Full Rules of Conduct

Purpose
This document is intended for use by customers of Broadsword Online Games as a rulebook for behavior within the game, Dark Age of Camelot. DAoC support staff has final say over what constitutes a violation of these rules. Broadsword Online Games and DAoC reserves the right to change its policies at any time. REPEATED VIOLATIONS OF THESE RULES OF CONDUCT WILL CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE DAoC END USER ACCESS AND LICENSE AGREEMENT (EUALA), AND MAY SUBJECT YOUR ACCOUNT (S) TO BE TERMINATED.

Rules of Conduct
While playing Dark Age of Camelot, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the game. These are basic guidelines that everyone must follow, and will be enforced by Dark Age of Camelot Customer Service Staff.
 * 1) Broadsword Online Games is committed to fair and equal treatment of all of its customers. If there is a suspected violation of the Rules of Conduct, we will investigate fully, with the responsibility to prove the violation resting solely with us. Certain violations of the Rules of Conduct may, at Broadsword 's sole discretion, result in the immediate termination of Player's Account with no advance notice required and other actions which Broadsword may determine are necessary.
 * 2) Player may not engage in any conduct or communication while using the DAoC Services which is unlawful or which restricts or inhibits any other Player from using or enjoying these Services.
 * 3) Player agrees to use the DAoC Services only for lawful purposes. The list of prohibited conduct below provides examples of unacceptable conduct. The list is not exhaustive, and Broadsword reserves the right, but not the responsibility, to restrict conduct which Broadsword deems, in its sole discretion, to be harmful to individual members, damaging to the Services, or in violation of Broadsword or any third party's rights. Broadsword may prohibit or delete conduct, communication or content transmitted on Broadsword services that is deemed to be in violation of applicable laws or is harmful to other members, the Broadsword service community or the rights of Broadsword in general. Player acknowledges, however, that communication over the DAoC Services often occurs in real-time and Broadsword cannot, and does not intend to, screen communication in advance.
 * 4) Player will follow any instructions that are given to them by official representatives of DAoC Customer Support. Failure to comply with requests or instructions received from Broadsword Representatives is a violation of the Code of Conduct and disciplinary action will be taken as necessary.

Prohibited Conduct
PLAYER MAY NOT USE THE DAoC SERVICES TO:  For a more detailed list of policy violations and the disciplinary actions that may be associated with them, please read the policy entitled "Detailed List of Policy Violations and Disciplinary Actions", which is located at Support.Darkageofcamelot.Com.
 * 1) 1. Harass, threaten or embarrass another Player of the Services or to cause distress, unwanted attention or discomfort of such Player, or any other person or entity. Broadsword does not condone harassment in any form and may suspend or terminate the account of any Player who harasses others. Personal attacks, such as those based on a person's race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, lifestyle choice, disablement or other such affiliation, are strictly prohibited.
 * 2) Post or transmit sexually explicit images, or point to or reference such images.
 * 3) Organize or participate in any guilds or groups that are based on, or espouse, any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hate-mongering philosophy.
 * 4) Transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, obscene, vulgar, harassing, and defamatory, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable content.
 * 5) Impersonate any person, including, but not limited to, Broadsword employees, CSRs or hosts. Player shall not hold himself or herself out or portray himself or herself as a Broadsword staff member or employee while engaging in all forms of online communication, including, but not limited to, member names, member profiles, voice, text or graphic chat, message postings or any form of communication on line. Impersonation of Broadsword staff shall be grounds for immediate account termination.
 * 6) Engage in "disruptive behavior" in chat areas, game areas, bulletin boards, or any other area of the DAoC Services. Disruptive behavior shall be deemed to include, but will not be limited to, conduct which purposefully interferes with the normal flow of gameplay or dialogue in a Service area. Disruptive behavior shall also include, but not be limited to, commercial postings, solicitations and advertisements.
 * 7) Post or transmit chain letters or pyramid marketing schemes. This type of material places an unnecessary load on the DAoC Services and is considered a nuisance by many members. Certain types of chain letters and pyramid schemes are also illegal. Such prohibited conduct includes, but is not limited to, the transmission of letters or messages which offer a product or service and which are based on the structure of a chain letter.
 * 8) Post or transmit unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation.
 * 9) Violate any operating rule, policy or guideline of any other online service. Player further agrees to abide by the rules of Player's Internet service provider.
 * 10) Violate, intentionally or unintentionally, any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation.
 * 11) Modify any files that Broadsword does not specifically authorize Player to modify. Use of material which is subject to the rights of any person or entity without the express permission of such rights holder is prohibited, and will result in the termination of Player's membership and possible civil and/or criminal liability.
 * 12) Abuse or exploit bugs, undocumented features, design errors or problems in the game collectively referred to as Problems. Player acknowledges and agrees to report all problems, errors or bugs in the game to Broadsword as soon as they are found as their continued use can damage the enjoyment of the game for all its players. Broadsword will do everything within their power to fix these types of issues in a timely manner, and will give all customers the benefit of the doubt when dealing with these problems.
 * 13) Use any scripting or macroing tools, hardware or software.
 * 14) Use any game hacking/altering/cheating software or tools. Use of these types of programs will result in immediate termination of the Account and may subject you to civil and/or criminal liability.
 * 15) Any disassembly or modification of any of the Game's executable code, databases and/or files. Nor may you interfere with or attempt to decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running Dark Age of Camelot. Doing this will result in immediate termination of the Account and may subject you to civil and/or criminal liability.
 * 16) Engage in any behavior that is contrary to the 'spirit of the game' as defined by Broadsword in its sole discretion.
 * 17) Play Dark Age of Camelot on any server or service that is not provided or authorized by Broadsword.
 * 18) You may NOT cross-team spy. This means you are not allowed to have characters in different realms on the same server (usually used for the purpose of spying on opposing realms). This includes characters on different accounts. However, we will not discourage 2 realms from cooperating with each other against a 3rd (commonly referred to as cross-teaming), as long as you do not act against your home-realm. While we want all 3 realms to wage war against each other, there are times when a little cooperation is appropriate. "Cross-teaming" in this manner is not a violation of our rules.
 * 19) "Roleplaying" is not an excuse for violating any policy.

Character and Guild Naming Policy
When creating a character or guild name for Dark Age of Camelot, it is encouraged that you select a name that reflects the medieval time period, and the realm that you are located in. The guidelines listed below outline the types of names that you can NOT use, and apply to both first names and surnames, as well as guild names.
 * 1) You may not use any names that violate the General Rules and Guidelines. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.
 * 2) You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of Broadsword Online Games.
 * 3) You may not use names of any employee of Broadsword Online Games.
 * 4) You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products.
 * 5) You may not use names from popular culture or media.
 * 6) You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant.
 * 7) You may not use proper names of areas within Dark Age of Camelot for character names. Guild names MAY use the proper names of specific areas, to help promote roleplaying and realm pride.
 * 8) You may not use proper names of NPCs within Dark Age of Camelot.
 * 9) You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them.
 * 10) You may not use names that refer to drugs or that are drug related.
 * 11) You may not use names that contain an inappropriate phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence.
 * 12) You may not use names where a combination of the first and last names violate any of the above rules.
 * 13) You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules.

Naming Policy Enforcement
If you violate any part of the above Naming Policy, these are the steps that will be followed to address the issue.
 * 1) If you violate items 1 or 2 above, you may be issued a warning on your account, and will be given a new name by one of our CSR staff. You will NOT be contacted in game to discuss this. If you would like to discuss the renaming, please send an e-mail to [mailto:names@darkageofcamelot.com names@darkageofcamelot.com].
 * 2) For all other types of violations, a CSR will contact you to discuss the manner of the violation, and you will be told to send an e-mail within 24 hours to [mailto:names@darkageofcamelot.com names@darkageofcamelot.com]. This e-mail needs to include your account name, the name of the character to be renamed, and your choice of names that you would like us to give you. This is intended to give you the opportunity to think about and choose your new name. If we do not receive a valid name from you within 24 hours, then one will be chosen for you by our CSR staff. If you would like to discuss the renaming, please send an e-mail to [mailto:names@darkageofcamelot.com names@darkageofcamelot.com].

Changing your name
Character and Guild names within DAoC will not be changed unless they violate the Naming Policy.

Changing your guild emblem
Guild Emblems within DAoC will not be changed for any reason, unless there is a verified bug related problem with them.

Honor in Combat
This policy outlines our Intra-realm Honor in Combat guidelines. We hope that everyone within their own realms will work together, but we realize that this may not always be the case. With this in mind, we have outlined several general guidelines for what you may NOT do when engaging in combat. We always encourage players to work out these types of issues on their own. Many players who think that Kill Stealing or Leeching is occurring, are really only encountering other players that are trying to help them. Please take the time to talk to each other and discover if this was really a case of Kill Stealing or Leeching, BEFORE you contact customer support. The /Appeal system should only be used as a last resort in these cases.
 * 1) You may NOT kill steal from members of your own realm. Kill stealing is defined as the repetitive killing of monsters who are already in combat with or pursuit of another player from your realm, without the other person's express permission.
 * 2) You may NOT leech experience from members of your realm. XP Leeching is defined as uninvited, repetitive initiation of combat against monsters that are already in combat with another player from your realm -OR- uninvited, repetitive healing of a realm-mate in combat with a monster. This is usually with the express intent of gaining experience with little or no risk to yourself.

PvP Server Addendum
There are expanded rules in place that govern anyone playing on DAoC PvP specific servers. These servers differ from the standard DAoC servers in the following ways:


 * No Realm affiliations. Players are free to join groups, and guilds with any member of any other Realm. Players of all races can communicate freely with one another.
 * Wide open PvP. Any player can attack any other player that is not in their group or guild. Players who are level 10 and below have the choice to be immune to any PvP in their home realms. More details on this are listed below.
 * Players get experience for killing other players. There is a death penalty as well.
 * Relics are controlled by Guilds, not by Realms. Guilds can store any Relic controlled by them in any Outpost they control.
 * Players can shop at any store, although they can not use items that require skills they don't have. They can, however, sell loot at any store.
 * Darkness Falls is open to all players at all times.
 * Capital Cities are safe areas.
 * You are given a small time of PvP immunity after zoning or entering the game. You are also given a small time of immunity after you resurrect at a bindstone (which is obviated if you attack anyone in that time).
 * Players under 10th level have a "PvP" flag that can be permanently removed at any time - if the flag is set, you cannot attack other players or be attacked while in your Realm's home zones.

There are modified rules in place that govern anyone playing on DAoC PvP servers. All rules from the DAoC Rules of Conduct apply, except as noted in the following expanded rules:

Honor in Combat for PvP Servers.

 * There will be no enforcement of the usual Honor in Combat polices. If you have an Honor in Combat issue with another player, you have PvP tools at your disposal to take care of it.

Harassment Policy for PvP Servers.

 * This server features open killing and communication between everyone on the server. Most of this type of behavior is not considered harassment, and is the intended purpose of this server. Please carefully read the Harassment Policy in the Rules of Conduct, this outlines exactly what harassment is, and how to report it if it happens to you.
 * We WILL be strictly enforcing the harassment policy as it is written in the Rules of Conduct though. This server is not an open invitation to harass people.

If you cannot abide by these rules, or are not prepared to experience unrestricted PvP, please DO NOT play on these servers.

Harassment Policy
In Dark Age of Camelot, our goal is to build a strong community that offers a comfortable atmosphere for all of our players. This means seeing that players have the ability to combat antisocial behavior.

Some tools created to achieve this purpose include the "Ignore Player" option and the obscenity filter. The "Ignore Player" (/Ignore) option permanently blocks all of an offending player's comments, and you can also choose to block certain offensive words through the DAoC Obscenity Filter.

What is NOT harassment?
First we should point out that anything considered a valid play style in DAoC is not considered harassment. In other words, player killing of your realm's enemies, including gravestone camping, is not considered harassment. By valid, we mean that there are game mechanics created around these play styles in DAoC. Because DAoC is a RvR (PvP) game, players should seek ways of protecting themselves against these play styles through game mechanics rather than calling on customer support staff for help in these cases.

What IS considered harassment?
Harassment consists of flagrant misuse and abuse of game mechanics with the intention of distressing and offending other players. So what's a game mechanic? Game mechanics allow players to interact with the world and each other. For example, the ability to block a doorway is a game mechanic. The ability to create macros with large amounts of text is a game mechanic. Use of game mechanics like these is by no means considered harassment in and of itself. The key to determining whether the mechanic is being misused or abused is to determine "intent". What was the person trying to achieve through their actions? Were they purposefully trying to disrupt someone else's game? While an action may cause others distress, it is not considered harassment until it is determined by DAoC CS Staff that it was done to intentionally cause distress or to offend other players.

Also considered as harassment is any behavior that is incessant, inescapable, derogatory and directed specifically at you or your group. An important point to note regarding this type of harassment is that a genuine attempt to alleviate the situation must have been made. This could be an attempt to leave the area or the offending player, or simply the act of asking them politely to stop. If a sincere attempt has been made to solve the problem and the offending player persists in the harassing behavior, it can be considered harassment, and should be reported. For more information, see How do I report harassment below.

Behavior that is always considered harassment includes derogatory and/or hateful comments that are sexual, racist, religious, or related to gender or creed. Broadsword Online Games has a zero tolerance policy towards harassment of this kind, as stated in our Terms of Service, and violation of the above can result in immediate and permanent account suspension on the first offense.

So what happens when I report harassment?

 * 1) When harassment is reported it is immediately escalated to a server lead or higher, and investigated as quickly as possible.
 * 2) We will observe the reported harassing behavior, and determine whether the harassment report is valid.
 * 3) If the harassment is valid, we will take appropriate disciplinary action against the policy violator.
 * 4) Valid harassment issues are always handled at a server lead level or higher.

What are the penalties for harassment?
Broadsword Online Games condemns all forms of harassment in DAoC, and this type of disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Harassment is a severe offense in DAoC and a clear violation of the Rules of Conduct and Terms of Service. A judgment of valid harassment can result in penalties placed on the harassing party up to and including immediate account closure, based on the severity of harassment and the player's past account history.

How do I report harassment?
Please report harassment using the /Appeal function. In the future we will have a tool for reporting harassing behavior that will include logging of chat messages, which will better enable us to track harassment problems.

Online Auctioning Policy
Broadsword Online Games has a very definite policy about selling accounts and items using any online service or any other auctioning/sales system. Account selling and item auctioning is governed by the EUALA, violations of which will subject your account(s) to immediate termination. The current version of the EUALA may be downloaded from http://support.darkageofcamelot.com under the heading of "Player Policies."


 * Selling of Accounts, Items, Money and Equipment.
 * It is against Broadsword policy to sell any items, money or equipment, using 'real' money. You MAY sell or auction your entire account, consistent with the terms and conditions set forth in the EUALA.
 * We will ask all auctioning services to respect our policy and restrict the selling of equipment, money, and items on their services.
 * Use of any items that are significantly higher lvl than you are (Red con items or above), provides no noticeable benefit to you, as well as causing these items to degrade at a much faster rate.
 * We can and will take action (which may include suspension or termination) on any accounts found to be violating these polices.

Account Security Policy
All account security is the sole responsibility of the customer. This includes hacking protection, password protection, virus protection, and anything else that has to do with computer or account security. If you believe that your account security has been compromised, please send an /Appeal in-game or call our technical support number, and we will do everything that we can to help you recover security on your account. This includes helping to change passwords, helping with billing issues, and offering basic suggestions for improving your account security.

If an account has been stolen, hacked, or in any other way compromised, we will suspend the account, to protect the characters and items within, while we investigate fully. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, and we will complete the investigation in as timely a manner as possible. Once a thorough investigation has been performed, we will determine the appropriate course of action.

Once our investigation is complete, if we find someone who is involved with hacking or theft of accounts, they will have all of their accounts banned.

Character Restoration Policy
Because of the difficulty in deleting any character within Dark Age of Camelot (you have to actually type in the word "Yes" after clicking the delete key), we will not restore any character that was deleted from the client. As always, if a problem occurs within the game that is due to a bug, we will investigate fully and take appropriate action, including restoration if possible.

Item Reimbursement Policy
Items will not be reimbursed for any reason except one. If you lose an item due to a game anomaly or verified bug, we will investigate the issue, and determine if we can reimburse in each instance. Only Team Leads and above can reimburse items, and only after proper and thorough investigation.

Quest Intervention Policy
As with all DAoC policies, we are dedicated to taking care of any issues that arise from game anomalies or verified bugs. Our quest intervention policy is no different. If you have an issue with a quest, and it is determined that this issue is caused by a bug within the game, we will fix the bug, and help you to resolve the quest issue. This may take some time, as we will need to fix the bug before the quest can be continued. This intervention will not include the reimbursement of items unless absolutely necessary. Instead, the intent is to fix the problem so that you can continue with the quest on your own, and complete it as intended.

Guild Maintenance Policy
Guilds are an integral part of Dark Age of Camelot. In order to ensure the longevity of any guild, we must make sure that every guild has a Guild Leader (guild rank 0) with the authority to make critical changes in guild structure and guild setup. We assume that if a guild leader is absent for more than 3 weeks, that the guild leader has abandoned the guild (for whatever reason). At this point we will auto-promote a new guild leader from within the guild. The system works as follows:
 * 1) If we see that there are no active Guild Leaders within a guild (anyone with guild rank 0), for a period of two weeks, then we send an e-mail to the missing Guild Leader(s). This e-mail informs them that if they do not log in within the next week, they will forfeit their position, as Guild Leader and someone else will be promoted to fill the position.
 * 2) If no Guild Leader character is logged in for a period of three weeks, then we will automatically demote the old Guild Leader to rank 1 within the guild, and promote a new Guild Leader from within the ranks of the guild. The system will promote the next active (logged in within the last week) highest ranked character within the guild. If there is more than one character of that next highest rank, then the character with the most played time within that rank will be promoted.
 * 3) The old Guild Leader will be sent an e-mail explaining the actions that were taken.
 * 4) The new Guild Leader will be send an e-mail explaining the actions that were taken.
 * 5) Once these changes are made, the new Guild Leader is in command of the guild, and the changes will not be reversed for any reason.

What to expect from Customer Support
The following is what you can expect from DAoC Customer Support. This list is by no means all inclusive, but is intended to provide a general understanding of what can be expected from our support structure.
 * 1) In-Game Customer Service Representatives (CSR) are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
 * 2) Telephone and E-mail Support is available from 11am - 8pm EST, Monday - Friday.
 * 3) You will get a timely response to your question or concern, based upon CSR workload. You will not receive a response to "How Do I" types of issues.
 * 4) You will receive unobtrusive and professional support.
 * 5) We will make every attempt not to interfere with you or the game, unless absolutely necessary in the performance of our duties.
 * 6) You will be treated fairly and equitably.
 * 7) Any incident that could be construed as a violation of our policies will be investigated fully, with the benefit of the doubt being given to the customer, prior to action being taken.
 * 8) All disciplinary action will be resolved as quickly as possible, and will be based on the severity of the violation, the situation in which the violation occurred, and your account history.

Disciplinary Policy
It is Broadsword Online Games' intent to provide a game that everyone can enjoy without the intrusion of Broadsword Employees. However, there are times when issues arise that violate the Player Policy or Code of Conduct. When this happens, our in-game support staff will investigate each incident fully, ensuring that we are fair and equitable in our dealings with everyone involved. Depending on the severity of the violation and the players past history, we may take the following actions after investigation.


 * 1) We may do nothing at all. If we find that there was no violation, we will let everyone involved know that we found none, and remove ourselves from the area so that the players can continue gameplay.
 * 2) We may give the player a warning about their actions. Only Server Leads and higher may do this. If this happens we will mark their account with the warning and any details, which will stay on the account for a period of one year. The player will be sent an e-mail explaining exactly what happened, why it happened and what exactly it means.
 * 3) We may suspend the players account for one to four hours. Only Server Leads and higher may do this. This is intended to be a "time-out" period that allows the player to think about their actions and cool down. If this happens we will mark their account with a suspension and any details, which will stay on the account for a period of one year. The player will be sent an e-mail explaining exactly what happened, why it happened and what exactly it means.
 * 4) We may suspend the player account for 3-7 days. Only Team Leads and higher may do this. If this happens we will mark their account with a suspension and any details, which will stay on the account for a period of one year. The player will be sent an e-mail explaining exactly what happened, why it happened and what exactly it means.
 * 5) We may Banish (cancel) the account permanently. Only the Supervisor of Game Support or the CS Director may do this. If this happens we will mark the account as Banished with all details about the investigation. The player will be sent an e-mail explaining exactly what happened, why it happened and what exactly it means.

For a more detailed list of policy violations and the disciplinary actions that may be associated with them, please read the policy entitled "Detailed List of Policy Violations and Disciplinary Actions", which is located at Support.Darkageofcamelot.Com.

Disputing Disciplinary Actions
If you have any questions or concerns about any disciplinary action that is taken against you, please send an e-mail to [mailto:dispute@darkageofcamelot.com dispute@darkageofcamelot.com], please include any pertinent information. We will respond to your concerns as soon as possible, and discuss any concerns that you may have.