New Silence Penalty Coming to World of Warcraft

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New Silence Penalty Coming to World of Warcraft
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
World of Warcraft offers many opportunities to engage with other players in a variety of ways and to help support positive experiences in these engagements we wanted to inform you of a new silence penalty we will be implementing with the pre-expansion patch for Legion. Depending on the type of report, players who are found to be abusive in chat or engage in inappropriate chat behaviors may be silenced from engaging in certain ways within the game.

The Silence Penalty
Following the Legion pre-expansion, any player who is reported multiple times under the Spam or Abusive Chat categories will, after investigation, receive an account-wide silence penalty. While this penalty is active, the silenced player will find that their ability to chat with others is greatly limited.

Silenced Players Are Unable 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

Silenced Players Are Able to:
  • Whisper to friends (both WoW friends and Battle.net Friends)
  • Reply to Whispers from Non-friends
  • Party/Raid Chat (with Invited Players)
  • Create Parties and Raids
  • Talk in Global Channels that have a moderator
  • Share Quests
  • Sign up for a pre-made group

The first time a player is silenced, their chat will be restricted for 24 hours. This duration will double for each silence penalty received after the first, and there is no maximum. This means that players who receive multiple silence penalties may find themselves unable to chat for a very, very long time.

Silenced players will be receiving a notification when attempting to send a message to a channel in which they have been restricted.

By using the in-game report tool to identify players who may be engaging in inappropriate interactions within the various channels, you’ll be helping create the type of community we all want to take part in.
This article was originally published in forum thread: New Silence Penalty Coming to World of Warcraft started by chaud View original post
Published on 2016-07-12 02:03 PM
676 Comments
Comments 672 Comments
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zephirdd View Post
    the same way you know they don't half-ass botting reports or other types of reports that already happen?

    This is literally the same system implemented on Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft2 and Overwatch. After a high amount of reports(the threshold is probably higher for Wow due to the nature of the game), a GM will review the reports and judge wether or not the player deserves the silence. Then the player will feel like they don't deserve and hilarity ensues
    Oh there is someone on this site who does. I won't name because you know it's not on but always tries to sneak it in even in threads not related to being banned.
  1. mmoc66337a3447's Avatar
    0123456789
  1. ElDoorO's Avatar
    Good starting step. Now can we get a 21+ only server so adults can do adult things and not have to worry about whiny children? Or adult children can go to kids servers?
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by De Lupe View Post
    Vile, angry players will be penalized and polite, cooperative players will be rewarded.

    This pleases me! ^_^
    Indeed! Good change, and will hopefully make people think twice before they spew their bile.
  1. Paula Deen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Soulwind View Post
    It's the punishment that's getting changed, in favour of the punished, if anything.
    Which is why it will be worse.

    The first offensive is only 24 Hours. 24 Hours and Under cannot realistically be appealed. This creates an environment where people cannot defend themselves from false accusations. Your personal experience with the system doesn't matter. People OTHER THAN ME have said in this thread they have been suspended for outlandish reasons. This system is going to put more strain on an already understaffed GM Department and we are going to see appeals taking upwards of 3 days to get a response and a lot more automated responses (read: the GM refuses to do his job because of how many tickets he has to get through) due to this.
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ElDoorO View Post
    Good starting step. Now can we get a 21+ only server so adults can do adult things and not have to worry about whiny children? Or adult children can go to kids servers?
    No because then the game would have to be rated 18+. It is a game designed for teenagers get over it. Just because you implement a server that only adults can access does not mean the age rating of the game can be kept the same.
  1. De Lupe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by celinamuna View Post
    Ofc a brony would post that.
    That would imply that I've had problems.

    The ignore list has always been sufficient for me as I mentally ignore most of the annoying people while I rarely use the actual ignore feature.

    But anything that encourages COOPERATION and not SEPARATION in an MMORPG is a good thing.

    Have a nice day.
  1. Static's Avatar
    This is a very good change, especially for servers with lots of horrible people that spew nothing but racism and homophobia in chat channels.
  1. ls-'s Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ElDoorO View Post
    Good starting step. Now can we get a 21+ only server so adults can do adult things and not have to worry about whiny children? Or adult children can go to kids servers?
    You're delusional, if you think that adults can't be toxic/trolls
  1. mmoc64a56cce3c's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lunazul The Druid View Post
    Noooo that can't be abused at all. Lmao they'd better hire more gamemasters or what ever section deals with the 'investigations'.
    It's a 24 hour chat ban, doubling every time.

    If you are the one guy who improperly gets silenced, it's what? 24 hours of inconvenience? We're not talking about a permaban. We're not talking about capital punishment.

    The system would have to be completely and utterly fucked for you to get banned enough times for it to cause a big issue for your account. And if it's THAT fucked, there will be a huge backlash. Unless you're the type of guy who gets hit by lightning 3 times then drops his lottery ticket down a sewer, you won't be falsely banned enough times for it to ever be a problem.
  1. Rotted's Avatar
    I think its good, but I think the only unrestricted bit they should have is access real id chat,
  1. Paula Deen's Avatar
    Also, I feel like I should ask, what exactly is the definition of abusive chat? No Support Article even mentions the word in that instance and the specific blog post about it today doesn't either.

    What is abusive chat?

    Is it me calling someone a racist name?
    Is it me telling someone they are playing there class wrong?
    Is it me making a joke in LFG?
    It it me making a joke in Trade?
    Is it all of the above?

    What is Abusive Chat?
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ElDoorO View Post
    Good starting step. Now can we get a 21+ only server so adults can do adult things and not have to worry about whiny children? Or adult children can go to kids servers?
    Considering "adults" are overrepresented, this would probably not make even a fraction of difference... Going by statistics, whenever you encounter a shithead in wow, chances are it's a male over the age of 21.

    http://www.statista.com/statistics/3...w-players-age/
  1. Soulwind's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    Which is why it will be worse.

    The first offensive is only 24 Hours. 24 Hours and Under cannot realistically be appealed. This creates an environment where people cannot defend themselves from false accusations. Your personal experience with the system doesn't matter. People OTHER THAN ME have said in this thread they have been suspended for outlandish reasons. This system is going to put more strain on an already understaffed GM Department and we are going to see appeals taking upwards of 3 days to get a response and a lot more automated responses (read: the GM refuses to do his job because of how many tickets he has to get through) due to this.
    You still haven't provided a reason as to why trolls would feel more powerful with this than they do with the current report tool, which isn't getting changed.

    Currently, Right click -> Report for spam may get someone banned. I don't see why silencing them would be more appealing than that.
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    Also, I feel like I should ask, what exactly is the definition of abusive chat? No Support Article even mentions the word in that instance and the specific blog post about it today doesn't either.

    What is abusive chat?

    Is it me calling someone a racist name?
    Is it me telling someone they are playing there class wrong?
    Is it me making a joke in LFG?
    It it me making a joke in Trade?
    Is it all of the above?

    What is Abusive Chat?
    Probably saying something mean about the game and hurting all the fanboys feelings. Or valid criticism.
  1. Triggered Fridgekin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ElDoorO View Post
    Good starting step. Now can we get a 21+ only server so adults can do adult things and not have to worry about whiny children? Or adult children can go to kids servers?
    I'd dare argue that many of the toxic players aren't limited to being teenagers. Anonymity can turn the average man regardless of age in to a real turd sandwich.
  1. Pruke's Avatar
    I love the conspiracy theories on how it will be abused before it even goes live.
  1. jibberbox85's Avatar
    If Blizzard has this moderated and actually keeps up with all the reports (With a full investigation) and to make sure the reports are legit (Before the person gets silenced) then it could possibly work.


    Also, If I was Blizzard I would make a statement that by making false claims there could be possible repercussions. ( I would also require that the person who's making the report to tell why they're making the report and provide some detail. (It can't be something like, "I didn't like what X person had to say." )
  1. mmocafdb201d91's Avatar
    This can backfire so badly. I can see troll groups forming just to silence some people over and over again and thus making them unable to play the game. I'm sure once the amount of "things to investigate" will grow to certain threshold blizzard will silence player in more liberal way letting this happen and people being silenced for years.

    This is not a solution to abuse but opening doors for even more abuse.
  1. Aggrophobic's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ryken View Post
    They say upon review, so there will be a human element checking out if the numerous reports are valid, so no abuse.
    It's not likely that they will check up everyone that gets enough reports. I really doubt Blizzard has the manpower to do so.

    With the way Legion is designed you'll also have a lot more people being pissed at each other and sending in reports so we'll see people being silenced for no good reason, for sure.
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