Darkwind Rules
Last Update: 09 December 2005
Following is a list of what is not allowed on Darkwind. Failure to observe these rules will result in punishment. Lack of knowledge of these rules is not an excuse for not following them.
This document will be broken down into two sections: players, and wizards. Everyone will know what is illegal for all to do. Players are expected not to ask wizards to break wizard rules, and wizards are expected not to break rules that bind players.
1. Players must obey all requests from wizards. If a player feels that a request is out of line, the player should notify a higher level wizard AFTER complying with the request.
2. Players may not abuse (or use once it's been determined as a bug) any bug. Failing to report a known bug is also illegal. Players who abuse bugs will see their characters wiped. Future abuse by the same player may result in site bans. On the flip side, reporting large bugs might be rewarded.
See also: help bug.
3. Giving out either quest items or quest info (qinfo) to other players, or aiding players in completing quests is illegal. The giving out of quest info is illegal whether it is a deliberate attempt to cheat, or in passing conversation. Exactly what designates "aiding" on a quest is left up to the discretion of the wizards online and/or involved in the matter.
3a. For partying on quests, you may only party on quests with people who have not completed the quest before, or with members of your original group of partiers. For example: Malraux, Acer, and Rodney all start off together to work on the Orc Slayer quest. In the future, once they have started the quest, only Malraux, Acer, and Rodney may party together on this quest, and none of them may be a member of any other party working on the quest. If Acer is the first to complete the quest, then he is allowed to remain in that party on future attempts to solve the quest for Malraux and Rodney alone.
3b. Attempting to cheat on quests, or encouraging others to do so is also illegal. For example, asking for quest info is not allowed.
4. Personal attacks, racial and ethnic slurs, sexual harassment, and other forms of attack will not be tolerated. Threatening other players or wizards with violence will not be tolerated. If someone is ignoring you, do not try to get around the ignore by using alternate means. They're ignoring you for a reason, respect that. The Golden Rule applies here.
See also: help profanity, help virginears, help ignore
4a. No bulletin board (including the PK board and private clan boards) may be used to flame, ridicule or otherwise denigrate other players or wizards. They may also not be used to accuse others of cheating/bug abuse, nor threaten them in any matter (whether in or out of game).
4b. PK issues may only
be discussed on the PK board, clan boards, and guild boards(where appropriate to
the guild).
4c. The DarkWind forums are considered an extension of the bulletin
boards on the mud.
4d. Channels are also governed by the same rules as bulletin boards
(rule 4a and 4b) with the exception that IN-GAME threats may be made on the PK
channel ONLY.
See also: help profanity, help virginears, help ignore, help pk
5. Having multiple (second, third, etc) characters. Darkwind's current rule is to allow one character per person. If we find that one person has more than one character, then ALL characters will be removed. Further offenses may result in a siteban.
6. Botting is not allowed. This is defined as creating client- or server-side scripts that will perform an unlimited number of actions without requiring a live person to be sitting at the keyboard of the computer. Use of robots will result in removal of the character.
6a. This is
all-inclusive to all forms of scripting. ie. triggers, scripts, events, etc.
None of these are allowed in any form.
6b. Note that use of the Darkwind-provided "script" command is excluded from
this rule. However, using a client to string together multiple "script"
commands is still illegal.
7. Kill stealing is not allowed. If someone is actively killing a mob, the mob is 'theirs' as is the equipment/money in the room. If the player leaves the room, it's fair game, though common courtesy would suggest you leave the mob alone. This does also apply to Garou who are fighting in a room. The items and gold on the ground they are in are not open, just because they can't pick them up. If the Garou leaves the room, again, it's fair game.
[NOTE: If everyone involved is PK, this rule does not apply as you have recourse through PK]
1. Wizards may not provide access to their character to any other person.
2. Wizards may not erase or otherwise edit other wizards' files. The same applies to system files. Access to these files is generally protected, but it's conceivable that some things may be overlooked. If the wizard discovers that s/he has greater access than they should, it should be reported to an IMP+.
3. Copying another wizard's work without prior consent.
4. Interfering with players in any way. This includes healing players; providing additional stats, XP, money, levels, alignment, etc through patching; and giving players objects or money. This is not a comprehensive list by any means. In general: if the character isn't your test character, don't mess with 'em. Period.
4a. The occasional boon or similar global blessing given by an IMP+ is not considered interference.
5. Abuse of wizard powers.
6. Disobeying higher-up wizards.
If you are found to have violated one of the above rules, your character may be:
1. Warned
2. Demoted (wiz or player)
3. Jailed
4. Removed
5. Sitebanned
ANNOUNCMENT BOARD
Another lecture from that Memnoch guy...
Today I took away avenge priviledges from two players who decided it would be a hoot to transfer experience using avenge. When I informed these two players, I was promptly treated to an education on what constitutes abuse and punishable offenses, what common sense means, and a host of other little pearls of wisdom.
Before you do something, don't just ask yourself if you've expressly been prohibited from doing it. Look at the spirit
of the rules and not the letter of them. Since we haven't given players the ability to transfer experience, why would
we want avengement to be used as a mechanism for such a transfer? The obvious answer is that we don't. Should we spell out every possible thing that can get you into trouble in a help file somewhere? That would be nice and would tie up every wizard we have writing documentation. I don't think we want to do that.
So please don't use six-year old logic when you're caught doing something. Don't say to me "Well, you said I couldn't kick Tommy, but you didn't say anything about hitting him!"
Look, none of us here amongst the wizard ranks want to have to spend time dealing with this. I had to take time away from reviewing a new area to modify askavenge to ignore those two players. Use common sense and let us create a cool world for you to explore instead of making us act like parents or police.
Memnoch
The fact that I even have to post to this effect annoys me to no end. Especially when there's already a saved post on this board, dealing with the same problem more or less.
I'd like to think that most of the time we're pretty lenient with most people, unless the nature of their offense is pretty bad, or they happen to be one of the beloved repeat offenders. If we had to list every possible iteration of every possible thing you should or shouldn't do while playing, 'help rules' would be 50 pages long, and we'd be a very annoying place to spend your online time. As it stands, there is/should be a general understanding that there are rules, and then there are 'spirit of the game', etc. If you go out to specifically find a loophole and abuse it because "the rules don't specifically say you can't", that's still a BadThing. We've already got a couple ridiculous rules on file because some players choose to push the limits as far as they will go.
I had to punish two players today because they decided they would push the limits of the rules (yet again) and just assumed that it was all ok because the rules didn't specifically say they couldn't do it. These particular players are what you would deem as repeat-offenders, so their punishment unfortunately has to be harsher to attempt to make a point. I've never sitebanned anyone from playing DW, but if I have to deal with repeat offenses over and over and over again, it will definitely become trying enough that I will do so - which in this particular case would affect many more then just the two players involved.
Being idiotic and in turn using an idiotic excuse like "I was baked/drunk/stoned/etc." or "The rules don't specifically say I can't!" is not, and won't -ever-, be a good enough reason for acting such a way. All it does is ruin the game for everyone else involved, except for those in your little circle-jerk clique you have in real life. If you wanna do shit to get your jollies off and inflate your ego to your friends, find other ways and other places to do it then here.
-Aiken
"Rules change" -Aiken Fri Aug 06 2004 10:50
From now on sharing locations of unique items is up to your own discretion, as long as it doesn't involve quest info at all. This rule never existed in previous incarnations of Darkwind, and we don't need to start creating new obnoxious rules that make the game less fun for everyone. Just keep in mind that sharing unique info with someone might mean they end up competing with you for it at some point and time.
Aik
23 SEP 2004
[SYSTEM] Memnoch: Remember, intentionally dying and getting someone to rez you to get around level penalties for things like regging PK is illegal. The cleric/necro supporting it and the person doing it would be in deep caca.
"Harassment on Darkwind" -Aiken Wed
Jul 13 2005 19:38
Just a little reminder here. Today a
player was temp banished and had his inn forfeited for violating rule #3 -
harassing a player. This particular instance was a horribly vulgar meal
description, abusing and demeaning another person on Darkwind. In this case,
that other person was also a Darkwind wizard. It doesn't matter if the harassed
person is or isn't a
wizard as far as breaking the rules, but I mention that to illustrate this
person's complete disregard and disrespect for anything within Darkwind.
We all love to rib each other now and again; sometimes getting a little bit on
the mean side with our jabs. But the vulgerness of this incident goes far beyond
anything even remotely acceptable.
Aiken
"Behavior" -Violator Wed Sep 07 2005
02:37
We have had several incidents of late of
blatant harrassment of people/individuals.
I have spoken to the players concerned and would like to reinforce to EVERYONE,
that this is a game. You come here to play a game, chat and from time to time
have a laugh. Do not ruin that experience for other players.
If you want to flame, hell, its called the flame board for a reason, but at
least make it entertaining.
We have seen recently EXACTLY how much damage can be caused by this childish
behaviour and it needs to stop. I have no qualms whatsoever about taking it
further, BUT all the wizard staff would like to get
back to adding more cool stuff to the game, so how bout all the players
concerned start acting a little bit
older than the 5 year old bracket.
I hope this is clear enough for you all
-Violator
"Ignoring/Annoying/Abusing/Etc."
-Aiken Thu Sep 08 2005 11:23
We all know we have a fairly rudimentary ignore system. Through quite a bit of
work we could possibly change that eventually to ignore most everything from the
ignored person, but most likely there will always be ways around the ignore
system to annoy people.
Put simply: Don't do it.
The fact that I even have to write this annoys me. If you know someone is
ignoring you and you go out of your way to get around the ignore system and
pester them, that's pretty much harassment. If I see any of this hapenning, I'll
gladly hand out free punishments for the offenders.
Aik
"RE: Ignoring/Annoying/Abusing/Etc."
-Aiken Sat Sep 17 2005 08:18
I'm so tired of having to write the same
crap every month. But here we go yet again:
Leave people's RL out of this game in your 'witty conversations' and banter, or
in this case, a poorly written story. Putting a disclaimer on a post that says
"Oh hey, this isn't about anyone on DW btw." and then most obviously making it
so, doesn't cut it.
If people can't get this rule through their thick skulls, we'll just forgot
about any sort of scaling punishment and just go straight to site-bans.
Aik