Blizzard Will Silence You in WoW if You're an Annoying Jerk in Chat

Blizzard Entertainment today announced new measures it will take against World of Warcraft players who abuse the game's chat system. This has been given a really great name, "The Silence Penalty," and it comes with some serious ramifications.

As part of it, any player reported multiple times under the "Spam" or "Abusive Chat" categories will have their entire account silenced. This will only happen, however, after an investigation on Blizzard's part.

The Silence Penalty does not completely silence a player, as they can still "whisper" to World of Warcraft and Battle.net friends and reply to whispers from non-friends, among other things. When under the penalty, players cannot send in-game mail or party invitations, or talk in any instance chats or global channels.

You can see a breakdown of what silenced players can and cannot do in the chart below, which was compiled by Blizzard.

When a player is silenced for the first time, the chat restrictions last for 24 hours. With each subsequent penalty received, the duration will double--and there is no cap.

Silenced Players Are Unable to:	Silenced Players Are 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	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 Silence Penalty feature will come to World of Warcraft through an upcoming pre-Legion patch. Though exact timing was not announced, Legion is due out on August 30, so it would be sometime before then.

For more on Legion, check out some pages from an upcoming comic book.