Spamming voice lines in Overwatch could get you silenced

By Sherif Saed

Blizzard has clarified that if a player uses the Overwatch in-game voice lines excessively, an action will be taken against their account.

This kicked off a bit of a debate when one Overwatch player on PS4 complained that he was silenced (meaning he wasn’t able to use voice chat) for three times, despite not using a mic on the third time to begin with.

Principal designer Scott Mercer chimed in to explain that the player in question was reported for abusive chat when he did use a mic, and that he was also reported when he didn’t use it for poor teamwork or griefing. However, based on the comments submitted by others who reported him, it seems spamming voice lines was the reason he got silenced.

Needles to say, different people took this revelation in different ways. Some didn’t believe an innocent act such as spamming in-game voice lines could result in a penalty. “Any form of hateful, discriminatory, obscene, or disruptive communications. Threatening or harassing another player on either team is also unacceptable, regardless of the words used,” Mercer explained.

“So YES [emphasis his], if you spam character voice lines in a way that is either disruptive or would be considered harassment, then you could be actioned.”

It’s a bit disappointing to see players using a fun feature such as in-game voice commands and fluff lines to grief others. Regardless, it’s something players will need to watch out for – especially those without mics.