Mythic-policy

Purpose
This document is intended for use by customers of Mythic Entertainment as a rulebook for behavior within the game, Dark Age of Camelot. DAoC support staff have final say over what constitutes a violation of these rules. Mythic Entertainment and DAoC reserves the right to change its policies at any time.

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.

• Mythic Entertainment 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 Mythic Entertainment's sole discretion, result in the immediate termination of Player's Account with no advance notice required and other actions which Mythic may determine are necessary.
• 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.
• 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 Mythic reserves the right, but not the responsibility, to restrict conduct which Mythic deems, in its sole discretion, to be harmful to individual members, damaging to the Services, or in violation of Mythic' or any third party's rights. Mythic may prohibit or delete conduct, communication or content transmitted on Mythic services that is deemed to be in violation of applicable laws or is harmful to other members, the Mythic service community or the rights of Mythic in general. Player acknowledges, however, that communication over the DAoC Services often occurs in real-time and Mythic cannot, and does not intend to, screen communication in advance.

Prohibited Conduct
PLAYER MAY NOT USE THE DAoC SERVICES TO:

• 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. Mythic 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.
• Post or transmit sexually explicit images, or point to or reference such images.
• 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.
• Transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, obscene, vulgar, harassing, defamatory, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable content.
• Impersonate any person, including, but not limited to, Mythic' employees, CSRs or hosts. Player shall not hold himself or herself out or portray himself or herself as a Mythic 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 Mythic staff shall be grounds for immediate account termination.
• 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.
• 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.
• Post or transmit unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation.
• 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.
• Violate, intentionally or unintentionally, any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation.
• Modify any files that Mythic 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.
• 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 Mythic as soon as they are found as their continued use can damage the enjoyment of the game for all its players. Mythic 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.
• Use any game hacking software or tools. Use of these types of programs will result in immediate termination of the Account and may subject your to civil and/or criminal liability.
• 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 your to civil and/or criminal liability.
• Engage in any behavior that is contrary to the 'spirit of the game' as defined by Mythic in its sole discretion.
• Play Dark Age of Camelot on any server or service that is not provided or authorized by Mythic Entertainment.
• For a more detailed list of policy violations and the disciplinary actions that may be associated with them, please read the policy entitled "DAoC - Detailed List of Policy Violations and Disciplinary Actions", which is located at Support.Darkageofcamelot.Com.

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.

• You may not use any names that violate the General Rules and Guidelines. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racial, ethnic, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.
• You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of Mythic Entertainment.
• You may not use names of any employee of Mythic Entertainment.
• You may not use names of copyrighted characters, materials or products.
• You may not use proper names of areas or NPC's within Dark Age of Camelot.
• You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them.
• You may not use names that contain a phrase or a sentence.
• You may not use names where a combination of the first and last names violate any of the above rules.
• You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules.

Naming Policy Enforcement
If you violate any of the above Naming Policy, these are the steps that will be followed to address the issue.

• If you violate items 1 or 2 above, you may be issued a warning on your account, and will be given the opportunity to choose a new name for your character or guild. You must choose a new name while in initial communication with the CSR, who will then change the name for you. If you cannot determine a new name for your character, one will be chosen for you.
• For all other types of violation, you will be given the opportunity to choose a new name for your character or guild. You must choose a new name while in initial communication with the CSR, who will then change the name for you. If you cannot determine a new name for your character, one will be chosen for you.

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

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. Mythic Entertainment 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?

• When harassment is reported it is immediately escalated to a server lead or higher, and investigated as quickly as possible.
• We will observe the reported harassing behavior, and determine whether the harassment report is valid.
• You will be informed of the results of the investigation.
• If the harassment is valid, we will take appropriate disciplinary action against the policy violator.

What are the penalties for harassment?
Mythic Entertainment 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
Mythic Entertainment has a very definite policy about selling accounts and items using any online service or any other auctioning/sales system.

Selling of Items and Equipment.
It is against Mythic policy to sell any items or equipment, using 'real' money.
We will ask all auctioning services to respect our policy and restrict the selling of equipment 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.

Selling of Accounts
While Mythic Entertainment does not condone the selling of DAoC accounts in any way, we will also not attempt to discourage it.
We will not help to resolve, in any way, problems that arise from the selling or trading of accounts.
As stated in the Account Security Policy, all account security is the sole responsibility of the customer. We will not help to resolve, or be held in any way responsible for account security breaches, or the problems that may occur from them.

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 and /Appeal in-game, and we will do everything that we can to help you recover security on your account.

Item Reimbursement Policy
Items will not be reimbursed for any reason except one. If you lose an item due to a game anomaly or bug, we will investigate the issue, and determine if we can reimburse in each instance.

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.
• In-Game Customer Service Representatives (CSR) are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Telephone Support is available from 2pm - 11pm EST, Tuesday - Saturday.
• You will get a timely response to your question or concern, based upon CSR work-load.
• You will receive unobtrusive and professional support.
• We will make every attempt not to interfere with you or the game, unless absolutely necessary in the performance of our duties.
• You will be treated fairly and equitably.
• 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.
• 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 Mythic Entertainment's intent to provide a game that everyone can enjoy without the intrusion of Mythic 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 the 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.
• 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.
• We may give the player a warning about their actions. 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.
• We may suspend the players account for one hour. 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.
• We may suspend the player account for 3-7 days. 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.
• We may Banish (cancel) the account permanently. 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.

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 dispute@mythicentertainment.com , please include any pertinent information. We will respond to your concerns as soon as possible, and discuss any concerns that you may have.