This is a similar case we were doing AB in wow and losing and one of our group decided to start going on about it calling us noobs and saying stuff like that and i replied with " You know in this time setting most wars were won by the side wth the least diahorrea but it appears it is spewing from your mouth" that seemed to get him to shut up a nd quite a few lol's from other people

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"Radio silence folks! lets get this done" seems to work alot better than "shut up"

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Iv been a raid leader many of times, its hard to find a balance with newer esc guilds. Usually my best way to shut people up on important stuff and just saying i simply wont do loot untill it gets silenced or a classic see now if ya listen this wouldnt have been a issue approach, after this point people got the deal when it came loot time or to go over a fight. My rule of thumb is you can talk all you want during trash and even boss fights that are on farm, but if some stupid things start happening i usually lock down on it. If ya do your job, talk all you want, i prefer it, but if we start wiping due to people not paying attention then, its going to get quite.

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My Planetside outfit uses the phrase "Tac Comms Only" (Tactical Communications Only) when the chat needs to stop to allow the important stuff to get through.

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I used to hear this in raids all the time and it bugged me enough to stop doing them - along with the elitism that goes along with most raids, everyone knows how to do your job better than you do it seems.

In my FPS competition days, whenever voice chatter got out of hands just issuing the word "COMMS" used to clear it right up. Everyone knew that comms needed to be clean for calling out orders or enemy positions.

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In my guild, the raid leader just repeats "Clear Vent! Clear Vent!" and it works very well. It's known in our guild that it's srsbsns time.

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I think the root-problem is voice-chat cannot be "windowed" by the human brain in the same way text conversations can be, it's the single biggest achilles heel of voice-comms & there is no real way of getting round it (unless human hearing makes an evolutionary leap in that direction).

However, on alternatives to "shut up" anything will work, it all depends on it being a recognisable word or phrase that everyone on the raid is expected to respect, "Squelch On!" "Chats Off" or some other phrase not common in conversation work best to catch attention, ideally coupled with a Text command it just comes down to setting something up that everyone is expected to be quiet after hearing.

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In EVE it's usually "Comms" ("No chatter please, someone needs the floor.") or "Battle Comms" ("Fight is about to start, no talking except under the tactical guidelines you should already know.")

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Simple: "Break, break, break!"

It's used in both police and military radio as the standard "Clear the channel" command. It is considered proper radio etiquette. Now, if the sh!t is hitting the fan, you do not want everyone using it to talk over everyone else. With regards to gaming, it should really only be used by those leading and the officers.

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"Silence over vent" usually worked when I used to raid.

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Well, we pretty much have always defined the roles of anyone talking, and its pretty much understood all "non-essential chatter" as we call it, is kept to a minimal.

We did have a problem where we would ask "can anyone combat rez?" and we would get 4 people saying entire sentences about why they couldn't and in all of them saying it, we missed the one guy that said yes. So now its known to only answer yes, and silence is understood as no(this took raid leaders a bit to get used to as well).

My LOTRO kin hasn't really had a problem with it, so we havn't needed to go to extremes as telling people to "shut up". My WoW kin certainly had more problems. I think my LOTRO kin just understands that if you want to go "raid" you gotta bring your A game, and listen more than talk.

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Clear Vent

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Don't have much problem with my LOTRO kin at all, everyone pretty much knows when it's ok to speak and when to listen.

Back in WoW, my group used the phrase "red light" to mean everyone shuts up and listens to the raid leader or "green light" during non-critical times to mean anyone can talk.

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I like "clear vent/comms" approach. Another is the ninja channel switch of someone disruptive or in another game.

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I know someone's already mentioned EVE but I want to add my own experience. During PvP gangs and fleets I've been in, a common thing fleet commanders call is "check check", "check comms" or "clear comms" when he needs people to be quiet. It's much nicer and more militaristic than shouting "shut up" at people.

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Ops Comms

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When I played WoW a buddy of mine ran our raids and he would just say "Game face on" and that was the quit goofing off. The other raid leader would scream Shut the F@$K up, imagine who we wanted to lead all the raids.

In EVE we had "Clear Comms", "Clear Chatter" or "Intel" depending on the situation. Clear Comms was you know you are not suppose to be talking so stop. Clear Chatter is ok everyone it is time to get serious. Intel was well when the scout had intel on the enemy position.

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I can hardly imagine what it might be like playing a MMOG populated by people using gaming consoles where it is easier to speak than type -- assuming they have a keyboard at all! Hopefully console ports/versions of MMOGs support macros to make communication and/or raid coordination easier.

Imagine if the old "East Commonlands Tunnel"-style auctions (EQ1 reference; pre-Bazaar) was limited to voice communications! lol

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"I'm gay" brought one raid to a very complete and uncomfortable silence for several minutes. However, since we were all so stunned, we missed the opportunity and suffered a complete wipe. We still have a laugh at that one. :)

(and yes, our group-mate was coming out of his closet to us)

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