Thanks to the dev's sad and pathetic inability to make a patch for Epic without screwing over the VOIP (especially the mute function, it has always been unusable since last year), then lying about their last patch having fixed it with no further patches coming.. this guide is worthless, obviously.

Now the only option to mute annoying ass people without muting game sound is to go: esc>settings>audio>voice chat > voice receive volume to minimum.

FFUHHHHCK you very much, Tripwire/AMG

So someone is:
being loud, has a scratchy mic, unwilling to adjust their volume or fix their sh**





whining






arguing






using foul language






has a stupid voice





roleplaying






playing music you don't like





rambling about irrelevant topics






or (what I do often) saying things you're simply too precious and sensitive to be burdened with like:
'dont be a clueless doofus camping right outside objective, get inside it before we lose it'
'stop going to C (An Lao), morons'
'this team has too many idiots', etc.
and you take it personally, allergic to inconvenient facts that highlight your doofus behavior, and/or harshes your mellow of positive vibes





Or they're simply TYPING things that rub you the wrong way. Yes, I've seen people freak out over what's being typed, as if it's hard to ignore.



Apparently it's some kind of hard procedure to figure out how to get these annoyances to stop on one's own, since it continues to be a problem that plagues the experience of RS2.

People often think of something like this



but it is not.

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Few people understand the psychology of dealing with an annoying speaker. Your normal reaction is to snap and immediately say something like: SHUT THE **** UP!




This is wrong.
It arouses contempt in the rest of the server's heart.

Ignore your lizard brain that is reflexively telling you to tell that person to shut up.
Why?
Because what you're doing is adding to the overall level of noise. You're being a hypocrite.
You had 1 annoying person, now there's 2, and you're one of them. Often others will then tell YOU to shut up, and so on, and we have total anarchic pandemonium.
It has a success rate of 0%. Stop it.






Do not bother with the kick menu.
The kick menu is for people who are purposefully ruining gameplay or gone AFK for a while, not simply ridding those who are ruffling your feathers with their choice of words or music.
While it may be one way to shut somebody up, it relies on votes which often don't come to pass, takes too long, and too much effort. It's a display of ignorance.

Even when it does work quickly, it's excessive.
While many great players might be saying/playing things you don't want to hear, they're a great asset otherwise. If they're kicked, they're gone for the rest of the round.
This is unnecessary, harsh, and like I said, shows braindead ignorance.
It also ties up the vote system for more important votes.
Stop it!

Even more tedious and unnecessary is getting an admin. Wasting their time on some annoying sounds/text since the kick menu is disabled or isn't passing votes, when they could be better tasked with getting rid of real troublemakers.
This should also work from the admin's perspective as well. Allow freedom of speech. Don't be some language nazi, deciding for everyone what is appropriate. It can police itself!






Don't throw your headphones off like a drunken meathead. They can break and might be expensive. Use your brain. Not only that, you're obviously not going to be hearing what else you should be hearing to be an effective player.







Don't just hit the mute button on your keyboard or windows sound. Just like the previous point, you won't hear what you need to hear to be effective/enjoy the game.






I don't care if that person is shrieking like they need a straight-jacket, spewing expletives, preaching something out of Mein Kampf, bigoted, racist, whatever-phobic bs, religious bs, political bs, playing Justin Beiber or Nickelback, etc, let them.

Just let them speak/broadcast into the abyss and waste their time, but not yours.






"B-B-BUT WHAT DO I DO???" I hear you ask.

It's very simple. Keep reading. We're almost done.

This is NOT for muting ALL sound. It is specific to muting those people who are displeasing your ears, or offending you from what you see in the chat box.


Let's start with the basics everyone should know. There's a large button left of the Q button, it is called TAB. It is what is commonly used in multiplayer games to bring up the scoreboard. It looks like this:





HOLD TAB DOWN. You should see the scoreboard. You already know this, right?





While HOLDING TAB, LEFT CLICK your MOUSE.

&

Keep HOLDING TAB while MOVING your mouse. You will see the CURSOR.

(red diagram will not show up, but oh look there in the red box, there's a clue!)

While still HOLDING TAB, Move your cursor onto the right side of the player list column.
What are those things that look like speakers and parentheses coming out of them? Those are called SOUND icons, they light up as you move your mouse over them.

Select the SOUND icon on the same line as the offender's player name (green box is to hide this player's name since this is just for example):



Click that sound icon and it will then have a red X over it, like this:



This will not only mute the audio, but whatever text that person types as well.

TA DA! You're done! That is it. Instant solution.


Was that so hard? Of course not. Unless you're hopelessly stupid, like this guy:

Don't be that guy.

LET'S REVIEW

1. Hold tab.
| 2. Click mouse.
| 3. Move mouse to sound icon of badman.
| 4. Click mouse again.

2 clicks. No more kick vote menu which requires 4 or more clicks. GOT IT?!



If you want total silence from your team, simply do the same to the sound icon at the top of the list, and it will mute everyone on your team:

It is much easier than it used to be to mute people. Gone are the days of hitting esc, going to mute players menu, scrolling with the garbage scrollbar, searching for the right name as it jumps around, then clicking mute checkboxes and hitting apply like in Red Orchestra 2 for EACH player. Which of course made the "WHAT NOT TO DO" reactions understandable.

Now you don't need to get into a stupid argument.
You don't need to be a desperate cretin with kick votes and annoying some admin, or go on a power trip if you are one.
Or simply throwing off your headphones/muting everything.

Just mute the SOB and not become a SOB yourself.
Now you can enjoy the sound of silence!


https://youtu.be/n5UDamMen7I


Of course the people who need to read this the most probably never will but now there's less of an excuse to continue being clueless.

Please share with those who couldn't figure out on their own this great feature the dev's did a good job of implementing.

Also, thank the devs for having made it possible.....even though it should have been done already in their previous game a decade ago. Aaand of course I could have made this quite sooner as well.

Yes I know many images in this guide are from ancient memes. idgaf.