Voice chat has always caused nightmares for online games, not just from the perspective of someone being harassed, but also when it comes to enforcing bans. Well, Epic Games has shipped out a new way to fix that in Fortnite today.
Fortnite now has a new voice reporting feature for players to use that will let Epic listen to five minutes of audio and verify what has been said after a report is filed.
The goal of this is to make it easier for support staff to verify the authenticity of a report and determine if a ban is necessary. This feature is just as much of a win for the person reporting as it is for those being reported as there’s no real way to falsely report someone with audio evidence. This means if you’re doing the right thing, then you’ll be fine.
Fortnite players who are under 18 years old will have this feature activated by default and it will remain on during all of their games. Everyone else will get the choice to activate it or not.
You’ll need to opt in if you choose to use this feature or it won’t be available when filing a report. If you do opt-in then five minutes of audio will be recorded on a rolling basis so you can report harassment as it happens. When you want, that audio will be sent to Epic. You can see if you have this new feature activated from the sidebar in-game.
Should you be the one getting reported whether you’re opted in or not to voice reporting, your voice will still be shared with the staff. Reports are anonymous and Epic claims they will only keep the audio recordings for 14 days unless legal action is required.
This seems to be just one move from Epic to make Fortnite more welcoming to younger gamers, another recent change has been the restriction of some skins in multiple game modes.
It remains to be seen how effective this new voice reporting feature will be.
Published: Nov 16, 2023 10:54 pm