Unfriendly and abusive players will be a thing of the past in "Heroes of the Storm" as Blizzard Entertainment had recently introduced the new reporting options and silence penalty. The newest game patch that will be released on the massive online battle arena (MOBA) game aims to limit, if not eliminate, unruly behavior among players who put a damper on everyone else's fun.
The newest blog entry in the "Heroes of the Storm" website described the different reporting choices that will be included in the next patch, according to Polygon. The purpose of these updates is to restrict behavior which "can lower team morale, and ruin an otherwise fun experience for everyone else," Blizzard explained.
The update enumerated the categories under misconduct types, which include: Abusive Chat, Cheating/Botting/Hacking, and Spam, and so on. Guidelines were also provided, so as to promote the most acceptable practices for the recent feature. The previous Harassment category was replaced with Abusive Chat in this new "Heroes of the Storm" patch. Blizzard said that undesirable chat messages have many forms, and this section covers a larger spectrum of cases than Harassment.
The Silence Penalty is related to Abusive Chat, in that those who are flagged numerous times for either spamming or annoying other gamers will be restricted to some chat options as a result. Custom or general chat channels will not be available to those players who have silenced. Whispers cannot be sent to persons not on their friend's list. They have the option, however, to employ part chat and participate in new parties.
Digital Trends had likewise enumerated these "Heroes of the Storm" categories and behaviors which qualify into those groups:
An abusive chat covers insults, cruelty, or ongoing harassment aimed at one or multiple players. Speech with hate slur, or players who tackle real-life threats will be penalized. Those who intentionally and repeatedly get their hero killed to provoke allies or feed XP to the enemy team will be called as well. Spamming is a no-no, like, blatantly or repeatedly advertising for third-party websites and excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure nonsense. Players who are using third-party software or are hacking programs to gain an advantage during a game will be apprehended.
As to players who are worried about these new guidelines for misbehavior in "Heroes of the Storm" game, according to a report in Co-Optimus, players can be assured that one wrongdoing will not get a penalty right away without further investigation. Those who see their "Allies" lacking in ability and are reported will also be probed. Blizzard assures everyone that these new "Heroes of the Storm" reporting tools will not be abused as well.
Blizzard had made some points here, by coming up with these new reporting and silence penalty options for "Heroes of the Storm". MOBA games are sometimes breeding grounds for these misbehaviors and tactlessness, and even though it's a play arena, these should be addressed as well. Whether players are having their bad day or game, they should not incline their frustrations to other players. Misconduct should have no place in a game, just pure, clean fun, that is.
Join the Conversation