The Ultimate GM Compendium of Knowledge. -By Skype. -Dedicated to the unseen, the unknown, and the ignored. Prove to them you exsist. This is the ultimate source of knowledge for GMs, both new and old. This guide was built for potential GMs in mind, and will train you to everything, Vet GMs will benefit from this guide as well because several of the more, "Elite" commands and tips, have been exposed (and for some, the first time ever that a guide about that subject has been posted) Within these massive walls of text is knowledge on anything GM related, Anything, and everything For such a massive thread, i could not fit it all in one post. Due to the character limit, and also it will be easier to home in one what you need. (much faster to scan posts then to try and see the titles.) P.S Gastric, I couldnt convert this into that file you suggested i do, because my comp crashes on the version i have aquired. And also, i wanted to stay in tradition that guides are written out for everyone to see, not only the registered users that can access the link, while non regitered users cant see it. I hope none of the Higher tier people get mad at me for this, 1) i dont expect anyone to read this whole thing. Except maybe the new GMs that want to enter WoW as a true pro. 2) Thank you to seethezorz that constantly reminded me to keep writing this thing. 3) Thank you to the people that added on/edited some parts of the guide. Because no human is perfect, and i can tell you now, there are many parts that i do not know. Send me a PM or post at the end of these threads And i shall edit that part out with your name on it =P (and rep you for it too) Please keep in mind, all these commands are for acent/antrix only! the rest of the guide can be converted with a little tight fit, but doable. Each subject has been separated into it's own post so that you can find the stuff you need faster. And this time, you WILL be using the table of context =P Table of context: ->What to expect as a GM ->Tickets, and how best to do them ->Macros for GMs ->Fully Detailed GM command List (Part 1) ->Fully Detailed GM command list (part 2) ->.GO objects and how to master them ->How to catch a hacker ->How to hunt, trap and skin a scamer. Alive. ->Waypoints ->How to create a custom Dungeon ->Formation Links, Exposed! ->Running Smooth event ->GM guilds, how to create, manage, and keep balance. Misc (Not needed, but it can help your server, yourself, and make your PvP players happy) ->better ways to create a movie with GM powers ->How to make a good resum? for a GM application ->Tier Twink, level 19, and level 29 vendors for events I have finnsihed posting everything now, all thats left is to check the nomad mis-spelled words that eluded my eye. And change the color, and add pics, and all the other crap =P Also, im OK if you post this guide in another web site, so long as you state its me and a link to the original =D What to expect as a GM -By Skype New to GMing? you have come to the right spot. Vet to GMing and want to learn a few more complex tricks? you also have come to the right spot. However scroll down to another guide if you a Vet =P, since this first part will bore you. This will explain to you the real things that being a Gm will bring. it's not all powerful, its not The best way to play wow for the fun of it, and it will strip a lot from you. Now, If your reading this part of the GM compendium, that means your not yet a GM but are interested in becoming one for a populated server. With this you can think over your decision to be a GM. Keep in mind, out of 100 players, 1 Gm will be chosen. And that one GM will have to cater for that 99 players. So get ready, this might not be all fun and games =P -You will have to devote every second of your gametime to helping players. Your not playing WoW to have fun anymore, your playing it to help others. This is important to know. When you come back from a hard day at work, you wont sink into your chair to play and raid, you will be sinking into your chair to work again, and for no pay, other then thanks and respect from the players. -You will face many who call you out, get angry with you, or are just plain rude to you. Its important to try and make as least enemies as possible if you are a GM. your role is to help people, not annoy them or defend yourself. If they insult you, move on. Ignoration is key. And if you serve everyone's ticket with fairness, and to the best of your abilities, usually people wont get mad at you. Although the donors might give you problems, since you have to check them over to see if they are not scamming you. You lost your right to opinion when you became a GM, you must judge people for exactly what you see, not what you think you see. -Everyone will assume that your god and can fix anything. If you cant do something, tell them that it's beyond the power given to you. Dont tell them that you wont do it, tell them the truth, that you can't do it. This will avoid a lot of hard feelings against you if you explain to people that you cant solve their particular problem and the reason why. -You will deal with dumb tickets. Get ready for the "jimmy called my character fat! can you give him a ban!!!" Bring on the phony smile and blizz like canned answer. -You will deal with drama. From the player's point of view, its a soap opera. From the GM's point of view, its a nightmare. Almost all servers will have some drama, or something that is currently happening. it will be your job to appear calm and in control. They will watch, and exactly how players treat the Blizzard GMs whenever they appear human, they will flame you as well. So if you call out the admin on the forums, expect both the admin to be angry at you, and the players to gossip about it to the max. Do one mistake and a screen shots will fly around the forum. -You will be begged gold/levels/gear/GM powers/GOD LIKE POWERS!!!/grey and humorus items. Know what you can give, and what you cant. personally, every time a player begs me for something, i give them an empty wallet, or a pet rock. until they figure it out =P And there will be some that whisper you asking to be GMs. Just politely say that you have no authority on that, nor can you give recommendations. -Know that your command over the GM powers is critical in being a good GM. You WILL have to know them by heart, or will be forced to =P If you dont know most by heart, you can still survive, at a somewhat less practical effective use. Find the part of this compendium that has the detailed GM commands for reference and use them for now. Keep in mind, you will start to learn most commands by heart just by simply being forced to use them in situations. -Know that you can be replaced. There are hundreds of silent players, each of them fighting for GM powers, and many of them might be even better then you are, should they get the chance to prove it. Dont give them that chance. If you work hard, and everyday, no one will complain about your effectiveness and you wont lose your post. -Know that most of the server will know your name. Wear it with pride. -Know that you will have to be able to type fast. really really fast. Trust me. -Know that you must have good social skills. make enemies with none, friends with all. Bribing wont win you friends, just exploiters. If you serve everyone's tickets as they want it to be, you wont have problems with having people talk about you =P. If you give powers and items to a group of people, you will have a cult following you around that will stab your back at any chance they get to get more stuff. I have seen Corrupt GMs like this, and they have all been downed simply because they refused to give ultimate power when their gang asked them for, and they turned on him and sank him to the bottom of the sea. And even worst when he does give ultimate power like death hand, and when I come to patrol and nerf them they point their grubby figures right at him. Dont get sucked into this like a lot of GMs have. Keep it professional. -Know that you will have a few break times, when there are no tickets, so you will get to play around with your powers, but do not let yourself make too many breaks, else your efficiency will drop. And keep an eye on what you wreak. Clean up NPCs that you spawn, and dont keep a messy server. -Know that you will have to deal with hackers, exploiters, liars, and thieves (Donor item frauds too.) So start on a strong foot, and dont let them get the better of you. if you show mercy now, you will set a rep of benediction and hackers will run rampant while you are on. But keep in mind, it's better to have 3 hackers out there, then to ban someone that was simply bugged and was trying to get rid of it. Deal with exploiters of bugs however you wish, weather they apply to hackers, or to a diffrent class, is up to your server rules. -Know that you will have to know every one of your server's rules. And enforce it. You will be the judge, and the defendant will only have his side of it. Make fair choices, but do not go soft on every one you find. Keep in mind, every case will always be to the hacker's side, since usually it comes down to his word vs a witness's and the witness might just be trying to get him banned for personal reasons. -Know that there will be hard times, and some times when you would love to be a player, a normal player. That means you will have a lot of stress on this job. can you handle stress well? If no, dont bother to read the rest of this Compendium, your not GM material, if you break rather then bend. If you are ready for all of these, then you are GM material. Look over yourself and honestly judge yourself. It's all right if you miss a few of these points, but keep in mind, if you miss more then 3, consider staying a player for now. If you think you are ready, then, dear reader, Read on, and become a GM pro before typing your first command. =P How to do tickets as a new GM by Skype. This part of the compendium is aimed at the new GMs that need help figuring out tickets. And vet GMs getting more tips on this subject. No fore speech this time =P Lets jump into this already. Tickets are exactly as everyone expects, Annoying, zerglike if ignored for more then 5 minutes, and above all, Frustrating. Your first few tickets are usually great! its awesome to help people, But then as the novelty gets old, you quickly feel bogged down, and sometimes may be tempted to ignore tickets and claim to be on a break. Here is a guide to finishing tickets quick, well done, and above else, less time consuming. Settling a main base = not effective. Dont take your time and make yourself a neat little spot to ticket at. its ineffective, Takes time that you could be doing tickets, and often makes people want to stay and watch you do tickets then screw you up some way or another xD Instead, your main base can be made on your own spare time. Find a spot thats isolated, Make a portal to Shatrath, and Add a recall there. Thats all you need for a base. When answering tickets, Always try to .appear to the ticketeer. This will be more polite then to yank him with a summon when he is not ready. Also, if your the more diligent GM, that whispers before summoning, This will also help you, because it will eliminate the need to whisper in order to find out weather he is AFK or not. Appear to him, if he is not moving, leave him a message with the /s. He can scroll up after. And them move on to the next. If you meet a guy stuck somewhere, or falling off, or dead somewhere where he cant rez, it would be incredibly stupid to appear to him. Hence why you made that scratchy mini base with a port and a recall. Go to that place VIA recall, summon the man, and revive him if he/she is dead. Move on to the next ticket, and rest at peace you dont need to tell him to take the portal to shat, he can figure it out on his own =P If you have your GM tag up, you will see ghosts so select him when he appears and .revive him, or if you cant target him, summon him and type ".reviveplr " This will already speed up your tickets speed by a LOT. You would be amazed at how much time is lost setting up a good base, and summoning players and tendering to them and pointing them in the right direction out. Whispers are your friends. You can multi-task with whispers. Any tickets that you think you can deal with VIA whisper, do so. (that means the dumb questions and ban requests like "Jim called my character fat! can you talk to him Pl0x?") If you are a GM, you will have mastered the art of Talking to 10 people at the same time. So, use your skills and While doing a ticket that requires you to be present, finish another that doesn't. Talking about the art of a GM, the true power of a GM is only partly how many commands he knows, and the use of them; its mostly how good he is with people. First thing is first: training. The best way to develop the art of multi-whispering, is to keep your GM tag, OFF. Yes, i said OFF. You will be flooded, zerged, and maybe tea-baged in whispers, but if your going to work in the kitchen, learn to use a knife, no matter how many cuts it does to you. Eventually, you will come to realize the gift that being able to speak with 10 people at the same time truly is. No longer will you need to type that complex command to allow whisper and block it, or many other stuff. learning this skill, is what makes a legendary GM from a great GM. with this, everyone who needs help immediately, will be able to contact you. However, should someone whisper something dumb to you, or start idle chat while you work, Warn him immediately. the last thing you want is to have senseless chat. Create your own channel. I have heard from some GMs they enjoy this, personally, i use the regular local server channel. however, i see how it could help you, if you would rather keep your GM tag up, but not deny the people that need to contact you immediately. Beware of the people that say they want to help as much as they can, while they are players themselves, usually their call is like this "If you need help, type in /join help! and i will try to help you as best as possible, Im NOT a Gm (yet) but i can still try my best ^_^" Sounds innocent enough right? Just someone devoted to helping people. Well dont be fooled. They are doing this to act. You cant help someone as a player, you can grind for them/tell them directions/be nice to them/give gold, but you can't fix them the way a Gm can. They are doing it for show. Look up the word "paresis" Also, there is a saying "Never give power to the ones that crave it" It would fit well here. This applies to people on the forums as well. People that continually try to get GM by either subtle words, or outright "Im a good GM, make me one" are people you have to keep an eye on. They are power-hungry and that will only lead down a bad path. If you are looking for a good GM, ignore these attention seekers, look for the quiet players that comment on the world channel often with help and directions for lost noobs who ask for help. If they are nice enough to do this, and dont go looking for attention as the "Look at me, im so great, gimmi GM now Pl0x!" people. The silent players that help usually go without notice, and they dident want notice in the first place. They only wanted to help someone, and that is what a GM is for. Dont give Gm to the people that want GM, give it to the people that Help others without asking for anything else other then to know they helped a guy. Give Gm to the players that are naturaly helpful, not the ones that run around just to get attention. Prioritize. Wait time does not matter at all. If a guy waited for 1 hour, he can wait a few more moments. Dont serve tickets on the time spent, serve them on need. If someone is dead and has no way out, and has waited 20 minutes. and another has been waiting 2 hours to get a donation set, Do the guy that is stuck. He can't do anything at all, while the guy that is waiting for donations can still play WoW normally. Doing this will not affect your ticket completion speed, But your quality. Test yourself. Fight against your own time. After each ticket, record the time it took to finish that one, and its quality, on a scale of 1/10. Either ask your ticketeer what he thought the service was (Usually either a 1, or a 10. Chances are very slim for a number in between =P) Or judge yourself. Honestly. At the end of the day, add up your total ticket time, and divide by the number of tickets you have done to find the average time it takes to do a ticket, then do the same with your quality numbers and find the average quality your tickets are. The next day, try to beat yesterday's score. That's all you need to get started right away! This guide was made assuming that you already know how to connect to the GM_Sync_channel and have the addon to boot. Good luck with your tickets! Macros for GMs by Skype These macros were the ones i made and fixed through time as i was a GM on diffrent servers. They usually deal with the major problem in all classes, and are generally cure alls for most problems. Each of them will have this format: Simply select the entire macro, copy it, start WoW, and add it in. It worked great for me and can probably solve most of your problems. They were advanced through time (i added spells in every time a player missed them, and they were not in my macro), so most of them cover almost any missing spells. Druids: Bear form Walrus form cat form Travel form Dire bear form Swift Flight form Prowl /s .learn 5487 /s .learn 1066 /s .learn 768 /s .learn 783 /s .learn 9634 /s .learn 40120 /s .learn 9913 Mages Conjure water Conjure food Invisiblility Portal to shatrath (( other portals were not included because of the factions shatrath has ports to everywhere too) /s .learn 27090 /s .learn 33717 /s .learn 66 /s .learn 35717 Warriors Defencive stance Bezerker stance Intersept Commanding shout Spell Reflection Intervene Dual wield (make sure he logsout for the effect.) /s .learn 71 /s .learn 2458 /s .learn 25275 /s .learn 469 /s .learn 23920 /s .learn 3411 /s .learn 674 Rouges Dual weild Vanish Stealth Shiv Deadly posion Instant poison Crippling posion /s .learn 674 /s .learn 26889 /s .learn 1787 /s .learn 5938 /s .learn 27282 /s .learn 26892 /s .learn 3421 Shammans Earth totem Fire totem water totem air totem /s .additem 5175 /s .additem 5176 /s .additem 5177 /s .additem 5178 Paladins Redemption Frost resistance aura Devotion aura Rettibution aura Crusader aura Fire resistence aura /s .learn 20773 /s .learn 27152 /s .learn 27149 /s .learn 27150 /s .learn 32223 /s .learn 19900 hunters call pet tame beast feed pet Dismiss pet /s .learn 883 /s .learn 1515 /s .learn 6991 /s .learn 2641 Preist Shadow word death Prayer of spirit Prayer of shadow protection power word fortitude power word sheild /s .learn 32996 /s .learn 32999 /s .learn 39374 /s .learn 25389 /s .learn 25218 Warlocks Ritual of summoning Voidwalker imp Felhunter felguard Infernal Felsteed /s .learn 698 /s .learn 697 /s .learn 688 /s .learn 691 /s .learn 30146 /s .learn 1122 /s .learn 5784 Detailed list of commands. -by skype This is the unltimate part of this thread. it's the part that took weeks to make. While there are 100 lists of "GM commands omgwtfBBQsaus!" ALL of them are ripoffs from Thread to thread. i believe the original makers of the GM list were the people who created acent. They failed to include how to use each command however, perhaps due to the scale of work they would have to do. Who could blame them? But it's about time someone stood up, and took the time to add detail to every command, how to use it, what it's for, and when best to use it. This part was my hardest, and possibly my best piece of work, so i would go to the ends of the world hunting people who copy this and state it's their own work. You have been warned. With that said lets start. The setup is easy. the command will be within the "" under is is a definition of what it does, and how to type it in, and it's use. Keep in mind, only 2 reliable channels excist where Commands can be typed in. the /say channel, and the /guild channel. So if you are dead and cannot speak, the /guild will be where you can input your commands. /p and maybe special channels work as well, but only on some servers. Others wont allow it. Universaly /s and /g are the ones to use. other channels excist but it depends on the server you are, weather they work or not. Also, there are 2 diffrent ways to use the commands. I use the '.' mostly, but the '!' can work just as well. So for example, If you type ".cheat fly" the same effect would happen if you had typed "!cheat fly". I know i have not included every single Command known to man, and for simple reasons, i will be adding them on as we go along. However my priority is to teach new GMs what they need to know to be a good GM, and if they learn all the commands listed here, they will be greater GMs already. Pictures, and updating the guide on other parts comes first before the more shadowy commands are exposed. They will each require more time then i have already given. Once the entire compendium is set up, i will return here and compleat this part with the more detailed commands. Blue means that the name here will always remain the same. Orange means it will be something that is changeable, and not fixed. Any other color means the same as above, only to show difference. =P ---->General Commands <---- These commands have no main category, They are the nomads of the command list. They are used quite a bit however, thus they make it on the basic list part of this compedium. ".commands" This will just give you a small menu on most of the commands, they will appear on your chat log. ".help " This will give more info on the command you add. However Some of the commands will give you a "no detail added" answer or something like that, so dont rely on this one too mcuh. after all you do have the compedium to answer your questions =P ".announce " Commonly used by everyone, this one is notherless a vital command to know. To use it, type ".announce Hello this is a general announcement to state that Skype rocks." For that example, A serverwide text will appear on the chat log, saying "Hello this is a general announcment to state that Skype rocks." The "announce" part will be dropped so no worries about that. Any text you add in the will be what will be announced. ".wannounce " This is the raid warning version of the server. Instead of having a quiet announcement on the chat log, this will appear only on the player's screen. Dont count on it much, because this fits in the floating combat part of the players. So if someone is fighting, the Announcement you made, will dissapear faster then they players can read them, and be replaced by damage numbers. It is uses the same way the ".announce" command was used. except with a 'W' at the beggining. ".appear " Used a lot in tickets, this will Both teleport you to the player that has . It will send him a small message saying "GM 'You' is appearing to your location" If you are invisible, this message will not appear, allowing you to stalk people. To use this command, type ".appear Skype" for example. If i was in-game and on your server, you whould appear to me. ".appear loladin" for example, whould make you appear to the player named "Loladin" Keep in mind, sometime there will be no loading screen to look at when you use this command, so if your screen freezes, wait a bit, since what the game is really doing is loading the setting that you teleported to. ".serverrestart