I rarely use it.

I much rather loved the macro system in WoW. Now THEY knew what the hell they were doing when they created theirs. Wish Turbine would go look at WoW's and overhaul our macro system here.

If you want macros, get a Gaming keyboard, they are much better. I use a G15, and it can actually to things in sequence, like dismount and harvest node, cycle through all the emotes. or launch an opening volley of attacks;

A very good guide, but a near worthless tool

Originally Posted by Lara69690

I find this alias system too much of a hassle to do a whole lot with, so I rarely use it.

I much rather loved the macro system in WoW. Now THEY knew what the hell they were doing when they created theirs. Wish Turbine would go look at WoW's and overhaul our macro system here.

One easy way to do them is simply set them up as buttons and skip the alias part altogether:

/shortcut 1 /whatever

This means you need to have shortcut 1 (first button on your hotbars) clear of any skills when you create it but you can then move the button as any other.

For example, I have setup on my freep:

/shortcut 1 /roar calls on the strength of his fallen brethren

This created a button that I moved to a side bar and outputs:

Beornling calls on the strength of his fallen brethren while doing the /roar emote

You can further that with the ;target such as:

/shortcut 1 /f @,@ MEZ that bloody ;target @,@
/shortcut 1 /trade Kill >>;target<<
/shortcut 1 /wave greets his fellow traveller ;target in peace

so on and so forth. But make sure you have nothing selected when first creating a /shortcut with ;target. (Otherwise it will always output what you had originally selected as the ;target.)

Buttons are a lot easier and you dont have to remember your aliases.


But buttons do take up quickbar slots.

Thanks for an informative thread.

Originally Posted by KeskaRayburn

The limited functionality of the alias system is a working exactly as intended, and is unlikely to be expanded much if at all. It is to limit the possibility of having the game played while you are not sitting at the keyboard.

It also effectively kills automatic combat scripts via in-game macros. Notice that if you get attacked, you don't automatically attack back?

Hate to burst your bubble but this game already has bots made for it. Not the kind of thing I am into, but your arguement is moot. A good macroing system would be of great benefit to the game , especially now since the train has already left the station on botting.

Originally Posted by Xero852

So today I was messing around a little bit with the macro feature in LotRO. Personally it seems really limited in functionality, but there are some benefits in setting up some macros. I'm going to go through and explain a little bit about them to those of you that don't know what they are, or how to use them. Now, if anyone sees any mistakes, errors, or anything else incorrect, please let me know. This basically expands on the ;target macro thread, hopefully this one can be made into a Sticky as well!

What is a "Macro"?
When I'm talking about Macros in LotRO, I am referring to the built in "Alias" command system. This system basically allows you to "store" long messages in a short format for easy recovery and entry.

How do these "Macros" benefit me?
Even though we use vent most of the time, sometimes its easier to get your message across by typing it. Someone may be already talking in vent, someone may not be in vent. Plus, it's really annoying to have someone SHOUT over everyone in vent, or have MULTIPLE people trying to SHOUT over one another. Using this "Macro" system allows you to "spam" your message if necessary (although you shouldn't have to repeat it more then 3 or 4 times for it to be noticed).

Here are a couple examples off the top of my head:

1) Tank is fighting the Seers in the Thrang fight, when asked which Seer should be taken by the other tank, he can simply press ONE key to say "Take the Seer to my right", or "Take the Seer to my left".

2) During the Balrog fight, instead of everyone shouting "HIDE HIDE HIDE" on the jumping stage, we could have one of the classes hiding at the pillars (Hunters, Minstrels, Lore-Masters, etc) spam one key to say "The Balrog is in the air, HIDE!".

3) You're group is fighting many mobs at once and you need to be able to single out a mob that will be mezzed.

How to setup these macros:

There are basically 3 steps to setting up one of these macros. The first step tells the game that when you enter in "x", it needs to output "y". The second step is adding "x" to a hotbar location as a shortcut. The final step is using the keymapping to assign ONE keystroke to activate "x".

The "Alias" command.
The "Alias" command is the command that LotRO uses to bind a lot of text to a simple, shortened version of the text. The game has some vague information on how to use the "Alias" command if you type "/help alias", but it's not very helpful.

An example alias command would look like so:
/alias add ;x y

/alias is starting the alias command.
add is telling the alias command to add a new alias.
;x is going to be the shortened "alias" of "y". This is the text that you will enter to display "y", only without having to type out all of "y".
y is the long text that you want to display, this can include game commands (such as /f, /ra, /emote, etc).

All of the alias commands are:
/alias - Adds a new alias.
/alias add - Adds a new alias, the same as /alias.
/alias remove - Removes an alias.
/alias list - Lists all alias'.
/alias clearlist - Clears ALL alias' in the alias list.

Lets make an example "Alias"!
Now that you know all of the alias commands, we can start making an alias. I'm going to demonstrate a VERY BASIC alias, all it will do is output some text.

Type "/alias add ;h Hello" in your chat window.

/alias is starting the alias command.
add is telling the command to add an alias.
;h is my abbreviation (referred to as an alias as well) for "Hello".
Hello is the longer message that I want to display.

Now, if you typed the command right, you should be able to type ";h" in your chat window, and have it output "Hello" instead of ";h".

Combining "Alias" commands!

Now that you know how to make an alias for some text, I'm going to move on to a slightly more advanced subject. Combining alias' together! Now, hopefully you still have the ";h" alias in your list. If you don't have the ";h" alias in your list, please add it again as we will be using it for the next step!

Type "/alias add ;w World". The ";w" alias should now output "World". If you've ever taken any coding classes, you may see where I'm now going with this... If you type ";h" in your chat window it will output "Hello", if you type ";w" it will output "World". If you type ";h ;w" it should output "Hello World"!

Now, instead of typing ";h ;w" to output "Hello World", we are going to create an alias that will do it for us.

Type "/alias add ;hw ;h ;w" in your chat window. This will bind the pre-created alias' ";h" and ";w" to a new alias named ";hw". If you type ";hw" in chat, it should output "Hello World"!

"Alias" shortcuts.

You may already know that there is a built in "shortcut" command in the game. For instance, you can type "/shortcut 1 /follow" and it will add a button to your first quick slot (hot bar, what ever) position.

Now, the alias shortcut command is a little different, but it's the same principle, you add your ";alias" to a quick slot so that you can simply click on it instead of typing your alias command. To do this you have to do the following:

Type "/alias shortcut ;hw 1"

/alias is starting the alias command.
shortcut is telling the alias command to make a shortcut to an alias.
;hw is the alias that you want to add to a quick slot.
1 is the number of the quick slot that you want to bind the shortcut to.

This will bind the ";hw" alias (Hello World) to your first quick slot. You can change what quick slot it uses by changing the number, here is a list of all the quick slot bars and their numbers:

Main Quickslots:
1-12

Bar 1:
13-24

Bar 2:
25-36

Bar 3:
37-48

Bar 4:
49-60

Bar 5:
61-72

So if you wanted to add the ";hw" alias shortcut to the last spot on Bar 5, you would have to type "/alias shortcut ;hw 60" instead of "/alias shortcut ;hw 1".

Binding "Alias" shortcuts to a single key

Now that we have our alias setup, as well as a shortcut to the alias on one of our quick slots, we can go ahead and bind the alias to a single key. To do this we are going to go to the game options (hit "Esc" and click "Options", or press the "Options" button) and then into the "Keymapping" sub section.

Now, scroll down until you find the sections referring to quick slots. Find the quick slot that your shortcut is on and change the key to a single, unused key (for instance the "[" key). Now, close the game options and press the key. If the game outputs "Hello World" into the "Say" channel you have just made a great success!

Nice write up, Very useful. However only really useful for locations. You might want to add in the location macro then add it to Lorebook. People use vent to "HIDE HIDE HIDE!"

Originally Posted by Andurath

Hate to burst your bubble but this game already has bots made for it. Not the kind of thing I am into, but your arguement is moot. A good macroing system would be of great benefit to the game , especially now since the train has already left the station on botting.

Although I share your point of view regarding macros, the lack of a substantial script based macro system (i.e. like the Lua scripting language used in WoW) was never meant to prevent botting - just to discourage it. It is impossible to prevent people writing bots for any game - as every game uses the same input devices (keyboard/mouse/gamepad) and all of them can be simulated by a program. It's just a lot more difficult to do since you can't just have that bot program push a button or two

Originally Posted by Palenen

Nice write up, Very useful. However only really useful for locations. You might want to add in the location macro then add it to Lorebook. People use vent to "HIDE HIDE HIDE!"

Downside of necroing a really old thread. The location macro is pretty much irrelevant now with the addition of coords on the map and under the mini-map. When this was written, the only way you could get your location was by using that macro.

Originally Posted by Digital_Utopia

Although I share your point of view regarding macros, the lack of a substantial script based macro system (i.e. like the Lua scripting language used in WoW) was never meant to prevent botting - just to discourage it. It is impossible to prevent people writing bots for any game - as every game uses the same input devices (keyboard/mouse/gamepad) and all of them can be simulated by a program. It's just a lot more difficult to do since you can't just have that bot program push a button or two

Thank you for that info so the issue was moot before it was moot, macros were useless when useless was convenient.

So now what is the stance on it? I think the issue should be revisited, though I don't know how realistic that is. The game has gotten so much larger, the player base has had to be so much more versatile with thier toons of every type. Such a system could go a long way to helping with the continuing issues of limited user community and multiple toons that has become the day to day reality of lotro for many.

I would love to see a zone by zone tool that helped with the rad instances like they had in wow. If current rad continues to be an important upgrade it will possibly revitalize that part of the game to know that people can be guided without constant inputs and make pugging a more viable way to gear up for watcher and beyond. Of course if the siege of Mirkwood expansion changes all that..it's moot before it's moot

Originally Posted by Andurath

Thank you for that info so the issue was moot before it was moot, macros were useless when useless was convenient.

So now what is the stance on it? I think the issue should be revisited, though I don't know how realistic that is. The game has gotten so much larger, the player base has had to be so much more versatile with thier toons of every type. Such a system could go a long way to helping with the continuing issues of limited user community and multiple toons that has become the day to day reality of lotro for many.

I would love to see a zone by zone tool that helped with the rad instances like they had in wow. If current rad continues to be an important upgrade it will possibly revitalize that part of the game to know that people can be guided without constant inputs and make pugging a more viable way to gear up for watcher and beyond. Of course if the siege of Mirkwood expansion changes all that..it's moot before it's moot

Believe me, if there was some form of decent scripting support for this game, I'd be on it like hobbits on pies (in lieu of a more vulgar expression). There is a lot this game lacks in the UI/macro department, and in my opinion, one of the few sore points of this game as a whole.

From what I understand however, there was a conscious choice from the beginning to limit the power of macros - for whatever reason. After all, both (?) Asheron's Call games had such a system. One guess may be that they would rather play things safe, and free up more time for game content than having to constantly tweak what you can and cannot do with whatever scripting language they'd include (Blizzard it seems was always doing that to WoW) The downside of a scripting language (or any programming language really) is that those who tend to write stuff for it, tend to have a talent for finding more than one way to skin a cat. So if the developer limits or removes an ability - it's not uncommon for people to find another way around it - much the same way as certain players have a knack for finding exploits and/or unintended ways of beating a boss or an instance.

I'm OK with Turbine deciding that such a scripting system is more trouble than it's worth - but I'd be more than willing to settle for a back-end way of getting data from the client. This way developers could still make apps that would make use of in-game data, without having to risk people botting their way to success.

The UI itself was a bit of a disappointment to me as well (but at least in comparison to WoW, I didn't have to download Bartender to rearrange my UI). Customization-wise it's more on par with skinning Windows than anything else. I'd personally like to see something on par with skinning Winamp - or other apps where you have more direct access to the UI. For instance, instead of just being able to skin the border around the morale/power bars - you could actually change the shape, direction, or even color of the bars themselves.

Woweee, I almost forgot that I wrote this up back in the day... I've since stopped playing LotRO, started again, stopped again, etc, etc... I've looked through all the recent posts hoping to append some new information to my OP but it looks like much of it hasn't changed. I was going to add in a section for getting your location coordinates but, as stated, it's kind of a moot point now!

You know, when you're putting things on your hotbars, the alias command really is unnecessary (unless you need to manually type ;hw or something like that a lot).

/shortcut 42 "/say The King of the Wargs strikes another mighty blow!"
That puts a /say... command on my hotbar, in space #42. I can be chatting in /f or /ra or whatever and just click that and it'll say that in /say.

/shortcut 43 "/2 LFM for DD, HoC, Watcher, DN"
For my particular setup, with my chat channels, that outputs that to glff.

See? Absolutely no alias is required if you're going to put it on your hotbar.

In my opinion, the absolutely best use of the LotRO text macro system is a /follow command.

/shortcut 10 /follow
As a Warden, when I'm fighting single mobs, I always start with Ambush -- it basically lets me "burglar-like" just pop up instantly next to a mob and start beating on it. The mob can't take pot shots as I run up to it and I get an opportunity to interrupt defiler's totems or whatever.

Having a /follow that I can just click (or hit 0 to activate) means that I can run right up to the mob after ambushing it and be doing something else at the same time, like rotating my view to watch another mob, or triggering mastery skills to have a good gambit already built up when I get to the mob, or maybe I'm fighting wood trolls and because of their long arms I need to stop when the game actually thinks I'm in range (not just when it looks to me like I'm in range), or, or, or, it seems as though I come up with new uses for the /follow command in battles every day. It just takes you right up within melee reach of the mob -- it's just a godsend. If there's ever a bit of lag, trying to match up where the server thinks you are and when the server thinks you're in melee range with where you think you are and how far away you think you are, it's such a pain. A /follow macro takes away all that pain and replaces it with soothing aloe vera balm.

Anyway, if you're putting things on your hotbar, the /alias command is really just a waste of time.

Originally Posted by Banaticus

You know, when you're putting things on your hotbars, the alias command really is unnecessary (unless you need to manually type ;hw or something like that a lot).

/shortcut 42 "/say The King of the Wargs strikes another mighty blow!"
That puts a /say... command on my hotbar, in space #42. I can be chatting in /f or /ra or whatever and just click that and it'll say that in /say.

/shortcut 43 "/2 LFM for DD, HoC, Watcher, DN"
For my particular setup, with my chat channels, that outputs that to glff.

See? Absolutely no alias is required if you're going to put it on your hotbar.

In my opinion, the absolutely best use of the LotRO text macro system is a /follow command.

/shortcut 10 /follow
As a Warden, when I'm fighting single mobs, I always start with Ambush -- it basically lets me "burglar-like" just pop up instantly next to a mob and start beating on it. The mob can't take pot shots as I run up to it and I get an opportunity to interrupt defiler's totems or whatever.

Having a /follow that I can just click (or hit 0 to activate) means that I can run right up to the mob after ambushing it and be doing something else at the same time, like rotating my view to watch another mob, or triggering mastery skills to have a good gambit already built up when I get to the mob, or maybe I'm fighting wood trolls and because of their long arms I need to stop when the game actually thinks I'm in range (not just when it looks to me like I'm in range), or, or, or, it seems as though I come up with new uses for the /follow command in battles every day. It just takes you right up within melee reach of the mob -- it's just a godsend. If there's ever a bit of lag, trying to match up where the server thinks you are and when the server thinks you're in melee range with where you think you are and how far away you think you are, it's such a pain. A /follow macro takes away all that pain and replaces it with soothing aloe vera balm.

Anyway, if you're putting things on your hotbar, the /alias command is really just a waste of time.

Oh also /follow is nice if you're tanking on one mob and that mob switches targets and runs to your hunter, minstrel, rune-keeper, whatever. You run right along with it and there's not that moment of startled surprise where you delay in getting your aggro back.

Is it just me, or am I the only one that read the title of this thread and wanted to yell POLO.

ok, so the thread is on macros, not marcos. Otherwise, good thread. One of these days I will have to read through it again and understand aliases better.

Originally Posted by Ascus

If you want macros, get a Gaming keyboard, they are much better. I use a G15, and it can actually to things in sequence, like dismount and harvest node, cycle through all the emotes. or launch an opening volley of attacks;

A very good guide, but a near worthless tool

I also have a G15 but am too stupid to figure out how to create and assign for lotro. Is there a simple guide online?

Originally Posted by Andurath

Hate to burst your bubble but this game already has bots made for it. Not the kind of thing I am into, but your arguement is moot. A good macroing system would be of great benefit to the game , especially now since the train has already left the station on botting.

You can not do it yourself unless your expertise is software programming in the addon area. You got to want to do it. You got have the time. You got to have the tools.

Without a low threshold knowledge required macro language, most people are faced with doing without. Or getting one from someone else. Which often includes pay dollars. You never know what you are getting. You could be getting one that steals your gaming account and your bank account and anything and everything else.

I looked around these external programs. They do exist for LOTRO. There was one on sale in the summer of 2007. He probably converted one for another game by playing during the LOTRO open beta. They exist for all games that have a decent population level. If you play a game, you can find company that sells gold. You can be sure these programs were created by their Research and Development department. Or ordered from a contractor.

Turbine allowed full modification to their first game Asheron's Call. Often half or more of the online characters were running some sort of automated program.

Please put this in the Lorebook so we can access the information while in game.

Originally Posted by Caerylwyn

Please put this in the Lorebook so we can access the information while in game.

That would be awesome beyond words!

I subscribed to it, I love this thread!

I tried this game out a year ago on a trial account and I was done. I just got the game yesterday and subscribed. Today I was setting up my new minstrel and decided I wanted a few macros. Nothing major just something for some light RP. /macro nothing --- /help macro -- nothing. Ok. odd... Time to hit google. I find this thread and a couple other.

Wow.. By far the worst macro system I have ever seen and I've been playing these games since it was nothing but muds. The UI is not to far behind either. Horrible, just horrible. Overhaul.

Originally Posted by RunetheDwarf

Sorry but, what did you just say?

This system is entirely too unweildy for how little it is capable of doing.

I've been in construction my entire life and the last time I was in school computers took up entire rooms. Never once outside of my own home have I interacted with a computer. It's a little late in life for me to return to school to take classes in programming just to be able to create a macro that says "Hello World".

EQ1 is ancient in the MMO world and their macro system is far simpler and capable of so much MORE.

A simple right click on an empty quickslot will bring up an interface and all you need to do is name it, type in the commands/text you want and you're good to go.

As a rogue with one keypress I could gather the corpse of a guildmate, inform him via /tell that I had found it and was on my way to the healers with it and inform the rest of the guild's rogues that I had located the person in question so they can cross that one off the list of missing bodies. Healers could send you a tell that they were casting spellX on you, cast the spell and inform the Healing channel who they were healing all with ONE keypress.

The one thing I miss the most from EQ is the macro system. LotRO needs an intuitive and useful macro system more than it needs ingame voice chat.

Truer words were never spoken - Never played eq but DAoC an older game then wow had a much easier to use macro system that was also more functional. Don't even try and compare this Macro system with WoW.

This game can't even get there keybinds to work. The simple 'Select Previous Foe' does not work. Or possibly I fail to understand what 'Select previous Foe' means. To me it means I target mob 'A' then target mob 'B' if i then press my keybind for 'SElect previous Foe' I will re target 'A'. Very handy if you have a group of mobs one of which you wish to CC in some manner and one you wish to pull. Target the one you want to CC, then target the one you want to pull, pull press your keybind for 'Select pervious foe' do your CC then press the key bind again to have the one you pulled targeted. But Noooo. In this game there are 4 mobs, A, B, C, D, and you select 'B' and then select A and press 'Select prevous foe' you target 'C' or 'D' .

Which would not be so terrible except this game for some reason it is harder (near impossble) to click on a mob to target it. No idea why. Other then poor coding. I have killed a mob and spent 5x's the time it took to kill him trying to loot his body because I can't seem to target the loot. Why on earth is this??

Man all of you waist your time with that just get a logitec g15 keyboard comes with set macros for lotro and you can still add more as it is capable of storing 58 macros for each game. works wonders for all my games

Originally Posted by KeskaRayburn

The limited functionality of the alias system is a working exactly as intended, and is unlikely to be expanded much if at all. It is to limit the possibility of having the game played while you are not sitting at the keyboard.

It also effectively kills automatic combat scripts via in-game macros. Notice that if you get attacked, you don't automatically attack back?

Originally Posted by Andurath

Hate to burst your bubble but this game already has bots made for it. Not the kind of thing I am into, but your arguement is moot. A good macroing system would be of great benefit to the game , especially now since the train has already left the station on botting.

This is one of those "don't shoot the messenger" deals - Keska isn't giving their opinion, but rather giving insight into what Turbine has said, publicly, about why the macro system is the way it is, why combat is the way it is. That players have found ways around it doesn't change the fact that unless and until Turbine changes their position on this topic, they are extremely unlikely to make the macro system more robust.

Props to the OP for making it more accessible and understandable.

Thank you so much for this guide. I'm up and running. I had just one plugin that I wanted to assign to my quickslot bar, and your guide helped me make it.

Intersting, I love macros. This will come in handy for sure. +1 rep.

Can't really see myself using this too much or missing it too much in gameplay..

but still

Good thread, thank you.

One of the interesting things that can be done with alias and short cuts, is the alias can be set and reset after the shortcut

/alias remove ;leader
/shortcut 72 /f Everyone follow ;leader
Now button says "Everyone follow ;leader" to fellowship

/alias ;leader Blackhawk
Now button says "Everyone follow Blackhack" to fellowship

/alias ;leader Maggotmeat
Now button says "Everyone follow Maggotmeat" to fellowship

This only works if the alias is unassigned whe shortcut is set. The above example is not that useful, but if you have a couple co shortcuts to set it is.

I am trying to find information on how to macro hotswapping gear. Is there a place that gives information about specific bag slot locations that can then be coded into a macro? Or can specific items be coded to be equipped? In talking with my boyfriend, he says that the other games he's played, e.g. WoW, Rift, this sort of task was very simple. Yet here, I have had trouble finding information beyond how to make hotkeys for location or target announcements.......

Thank you.

Originally Posted by Doomsie

I am trying to find information on how to macro hotswapping gear. Is there a place that gives information about specific bag slot locations that can then be coded into a macro? Or can specific items be coded to be equipped? In talking with my boyfriend, he says that the other games he's played, e.g. WoW, Rift, this sort of task was very simple. Yet here, I have had trouble finding information beyond how to make hotkeys for location or target announcements.......

Thank you.

You won't be able to do that with the /alias command. It's purposely not that sophisticated. That said, I'm not 100% up to date with what can be done with the new plugin framework - I'm pretty sure that what you're looking for can't be done with plugins, either - but you might want to look at LotroInterface to see for sure.

Originally Posted by Doomsie

I am trying to find information on how to macro hotswapping gear. Is there a place that gives information about specific bag slot locations that can then be coded into a macro? Or can specific items be coded to be equipped? In talking with my boyfriend, he says that the other games he's played, e.g. WoW, Rift, this sort of task was very simple. Yet here, I have had trouble finding information beyond how to make hotkeys for location or target announcements.......

Thank you.

Currently, the type of macro that you are looking for is not possible using the /alias system. There are alternatives though. Simply putting the items that you wish to swap onto a quickslot is one way, but those quickslots are a precious piece of real estate, especially as you gain levels.

A better alternative is to use plugins. You could either attempt to make your own by studying the Lua used by Turbine or go to www.lotrointerface.com and use some of the great plugins already made by some very talented coders. Unfortunately though, even with plugins, straight-up hotswapping of gear is not possible, BUT there are some workarounds such as using one of the two plugins that remove equipped items and then using one of various other plugins which basically create extra quickslots to add the gear that you want to re-equip. I personally have not tried this (and am not a coder by any stretch of the imagination although I am currently toying with a few plugin creations of my own) but I do believe it is feasible.

If you can't find what you are looking for, put in a request in the forums over at the aforementioned site and if it is possible, someone may take on the project or give you advice on creating it.

Hope this helps and good luck!