How to Use GM Powers to Modify Your Private WoW Server

If you've read my other articles, you now know how to create your own private World of Warcraft server, as well as how to make that server public and getting all of your other friends playing. Once you get a lot of people playing, you're going to need to automate several things, unless you want the server to be exactly blizzlike.

The easiest way to go about modifying the way the game is played is through the use of GM commands. If you've created the server, you probably already have these. I strongly recommend using the GM Helper addon, it's much easier and in a much more convenient interface than typing commands out all day. To get GMH, follow this link: http://www.arcemu.info/svn/branches/GMH/trunk/Zipped/GMHelper.rar

With the use of the GM helper, you can really do just about anything you want.

If you want to modify yourself, or NPC's such as vendors and mobs, click the mod button. Here, you can change things like the health (use 2 values) armor, energy, and even talent points. This is fun for changing stuff up a bit.

You can even spawn vendors, and other npc's. Say for example you wanted to summon a boss. Simply click the npc button on the gm addon interface, and search for the name of the boss. Then, once you are given the ID of the boss in the search results, type that into the box where you had your original search and hit spawn npc. Be careful, if it is hostile it will attack you immediately!

There are other fun commands, like .reviveplr .killplr .kill .summon .appear and so on. Try them all out and get

Of course, there are many other ways to change the content of your server. In the ArcEmu folder, there is a folder called "configs". This folder does exactly as most would guess-configures the game. You can change many different values here to change the content of the game. If you would like to change the experience rates, drop rates, explore rates, level cap, and so on, open the world text file with notepad and simply change the values in between the quotes. You might not understand now, but the developers of ArcEmu make it quite easily understandable even within the complex text files.

I would suggest making sure that as a GM, you do not abuse your power. If your server is low population, and you are a GM that constantly gives yourself overwhelming power, or kills other players, or toys with them in some other way, you are going to find yourself losing some players. Also, be sure to help other players, as that is what Game Moderators are really there for.

Fixing bugs will be a crucial part of your game moderation. Make sure that you read through tickets, if there are players that submit them. Some issues that often come up that game moderators can fix easily are issues like shamans missing their totems, warlocks unable to summon their minions, hunters unable to feed their pets, and so on. These can easily be fixed by you, the Game Moderator, and it is your job as GM to make sure that all players are satisfied in the game world.