Console

Console is a function of World of Warcraft game engine that allows access to an in-game console.

The console is turned off by default for gamers; however, it can be activated by adding "-console" to World of Warcraft command line. Once the console feature is activated, the gamer can access it by pressing the ` (grave accent or "backtick", not apostrophe) key while in game. The console allow players to change game client settings by hand, such as those related to graphics and sound. However, most of those functions are readily available via the game menus.

In addition, the console also allow access to a Game Master commands as demonstrated in videos from E3 and Blizzcon. However, those functions would report permission denied when evoked by gamers.

The default key to toggle the console ("`") can be remapped using the Lua API SetConsoleKey. For a list of console commands/variables see Console variables.

Running the client with the -console flag enabled

There are a few ways to run the client with the -console flag enabled:

Use the "Run..." dialog

1. Press and hold the [Windows Key] then press R. This will open the "Run..." dialog.
2. Click "Browse..."
3. Browse for the Wow.exe file in the WoW folder (wherever that might be). After picking the Wow.exe file, the contents of the box will be something like this, "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe" or "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe".
4. Leave the quotation marks there if they are there and add -console after the trailing quotation mark (if there are no quotation marks, just add it at the end). The contents of the box will now look like this, "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe" -console or "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe" -console.
5. Click "OK".

Use the command window

1. Navigate to the WoW folder. The fastest way to get there is to right-click the WoW shortcut and click "Open file location" (Windows Vista or 7) or click "Properties" then "Find target."
2. With the mouse pointer pointing at an empty spot in the folder, press and hold [Shift] then right-click to open the context menu, and click "Open command window here".
3. When the window opens, type wow -console and press [Enter].

Edit the existing shortcut

1. Right-click the WoW shortcut and click "Properties".
2. In the "Target" box, add -console while preserving any quotation marks that may be there. This must be placed after the quotation mark.
3. Click "OK".

• Don't forget to change it back — if you have anything bound to "~" or "`", you won't be able to use them until you do.

External links

• An E3 Interview showing a Blizzard developer using console commands (about the 5 minute mark, besides others)