So my wife and I are both gamers and huge Halo fans. We each have our own TV and 360 and we both got a copy of Halo 4 ( no split-screen for us ) Like most people we’ve been playing Halo 4 almost nonstop with our friends. Normally our monitor and Xboxs are in separate rooms but since this was a special occasion we moved them both into the same room. Besides turning our one room into a crazy mass of wires, the only downside is we need to mute each other when playing with our friends to avoid them hearing an echo through our mics (we are sitting right next to each other after all). I am assuming that us muting each other is the reason we received and are still receiving the following message everytime we log-in:
THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN BANNED FROM USING VOICE ONLINE FOR A WEEK
Is there anyway you might be able to lift this ban for us as we’ve really done nothing wrong here? I know you get messages all the time from people who have supposedly been wrongly banned for some reason or another but I can provide pics of our living room with both set-ups next to each other if you would like proof of my claim. I’m sure we can’t be the only ones who have been having this issue. Thanks for listening.
You shouldn’t play with your wife while gaming, we all know why you muted the mics … there’s a time and a place for this behavior, Xbox live is not it. #sarcasm
I’ve never heard of this ever happening, and my brother and I accidentally mute each other all the time when he rages and almost throws the controller. But you should contact someone from Microsoft and ask them this, especially if you get no positive feedback from here.
Honestly it’s not the worst thing that could happen as it only seems to be related to game chat. We can still hear people in our party but we are muted for everyone else even when not on Team and Party settings like mic bans from Reach. My biggest concern would be that it would cause further repercussions like a permanent voice ban or worse.
Seems odd. My GF and I always play in the same room, 2 tvs, 2 boxes, and she always mutes me, I never care since we use headsets, and haven’t had any ban issues.
I’m not sure why we would be the only ones having these issues then. In case anyone is side-eyeing my claim, I can promise you I’m not some rogue trash-talker making up a crazy excuse for being banned. We only play on Team and Party settings to start with and besides a few Regicide and Flood games have almost exclusively played in full parties with our friends (who aren’t muting us). I’m not sure how I can prove that, but it’s the truth. Maybe there is some other reason for this but we’ve thought about it for a while and muting each other is the only reason we can think of for receiving this message on our accounts. Also, if it helps, the message came up for both of us at almost exactly the same time which also led us to think it was because of the muting.
Although you may have muted each other, your mics may have been sending echoes (or other weird noises) to other players (because you two were playing in the same room), resulting in many other players having to mute you, which flagged you for being voice chat banned.
> Although you may have muted each other, your mics may have been sending echoes (or other weird noises) to other players (because you two were playing in the same room), resulting in many other players having to mute you, which flagged you for being voice chat banned.
I’m not sure how that works. If both mics are muted then how would voice transfer to chat?
I would guess that if you are talking at any volume at all and are close to her, her mic is probably picking up your voice and vice versa, which may annoy other players as they might be getting double spammed to the point they are reporting and muting both of you.
sigh
Okay well my apologies. I’m new to the forums and just noticed there is a dedicated thread to talk about banning although it’s mainly filled with people complaining about the exp cap. I noticed there were some other people in that thread talking about being wrongly voice banned although maybe they actually deserved theirs. I’m sure the mods will remove and lock this thread.
I have to say though I remember reading Shishka’s weekly updates in Halo 3 where people would complain about being banned and make up crazy excuses and thinking it was funny but after reading the OP of the ban thread and knowing that 343 is putting 100% faith in their automated ban system and not addressing individual complaints I feel frustrated since I know my wife and I haven’t purposefully done anything wrong and this will probably never be addressed by staff. Still hope to hear something that we or 343 might be able to do to correct this. Again, thanks for listening.
Microsoft doesn’t track people being muted…they track complaints. The only way you got banned is if enough people reported your GT for voice related issues and they determined it to be a legit problem. Perhaps you played a bunch of matches in the past with your mics unmuted and people reported it for disrupting the games. If the echos/sound effects were bad enough, MS could definitely see that as detrimental to the other players’ experience. You can mute people all day long…you will NEVER be banned for it.
Also, again, about the echo/noise theories: We both play on team and party settings anyway so the only time anyone other than our team could hear us would be after the game ended. Also as I said in the OP, we have played almost exclusively with our friends in full parties. None of them have complained about noise, feedback or echos unless we forget to mute each other.
) Like most people we’ve been playing Halo 4 almost nonstop with our friends. Normally our monitor and Xboxs are in separate rooms but since this was a special occasion we moved them both into the same room. Besides turning our one room into a crazy mass of wires, the only downside is we need to mute each other when playing with our friends to avoid them hearing an echo through our mics (we are sitting right next to each other after all). I am assuming that us muting each other is the reason we received and are still receiving the following message everytime we log-in: