Lord of the Rings Online auto-mute hits musicians right in the words

It’s great that Lord of the Rings Online has an active music scene for players, complete with player-organized bands and concerts. What’s not so great is that the game’s chat restrictions seem to be tailor-made to make life very difficult for those player bands, bordering on outright impossible. The most recent patch re-implemented chat restrictions, and now those same restrictions meant to halt spam or abusive behavior is now hitting some players working through lyrics.

Essentially, the game’s spam filter is currently set to catch repeated words and speed of messages submitted and auto-flag certain accounts as spamming, which places them under a temporary mute. However, when lyricists are belting things out in chat, often with repeated words for emphasis? It’s catching their lyrics as well. While the studio is offering help for players unintentionally gagged, there’s still a lag time in removing the restriction, and musically inclined players are quite worried about what this might mean if they get auto-gagged in the middle of concerts. A bit like watching a bee fly into someone’s mouth mid-song.