Player Policy

Here are the current Rules of Conduct for Crystal Blue, meaning what we expect from players. If you follow these guidelines you will enhance your gaming experience a lot. The term "guidelines" implies that common sense should be used to evaluate situations/names that are at the border of one case or another.

In Character vs. Out Of Character

In Character (IC) means to act, speak and behave like your character will do, not as you as a player will do. Also known as roleplay. An example of IC speech is: "Hello traveller, did you hear any news about Hydlaa these days?"

Out Of Character (OOC) is when you are speaking with a GM, or when you speak of any real life events/matters. An example can be: "GM, my client is acting strangely, is there a patch to fix it?"

Remember to act in-character as much as possible when talking to others! We are all working towards an Roleplay atmosphere in PlaneShift. OOC should be used only in /tell with a GM, in the help channel or in petitions. All other communications have to be IC. OOC (Out-Of-Character) text should be designated with brackets [] as regular text comes from the mouth of your character, who knows nothing about computers, video games, the internet, or Picasso. Read the Setting for official information about the world your character belongs to and while your character can certainly come from another plane outside of it, dont do something outrageous like try to bring in RP guns. Keep with the medieval fantasy atmosphere as much as you can.

The game is about roleplay, so part of the rules are to encourage or "enforce" it as smoothly as possible. The freedom of everyone has to be respected as long as it doesn't come in the way of someone else's, with a priority on the RPG style. The name policy, the content of the dialogs and the online activities are concerned with this issue.It has to be a good experience for everyone, and to achieve this goal any annoying behaviour will have to be dealt with. That includes language and content, spamming, harassment and privacy. Finally, applying the Rules of Conduct, and all the work organised to provide the players with the best possible environment, are a job undertaken by several actors: the developers, the advisors, the forum moderators and the game masters.

Disciplinary action may be taken against any player found breaching these rules. This action will be decided with consideration for the gravity of the offense. Below you will find the different categories with their rules.

Roleplay

• Dialogues

IC dialogues should be used at all times, except when dealing with GMs in direct /tell. The language is English. You may use other languages in private messages like /tell, or in guild chat.

Respect

• Language and Content

You may not use in PlaneShift, post or link on the official website, any offensive or sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, unlawful, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language, offensive imagery or content.You may not organize nor be a member of any pledges or groups within PlaneShift that are based on or espouse any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hatemongering philosophies.

• Spamming

When communicating in PlaneShift using the Chat, you may not spam, flood, or make duplicate messages.

• Harassment

You may not defraud, harass, threaten, or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.

• Privacy

You may not post or communicate personal information of any player and nor do anything that may hurt privacy of other players in the game or the website of PlaneShift.

System

• Impersonation

You may not impersonate any member of the development team or GM or game representative.

• Hacking

You may not enter into gameplay practices that cause disruption of gameplay for other players, or adversely affect game performance. You will not attempt to interfere with, hack into, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running PlaneShift. You may not create "bots" or automation programs with the purpose of profiteering or advancing unattended.

• Exploit

You will not exploit any bug in PlaneShift and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of PlaneShift. Bugs should be promptly reported to Game Masters.

Personal Nature of Accounts Use of the account is strictly personal. The account should not, even temporarily be shared with or otherwise extended to another person, nor may it be used in any way that is extraneous to the proper normal use of the game. All users are fully responsible for the use of their access account, and for the use made of their account by their underage child or by any other person who has access to it.

Naming Rules

The Naming Policy applies to the following naming options in PlaneShift:

• First Names
• Surnames
• Guild Names
• Pet Names
• Any naming options that may be implemented in future expansions or updates

A valid name is: An original and unique name which when used and read by any player from any culture is going to refer to your character in the PlaneShift world and to nothing else. Thus preserving your immersion into the virtual world and that of your fellow players.

Generic terms and conditions:

1. Character names must begin with a capitalized letter.
2. Character names cannot include numbers or special characters
3. No names should contain more than 2 of the same letter repeated and grouped together.
4. Names must make sense in a Medieval Fantasy setting.
5. Names must be in concordance with the setting of PlaneShift.

The following name types are not allowed:

1. Offensive or vulgar names or combinations of words that produce an offensive result. (Swearwords, insults, etc. e.g. Fartface)
2. Names that are swear words in other languages.
3. Vile, profane, rude, or racist names including common swear words, anatomical references, racial slurs, and homonyms of these words.
4. Names containing titles within them, such as, but not limited to: The, Lord, Lady, Master, King, Knight, Sir, Father and names that contain Adjectives or verbs. (Describing words, doing words)
5. Word combinations that may or may not result in making phrases or sentences (either in one name alone or first and last names combined. (e.g. Evilmastermind, The Fortuneteller, Fatebender, Incre Dible.)
6. Names of religious, occult, or significant historic origin or names from mythology. (e.g. Jesus, Allah, Satan, Asmodan, Bael, Stalin, Leviathan, Dragon).
7. Trademarked names of products, services, or concepts (e.g. , Linux, Sony, Ubuntu).
8. Fantasy or non-fantasy oriented names from popular media, books, other games or from the music industry. These names can be either fictional (e.g. Spiderman, Wolverine, Merlin, Gandalf, Lancelot) or non-fictional (e.g. George Bush, Silverster Stalone, Korn, Janis Joplin).
9. Common words and phrases that are not found in the environment or time setting of the game (e.g. Chainsaw, Killermachine, Cyborg, Laser, Dishwasher).
10. Names that represent objects of any kind, chemical substances, chemical elements, species or subspecies of animals, plants or insects, food products, anatomic parts, senses, feelings, physical and metaphysical concepts, etc. (e.g. Stick, Alcohol, Sulfur, Horse, Flower, Spider, Pie, Nose, Touch, Love, Solid, Fate).
11. Names representing real places, cities, or countries. (e.g. Forest, Mountain, Berlin, Albania)
12. Names chosen with the intent or possessed with the effect of harming the reputation of or used to impersonate any person or entity.
13. Any kind of names taken from slang, phonetics, obvious reversed words, internet culture or leet language. (e.g. Typo, Leet, Pwnzor, Pwner, Noob)
14. Any type of misspellings and alternative spellings that will result in the same pronunciation or translations in other languages for one of the aforementioned invalid names are also unacceptable. (e.g. Stewpid, Reetard, Leggolas, Rumbo, Phatcat)

Exceptions:

Surnames: For surnames certain word combinations are allowed. However these must also respect the rules stated under Generic terms and conditions. Examples of allowed surnames: Stronghand, Daggerblade, Forgehammer.

Guild names: For guild names, the paragraphs 4, 5, 9 do not apply, but certain moderation should be considered. For example guild names like Knights, Warrior knights, Defenders, Protectors, Angels of Chaos, Demonic Warriors, Felines, etc.

Pet names: The rules for naming your pets are the same as those for your character, with two exceptions:

Some titles are allowed. (for example, "Sir Beaky," "Lord Goldfeather"). Some adjectives or verbs are allowed. (for example, "Little Destroyer," "Flight Fear").

There is also more leniency towards silly names such as "Fluffy" or "Cutie," but pet names should not: Form OOC phrases or have non-medieval fantasy references. Be used as signs. Be used as objects.

Under any circumstance, a pet name may not use the name of an existing PlaneShift character, guild or NPC!


Remember that during char creation you can randomly generate your name. You can also find some useful fantasy name generators here: Be aware that you must check a generated name against the guidelines as they are not perfect and can not be considered automatically acceptable

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

http://rinkworks.com/namegen/


The Game Master (GM) Team reserves the right to change any name that could be considered unsuitable but doesn’t violate any of the aforementioned terms. Final arbitration of the fine points of interpretation of the aformentioned terms will rest with the GM team, in the interest of stable settings, consistent naming, and fair treatment of players.


We also decided to have characters coming from old PlaneShift releases compliant with these policies. Please contact us if your char was created before this policy and we will find a solution.

Cheating

What is cheating?

The word "Cheating" identifies, in computer games, a number of actions that a player can take to make the game easier for himself. Cheating is usually targeted at solving quests faster, gaining more money/resources/items faster, becoming invulnerable, etc... While cheating, the player uses workaround or tools that the game designer didn't create for him, basically spoiling the original creation of the designers.

Isn't cheating useful?

In single player games surely it is. It happens many times to be in an adventure game stuck at a certain point and no way to get around it, or to be facing an incredibly powerful monster in a first person shooter game, and have no way to solve it just because it's too hard. In those games cheats allows you to remove the issue, and to go further, enjoying even much the game since you removed the frustration of not going further. Since those are single player games the effects of cheating are just on yourself, so you can decide to cheat without any other impact.

Great! So can we cheat in PlaneShift?

In games like PlaneShift things are extremely different. You are not playing alone and using a cheat is not solely an advantage for you. An online role playing game is mainly based on the community of players and on the realism and balance that the simulated world recreates.

Like in any good movie or book, if you don't believe in the story being told, it will simply look silly and pointless. The same is for role playing games. These are based on imagination.

There are two main ways to capture the imagination of players, giving a more immersive experience, having them believe in the story behind the game and in the game itself:

• Realism
• Balance

Realism is primarily felt thanks to detailed graphics and interaction with other players . If someone cheats, it's like breaking a mirror with a beautiful image reflected in it. His actions will seem fake, the world will seem fake, everything will look again like a simple game, the beauty of believing in a simulated medieval world fades away quite fast. In a game where imagination is of primary importance, breaking realism is a real crime.

Balance in achievements of the players' community is what gives a defined "space" to each player. Balance tells him how much effort he needs to reach a particular objective (ranks, money, crystals, items, quests...). Cheating completely destroys balance in game and consequently reduce the will of players to reach certain objectives and their affection to the game. It also reduces realism.

Given the two points above cheating in PlaneShift is absolutely not allowed.

A player that cheats, has not understood what a role playing game is. If you believe in the simulated world, you cannot cheat, because you cannot break world rules.

A player that cheats is considered to disrupt the experience of other good players since he breaks realism and balance. He will not be tolerated in our online community.

What is considered cheating in PlaneShift?

Even if common sense is the best judge on what's considered cheating, it's good to give you some guidelines on what we consider cheating in PlaneShift.

As a general rule we can say that we consider cheating any voluntary action that a player takes hacking the client, hacking the server, publishing/using quests solutions on the web or exploiting a game bug to:

1. gain an advantage on other players OR
2. break realism of the game for other players

Some common hacks are for example: move faster than all other players, highlight hidden items/monsters, walk through solid objects or fly, change lighting to see in darkness, etc...

The "voluntary" part is quite important. The game can have bugs, so it may happen, for example, that one simple dagger present in your inventory is transformed into a very powerful item due to a bug. This case is obviously not considered cheating, you just have to report the fact to us (info@planeshift.it). Keeping the item without notifying the developers is considered cheating. The wrong item will be removed, and you will be rewarded for spotting the bug with another item or in-game money.

How you can identify cheaters, and what happens to them?

In Molecular Blue version we had just few tools to spot cheaters, but in next version we have a lot more tools. Basically the server logs all activities that are not considered legal, or are suspicious. The log is then manually read by developers and actions will be taken.

We do not tolerate cheating in any way, considering it a theft against all other players and a disruption of the work done by developers. For this reason cheaters have this destiny;

• their chars are deleted with all their possessions
• their IP address is banned from our servers. This means they cannot connect anymore
• they are banned from the forums
• they are banned from IRC channels

The duration of the ban depends on the gravity of the action. For evident and continuous cheating the ban is permanent, life-time.

It's important to note that we do not take actions immediately on a cheater. We collect info on him with the objective to stop all his actions at proper time. Cheaters tend to have more characters, party with other cheaters and so on. If a cheater is detected and flagged as a cheater, action can be taken against them even months later.

I'm a good role-player, is there any risk to be identified as a cheater by mistake?

Absolutely not. As we said our actions are not taken immediately when a potential cheat is detected and the ban is done when massively evident proof is against a cheater.

Here is some advice for you:

• Play the game with passion
• Respect other players
• Do not voluntarily try to cheat
• If something strange happens to your character contact us
• If you identify someone cheating contact us, he has no rights to disrupt your in game experience

I'm a developer, and I want to test hacks or mods, may I do that?

You should never test hacks on an official server. Download the CVS version of the PlaneShift server and test your hacks or mods locally, on your private server. Then report to us your findings, you will be rewarded if you find any good hack and a solution to it.

Modifications to the client content (graphics, sounds, ...) are not allowed by PS License. In particular we will not tolerate players using mods to connect to an official server if those allow cheating, or modify the visual aspects of the game or its design. If you want to add levels or graphics to PlaneShift you are more then welcome to participate in our development.

"Killstealing"

• Nobody owns a spawn, and nobody owns any attackable NPC unless they are already fighting it
• Taking an NPC from someone when they have already started an attack is considered kill stealing and will be punishable by GMs through warnings, and then further actions if the player continues.
• There is no need to ask players around a spawn whether you can "join" - everyone has a right to hunt or attack NPCs, and no one can refuse to share with you, since there is no ownership. However, being polite and asking to share beforehand is considered common courtesy and people will be much friendlier to you if you do.

Dropping Items

• Players are not allowed to drop items to decorate the world map! This puts stress on many clients and increases lag.
• If you need to drop items for roleplay, clean up after yourself - and don't expect the items to remain if you don't.
• Drop items for short time decorations at your own risk. GMs cannot get items back for you, as once something is on the ground, you lose ownership rights.

Misc

External Laws

You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws or regulations.

Don't spoil the fun of others

By publishing quest solutions on the web you are lowering the realism of the game and you are spoiling the fun of other people. We are not against players teaming up and giving hints to each other, but we think that this should be done in game, with role-playing. Having a web page that simply list what to do to achieve more money and experience in less time should be considered something against the role-playing aspect of the game.

What you can do is to join a Guild or Group and share information with other members, possibly depending on their rank. You may also accept in your own guild players that have at least completed a certain number of quests to prove their dedication to the game. Alternatively, you can use quest completion as a benchmark for promoting players within your own guild.