Shard Rules

The Community

Chat and Forum Code of Conduct

The forums, chat, and game server are not here for anyone to vent their negative opinions, frustrations, arguments, threats, or inflammatory remarks. Any such remarks will be locked or removed by a staff member. Our goal is to create an exciting, enjoyable, and fun gaming environment that everyone can enjoy and those types of things are not enjoyable to anyone. If the post or comment is not positive please don’t share!

Respecting Others

Here at UORP we emphasize respect between players no matter the circumstances. You should treat everyone here as if you are both guests in another's home playing a table top game. To take this metaphor further, you should act like they just paid for pizza for everyone including yourself.

Dealing with Stress

If you find yourself in a stressful situation and you are not certain what to do first and foremost you should try to sort it out personally with the others involved. If this can not be accomplished to your satisfaction then you may make staff aware of the situation and we will see if there is anything we can do about it. If there is not and you remain stressed or upset about the situation we recommend you distance yourself from the server at least temporarily. Do not ever post a rant/rage/criticism thread publicly aimed at anyone or anything. It will be deleted and you will be immediately banned.

The Staff

Staff will strive to be respectful of Players at all times. They should treat players with courtesy and patience. Staff should never assume a player has done something wrong, no matter their personal opinions. Staff will assume all situations are misunderstandings and seek to help all parties involved and encourage players to resolve their issues on their own.

Staff will stay concealed unless they are in private or they are dressed appropriately and are willing to engage in polite conversation or role-play.

Staff reserve the right to NOT engage in RP if they are in a hurry to help someone else, or are simply not in the mood but know they need to log on to help. They will seek not to break an existing mood however and message you privately.

Staff are regularly rewarded for their service. This will most often include benefits such as obtaining decorations for their homes and characters, but may at times include other items. We will not be deceptive about this practice and we will not give benefits which elevate staff characters above those of others on the server.

Account Rules

There is a limit of two accounts per IP per person. Since this is not mechanically enforced, as we do not use an application process, it is our expectation that players will abide by this without intervention from the staff team. Players found to be in violation of this limit may receive a warning depending on the circumstances. If, for example, you played here some time ago, left, and did not realize you already had an account it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to mistakenly create two new accounts while the older account had gone 'dormant'. If, however, it is blatantly apparent you created many accounts and you log on to the accounts on a regular basis all offending accounts will be suspended pending review. Here are some things you should keep in mind:

The staff team is not responsible for your account security. When you setup your account you will be prompted to register it to an email. This is very important! Make sure you complete this process using a legitimate email address. If you need to change your password later you can log on and update it using the [password command in game. Further, we request that you do not give your password out to anyone. If you do, however, please understand that whatever happens as a result of that decision is entirely on you including the potential consequences for that decision.

If you have forgotten your password please contact a staff team member and request that it be reset. Please be aware that we will ask you to verify some piece of information on the account to verify your are actually the owner. If you are found to be requesting a reset for an account that is not your own, assuming there are no special circumstances, you may be banned.

If another player is leaving the shard and wishes to 'give' you their account please make sure the staff team is aware, as we may otherwise believe you're attempting to bypass the two account limit. There may be circumstances where we require characters to change their names, guild affiliations, backgrounds, or owner/co-owner/friend status with regard to housing. We will not replace anything you had on the account(s) in question for any reason if you left your account for another player. If you simply stop logging on and your account becomes dormant, in many cases, it will be left alone until you return.

Active duty military or persons that may need to travel abroad for long periods of time where logging into the shard would be difficult or impossible can contact the staff team for reasonable accommodations. As any concessions we make are based on individual circumstances we respectfully request that any accommodations made on your behalf be kept in confidence. In these types of situations there is rarely a one size fits all accommodation we could make and we simply cannot account for every possible circumstance you may need to bring to our attention. However, that does not change the fact that the disclosure of any accommodations we make on your behalf could be perceived as favoritism by the community at large and therefore could create a schism in the community.

Server Rules

Rules for families

If you have a family where multiple members of your household all need to have their own accounts, as we're certainly not against making UO a family affair, please contact the staff team and make them aware of your situation. We will attempt to accommodate you as best we can. Please be aware that, in the interest of keeping things 'fair' to the rest of the player base, we expect that the accounts will see regular use. If it becomes apparent, or we have reason to believe, the accounts are not being used by multiple people but are instead a means to bypass the two account limit we may suspend the accounts without notice pending review.

Minors

While we are not an adult themed shard, if you allow your child to play here and interact with the community please be aware that they may be exposed to things you aren't comfortable with. At your request we can tag their characters to indicate that they are a minor. We ask that where they're involved players and parents keep that in mind. If their presence keeps you from roleplaying in the manor you'd normally roleplay it is best if you discontinue, if requested, and resume at another point in time. We cannot account for everything they may encounter while they are online. Additionally, keep in mind that this goes both ways. Just as the community should make an effort to be respectful of minor players they need to be respectful of the community. You, as their parent or guardian, may be held responsible for their behavior if they're found to be in violation of the rules or causing a disruption.

While the community will make a reasonable accommodation for players who are minors please keep in mind that, like you, this is how the people behind those characters spend their free time.

While we are not against romantic roleplay, players should not involve themselves romantically with players tagged as a minor given the discomfort this can cause for all parties involved and the community at large. As we are not here to act as referees, councilors, or life coaches, we reserve the right to remove all parties from the environment at our discretion without notice.

We cannot stress enough that minors playing on this shard are ultimately the responsibility of their parents. If you opted not to have your child tagged as a minor, and at some point that is trotted out for your convenience as a potential 'gotcha' to be leveraged against the community, the staff team, or another player this will likely result in an immediate and permanent ban.

Macroing

AFK Macroing is allowed in all ways except for the acquirement of resources of any and all types. This includes hunting, mining/lumberjacking, and things like fishing. If we discover you doing this we will delete items, jail characters, and put a tag on your account. We watch particularly for rune book macroing, and we will delete your books if you don't respond along with the other normal responses. Macroing between accounts is entirely allowed. You may macro in ways such as giving two different characters a sword and some armor and letting them spar.
AFK macroing and disruptive macroing such as the repetitive playing of instruments or casting spells in public areas will definitely result in being kicked and possibly result in skill penalties and/or jail time.

Exploitation of the Server

Exploitation of the server is regarded as any behavior which can reasonably be understood to be acting contrary to the intentions of the server and community. This may include but is not limited to abusing bugs, cheating, and file manipulation. It may also include many less objective abuses of the community. If you have any thought that an action or situation of the game might not be approved of please inquire with staff.

House Decay

All houses will stand for 60 days until they decay. Automatic Refresh is disabled. All houses must be refreshed regularly with a door. On very rare occasions houses have been known to decay randomly on RunUO servers before their allotted 60 days. If this happens the house & items can not be replaced sorry. Consider it a natural disaster and an opportunity to rebuild!

Lost Items

If you lose items either to player mishap or server glitch, we CAN NOT REPLACE THEM. Please make sure your items are insured.

General Rules

1: The Rules are subject to change at any time

In most cases they will not be retroactively enforced. A notice of a change in the rules will be posted to the forums and message boards where and when appropriate. It is a player's responsibility first and foremost to know the rules. If you are unclear on the rules for any reason, please ask for clarification.

2: Role-playing Enforced. Enough said. Now because this is in fact a role-playing enforced shard, it is expected that every character will have their character profiles properly filled out with their physical descriptions.

3: Minimal Out of Character (OOC) talk in game.

This is permitted via global chat or IRC/Discord chat, which can be turned off in game if it becomes bothersome to players. Try to confine OOC to party if you have to, or wish to, engage in it in game. You, or a member of your current party can add a player to your party by typing /add and targeting the player you wish to add. If a member of your party invites another player then you, as the party leader, will get a prompt asking if you approve

Use the [ ] brackets to enclose any OOC text, and use it only when necessary and when you cannot use another means of communication. No chit chat in OOC, the only exception to this rule will be if you are within the privacy of your home, you will be warned if caught. Continued offenses will be met with punishment. We have an inventive way to counter those of you who refuse to stop using OOC chat, along with the potential to face jail time.

4: PVP

Killing players for no better reason than loot is not acceptable on UORP. All combat MUST be preceded by RP, the only exception to this rule being an assassination. Any combat initiated without RP is considered PKing, and will be dealt with accordingly.

Minimal RP is acceptable if the guild war mechanic is being used however the players have opted to RP that can be determined by those players.

5: Be considerate of your RP content

Here on UO Roleplay we allow players of all age groups to enjoy and contribute to the story that we are all actively writing together, as a community. With this in mind, we ask that all extreme content be reserved to the privacy of one’s home, or at least not within public. As well, before engaging in such RP, proper permission MUST always be obtained from the other party. There are no exceptions to this rule, we will not allow players to force others into situations that they are uncomfortable being a part of. Complaints will be treated in the same way as OOC hassling.

Also, to enforce that some things are kept in private role-play situations. All players should, when role-playing is brought to an R-rated level, use mechanics to make sure they stay that way. The whisper command should be used at all times in these situations. You can use whisper in game by pressing semicolon and then hitting space. When you do this, you'll see Whisper: in front of your text. Only players within one tile of you in any direction will be able to see what you say.

6: Character and pet names

Tamed animals are not to have names such as ‘a’ or ‘b’ or ‘a1’ or anything remotely resembling them. Animals should be named properly, and even three letters is better than one or two. Any tamed critters found with names like that will be instantly killed by GMs. Character names, cannot be racially/religiously/etc. offensive to other players. Also, they must be realistic. Names such as ‘a thief’ or ‘a warrior in plate’, cannot exist. As well, any names non conducive to RP will be immediately changed without question.

7: Bugs and exploits

Report bugs and exploits and do not use them. Have respect for the game and its balance for the simple fact that we do it for fun, and if you go out to spoil that fun, you will be banned. The Bug forum board is there and bugs do get addressed as soon as we can get to them.

8: Macroing

Unattended macroing is NEVER allowed for the purposes of gathering resources. This includes but is not limited to fish, crafting materials, reagents, herbs, or gold.

Unattended macroing is absolutely allowed for skill gains as we want our players to be able to focus on enjoying our role-play environment rather than feeling compelled to grind out skills. We only ask that Macroing not occur in highly frequented public areas.

9: Exploiting the Artificial Intelligence

Leading NPC monsters into a town to kill the guards is prohibited. Doing so is considered exploiting the AI. You can, and will be, punished for this up to and including a potential ban.

10:' Locked-down items blocking areas

Blocking of access to areas using locked-down items is forbidden. Said items will be destroyed immediately by GMs and repeated offenses will be dealt with more harshly.

11: IRC/Discord and UO

IRC/Discord is not to be used for In Game discussions. If you want to make a deal or discuss plans for anything, do so in game. Anything that belongs IG, is to be spoken IG. This is a role-playing game, so role-play. IRC/Discord can be used to organize meeting people somewhere, but that’s all. The official chat room, much like the faction chat rooms, is a place where we want to gather our players, not only to chat about UO-related matters, but also to create a friendly and healthy environment for the shard. As we all know, a mature OOC community stimulates better RP interactions, which result in fun for everyone - which is why we are here in the first place. Also please keep in mind that IRC/Discord chat is not twitter, or a social media status feed. We expect that you will form friendships with other players here, but ask that you be respectful of public chat and refrain from spamming it. If you are asked by someone else to stop spamming the channel, please switch to party chat, PMs in game, or private chat in IRC/Discord. Failure to use chat in a responsible and respectful manner will not be tolerated. It also goes without saying that we will not tolerate any lewd or offensive behavior over public chat.

12: Metagaming

Metagaming is strictly prohibited in any fashion. Metagaming is defined as the use of any knowledge garnered in an OOC fashion, IRC, Messenger programs and non-role-playing UO RP boards in an IC context that directly affects the actions of your character. Intentional use of metagamed knowledge in order to plan your character’s actions is a sign of not only poor role-playing, but also irresponsibile of the player. If a player is found to be using this information they will be punished accordingly. Examples of this would be looking on the UO client to see that a person is home in game, and therefore not attempting to break into their house, when in all reality your character wouldn’t know that without metagaming.

Similarly if you know that a player is sleeping, at work, at school, or merely AFK, you are not allowed to plan your actions around their schedule, especially when the actions are against that player. As well, any information gathered via the player’s character sheet in game with the exception of the physical description is not to be viewed as ‘common knowledge’, you do not simply know that someone is a vampire because their race states so. Please use common sense in this regard.

13: Treat everyone with respect

Any form of Harassment, Contempt, Threatening, Bullying, and Offensive behavior WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Do not harass, do not pester and do not disrespect another player. Things happen within the game that we may not always be fond of OOC, this in no way gives you permission to begin insulting the players behind these characters. Roleplaying is one thing, OOC hassling will get you banned.

Roleplay Gudidelines

UORP is a "Role-Playing enforced shard." That means while we encourage role-play and expect it from our players, we accept role-players of all skill levels and only expect an honest attempt. We believe that with mature respect between players, there is room for everyone. To make sure that our expectations are clearly understood, the following role-play rules are presented:

General Role-play Respect

Do not tell other players how they should be role-playing or that you believe they are role-playing something wrong. If you believe they are in breach of some aspect of the server lore report it to a staff member. Staff will make the decision to inquire with them on the matter or not. Otherwise, if you disapprove of their role-play, avoid them.
There are a number of sources available for character and race development. There may be a lot of a certain type of elf, but there will never be the "only" one acceptable.

Names

We believe a proper name is a very important part of a role-playing environment. Your characters name should not make overt references to the real world. This is certainly a gray area and we will make name change requests at our own discretion. Our policy for name changes will be to attempt to contact the player and if that fails, change their name to something at our whim and give them a deed for a name change. Make the name realistic and not of our world.

Metagaming

Metagaming is an often occurring problem in any role-playing community. While all forms of metagaming are of course against the rules of the server the question of “What is metagaming?” is what must be answered here to help guide players to not break the rules.

Sensitive Knowledge: If a situation arises wherein one player accuses another of meta-gaming the acquisition of sensitive and secret knowledge and it is determined that it is indeed not public knowledge it will be expected that the accused present a source for their knowledge. Preferably this evidence will be something like a screen shot or other objective source. Do not try to justify knowledge of a sensitive piece of information with shabby reasoning.

Role-play between multiple characters of the same player: Due to the often ambiguously difficult scenarios that occur from such play it is highly discouraged to role-play between characters of the same player. It is impermissible to share sensitive knowledge between your own characters including books or notes. If a situation arises which accuses you of metag

Public vs. Private Knowledge: There are many means by which one can obtain OOC knowledge about in-game events yet not be able to justify their character being aware of such. Sources of information such as forum posts, stories, paperdoll profiles, physical appearance, titles, etc. constantly barrage us and result in both purposeful and accidental instances of metagaming. While it is impossible to avoid these entirely and we will be very understanding in regards to such breaches of etiquette we urge players to be extremely mindful and err of the side of caution in regards to such knowledge.

Spanned or cascaded characters

Spanning and cascading characters is allowed with proper approval from the staff team to confirm that you have read and understood the information below:

What is spanning or cascading a character: Spanning, also known as cascading, allows a player to leverage the character limit on their account to expand a character beyond one character slot. In simpler terms, you can have multiple character slots to represent a single character. If for example you have a character slot occupied by a warrior, but you've historically also played that character as a smith there is nothing wrong with having a totally different set of skills on another character slot who shares the same name and in effect is the same character. Below are some rules on how to properly manage a spanned character.

Rules for spanned characters:

Your spanned character should never be in two places at once out in the game world, except in your own home, or that of another player during an OOC interaction. Your character should not be out with two separate hunting parties if one of the slots is a caster, and the other is a fighter. Your character should not be mining in another town while they are also out crawling thru a dungeon. Only one instance of your character should be actively out in the game world. There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule.

Your character can only employ the skills that are presently loaded for that character slot. Unfortunately this is one of those rules where we have to abide by game mechanics. You may have a thief slot built for your character, however, unless that is the character slot you have actively loaded and are choosing to play other characters will not be expected to cater their roleplay to you.

Your character's race, alignment, and character profile must be identical. If you choose human as your race all versions of that character must also be human. If you choose lawful good as your alignment, all other versions of that character must also be lawful good. Your written character profile, containing descriptions and statistics for your character if you've chosen to provide them in your profile must be identical. You can write out your character's profile in notepad and then paste it across to the other characters.

If your spanned character joins a guild, all other versions of your character must join that same guild.

Any donations made to the donation store for a character that is spanned still only cover one character slot.

Extreme/Distasteful Role-play

There are some subjects that are so troubling that they must be role-played with tact and understanding in regards to the rest of the community before your own personal desires to play them. We will not outright forbid these circumstances, but if any of them come to our attention as an issue this will in all likelihood result in those involved being admonished even to the extremes of telling them to change their story. These are all scenarios which absolutely require OOC consent from all involved parties, and thus implies full responsibility to all involved. Do not say: “I was just doing what the role-play led me to.” as an excuse. That is to say if you involve your character with other players be extremely cautious in regards to consenting to any of these subjects in role-play. If they lead to an issue including the emotional trauma of other members of the community, you may very well be told to drop the story line entirely. While this is a shard where it is hoped that difficult and mature subjects can be addressed and played we advise players to be extremely cautious in these circumstances. While these are certainly things that occur in the real world and some fantasy worlds, may have happened to your character, and had a huge impact on them, do not demand that other members of the community take part in roleplay they aren't comfortable with.

“Romantic” Role-Playing

The staff team at UORP will periodically check on players in the game world, and as you are no doubt aware, other players may happen upon you at any time. We are aware that romantic roleplay can happen between players. To avoid any potential embarrassment or discomfort that may arise in these situations it is usually best if these types of situations take place 'offline' in another medium such as private chat.

PvP and Other Aggressive Acts

Aggressive acts are acts which negatively interfere with other's characters or sometimes their role-play and result in them needing to respond in kind or lose

Stealing

This includes the skill itself, scamming, taking items that you know were not intended for you, betraying the trust of another, looting, and any other situations which result in you taking possession of an item from another player against their will. In regards to the shard rules looting a player's corpse is considered an act of theft. Acts of theft which do not violate other rules of the server are fully permissible.
Stealing is an in-character interaction. As such, we will take out-of-character actions into consideration when determining whether an act of theft is simply that or also includes an act of griefing.

Corpse Looting

The rules on the looting of other player's corpses can vary dependent on the situation. The type of items taken, the amount, and the intent behind the action all play a role in determining if the act violates the rules of the server. As with any sort of stealing, looting is an in-character action which can and probably will lead to ramifications. While a player may consider the act logical to their character we emphasize that role-playing is at its heart an interactive experience. With this in mind any and all forms of looting and theft must allow for a reasonable level of response from the victim. The preferred method of this would be a significant clue that could be found, or a physical description of the thief. You will never be allowed to take significant items from another player with the expectation that they will not know who did so.

Guild Wars

Guilds which have declared war against each other must do so through the Guild War function. Members of guilds at war against one another still retain community protections but will be free to take offensive action against one another with a minimal level of role-play interaction necessary before hand. Ambushes without warning are allowed. Looting and theft are much less regulated. The act of declaring a guild war is an act of permanent consent for negative actions for its duration. Players in warring guilds can still be held accountable for their actions in-character, and out of, character. Please keep in mind that guild war combat still needs to be sensible.

Please be aware that while we permit guild wars as a way of mechanically allowing combat between larger groups of players while voiding many of the more cumbersome aspects of UOs criminal/innocent system that these interactions still need to be done tastefully and in character. As such, some suggestions have been provided below. Please be aware that if at any point your actions somehow become detrimental to the shard, other players, or simply hurt the immersion and environment we are here to promote the staff team reserves the right to take immediate action. We are not here to referee your guild war interactions. If they have become so intolerable that we have had to get involved you can expect that punishment will be handed out swiftly to any and all parties involved. We understand PvP is part of ultima online, and it is not as regulated during guild war interaction, but it is not a license to misbehave and do whatever you please. The mere presence of members of another guild does not, and should not, mean you should jump immediately to PvP. For example, if these are characters you've never met before your character would not necessarily be aware they were in an enemy guild simply because their name is 'orange'. If you join a guild, and wish to see if they're at war with anyone, assuming they don't make you aware up front, you can check the status in the diplomacy tab on the guild page. Do not contact staff to complain if you were the victim of a guild war you did not realize was taking place, that is the player's responsibility.

Suggestions on Guild War Looting: If looting is to be allowed in guild wars, players could do something like agree to keep lootable items in a bag or pouch of a certain color, such as gold reagents or gems and items. This of course does not stop another player from mechanically looting things outside of said pouch, however, poor roleplay in large groups is often frowned upon and players who do not agree by whatever arrangements made between guilds in larger scale RP scenarios may find themselves unwelcome in other guild functions or within the community at large.

How to Roleplay A Guild Insignia: Like names, guild symbols and titles cannot be seen magically floating over the head of another character you're playing with. Just like calling a player by his name without making an introduction would be poor roleplay the same can be said of identifying members as being part of a guild. What players could do is identify their guild in their character description, such as indicating that their preferred robe has their guild insignia embroidered on it. Alternatively some players will carry around a book title "A Guild Insignia" with text between asterisks (*) that indicates what guild they are in.

How to handle death in guild war battles: After you are revived, players might do something like stand over their remains while still wearing their death robe to indicate that they are 'knocked out' and should not be attacked.

PvP

PvP is fully allowed so long as it suits the role-play, but should have out-of-character consent. This means that before engaging with another player they must be aware that you intend to do so and agree with this. If they do not consent, it is their duty as the non-aggressor to diffuse the situation. Be aware this may not be possible for every situation. This may allow for one character to “bully” another based solely on mechanical balances, but anyone who does so must keep in mind that we will monitor such situations closely and will have no qualms in taking action if we feel it best for the health of the server.

Consent is not always Out of Character and verbal and there will be certain situations where PvP consent is implied. If at any time one character repeatedly insults or offends another beyond the point where a reasonable person would consider it provocative it will be legal for that person to retaliate through PvP. This means, if you emote that you spit in someone's face, do not complain if you are killed. If you jump through a moon-gate without permission, or refuse to leave a person's home, they can remove you forcibly.

Consequences for Breaking Rules

1st offense, will incur a 24 hour jail time of character

2nd offense, will incur 7 days of jail time of character

3rd offense, will incur a 7 day ban of account

4th offense, will incur a 1 month ban of account

5th offense may potentially incur a Permanent Ban of account

All of the above may also include loss of skill gained, resources gathered or deletion of rune books used during the breaking of rules. On occasion certain situations may be reviewed upon an individual base and are at the discretion of Staff.

Harassment, Contempt, Threatening, Bullying, and Offensive behavior are grounds for automatic banning.

Bug Exploits

1st offense, will incur a 7 day ban of account

2nd offense, will incur a 1 month ban of account

3rd offense, will incur Permanent Ban of account

As we do not enjoy banning players, the constant breaking of rules or using bug exploits will not be tolerated as it is unfair to the rest of our players.

Rules

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