World of Warcraft can Finally Mute Jerks

Wow, Blizzard sure has been busy as of late, huh? I guess we should call this a snow day or something.

Anyway! Like any massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft has its share of problems--namely, that "massive" part, as when you bring a diverse pool of people together, it's inevitable that they'll start talkin' doo-doo at each other, which makes things less fun for everyone. Fortunately, Blizzard has been hard at work on a potential cure for this toxicity and are happy to announce they're going to launch a new counter-measures against these angry trolls--namely, the oldest countermeasure ever devised, the forced mute.

Yep. Good work on that one, Blizzard, no one will ever see it coming. Anyway, it's pretty straightforward--you report someone who's saying something you don't like, or being obnoxious and crude in the process, and Blizzard will review the ticket. If they don't like what they see, the player will receive a 24-hour ban, so 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

They can still chat over Battle.net and sign up for pre-made groups, but that's pretty much it. Regardless, for being an exclusively 24-hour ban that has to be manually reviewed, Blizzard has opened itself up to a lot more work for a threat that's frankly not very threatening, but then, with the rate World of Warcraft is PROBABLY dying, maybe it's not that much work at all.

Either way. Grats. I guess. We'll have to see how well this works, although I'm willing to guess the answer is 'not well.'