Blizzard have announced that, as part of the pre-expansion patch, they will be implementing a new system for dealing with those who use various chat channels inappropriately:
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.
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