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:

• No offensive or vulgar names. (Swearwords, insults, etc)
• No names using repeated letters. (No more than 2 of the same letter repeated together)
• No adjective, verb or title as firstname. (Describing words, doing words, or titles such as Lord or Lady)
• No word combinations to make phrases or sentences (either in one name alone or first and last names combined)
• Names must make sense to a Medieval Fantasy setting. (Nothing furutistic or Sci-Fi please)
• No names of popular culture (fictional/non-fictional), or trademarked (companies, characters, placenames) real or unreal.

Remember that during char creation you can randomly generate your name. Let's give a few examples to make each of these points clearer and show you exactly what they each mean.

Character name: Fartface
Reason:
The name is vulgar, and obviously does not take the game/roleplaying seriously.

Character name: Zzzzzz Ooooooo
Reason:
To stop people using meaningless names like this, letters should not be repeated more than twice in a row. A real example of this is the character "Peterrr Bunnyyy", which is not a valid name according to this rule.

Character name: Lord Warrior
Reason:
This is not really a name at all, but a title. Your character's mother surely did not name you "Lord". Titles can be put in your character description, but your name must actually be a name.

Character name: Owns
Reason:
"Owns" is a verb, not a name. Therefore it is invalid.

Character name: Evilmastermind
Reason:
This is a combination of words that forms a phrase, and is therefore invalid.

Character name: Gentoo
Reason:
Gentoo, for those of you who may not know, is the name of a Linux distribution. As this has nothing to do with a Medieval Fantasy setting, it is invalid. Same goes for names such as "Terminator" (which also violates another rule: see below) and "Micro Wave".

Character name: Buzz Lightyear
Reason:
This is the name of a character from a popular movie, Toy Story. The name is trademarked, and thus it cannot be used in PlaneShift. More examples include "Pixar", "Microsoft", "Invader Zim", "Frodo Baggins".

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

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

There is also more leniency towards silly names such as "Fluffy" or "Cutie," but pet names cannot:

• Form OOC phrases or have non-medieval fantasy references
  
• Be used as signs
  
• Use the name of an existing PlaneShift player or NPC
  

Here is a link to fantasy name generator: [1]

"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.