<text>
   <title>Eternal Lands Rules</title>
   <info>
      <short>Click on a rule to see its full text.</short>
   </info>
   <info>
      <short>Use the scrollbar on the right to view the complete list. If you have any doubts or questions, ask a mod for clarification with the #help_me command.
 </short>
   </info>
   <rule>
      <short>Don't Be A Troublemaker.</short>
      <long>Do not cause problems on purpose that require the attentions of the moderators. If in doubt, don't do it.
Breaking these rules or the spirit of the rules (not just the letter of the law) is punishable. While for most people a warning is sufficient, for repeat offenders, trolls, intentional troublemakers, and/or severe infractions we may bypass warnings.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Moderation is never a topic for public discussion.</short>
      <long>Issues and questions regarding ingame policies and procedures should be addressed to the game administrators (namely Aislinn) or the specific moderator via private message. Issues and problems concerning other game moderators should also be addressed privately with Aislinn. All private messages will remain classified unless otherwise agreed upon.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Do Not Cheat.</short>
      <long>Cheating in the game means using illegal clients, illegal unofficial map (.elm) files that have been altered from the official versions, unregistered and/or unapproved bots, macroing, automating, scripting, or exploiting bugs. Any attempt to seek loopholes or manipulate information to get around these rules is grounds for banning. Anyone knowingly aiding cheaters will also be locked and/or banned.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Skirting Punishments.</short>
      <long>Seeking loopholes or attempting to get around any punishment can result in permanent bans from both the Eternal Lands game and forums. This includes, but is not limited to, using or creating additional accounts to get around bans and locks, as well as minor punishments. Anyone knowingly aiding someone in circumventing a punishment will also receive an appropriate punishment.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Use Appropriate Language.</short>
      <long>Do not use language which is sexually explicit, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, ethnically, or otherwise offensive. This includes both clear and implied language, images, or links to websites with such content. This includes purposeful variances upon the spelling of such content for the purpose of bypassing the filters.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Harassment.</short>
      <long>Harassment is not limited to the type of language used; it encompasses the intent. This includes both clear and implied language or actions that are systematically and/or continually unwanted and annoying. This further includes the distribution, release, or discussion of any real-life, personal, or private information about other players, moderators or volunteers of Eternal Lands. Repeatedly targeting a specific player or persons with harassment will result in severe consequences.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Respect Others.</short>
      <long>You must respect the rights of others and their rights to enjoy this game.
Do not advocate, start, or participate in any discussions that are racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay or other hatemongering philosophies, or anything that is sexually explicit in public. Do not organize nor be a part of any guilds or groups within Eternal Lands or their forums that do so.
Do not patronize, mislead, or take advantage of people (newbies) as they become acquainted with the environment and make beginner's mistakes.
**Note** This does NOT include pking, pvping, "spawn stealing", bag stealing/jumping, or guild/interguild issues. These are a normal part of gameplay and will be treated as such.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Do Not Give Out Your Password.</short>
      <long>Once you give your password out to anyone for any reason, even for the purpose of character sharing, you relinquish all rights to that character. Eternal Lands is not responsible for the return of your character or account, or for the actions of your character once you have disclosed your password. Characters that break the rules can and will be locked, regardless if "someone else" was on it.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Use Appropriate Names.</short>
      <long>Please do not create a name that is obscene, vulgar, profane, offensive, utterly senseless and stupid (e.g. dfjritq47fa), or is made with the intent of impersonation. Take into consideration that the name you choose does affect the atmosphere of the game. Inappropriate names can and will be locked no matter how much time you have spent in the game.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Impersonations.</short>
      <long>Do not impersonate any Eternal Lands owners, developers, moderators, players, bots, npc's, or guilds. This includes creating similar variances upon names in order to deceive, misrepresent or post false information to others. Also do not pretend to be a bot.  **Note** If you purchase a name change, your old name is now fair game for another player.  If you did not like the name enough to keep it, don't complain if someone else wants it.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Character Creation Spamming.</short> 
      <long>Do not attempt to spam character creation by creating numerous characters with similar names (e.g. Player1, Player2, Player3...) or by creating numerous characters in a short period of time.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Linking To Inappropriate Websites.</short>
      <long>Do not post URLs to sexually explicit, obscene, or vulgar sites. These would be considered "X rated". If the site contains questionable material, something that would be considered "R rated", then you must give a warning before posting it. Do not post or discuss links to cheats, illegal clients, hacks, or malicious viruses or programs, or any sites that would themselves be illegal or promote illegal activities.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Sell And Trade At Your Own Risk.</short>
      <long>Eternal Lands will not be held responsible for any transactions dealing with real monetary currency/items or ingame money/items. No buying or selling of character accounts or guilds, or advertising of them, is to be made in any EL forum, ingame public chat, or channels. You take full responsibilty for your actions and their consequences. Eternal Lands will assume none of that responsibility.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Improper Advertising.</short>
      <long>Do not market, promote, advertise, or solicit within the Eternal Lands any non-Eternal Lands related businesses, organizations, or websites.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Spamming.</short>
      <long>Spamming is excessively communicating the same post, phrase, similar phrases, or posting purposefully irrelevant messages. This also applies to excessive personal conversations (in any language) in highly populated places* that derail these locations' purpose and create spam.
*Highly populated places can include, but are not limited to, beam, storages, and channels including the unmoderated ones such as the language channels.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Multilingualism</short>
      <long>English is the official language in EL. We do support and embrace the other languages, which is why we are working on translations as well. However, we do require that you speak English in official channels, since those are highly populated places where multiple languages derail their purpose and create spam.
*A simple one line greeting in another language is acceptable.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Bag Spamming.</short>
      <long>Do not drop large numbers of bags for any purpose as this may lead to the bags of others disappearing and cause people to lose the items they've temporarily placed at their feet.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Summoning Near Populated/High Traffic Areas.</short>
      <long>Do not attempt to summon or bring your previously summoned creatures with you near populated and high traffic areas (e.g. all storages, Wraith, "beam", NPC's, ships, etc.). In addition, on Isla Prima and its insides, do not summon anything other than IP's natural inhabitants (i.e. rabbits, rats, and beavers). If your summoning is causing such problems as, but not limited to, lag or resource blocking for other players, in addition to the above restrictions, you may be asked by a mod to stop and move somewhere else to summon.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Do Not Block Resources.</short> 
      <long>Resources include, but are not limited to, spawns, harvestables, teleportals, ships, doors, bridges, and archways. If you are asked to move, please let people pass.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Hacking.</short> 
      <long>Do not attempt to interfere with or hack into any transmissions to or from the servers. Do not attempt to hack into someone else's account or convince them to give you or others their passwords.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Exploiting Bugs.</short>
      <long>Do not exploit any bug in Eternal Lands and do not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting. This information should be immediately communicated to the Eternal Lands' owners privately.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Illegal Clients.</short>
      <long>When modifying the Eternal Lands client you must abide to the license given, and may not distribute copies of illegally made clients. All patches or unofficial clients must first be approved by an Eternal Lands owner (namely Entropy/radu) before use.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>No Macroing or Automation.</short>
      <long>Do not use illegal automated programs, scripts, or computers. The use of any illegal automated program or system, devices, computers, or scripts will result in an immediate ban from the game.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Bots must be declared.</short>
      <long>To use a bot in Eternal Lands, the bot must be registered, approved, and obey the bot rules. You can register your bot and read the bot rules here: http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13063
If you do not declare your bot it may be banned from the game.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Obey Contest Rules.</short>
      <long>The moderators may create and enforce rules and consequences for contests and other events, which you agree to abide by and be bound by through the act of participating and/or attending.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Invance Rules</short>
      <long>1. Invances are team events. The entire point is to clear the map within a time limit. If you enter, you *must* help the team win.

2. No sabotaging other players.

3. Gatekeeper must never go AFK and must allow people through the gate.

4. No AFKing for *any* reason, anywhere.  No leaving the map (with the exception of a quick restock) for any reason and then come back near the end just for the experience.  If you must AFK, you must exit the invance and not return.

5. This is not an event to farm bosses, serp other players, train a/d, stand around at the gate while others do the work, or go AFK.

6. If you bring more than one character, all characters need to be actively fighting at all times.

7. Do not show up just for the bosses or run over to the boss spawns to wait for them before it even starts.

8. If you do not get experience (undercappers or maxed 178ers), you cannot go and cherry pick what mobs you want then leave.

9. You must go in good gear - "good" will depend on the range and will be more flexible for the lower ranges. You are not helping the team if you show up in leathers/augs, iron swords, and training arrows, no matter how high your stats are.

10. If you go *only* as an archer and will not do melee, you must have reasonably high AP,  must not use training arrows, and must come down from the walls and continue to range in the field when those mobs are gone. Plan to shoot approximately 300 arrows (or 200 with Ethereal Ranger perk/bow).

11. Observers are allowed but you must not clutter the channel with chat, are not allowed to cherry pick mobs to kill, and are not allowed to pick up bags. You must not get in the way or inconvenience those who fight. This also applies to alts of team members who are not in range.

12. If you see someone breaking these rules, report them via the #abuse command immediately while the invance is still going on. It's difficult to check it out if you report it two days later.


**Lower ranges (40-60 and 60-80) do not have the archery and gear requirements.

**Breaking these rules can result in you being banned from invances.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Capped Invasion Rules</short>
      <long>People over the cap are only allowed to WATCH them. They are not allowed to interfere in any way, such as healing players, blocking resources/paths, taking bags, casting spells that would affect players, monsters or summons, or anything that would help or sabotage those fighting in the invasion. Giving advice is OK, but nothing more.</long>
   </rule>
   <rule>
      <short>Obey Channel Rules.</short>
      <long>Rules for all Official Channels:
1. No coordinates are allowed to be given in any official channel. Players need to learn to explore and notice their surroundings. The goal is not to blindly auto-walk everywhere you go.
2. No quest help is allowed to be given in any official channel. If the player who asks is truly stuck (and not just lazy), you MAY pm them to try to set them on the correct path. Talking about it publicly ruins the quest fun for everyone else who wants to attempt it.
3. Game secrets are not allowed to be publicly told, discussed, or sold in any official channel. Again, it ruins the fun for everyone else.
4. Players are allowed 1 ad per 5 minutes if applicable, such as guild recruitment ads on channel 4. This also applies as a per guild (or group) rule. One ad per guild or group (regardless who posts) per 5 minutes.
5. Deathbags can be announced on channels 1, 2, and 6 (not on channel 3).
6. Buying/Selling and price checks belong to channel 3.

Newbie Help Channel Rules (#jc 1)
1. The Newbie Help Channel is for newbie questions and answers only, chat is directed to #jc 6.
2. Questions about monsters and other creatures stronger than wolf are directed to #jc 2.
3. In general, only questions relating to levels less than 20 belong to this channel.
4. Only ask Seridia (C1) questions; most Irillion (C2) questions are directed to #jc 2.
5. Anybody persisting in asking non-newbie questions or chatting about non-newbie stuff, after being asked to stop or move to #jc 2, will be denoobed.

General Help Channel Rules (#jc 2)
1. The channel is for Eternal Lands questions and answers only, chat is directed to #jc 6.

Market Channel Rules (#jc 3)
1. In Market Channel it is allowed to: buy/sell ingame items, buy/sell ingame services*, asking price checks, and posting lotteries.
*services can include, but are not limited to:
- hauling/muling harvestables for other players;
- pk services;
- bounties, with the following rule: NO NAMES ALLOWED TO BE MENTIONED.
2. Players are allowed 1 ad per 5 minutes.
3. Automated announcements (bots) need to be a minimum of 15 minutes apart.
4. URL links need to be a minimum of 15 minutes apart per person/group.
5. Multiple-bot owners cannot stack their bots' messages one on top of the other, they must be individually timed and spaced apart. It is frustrating for players to be faced with a wall of automated messages.
6. Personal or guild restrictions and conditions, such as but not limited to who you will not buy or sell from, are to be stated/discussed in pm, NOT in the public advertisement.
7. Only one "line" per message/ad/announcement. This is equal to the amount of typing you can do in one post before you must hit your enter key to send it. (Yes it might actually look like two lines.)
8. Players and bots must post for themselves**. Any exceptions have met all required security standards to prevent fraudulent and illegal third-party posts.
**Current exceptions:
- EternalBroker
- Guild NPCs (one member per guild can post for them once every 15 minutes)
9. It is not allowed to announce death bags on Market Channel.

Radu's Chat Rules (#jc 6)
1. "Radu's Chat" channel is the general chat location for EL. This channel is somewhat more lax than the other official channels, so enter at your own risk.  However, be mindful of the game rules.  They still do apply.

Official Contests Channel Rules (#jc 7):
1. All prizes and conditions to win contests MUST be announced at the beginning of the contest before the players start.
2. Contest holder MUST follow through to the end and give the stated prizes. Intentional logging out to avoid awarding the prizes will be punished.
3. No changing of the rules or conditions of the contest after it has started.
4. No substitutions of prizes (unless of greater value or adding additional items) after the contest has been stated and/or started.
5. Only one contest at a time. Check first before starting one. Official contests and events take precedence.
6. No lengthy general/off-topic chat during contests. Also keep the chatter down when there is no contest. With lengthy conversations and discussions, it's harder to check if any contest is currently on, and more difficult to get a contest started (the announcement can get lost in the chat).
7. Do NOT make "PM Player X saying blah blah blah" contests WITHOUT Player X's permission.</long>
   </rule>
   <info>
      <short>All rules here may be subject to change or addition at any given time.</short>
   </info>
   <info>
      <short>The moderators of Eternal Lands have the authority to use their discretion on a case by case basis.  Repeatedly violating any part of the Eternal Lands Terms of Use or Forum Code of Conduct, including the areas detailed above, can result in permanent banishment from the forums and game.</short>
   </info>
</text>
