Launching with the Legion expansion pre-update later this month, World of Warcraft‘s new silence penalty is designed to let players engaging in abusive or inappropriate chat dig their own incredibly quiet, ever-expanding grave.
Here’s how it works. A player is reported for abusive or inappropriate chat activity, be it in trade, area, party chat or private messages. Blizzard investigates the report, and should they find it actionable, the offending player will be silenced for a period of 24 hours. According to the Blizzard news post, that means they will not be able to:
- Talk in Instance Chat (Raid, Party and Battlegrounds)
- Talk in global channels that are auto joined (such as General or Trade)
- Create Calendar Invites/Events
- Send in-game mail
- Send Party Invitations
- Send War Game Invitations
- Send Invitations to Duel
- Update a Premade Group Listing
- Create a New List for a Premade Group
Players will still be able to sign up for premade groups and chat with their game and Battle.net friends in private. They can create parties and raids and chat with the players they invite. They just can’t do much else.
The first time a player is silenced will last 24 hours. Each additional infraction doubles the time period — and there is no limit. Habitually offensive and abusive players will eventually just fade away into sweet, sweet silence.
Comments
12 responses to “World Of Warcraft’s New Penalty Will Silence The Abusive And Obnoxious”
BAHAHAHAHA! Now that’s thinking out of the box! Kudos to Blizzard.
Oh, yay. More filters to destroy the one thing that made the game great in the first place: the community. That’s not the world[of Warcraft] I want to live in.
You want to play with abusive players/trolls? o.0 You should jump onto Dota 2 then 🙂
I’m more for acknowledging that there’s good and toxic parts of the community, but both of them are what make the game fun at times. Sure, I never liked it when a hunter pulled a room full of mobs when salty, but sometimes i do have a laugh and just accept it.
I don’t know, you have the embrace the community for what it is, not keep limiting it. I log into WoW now and no-one talks in raids or even general chat, unless it is if they need something. Log into a private server and it’s just magical – chat is almost a mini-game.
I hear you on the sentiment; groups are basically silent aside from the occassional grunt or rage when one player stands in fire. But I think this is a symptom of Blizz making content so overly accessible that communication and co-ordination just aren’t required anymore. Outside of a guild group that runs raids people just don’t have the need to work together; and without the need people will avoid each other like the plague. Cos let’s face it…. people online suck.
It’s part of why I loved games like Dayz (RIP): people want to hurt you and take your things. But that was just how things were, and at least there was an abundance of people making that clear and having a good time doing it. Hell, I don’t care if we’ve been running around together for the past 4 hours bonding and forming a personal connection – beans are beans.
Dota 2, though. That’s truly the pit of despair.
Wow, it’s true, people will bitch about anything.
What filters? This is a punishment intended to stop people being abusive in chat, the old punishment for this was a suspension. And how is being abusive on trade chat “one thing that made the game great in the first place”, exactly?
Barrens chat was a hellhole.
Crossroads was the highlight of leveling!
I support this in principle, but I hope they aren’t overzealous with applying it. Could easily have a chilling effect on socialising in a game that’s already designed-out a lot of social interaction.
australian normal talk is seen as derogatory from the rest of the world tho… bloody hell
Hahaha oh man I’d get silenced so quick.
Coming from a top 200 i’m sure you can imagine the nervous eye twitching in lfr/lfd.