Blizzard Adds Silence Penalty To Prevent World of Warcraft Chat Spam

Jul 13, 2016 10:00 EDT

World of Warcraft: Legion is approaching fast with its August 30 release date. As usual with the MMO's expansions, though, a pre-expansion patch will be released much earlier and Blizzard detailed one of the changes with a dedicated blog post.

Specifically, they will try to clamp down on the growing chat spam by introducing a silence penalty. It all starts with a player report, as expected, and depending on the report type the account might be restricted in the following ways (after investigation).

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 penalty will last for 24 hours on the first strike. The duration will double for each subsequent penalty, with no maximum limit; as a result, spammers might find themselves restricted for a really long time.

World of Warcraft: Legion is the sixth expansion to be released by Blizzard. It will raise the level cap from 100 to 110, adding the Demon Hunter class in the process; players will find ten dungeons and two raids at launch.