It’s a double-header of hot HotS news today. I’ve been wanting to type that play on words for approximately a billion years. Anyway, the official twitter account confirmed that Rexxar and his lovely bear will be entering the Nexus tomorrow, so look forward to him in every game you play for the next week. Wondering if he’s worth checking out? A spotlight video was released last week showing off his strengths.
Meanwhile Blizzard have announced some changes coming to the way you report and they punish misbehaving players, coming in “the next major patch” – that’s probably Wednesday, but could be further in the future. It’s focused around specifically preventing text abuse as well as clearing up the reporting process and redefining some elements. Here’s the full list of what you can tell people off for now:
Abusive Chat
- Insults, cruelty, or ongoing harassment directed at one or more players.
- Hate speech
- Real life threats
Intentionally Feeding
- Player intentionally and repeatedly gets their hero killed in order to anger allies or feed XP to the enemy team.
AFK/Non-Participation
- Player is idle or inactive for an extended period of time during a game.
- Player is present, but has given up or refuses to take part in the game.
Cheating/Botting/Hacking
- Suspicious behavior which indicates the player may be using third-party software or hack programs to gain an advantage during a game.
Inappropriate Name
- Character names or BattleTags that are offensive, insulting, bypass the mature language filter, or are otherwise considered objectionable.
Spam
- Excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure nonsense
- Blatant or repeated advertising for third party websites
If you’re punished for abusive chat, it’s possible you’ll be given the silence penalty. This prevents you from talking with anyone who isn’t in your party or on your friends list unless they directly message you first. It lasts for 24 hours, doubling every time you get a new one. You can’t even talk in team chat, which could be detrimental to your team, but it’s probably better than you hurling a mix of insults at them. You dick.
Your team mates will know why you’re giving them the silent treatment thanks to an added decal on your portrait, a speech bubble with “…” in it. Thankfully, you’ll now be able to report them if they take the piss out of you for it a little too hard. The system works.