| ** The Rules in the process of review. **
* Last updated: September 2nd, 2010
Table of Contents1.0) Shard Language
1.1) Policy on Rule Violations
1.2) Types of Rule Violations
1.3) Account Rules
1.4) Use of Paging Sytem
1.4.0) Paging A Guide
1.4.1) Paging A GameMaster
1.5) Impersonation of Staff or Game Functions
1.6) Promotion/Advertising of Other Shards
1.7) Logging Out in High Traffic Areas
1.8) Information on Banishment/Account Inactivity
1.9) Admin Ruling
2.0) Guild Policy
2.1) Pets in Homes
2.2) Redeeding Of Houses
2.3) Redeeding Of Ships
2.4) General House Rules
2.4.0) Placing Near Dungeons
2.4.1) Placing Near Mines
2.4.2) Placing Near Other Houses2.4.3) Placing Near Town
2.4.4) Placing Houses Near Telepads/Permanent Gates
2.4.5) Placing Death Chests and Guild Chests
2.5) Vendors Stones
2.6) Looting of Houses
3.0) Exploiting/Cheating/Scamming/Abuse Rules
3.1) Legal Exploits
3.2) Picking Up Stuff From The Ground
3.3) Player Stats and Skills
3.4) Access to Restricted Areas
3.5) Item Replacement Policy
3.6) Monster Loot Stealing/Kill Stealing
3.7) Fraud/Scamming
3.8) Harassment/Abuse Policy
3.9) Pet Killing
3.10) Password Security/Account Crackings
3.10.0) Passwords
3.10.1) PC Security
4.0) Macroing Rules
4.1) Injection and other 3rd party tools
5.0) Forum Rules
5.1) Abuse/Harrassment
5.2) Spamming
5.3) Shard Advertising
5.3.1) Advertising TDS on another shard or its forums
5.4) Flaming
5.5) Impersonation of Staff
5.6) Unconstructive Criticism
5.7) Signature and Avatar Size
5.8) Respect for others
5.9) Threads content
1.0) Shard Language
English: The DarkSide is an English speaking shard. Whether or not you speak English does not exempt you from the rules. Expect no GMs to be able to translate for you.
French/Français: Le Darkside est un fragment de langue anglaise. La question de savoir si vous parlez anglais ne vous dispense pas de règles. MJ n'attendent rien d'être en mesure de traduire pour vous. German/Deutsch: Die Darkside ist eine Englisch sprechende Splitter. Unabhängig davon, ob Sie Englisch sprechen befreit Sie nicht von den Regeln. Erwarten Sie keine GMs zu können, übersetzen für Sie.
Italian/Italiano: Il Darkside è uno di lingua inglese, condiviso. O se non si parla inglese non è esente dalle regole. GMS non si aspettano di essere in grado di tradurre per voi. Portuguese/Português: The Darkside é um shard onde se fala inglês. Mesmo que você não fale inglês não quer dizer que as regras não sejam aplicadas a si. Não espere que um GM lhe traduza algo .
Russian: DarkSide ???????? ?????????? ???????? ????. ?? ?? ???????? ?????????? ?? ??????????? ??? ?? ??????. ???????? ?????????? ??????? ?? ????? ????????? ??? ???.
Spanish/Español: El Darkside es un Shard hablando Inglés. O si usted no habla Inglis no exime a usted de las norms. GMs no esperan a ser ca paces de traducer para usted.
1.1) Policy on Rule Violations
The DarkSide has a strict policy on rule-breaking. Follow the rules and you will be able to enjoy your time here. Do not follow the rules and you will most likely be caught and subjected to jail time or banishment. Don't waste your time, the staff's time, or other player's time.
All players are expected to know and obey the rules at all times. Ignorance is no excuse.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: At times, a staff member's action may supersede what a rule states and calls for as punishment. The rules SHOULD be used as a guideline for players, and will be taken into account by staff as carefully as possible. Also remember that a precedence set by a staff member's actions does not mean that in the same basic situation, the same actions will be taken.
Any reasonable request by a staff member should be obeyed as if it were a rule. Staff members will be fair and give warning, but you must respond with promptness and courtesy, or face the consequences. Anyone who tries to disobey a staff member\'s request by saying "ITS NOT IN THE RULES SO ITS ALLOWED" will be guilty of flouting this very rule and will be jailed or banned as appropriate.
1.2) Types of Rule Violations
Admin's Have THE FINAL SAY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THESE RULES and all matter dealing with Game Play, as well as a person’s personal history on TDS can be taken into account when deciding the proper course of action. There are two types of rule violations: minor and major.
A Minor Violation will warrant:
1) 24 hours jail time for the first offense
2) 3 days jail time for the second offense
3) 1 week jail time for the third offense
4) 2 week ban from the shard and the forum for the fourth offense
* Any further offenses will lead to another 2 week ban.
A Major Violation will most likely warrant a 2 week ban.
* Any further offenses will lead to another 2 week ban.
* In the cases of repeated major violations, or an extreme violation such as a hacking attempt on the shard or forum, or a Distributed Denial of Service attack, the offending individual(s) will be dealt with according to the Admins' discretion.
Punishments do not accumulate. If someone commits a first minor violation, and receives 24 hours jail time, and then commits another minor violation, his or her punishment will be 3 days of jail time from the moment that the punishment for the second violation begins.
Any violations in which the violator uses property such as a house or ship in order to exploit may result in the confiscation of that property.
During the time in which you are jailed or banned, you may not try to escape the jailing/banning in any way, including creating a new account (which would be a violation itself; refer to Section 1.3, playing on a friend's account, or in the case of the message board, creating another account after being banned.
If you want to complain that another player broke a rule, the burden of proof is on you. This means that in the case of an exploit, you must provide a screenshot or video. Chat logs will not be accepted as evidence, since they can be faked easily.
1.3) Account Rules
When creating an account on The DarkSide, be sure not to have any SPACES or illegal characters like (!@^%$#[]*+=) in your name. Accented characters such as "á" are also illegal characters. Do not start an account with the titles "GM" or "Admin". Any accounts with such illegal characters and/or illegal titles will be either deleted or renamed. If this happens to you, don\'t expect any skills or items to be replaced. The only valid characters for account names are alphabets and numbers (a-z,A-Z,0-9). In case of a renamed account name, e-mail an admin with your old account name and your password. She or he will most likely e-mail you your new account informations as soon as she or he receives the e-mail.
Players are only allowed one account per real-life person, and two character’s per account (one Pk and one Non-Pk). Having any more than one account can result in one or all accounts (including all items, houses, boats, vendors, guildstones, etc.) being deleted, and you will be guilty of a minor violation. There is no skill cap on The DarkSide, so there is no need to have multiple characters or accounts.
If you need to refresh an account for another person then you MUST send a private message to an Administrator on the forums with the details or they may consider this an attempt at hacking that account which will be delt with as the shard Administrator’s see fit.
If you are refreshing an account for someone and have notified and Administrator then you should only be on that account long enough for a world save to take place and only once every 60 days.
Any disputes over account ownership due to the owner giving out the account name and password, or being careless with the account name and password, will be dealt with by The Administrator's as they see fit.
The running of multiple clients will not be tolerated and may result in all items of from any of the different accounts being deleted or returned if the Admins feel one of the accounts was hacked into by the violator.
If someone cracks your PC and steals your TDS account info somehow, you will get your account back, but any loss of items or skills will not be compensated, unless you have UIDs of your items. We can't be certain if someone actually owns a certain item unless that person has the item's UID. Refer to Section 3.10 for more information about PC security and account crackings.
1.4) Use of Paging System
Before even considering paging a GM or a Guide, check if your question is answered somewhere on this website or on specified sections on the message boards.
1.4.0) Paging A Guide
You should page a guide for questions about how Ultima Online or The Darkside works. Do not abuse the guide page system or you might find yourself temporarily guidepage-banned. You will treat a guide with same respect you do a Game Master when they have their tag on. Not doing so will be treat as a violation.
1.4.1) Paging A GameMaster
Do not page:
- To know the whereabouts of another player;
- To know the function of items (what this or that thing does);
- To be resurrected;
- To be teleported;
- To request that a GM hold an event;
- To know any question that can be answered by a player or guide, that isn't already answered on the FAQ on the forums and/or website. These will not be answered, so don't bother the staff with issues like this.
Do not ask GMs for any free items or skill gains. Doing so can provoke the staff into PWNing you on the spot.
Do not ask or page to become a GM. Anyone who pages to be GM will see her or his page ignored. We select GM staff from dedicated and long time players who show good people skills, maturity and integrity on the shard when there is a need for more GM staff.
GM selection criteria will include: being active on the messageboard, knowledge of The Darkside Shard Policy's and gameplay.
If you find a bug, do not page about it. Post it on the bugs board unless it is a major exploit. In this one case, private message Drastic on the forums.
If you page to report a miner or a lumberjacker who is somehow exploiting or cheating, please leave the coordinates of the player. You should do the same thing if you page because you found some items that aren't supposed to be there (eg: death chests with no houses near, guildstone not close to a house, house decoration and no houses, etc...). Items in such chests will not be given to the finder. They will be returned to the chest's owner.
This is one of the least-followed rules of the shard. Please page in a sensible manner, providing the most information and least amount of fluff. Saying "halp my sheep died" would be of no concern of a GM; saying \"Would like some GM decor" would get a better response. Better yet, if something is place specific, especially when you're logging off, find your coordinates using .whereami, and include your coordinates in the page -- it will be a great help to the GM.
Furthermore, DO NOT demand that GMs answer your page immediately. A GM online may not necessarily be at his/her computer. It would be better that you leave a page that is descriptive so that a GM can fix the problem even if you are not online.
Page only when you have a genuine concern that can only be addressed by a GM ( death chests, re-deeding of houses not able to be re-deeded by a normal manner, moving of non movable items), bugs that can be duplicated (use the message board to notify others of other bugs, or ask questions in general), illegal looting, knowledge of dupers or people performing exploits or generally breaking the rules.
You should page a gm if:
-You are stuck and .imstuck isn't working
-You want a vendor stone or house decorations
-Telepads are walled, and there is still a wall there, or you have a screenshot of it
-Your corpse is inacessible with your allnames macro
Abusing the page system will result in a minor violation.
1.5) Impersonation of Staff or Game Functions
An inappropriate choice of name in game or on the boards, guild abbreviation and telling others you are a GM or Admin on this shard are a minor violations of this rule.
1.6) Promotion/Advertising of Other Shards
Please do not advertise for other shards in-game or on the message board. To do so is rude and intolerable. Any allusion to other shards is the same as promoting them.
This is a major violation.
1.7) Logging Out in High Traffic Areas
Logged out characters in high traffic areas cause lag. Any player who logs out in high traffic areas may be sent to some random area; do not page a GM about it. Players are to log out in their homes if possible or in a specified logout area. Be careful when logging out in dense 'player towns.' If there are many items in the area, you may not be able to log on.
1.8) Information on Banishment/Account Inactivity
If a character is deleted due to a ban or account inactivity, all houses owned by the player, as well as death chests, etc., will be deleted and will not be returned. In the case that the house has a co-owner, the house will be given to the first co-owner of the list. Death chests of the old owner will, however, still be deleted. If the first co-owner of the list already owns the maximum amount of houses, we will go down the list until we find a co-owner that can own the house. In the case no one can, the house will be deleted.
1.9) Admin Ruling
Admin's have the final say - If an Admin requests that you refrain from doing something that is not explicitly outlined on this page do it, don't argue about it, failure to comply with a Admin's decision WILL result in jail time and/or being banned from game and/or the forums. If you feel you must contact an Admin regarding an issue the Admin's emails may be found on both the website and forums, you can do so via private message or by e-mail. Admin's decision on any issue is final, so causing problems after the fact will only hurt your future play time.
The Staff's interpretation of the rules set forth are LAW.
2.0) Guild Policy
As you know we can not control how you run your guild an handle the items the guild accumulates over time on here, so as Our rule on this issue of guild items, we will only deal with Guildmasters of the guild. Guildmasters are required to have the guild suits logged in UID books inside their bank, any books laying around not in guildmaster bank will be ignored. 1 Guild Chests outside is allowed, as long as does not block the door. If you join a guild then steal any items from said guild, you will be jailed, stealing is not allowed here, and We will not tolerate it, anyone deemed stealing from a guild will be jailed and/or banned. (Beware of players who just want to try and scam your guild for items)(Caught guild scamming will result in immediate jail time and/or banned from the server)
2.1) Pets in Homes
Owners should shrink their pets. Any untamed pets may be subject to GM removal, or may be tamed by any player. Do not page to get them back. Tame pets will follow their owners out of houses into gates. Also, you can only possess 5 un-shrunk sheep at any moment so it doesn't pause the respawning of these at their respective spawns. We do not condone the killing of other player's pets. If a staff member catches you, be prepared to do some jail time.
2.2) Redeeding Of Houses
You may redeed your house as you please. GMs can redeed your house in the event of a bug that prevents you from redeeding the house yourself. Co-owners may redeed houses, so remember this when you add people to your co-owner list.
Any additional craftable items that need to be redeeded or moved to another building may cost 1k gold per item. Any GM-placed decor may cost 10k gold per item moved. (The implementation of these fees are subject to GM discretion, and are most appropriate only when many items must be moved.)
When a house is redeeded, death chests and items not locked down are most likely left behind. Please take care of these before hand.
If you redeed your guildstone, make sure your guild chests are empty, because the chests might decay since they are not linked anymore to a valid object. In this case, do not page a GM or ask an Admin to retrieve the items. You will be ignored.
2.3) Redeeding Of Ships
GMs can redeed ships. Page only if you can't redeed it yourself (dclick the mast or 1 tile behind the mast). It is always a good thing to type .thisismyboat and target your boat, when you just placed it. This way, you can later type .whereismyboat if you lost it and easily retrieve it. Ship theft is perfectly legal, unless an exploit is used. Be careful what you do with your ship.
Do not page a GM to retreive a lost boat. Only page if your boat is not reachable from where you are, not if you cannot find it.
2.4) General House Rules
Keep your house number at a reasonable limit. The limit, if you even need this many, is two(2); this is mainly targeted at those who make towns. If you make a Lag Pit of Doom, something bad will happen to your houses. If we find out that you have more than 2 houses we will randomly delete houses until you are back to the maximum number of houses you can own. We will not bank the items that were in the houses, excepted for guild chests, death chests or guild stones. Breaking any of the following rules will result in a warning to move your house. Failure to comply with this warning will result in a minor violation and confiscation of your house.
2.4.0) Placing Near Dungeons
Houses must be at least 50 tiles ( footsteps ) away from ANY Dungeon entrance/exit .
2.4.1) Placing Near Mines
House must be at least 50 tiles away from any Mine Entrance/Exit Allowing complete access to the mine by all players.
2.4.2) Placing Near Other Houses
Houses must be placed at least 10 to 16 tiles away from other houses, house zones are not to be over lapped.
2.4.3) Placing Near Towns
Houses CAN NOT be placed within one big radar (Hit ALT-R twice to open the big radar) of any town! If you see any town buildings in the radar, you are too close. When placing a house, type ".where". If it says your in a town, then the house cannot be placed here.
2.4.4) Placing Houses Near Telepads/Permanent Gates
Houses placed near telepads or gates must be "at least" 50 tiles away
Try to keep deco/items/shrunk rides to a minimum. If your house is an Lag Pit of Doom then it may be cleaned up! Do not make your houses Public. This can allow any player to execute house commands on items inside your house. Also, house keys are not needed. Type "I wish to make this door keyless" and target all doors you wish to make magical.
2.4.5) Placing Death Chests and Guild Chests
Death Chests may not be placed anywhere outside of a house. If death chests are found outside of a house, they will be removed, and any items inside will not be replaced.
2.5) Vendors Stones
Any player can own a vendor stone. Use a vendor stone at your own risk; you may lose all your stock and cash if your vendor stone ever bugs out. No replacements will ever be provided.
See this page for more information on vendors.
You may not use these vendor stones or npcs to scam (such as selling empty bags and providing misinformation.) Scamming will result in deletion of your stone and a refund to the player. Bags are to contain what they claim to, and all items must be available for immediate sale (with the exemption of books providing information, which should be priced at 9999999 gold.)
Bags that do not hold what they claim will result in a refund or item confiscation from the seller (i.e. that which is claimed to be for sale will be taken from the seller if the buyer pages.)
Selling stackable items (this includes shrunken animals and statues) themselves on the vendor is not allowed and will result in the item deleted without a refund. You must place stackable items in a bag. Bags can be renamed with a bag renamer (which can be made with tinkering, if you have 18 iron ingots). Price the bag, not the items inside.
For more informations/constant updated rules, please visit this link.
2.6) Looting of Houses
House looting is a very serious offense and results in a major violation. There will be no house looting of any sort.
When you are in another's house, do not take or touch (dbl click/drag) anything with in it if you are not granted permission. Refund will automatically be done in case of stealing.
If you open your house up with guild doors, then any item not locked down can be taken by guild members and we will not consider it as house looting. Guild chests are used to distribute stuff to guild members, these items should be expendable.
Leave unlockable items on the floor of your house at your own risk (many craftables cannot be locked down due to exploitation) Do not put anything outside your house that can be consumed whilst locked down or stacked.
Dye tubs can be destroyed by firefield. Do not put them where they can be hit by the spell.
ALL valuables in the house should be kept in a death chest. If you did not take the basic precaution of protecting your items, you will not get compensation in the event of a house looting.
N.B. The limit of the house is not the four walls, but the whole house region. So if you type .where and it says you're in a house, but in fact, you're not INSIDE the house, you may NOT pick up any objects.
Locked down stackable items are not safe.
Other locked down items may not be safe.
Anyone not using the TDS patch files, does not see custom houses.
Anyone using a hacked multi.idx file does not see ANY houses at all and can walk in and loot stuff. Such exploiters will automatically be banned.
The only safe places to keep your items are death chests and your bank.
(Providing your pc isn't trojaned or has a key logger and no one else knows your password and you aren't hacked. And even then, make sure you only bank from a place where items won't be stolen if you think your bank might go overweight.)
Do not keep stackable items in your bank. If you stack them so that they weigh too much to carry, moving them might result in them dropping right on the floor while you're banking in Britain. Use a commodity deed in order to store stackable items such as logs, ore, and ingots in your bank. You can buy one for 250 gold pieces from the black Trade Center stone at the top of Britain Bank.
Remember, KEEP VALUABLES IN YOUR DEATH CHEST.
Also, get the UIDs of items that are important to you. Type .itemuid and target the item to get the UID of an item.
An easy way to do this is to
1) Turn on journal logging.
2) Get the UIDs of all of your valuable items.
3) Logout of UO
4) Cut and paste the relevant sections out of your journal log into a text file.
Or, you can just write down the UIDs on a piece of paper.
3.0) Exploiting/Cheating/Scamming/Abuse Rules
Scamming players in the past was tolorated as long as no exploits were used in the process. However if staff determines that a scam has taken place they can, at any time as they see fit, take actions to do what is in the best interest's of TDS. We do not wish to reward those who do not take the proper precautions but we also will not allow a player to drive off others who simply wish to enjoy this shard without being a nuisance to others.
All non-listed exploits are bannable.
Minor Violations:
- Exploiting Line of Sight against monsters (ie: shooting from the roof, over fences or fields, etc. where a monster can't attack you)
- Trapping NPCs in your house
- Blocking/obstructing/hiding from creatures by use of objects/containers (i.e. creative use of objects to prevent monster from attacking you)
- Placement of vendor stones anywhere other than at a player house
- Blocking telepads or moongates with OBJECTS is illegal.
- Trick Gating: Creative use of gates to force players from safe areas into areas where they can be killed legally (gating afk miners is not included in this).- Mining inside your house
- Using an autoloot mechanism (e.g. Ignition auto-loot)
- Looting in an Event Zone (all items looted will be returned, or this turns into a Major Violation)
Major Violations:
- Using multiple aliases to scam (ie: using accounts that are not yours just so you don't get a bad reputation or things similar to this)
- House looting/burglary/unlawful entry
- Using the command "come in" to pull players into your house to PK them, or blocking the "I want out" position in any way by items/spells (all 3 open sides must be OPEN ) is illegal, and you will most likely lose your house over this.
- Speed hacking,
- Entry into non sanctioned areas by means of exploits
- Possessing Event Items
- Placing a house over another house to house loot
In general, an exploit can best be described as doing something that wasn't in the intent of the game design.. When in doubt whether a certain action is an exploit, please ask the staff on the message board. Ignorance is not an excuse. Exploitation is a very tricky subject (in the manner of determining it and then dealing with it.) It is often hard to know whether you are innovating or exploiting (often times the two are synonymous.) Often times, if you are caught early or turn in the bug, no harm will come to you, or it will be minor. Blatant abusers are the ones targeted for banishment on this shard.
3.1) Legal Exploits
- None known.
3.2) Picking Up Stuff From The Ground
Items found on the ground, near a player, or even dropped by a player, if players are around first ask if they dropped their item, then if no one claims it, you are allowed to keep the item, (artifacts exclluded) If someone drops something and the person does not give the item to its owner, and Staff has to intervene said punishment will result in the Admin's discretion. Do not page if you have dropped something due to your person being overweight, or a stat bug. Remember to use the .undress command in a place where you know your stuff won't be stolen, as well as accessing your bank; miners, pick up your ore, or it might disappear.
NB: If you get tricked and someone made you overweight, and you have proof, you can page to get the items back.
3.3) Player Stats and Skills
Any stat and/or skill above 100 (real skill) while naked will result in an automatic major violation. If you use some item and it causes this to happen to you, IMMEDIATELY PAGE.
Sometimes bugged items can give you permanent exceptional skills/stats; page a GM when you find one.
You can reset your stats to 100/100/100 anytime by using .resetstats. This will kill you so do it in a safe place.
You can also save your skill points with .saveskills and restore them with .restoreskills which will kill you as well. This stores a memory of your skills so that you can recover them if the game screws up. Do .saveskills after any major skill gains you've made.
3.4) Access to Restricted Areas
If an area is sealed off, it is common sense that you shouldn't be there. If you have accidentally teleported there, page immediately.
If you fail to report a hole into a sealed-off area, and mark runes or place houses there, you will lose the house(s) and/or items, and be guilty of a major violation.
Possessing a rune that leads you to another facet is illegal and considereed as a major offence. The rune will also be deleted without any refund.
3.5) Item Replacement Policy
The DarkSide will replace items in cases where items have been lost due to an occurrence that is beyond the player's control (shard crashes, emulator bugs, etc.), if the player has UIDs of the item(s).
Take note that death chests and houses placed by a player will disappear if the player who placed it is deleted.
Do not share your death/guild chest with people whom you cannot trust.
No items will replaced due to a timewarp (ie: you got it just before the server warped).
Player deaths will also be generally ignored. If you don't want to lose anything, don't wear it. Since there's no foreseeable way of items leaving the shard (since people complain if item repairing is disabled), if you lose items due to not being able to log on, too bad.
Furthermore, if you don't want to lose anything, only log off after a worldsave. Worldsaves occur every 20 minutes.
Pets will never be replaced for any reason. If you decide to overvalue a pet and pay top-dollar for it, then too bad when it gets killed or disappears.
3.6) Monster Loot Stealing/Kill Stealing
Loot stealing is legal unless someone has proof that loot-stealing occurred (Such as a screenshot). An accusation that someone stole loot isn't good enough.
However, if a GM sees you stealing loot, it will be considered a minor violation.
3.7) Fraud/Scamming
The Darkside's staff has a policy of keeping their noses out of real life affairs. Keep this in mind when you are buying or selling accounts. This policy has been instated because true proof from either party can rarely ever be provided.
All trade window trades are final. The trade window is designed so that if you know what you are doing, you will not get scammed. When buying or selling via the trade window:
* Whenever anything in the trade window changes (something is added or removed), the checkboxes are cleared. When the checkboxes are cleared, but it doesn't look like anything has changed.
* There is a bug in which things that are added to the trade window, and then removed, will still appear to be in the trade window. You can tell whether an item is really in the trade window by clicking on it, and holding your mouse still to wait for the item's name to be displayed. If the name isn't displayed, then it's not in the trade window, and you should right-click the trade window to close it, warn the other person not to scam you, and either try the trade again or don't trade.
* Never buy things that are in bags. Demand to see each individual item in the trade window before you click the checkbox.
* Always use a pen of contractual agreement in trades in which valuable items are being traded. You can buy the pen of contractual agreement for 250 gold pieces from the black Trade Center stone on the top floor of each banks. To find it, click on Ultimate Items.
Double click on the pen of contractual agreement to use it. When writing the contractual agreement, be sure to state your character's name, the other person's character's name, and what each of you are trading. And BE SPECIFIC about what each of you is trading. If you are expecting a GM-quality, undamaged Valorite chest plate, state that in the contractual agreement.
When you click OK, the pen of contractual agreement (which looks like a green pen) will turn into a contractual agreement (which looks like a deed).
* Players are expect to make use of their common sense and exercise due care in all trades and transactions. Should you become careless and lose out in a trade, do not expect a GM to reverse the trade.
* If a scam does occur due to the other person using an exploit, or if the other person violates a contractual agreement in the trade, page a GM or report it in the Questions for Staff forum. If caught, the offending person will be guilty of a minor violation.
* Contracts may not be used to secure your lends/shares with another player. You will have to trust that person if you want to lend her or him your precious item. Usage of contracts for such issues will be ignored. Use your common sense as well. If you know someone has a bad reputation and keeps stealing your items, you might not want to lend him your precious level 6 unique you just got.
NO EVIDENCE EXCEPT THE CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT WILL BE ACCEPTED.
3.8) Harassment/Abuse Policy
Harassment means making an excessive nuisance of yourself to players and staff. The punishment for most of these is a minor violation. Among the aspects of harassment are:
- unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable language toward any player
- spamming
- stalking (interfering with treasure hunts, following into houses/boats)
- blocking (illegal use of add-ons, furniture, containers, etc.)
- summoning monsters in mines; releasing pets which will attack in mines
- casting beneficial spells on a monster while it is attacking another player
You may not organize any guilds or groups that are based on, or espouse, any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hate-mongering philosophy. The consequence of this will be removal of your guildstone, guild house, and a major violation for anyone involved in the guild.
We do not deal with lamers or kids who just want to cause problems. Lamers will be banned.
Harassment of any staff member in-game or on the message boards will earn you a major violation. All staff members are volunteers. No staff member should be harassed at any time for any reason. If you have a problem with a particular staff member please let one of the administrators know via private message or an e-mail. Do not take your anger out on that staff member or any other.
Always control your temper.
caveat:
Players who are being harassed should used the UO client's ignore feature (press ALT-O) and ignore people who are talking %$@#% to you if you are offended. Only if the player stalks you everywhere you go should you page a GM.
Players who abuse and spam the shout system will be given a warning. Failure to comply with the warning will earn you a one day shout-ban. This is cumulative so on the 2nd offence, you will have a 2 days shoutban.
Anyone caught saying racists things will be punished with a minor violation.
3.9) Pet Killing
It is no longer legal to kill anyone's ride anywhere on the server. If caught by a staff member, be prepared to do some jail time.
3.10) Password Security/Account Crackings
It is each and every user’s personal responsibility to ensure that his or her TDS game account is secure. We expect users to take appropriate measures in order to prevent password cracking and theft. Anyone found to be guilty of account cracking (including co-conspirators or accomplices) will receive the consequences of a major violation, but any loss of items or skills will not be compensated, unless you have UIDs of certain items. This is because we can't be certain if someone actually owns a certain item unless that person has the item's UID.
3.10.0) Passwords
Passwords should be at least 8 characters. You can change your password ingame at anytime by typing the command .newpassword this was added in for you to help make sure your account is secure.
Use passwords that do not consist of common names or words. Use phrases and mix them with numbers or nonsense words and numbers.
Good passwords:
mfkasd1234md
the134queen453of13spain
Bad passwords:
john, skip, uo, tds, iloveu, secret, mypassword, password etc
Never give your password to anyone with whom you would not trust your life.
3.10.1) PC Security
A brand new installation of any windows system is by default NOT SECURE. It is full of holes that hackers will exploit to enter your system. They can load all sorts of programs to do stuff such as logging your keystrokes, copying files, using your bandwidth to send spam email, etc. Antivirus software is also an important component in PC security. Email viruses are extremely rampant and can totally screw up your system, some to the point that you need a total reformat. Other viruses can even destroy your PC so that only a hardware replacement of the bio's chip will work. Other viruses will steal data and publish the contents of your emails to everyone else.
4.0) Macroing Rules
The DarkSide does not allow macro hunting in any form. If caught you will be banned on the spot.
Macro mining and lumberjacking is permitted but not while afk.
If caught, the first time you will be sent to jail for 1 week and Loss of all resources.
The second offense carries a Loss of all resources, Loss of all dusteds/uniques on player, skill set to 0, and 2 weeks jail time.
If caught after that, you will be banned and your character with all items on it will be deleted.
Also if we find that the offending account was created for the sole purpose of being a sacrificial gatherer, the punishments will extend to the owners main account.
Macroing at Britain Bank is not permitted with any skills, caught doing so will result in 1 week jail time and loss of everything on your person.
Macroing in any event area will result in jail time, and loss of skills gained while in there.
4.1) Injection and other 3rd party tools
The use of injection or any program that allows you to do somthing which cannot done with an approved client (for example sending information (or to much information) to lag or crash another players) is not permitted on TDS. If caught doing so, you will be BANNED 5.0) Forum Rules
5.1) Abuse/HarrassmentDo not post anything abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, or sexually-oriented. Cursing will be tolerated within reason. Violation of this rule will result in a three-day board ban. Absolutely no comments that are not politically correct will be allowed on TDS. You may not use any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable language toward any other player or staff member. That means no using Jew, Nigga, Pollock,or any other slur, in ANY form. Anyone caught saying racists things will be punished with a violation.
Keep it PG-13. We have some younger players playing on the shard, and while they may not be offended, thier parents might, and you don't want to get them kicked off the shard by thier parents.
5.2) SpammingSpamming will be defined as posting many useless or non-sensical comments. Spamming will be tolerated within reason, but if a TDS staff member warns you to stop, you must comply, or else receive a three-day board ban.
5.3) Shard AdvertisingShard advertising of any kind, either directly, by naming a shard and providing a link, or by indirectly referring to another shard, will result in an immediate three-day board ban. If done ingame, it will result in a 3 day jail time.
5.3.1) Advertising TDS on another shard or its forumsAdvertising TDS on another shard or its forum is just plain distasteful and will not be permitted. If caught, it will result in a minimum 2 week board and in game suspension. An Admin may increase the time as he sees fit depending on the severity of the offense.
5.4) FlamingFlaming will be defined as a personal attack on another forum member. Flames may be posted only on the Flaming Board. Threads that turn into flame wars will be moved to the Flaming Board. Those who post flames outside of the Flaming Board will receive warnings You may not flame staff members in any case. Flouting of this rule will result in a three-day board ban.
5.5) Impersonation of StaffImpersonation of any current or past staff member will result in an immediate permanent ban of your forum account.
5.6) Unconstructive CriticismUnconstructive Criticism will be defined as criticism of The DarkSide without any reasoning to back up your criticism. Just saying "TDS sucks" may result in a warning and a locked thread, but may also result in a three-day board ban. To be clear, you may "constructively criticise" the shard if you can think of ways to fix the problems that you see in the gameplay, but you must do so respectfully.
5.7) Signature and Avatar Size - The size limit for your signature is 400x100 pixels.
- The Avatar size limit is 80x80 pixels.
- There must be no sex, racism, violence (basically, nothing offensive) in your signature and/or avatar. (Refer to Section 5.1 for more info on what is offensive.)
- Anything not corresponding to these specifications will get your sig/avatar deleted and you'll get a warning via Private Message. If you keep putting your sig/avatar back, you will be board-banned for three days (complete ban depending of the gravity of the situation or if you keep pushing the limits over and over).
5.8) Respect for othersMost important point. Stop making fun of people. Learn to respect them. If you dont like someone or what someone did, keep it for yourself or say it in a non-harmful way. Depending on the situation, your board account will be either blocked for 5 days or banned forever if its against a staff member.
5.9) Threads Content Asking for illegal programs, cd keys or anything related to hacking/cracking is not tolerated on our boards. We are not that kind of community. If you really want to ask for such things, use google to find yourself an hacking community. Your post will be edited and locked if you do not follow these rules.
NB: GM's are free to board ban whoever isn't following the board rules. Dont be surprise if a GM bans you. Also, if your board account has been banned for good... do not create another account right away just to create the same troubles. Doing so will result in banning your in-game account and possibly IP banning you.
NB2: Some sections of the forum might have their "own" rules. These rules are added to the previous ones and you should read them before posting on the section.
NB3: You can find information about any violation that you committed in the Rule Violations Board, such as sentence duration, and who jailed/banned you.
NB4: These boards are offered in priority to our players. If you are a 'board troll' (ie: someone that just posts on boards but do not play), please be aware there will be slim to no tolerance towards your conduct. Most of these so called 'board trolls' are only here to whine and give us troubles. We do not have to deal with such childish attitude. Getting rid of you will benifit not only the staff, but most of the players.
Donations can be sent by paypal (preferably) to:
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or by snail mail if necessary to:
PM Drastic on the forums for the address
When you make a donation, be sure to make a post in the Validate Your Donations forum, containing the following information:
1) The email address you used to make the Paypal donation.
2) The amount of cash you donated.
3) The date and time (including the timezone) when you sent the donation.
Now you will have to wait until one of us validates your donation.
At that point, we will validate your post. You can now claim your donation rewards.
You can do this by making a post in the Claim Your Donations. When you make this post, include the following information.
In the topic name:
- If you are ONLY getting tokens, write "[Tokens]".
- If you are ONLY getting an item, write "[Item]".
- If you are getting both tokens and items, write "[Tokens][Items]".
In the post, you must include this information:
Character Name:
Character UID:
(If you're getting an item)
Item:
The name of the item you want. In case you've chosen the customisable artifact, write the specs you want it to have. If you're upgrading one, write the artifact uid's, current specs, and specs you want to ADD.
(If you're getting tokens)
Tokens: (Amount of Tokens)
Thanks again TDS Staff |
