RoarGuild Add-on: Overview

RoarGuild — characters are stories in motion

RoarGuild is a World of Warcraft character-expression and community addon. It connects three kinds of experience: action-button-driven emotes, welcoming recruitment language for the ROAR guild, and Roarboard, a peer-shared message board. The original creative description gives its center of gravity:

RoarGuild is not about optimization. It is about presence.

Characters are not loadouts. They are stories in motion. An ordinary action-bar press may produce a spontaneous emote without changing the player's intended action. Players can configure independent instances and emote selections, while rare global fallback roars and optional reminders add a little unpredictability.

Install

Place the committed roarguild.lua and roarguild.toc inside Interface/AddOns/roarguild/; restart the client and enable RoarGuild. The TOC loads roarguild.lua and declares the account-wide SavedVariables table ROGUDB.

The source targets 1.12-era Lua APIs but actual compatibility and coexistence with other UseAction wrappers have not been verified in this audit.

The action-triggered emote system (/rogu)

1. Type /rogu watch, press a button, and note its physical action-slot number; type /rogu watch again to hide slot reports.
2. Set up an instance such as /rogu slot1 13.
3. Change it with /rogu chance1 40 and /rogu timer1 10.
4. Add an available native WoW token with /rogu emote LAUGH, then run /rogu emote list to see its assigned ID.
5. Use /rogu emote1 <id> to include that ID in instance 1, or /rogu emote1 list to inspect the pool.

The number in slot1, chance1, timer1 and emote1 is the configuration instance ID, not the physical action-slot number. Multiple instances are supported; each has its own slot, chance, cd, last, and emoteIDs. Instances may share one physical slot and can then both attempt an emote from one press. Configuring an instance resets its cooldown gate.

The shared emote database starts with ROAR at ID 1. The instance's emote IDs refer to this account-wide list; instances, enabled state, fallback configuration and statistics are stored in a per-character profile under ROGUDB.profiles. The code normalizes invalid/empty selections to ID 1, but does not enforce that a previously customized valid ID-1 token must always remain ROAR.

Main commands

Timing: For configured instances, the cooldown timestamp advances before the chance roll, so a failed roll still consumes an interval. The separate global fallback defaults to 5/1000 = 0.5% per eligible press, with a 2-second throttle after a successful fallback only. It considers action-slot IDs 1–200 and may also act on configured buttons. The fallback does not run if the addon is disabled. The manual /rogu roar command deliberately always uses ROAR, independent of instance emote settings.

Other session behavior: After a successful emote, the addon may print “You have not roared in a while.” once 420 seconds have elapsed without another recorded emote, then throttles repeated reminders by 73 seconds, checking only on subsequent action presses. It also tracks per-character lifetime emote count and a rolling-hour rate, reporting on activity after an elapsed hour. These are emote events tracked by the addon, not combat or performance metrics.

Social and recruitment messages

/rogu invite chooses one of the curated, welcoming ROAR messages and sends it to a numeric channel index (default 1; inputs clamped to 1–10). The README historically called this “General,” but channel 1 is not verified to be General on every client/configuration. Check the channel before sending. This is an explicit command, not an automatic advertisement loop.

The messages emphasize exploration, shared stories, curiosity and respect rather than DPS, meters, or pressure. They represent the creator's guild-facing tone.

Roarboard: a shared message board

Roarboard was added in August 2026, providing a small in-game post list and reaction interaction:

Posts are retained in a local SavedVariables cache and pruned seven days after their last recorded activity. The board communicates using a normal custom WoW chat channel named roarboard and a simple RB1 text protocol; there is no external server or authenticated guild-only backend.

Important visibility and trust limitation: The channel is not checked against actual guild membership. Others able to join or send in the matching custom channel may potentially read or forge board messages, and each client keeps its own cache. Board content is not private guild storage, guaranteed delivery or a globally consistent database. This limitation should be considered before posting private guild information.

Historical scope

The January 2026 first version combined a ROARRunlimited-like emote system with a GodBod microexercise component and two slash commands. The later January 2026 versions removed GodBod, expanded the profile/emote/fallback/recruitment functionality and matured the standalone RoarGuild scope. Roarboard added a shared community layer in August. These steps are documented from commits, not an invented conversation.

The project has an existing MIT LICENSE credited to Babuni.dev. This documentation review did not modify Lua, TOC or license, perform client tests, or merge the related roar, roarr, ROARRunlimited, and WorkThatGodBod repositories.

Development documentation

• Creative concept · Interaction design · Content and tone
• Architecture and protocol · Decision record · Narrative journal
• Roadmap and verification · Changelog
• AI collaboration and attribution · Contributor instructions

Document information

Creator and project author: Babuni.dev
Current version: 1.33
Target declared by manifest: World of Warcraft 1.12 / interface 11200
Primary files: roarguild.lua, roarguild.toc
Verification status: Source and Git history inspected 2026-10-26; live-client behavior not retested.