Wait up! You're probably just about to skip this and click the agree button. While we very strongly recommend reading the full rules for many reasons, we are aware we cannot force you. But for the benefit of both you and the game staff, we'd hugely appreciate if you'd at least read this tiny summery?
*Never share your account or log into another player's account.
*Never own more than 1 account at a time, as this subjects all accounts you own to possible permanent banning. Instead, you may create multiple characters on your ONE user account.
*Do not use bugs for your benefit but instead report them as soon as you find them.
*No spamming, screen reader crashes, direct insults/real world threats or other forms of making the game chats an unpleasant place to be.
*Do not cheat, that is, using bugs, botting software or other unauthorized methods to gain dishonest advantages over players.
*Never lie to an administrator and tell them that you've lost items or stats due to a bug or cheater that you really haven't. The administrators are authorized to actually cause the affliction you've lied about if you do this, as we can tell whether you are being truthful via automatic log files.
Various punishments ranging from item loss to banning can take place if you break the rules. Understand that what you have read up to this point is a tiny summery indicating the most common forms of rule breaking, because as a human writing this, I know that I'd likely just click the agree button prematurely too. But understand that by doing so, you are agreeing to every word in this document regardless of whether you have read it or not. Most possible punishments and possible forms of rule breaking are listed in the full rules below.
This document exists for one very simple reason. To stop one player in this shared online open world from negatively effecting another player in any sort of exploitative, advantageous, or indirect/obscure manner that is not expressly allowed by the mechanics of the game. That being said, the hope is that this entire document simply equates to the phrase "Use common sense!"
Any failure to follow these rules may result in warnings followed by various punishments, not limited to but including actions used to cheat being restricted, item loss, being kicked from the server, jail, or being banned from the game either temporarily or permanently. By playing the game, you explicitly agree to be bound by the contents of this document, regardless of any ignorance, misinterpretation, or failure to understand/read what it contains.
Implicit agreements: By agreeing to this document, you also signify your agreement to the game's payment disclaimer if you purchase credits, the game's license agreement (license.txt), and any rules regarding language translations should you decide to work on those.
Rules updates: You understand and accept that this document may be updated at any time, and that any new terms in said updates are immediately binding. You will be made aware whenever this document is updated.
Staff member authority: You agree ahead of time that if a game staff member tells you to stop doing something, you will immediately do so. You understand that due to the nature of the game as well as the creative nature of cheaters, it is impossible to list every scenario for cheating in this document. Because of this, staff members in the game reserve the right to determine that something you are doing is cheating, regardless of whether it is in this document or not. In turn, staff members agree to not interrupt your gaming experience by telling you to stop doing something or furthermore punishing you unless they have a very good reason to do so. You understand that failure to listen to a staff member who tells you to stop doing something will very likely result in the application of whatever punishment the staff member feels is adequate for your situation. Punishments could include any combination of the following depending on the severity of the rule breaking:
*Warning: Simply consists of a sound and a clearly labeled message which you should heed to the best of your ability, as not doing so could lead to further punishments.
*Being kicked from the server: You are simply disconnected and can immediately connect, as though you'd pressed escape. Sometimes a generous staff member may do this as a precursor to more serious punishments.
*Stat modification: If you go offline during a disaster or in some other way unlawfully modify your stats, a staff member may undo those modifications and, if needed, can also perform the opposite of whatever positive cheating you were attempting to apply from your stats. If you somehow gain 500 health (specifically via cheating such as by abusing some quest item), a staff member may then take away 1000.
*Item removal: In cases where you've gained extra items or lie about losing items or in any other way unlawfully modify or attempt to modify your inventory, those modifications may be undone by a staff member. In severe cases all non-paid items in your inventory could be removed if the cheating is bad enough, and in a few very rare cases, such as when paid items are cheated or traded unlawfully, paid items may be removed as well (only with very good reason, usually when said items were not actually paid for especially by the cheater).
*Restricted actions: If a staff member deems it necessary, they can restrict actions that your character could normally perform, such as giving an item, traveling to a destination, chatting and many others.
*Jail: You are transported to a restricted map where you may or may not be able to interact with the game on a social level during your jail term. You may not play with any alternate characters on your account during this time.
*Temporary ban: You are entirely unable to connect to your account in the game for the duration of the ban. If you attempt to create another account during the duration of this ban, both accounts will then be permanently banned, as this would eventually constitute owning 2 accessible accounts when the previous ban expired.
*Permanent ban. Your account is inaccessible permanently, or until a staff member manually undoes the ban. If you create another account to play after the fact and get caught the results are undefined (as we have had people who have been banned and then have genuinely learned lessons to the point where they do not deserve a rebanning), but you understand and accept that if you get banned and then create an account to avoid that ban, we fully reserve the right to ban any new accounts at any time or to punish them as we see fit without any new accounts having necessarily cheated.
In unique cases specialized punishments or actions may be taken, but you will be warned of these if they come up whenever possible. In almost all cases one or a combination of the punishments listed above may apply to you in response to any rule breaking or cheating you may perform.
Repeated offenses/warning abuse: It is expressly understood that being warned for breaking a rule is a generosity that is not to be abused. In general, staff members will try to give one or, when the offense is extremely small, multiple warnings before any further action is taken. However we will always stick to the following. Warnings from game staff exist because we're all human and many of us tend to skip over documents like this without reading them properly in order to enjoy the application, and we want to be sympathetic in this case. Warnings do *NOT! exist to give people who already know that they are doing wrong an extra chance! As such if the offense is extremely complex or severe (obviously requiring forethought and knowledge of the misconduct), if you've obviously ignored several previous warnings or acted disrespectfully toward such previous warnings, if you have already been punished for the same or similar offenses in the past and are now repeating them, or if we know with a strict degree of certainty that you have, in fact, read the rules but are choosing to ignore them, we fully reserve the right to give zero warnings in such cases. Again, warnings are a privilege that should not be abused, not a right!
Account and character creation:
Each person is only allowed ONE user account on Survive the Wild! An account can contain multiple characters, but creating more than one account for any reason what so ever is expressly forbidden. If staff members detect that you own more than one user account, they are authorized to permanently ban all accounts you own. Again, each person can only have one user account on Survive the Wild and this is taken very seriously!
It is against the rules to use any account or character names that are considered spam (such as many letters repeating or a name less than 3 characters long), or to use names that could be considered offensive either directly or indirectly to a group of people. Furthermore it is absolutely not OK to use names that impersonate the developer or any staff member on the game. Names that start with internal game flags (PK, newbie, sleeping, supernatural etc) are also not OK, as names like this can easily confuse other players. Generally usernames should not contain any offensive language or insults, as such names could be seen by other players. If it appears you may have used an inappropriate name accidentally, you will receive a warning from staff asking you to please rename your character. If it is obvious that you are intentionally creating irresponsible account or character names, or if you ignore warnings about usernames, your account could get deleted, or in severe cases you could get banned without warning for a duration based on the severity of your case.
The following is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! It is expressly forbidden to log into another person's account or characters, or to give ANYBODY access to yours! You and you alone own your account (not your family, not your significant other, not your friends)! If multiple people play the game on the same network, such as due to living in the same household or due to some sort of public arrangement such as a convention or get together, please contact the game staff as soon as possible so that we can make an exception for you. If 2 or more people should happen to use the same computer system, all users of this device agree to never allow the game to store account logins on that device. If we detect that a person should lie or make up stories about nonexistent family members or other unique scenarios as an attempt to own multiple accounts and/or to access an account that does not belong to them, we fully reserve the right to permanently ban all accounts connected to such a person upon discovery of any falsehoods they should present! WARNING! If you allow your friend to access your account or if you access your friend's account or characters, our systems may report that this is now one person using duplicate accounts and both could be permanently banned! Again we cannot stress enough, NEVER! share your account or characters with anyone and NEVER access any account yourself accept for the *ONE that belongs to you!
Character unlinking and transference: Survive the Wild allows you to unlink characters you have created from your user account, where another account that does not belong to you can import them. Each character can only change ownership once every 6 months. It is worth noting that by unlinking a character in Survive the Wild, you explicitly relinquish any ownership or rights you have over that character to the person you give it to. It is absolutely not the responsibility of staff members to help you recover from a judgement error where in you give one of your characters to somebody as a mistake, or to somebody that you cannot trust. Please be responsible and careful with your characters and who you give them to. Remember as well that once a character has been unlinked and reimported, it cannot change owners for 6 months, so keep that in mind when using this system! It is of course forbidden to log into another players account to access a character that was previously linked to yours.
Bug abuse and cheating:
A bug is considered to be any erratic or unintended behavior in the game's software or content, particularly when it can be used to cheat or to negatively affect players in any way. If you find a bug, you should report it using the option in the support and contact menu from within the game. If, for any reason what so ever, you are caught exploiting a bug beyond its initial discovery, reported or not, we reserve the right to take any of the actions listed above in the staff member authority section against you based on the severity of the exploit. You agree to tell any staff member who asks exactly what you have done to exploit or abuse a bug if asked, and understand that severe punishments can result from trying to keep information about a bug secret for your own or others exploitation. Below are some examples of what could be bugs, of course a complete list of such things is impossible to create:
*It takes a long time for you to jump, so you can float in the air longer than other players, thus giving you a combat advantage,
*Opening a survival pack gives you a multiple of the items you were supposed to receive, thus giving you more resources than intended,
*You can paste a massive message in a chat field, thus inconveniencing other users and lagging their screen reading software,
*A weapon is firing way faster than it is supposed to without any discernible reason as to why, thus giving you a combat advantage,
*You can travel from one location to another faster than everybody else using a method not available in the game,
*You've found a way to perform a set of actions that consistently or potentially lags the server for players,
*You can enter an area that is supposed to forcibly enable pk but your pk doesn't actually turn on, thus allowing you to not be in danger while everybody else in the area is,
*or anything else negative you are able to do that was not intended by the game staff.
Sometimes bugs are not used to cause exploits, sometimes they cause problems. If, for example, your camera shows that there is a tile in front of you but when taking a step forward you fall to your death, or if an npc attacks you 10 times faster than it is supposed to, or anything else damaging happens to your character that was not an intended behavior of the game, please open a support ticket using the option in the support and contact menu so that a staff member can help resolve your issue! WARNING! If you lie about having been negatively affected about a bug, we reserve the right to cause you the affliction you are lying about! If you lie to a staff member about losing a death free card or an item, and the staff member can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are indeed lying, that staff member has the right to remove as many death free cards or other items from your account as you lied about losing! Please understand and respect the fact that our logs are complete, and that lying to us about lost items is an utter waste of our time because of us having to go looking through said logs. Because of these same logs, however, anyone with a genuine issue has nothing what so ever to fear from bring it to the attention of the game staff so they can help!
At its base, we define cheating as any attempt to gain an advantage for yourself or over another player using any methods that could be considered dishonest or unfair that are not intended to exist in the game. It is understood that due to the very nature of cheating, it is impossible to list all possible methods of cheating in a document such as this, and you agree that it is overall up to the judgement of the staff members to determine if you are cheating. If you are caught, we of course reserve the right to take any of the actions listed in the staff member authority section above. Below are several known methods of cheating, again not a conclusive list:
*As mentioned above, using any bug in any sort of advantageous way what so ever,
*Owning multiple accounts, thus allowing for more recompletions of game quests than intended or any number of illicit activities,
*Using any sort of botting software to automatically perform an action or press keys in the game (the only input legally accepted is direct human input and nothing else),
*Attaining any paid items that were not initially paid for at least by somebody,
*In any way taking advantage of the game's starter items, such as by multiplying them via purposeful death or giving their contents to a friend only to delete and recreate your character to do it all over again,
*Managing to transport items in or out of arenas or event maps unless such a thing is intended by the creator of such a map,
*Disconnecting from the game while your character is in a dangerous (and bug free) situation solely as an attempt to avoid said situation, thus preserving stats beyond the game's intention e. going offline during a disaster or pk fight,
*And any of the other endless ways that one could gain extra items/stats/advantage by creatively exploiting systems in a way they were not meant to be used.
For some of the things listed above, be warned that they could lead to permanent bans very quickly! In particular, we will take instances of duplicate accounts as well as serious item multiplication or use of botting or key pressing scripts very seriously, and you could get instantly banned for performing any of these actions!
If you think someone has cheated, particularly against you, please open a support ticket using the option in the support and contact menu so we can investigate! You will not need to worry about anybody you've reported being told that you were the one who reported them, we are always sure to keep the identities of those reporting cheaters to us hidden, especially from the cheater being reported.
Item transfering and trading:
It is currently forbidden to transfer items between characters you own by all means possible. For example, it is against the rules to keep a character in the pk map to collect grenades, only to then transfer those grenades to your main character. This involves using friends to help conceal or facilitate such trades, dropping items on the ground only to pick them up with an alt, or any other methods of getting an item from one character to another that you own. This includes completing a quest on one character and transfering the reward to another that you own. Keep in mind that if you abuse the completion of quests and transfer the reward to another of your characters, we are not obligated to reset the quests for you so you can recomplete them if such a trade is reversed or the items are deleted as a result.
Rules about public conduct and communication:
The following is prohibited in all chat channels on the game. In addition to getting your chats potentially restricted, any number of punishments listed in the staff member authority section above could apply to you if you send any of these prohibited messages based on the severity of the offense:
*Links to pornographic or adult websites (we have teenagers here),
*Links to cracked, pirated, stolen or otherwise dishonest software (we do not wish to be even an indirect distributer of such things through our chat channels),
*Any kind of spam (repeated or extremely long messages),
*Any message that effects the performance of the screen reading software of other players,
*Insulting another player on any chat that is not in character,
*Messages that intentionally sew discourse or flaming and make the chat environment an unpleasant place to be,
*Messages that are extremely sexual or adult in nature,
*Any act or message even remotely involving or connected to real world blackmail, threats, or spreading of fear, particularly those that indicate a direct possibility of genuine physical harm,
*Any act or message, be it in conjunction with your character name or not, that attempts to fool players into thinking that you are somebody else, such as a member of the game staff or another player,
*Messages that are repeatedly sent on an incorrect language channel E. English messages in the Spanish out of character chat.
Another thing that is absolutely not allowed on the game is messages to another player, in any form, that are nastily flirtatious, sexually suggestive or harassing, or similarly discomforting in any way. Jokes are one thing, but we will take reports of truly sexually harassing or suggestive messages very seriously. Messaging random players out of the blue asking for private contact information when it is absolutely and clearly unwarranted, as well as messages asking players to perform acts that could be considered erotic or sexual are absolutely prohibited! Survive the wild *IS NOT! a platform for such things. This applies to all communication methods in STW, and you should even be seriously careful about how you approach such things while role playing, as it is of course quite easy to break the RP boundary with such messages. This should not be confused with making a friend and asking for their contact information, in fact many long lasting friendships or even relationships have been created on the game, but frankly creepy sex addicts asking for the contact information of random people of the opposite gender on the game is clearly different from making friends. We think most will agree that extremely creepy, sexual or stalker like behavior is pretty easy to spot, and that there is a huge difference in such behavior and actually trying to create a friendship. Please be aware that such things could very well result in an instant and permanent ban from the game possibly without warnings depending on the offense, or at the very least all of your chatting methods permanently restricted. Creepy stalkers, sex offenders or addicts are something that we will absolutely not accept! It is quite frankly disgusting and is sure to cause massive discomfort for the victims of such acts.
Communicating with game staff: If you have a serious issue you need professionally solved by an administrator, please open a support ticket using the options in the support and contact menu from within the game. If you find a bug, please make sure you report it using the given option in the same menu. Please understand that the game staff members are not obligated to respond professionally to inquiries sent using private messages, as this chat channel is intended for players playing the game and game staff members use it the same way. In short, tickets are how you get something solved, bug reports are how you tell us about anything generally going wrong, and private messages are how you say hi. If you are communicating with staff members because you believe you were unfairly punished after doing something wrong, please make sure you read this rules document thoroughly before arguing your case, and also please never mention previous cases involving your friends or other random parties that have nothing to do with your own as an attempt to get your case solved differently. We pledge that all reports will be handled confidentially. If you report a player, you will never have to worry about that player finding out that you've reported them, or anyone else for that matter. Note: if you report a player for doing something 6 or more months ago without good reason, we will very likely inform you that your report references a situation that is too old to thoroughly examine. Please report insidents quickly if you end up involved in one, and try to keep reports of long passed situations that have no effect on the present time to a minimum.
Role play communication: WARNING, this section may be updated at any time as the game world develops and we learn how much interest players will have in Role Play communication once there is actually a valid story to play around. For now, the only 2 stipulations here are first that if you interrupt a group of players who are trying to use either the say chat, voice chat or radio to role play and you are reported for it (with clear evidence), you could get those chat channels restricted or at least warned. Second, unless it is radically severe or mentions real world events in some way, the radio, voice chat and say chat, being channels meant for role play communication, are not controlled for most insults, as one character can insult another while role playing without referencing the person behind the character in real life. Remember that it is possible to mute players!
Mute flag abuse: If you continue to try to contact somebody after they have muted you, such as by creating a new character for the soul purpose of harassment or more importantly exploiting a bug that allows you to communicate with a person who has muted you in such a way where they have no choice but to listen, your chats may be restricted for an extended period of time or, if that's not enough, you may be jailed or banned for this offense. Please just be an adult and move on if someone doesn't wish to hear from you.
PK stipulations: Player killing is a sport meant for fun. While generally any PK advantage you've managed to aquire that does not have to do with skill, luck, or an aproved game mechanic is usually not OK, the following is a list of things that are specifically prohibited when fighting another player:
*Logging off in the middle of a PK fight or because you see a player near you who shares your enabled PK status is absolutely not OK. You may get your health set if you do this, or jailed if you continue to do so.
*Taking advantage of the map terrain in an unfair manner to get into a position where it is impossible for your opponent to hit you while you can still hit them is not allowed, such as by abusing walls or cheating to move yourself to an area where it is clear the map designer does not intend you to be. If you do this once you will likely get your health set to 0 thus dying and losing a DFC, and if you continue to commit this offence you could be jailed. This of course does not include any dodging or evasive maneuvers that are specifically added to the game.
*Taking advantage of bugs is never OK. But especially when fighting another player, taking advantage of any bugs, such as those that let you not be hit while you can hit your opponent, or those that give you a speed/sound advantage etc is really uncool and is subject to punishment if caught, varying in severity depending on the bug abuse.
If a player manages to trick you into turning on PK, you understand that we will not interfear in such situations. Look, we're mentioning that it's possible to be tricked into turning on PK here, and there is a warning dialog that appears when turning it on in the first place. However it is done, if you make the decision to turn on PK, you accept and agree that it is your fault/choice and no one elses, regardless of whether someone else asked or convinced you to do it, even if they kill you after telling you they wouldn't. Do not risk your character by turning on PK unless you are sure you want to do so!
Disrespecting the game staff: Sometimes the game staff will make mistakes or do something wrong, and in such cases complaints (even angry ones) are expected, and we will do our utmost to learn from any criticism we receive. There are, however, a few forms of disrespect that we have ZERO tolerance for what so ever. Again, we want to make a genuine effort to be as cool as possible whenever possible. But to help facilitate that, we must disallow a few things, and as such you could get permanently banned if you do any of the following:
*Disrespect, if not this document itself, its principals: Basically, we judge and punish you based on your intentions here far more than on your ability to rigidly conform to the rules. If your response to getting warned to stop doing something is to bring up this document and talk about how your particular mis action wasn't mentioned so you're going to keep doing it, or if you in some other way respond with contempt or make it clear that you know you are doing wrong but are trying to avoid punishment, we will most likely ban you in this case. We are not some sort of rigid legal counsel and do not wish to pretend to be one. Our goal is to bring fun, fairness and enjoyment to the largest majority possible. If we spend our time quarreling with or trying to satisfy the whims of somebody who knows they are doing no good and who won't listen to us when we tell them so, we are then misusing time that could be instead spent helping 3 players that have suffered from a bug or who need a long lost password changed or if anything, players who are willing to listen to any warnings and requests the staff may send them. Given the option to help 2 players who've been effected by a severe bug that ruined their innocent gaming experience and debating with you about how your particular form of clearly malicious action should be an exception to the rules, we're going to help those 2 players who were actually having fun without troubling anybody else in the process first. Again, this paragraph only applies to those players who are explicitly trying to waste the staffs time for some reason, or who are trying to reduce the punishment for a known crime based on some nonexistent technicality. It does not exist to silence any innocent players who have a genuine issue or criticism with the staff so long as it is presented respectfully.
*Creating blatant lies about staff members for any reason: We must take reports of misbehaving staff members extremely seriously. They all must get investigated fully, sometimes even taking priority over player cases due to a staff member's power to effect many players. So if, for any reason, you make up a story about something an administrator or staff member did that you know full well they didn't do, be it as a retaliation for being punished after rulebreaking or any other reason, you will be permanently banned without warning or consideration. If someone for example tries publicly discrediting an administrator by claiming that they saw the administrator give someone 10000 death_free_cards, now some other staff member must look through logs and confirm whether this happened or not as well as explaining that it's a lie publicly if needed, causing a huge waste of time, not to mention the potential increase of staff mistrust from players. Anyone genuinely wanting to report a staff member for doing something wrong or suspicious should contact me (Sam Tupy the game's developer) or someone with the master rank privately to do so, rather than trying to make some huge drama on the out of character chat.
*Trying to use deception to argue your case: If we've made a mistake in punishing you or if you weren't trying to do wrong, we genuinely want to listen the best we can, help, and then apologize for our error if appropriate! Our willingness to listen and work with you ends, however, the moment you tell your first lie to us. If you claim that your friend hacked your account and that's who was actually doing the insulting not you, but our logs indicate that only one computer system has ever accessed your account since its creation, we're just going to ban you, to be frank we don't have time for such nonsense. In general, the moment we detect that your story keeps changing or that you are not being entirely truthful with us while trying to exploit our kindness, we will immediately stop listening to you and will just ban you instead, so that we can return to actually helping people rather than trying to decipher the truth from whatever lie you've told to try to reduce your jail duration or amount of item loss. Of course, we in turn promise to only invoke this clause if the staff is quite thoroughly certain that you are, indeed, lying.
*Intentionally breaking a rule to get yourself in jail to see a friend or what a jail cell looks like: Sometimes after a player cheats, their friend will ask us to bring them to jail so that they can interact with the cheating friend, or just so they can see a jail sell or be in the same general area as their cheating friend. On our end this is a completely stupid waste of time, energy and resources. If we detect that your reason for cheating is simply so you can get into jail, we reserve the right to ban you for up to 10 times the jail duration of the person you were trying to see, or where that is not applicable, for approximately 2 months. Jail exists as a kind way for us to give those who deserve it a couple of extra chances after doing something wrong, not as some glorified hangout area for a group of friends, and certainly not a place that any player should be able to ever access intentionally!
*Threttoning a staff member for any reason: Just as with players, it should be understood that there is zero tollerence what so ever for any type of threat or blackmale to a staff member at any time. Whether that be trying to intimidate a staff member into getting extra items, as a retaliation for a punishment given to you by a staff member or as a response to a staff member's handling of your case, threats of spam, personal attacks/docsing or any other kind of harm to a staff member by any means will likely result in severe punishments to your characters or account including chat restrictions, jailing, or if the threats are bad enough, a ban with a duration relative to the offensiveness of any such threats or blackmale. As with the other paragraphs in this section, this mainly applies to immature/bad actors who are unable to handle simple punishments and who react negatively. As mentioned above if you genuinely feel that a staff member is performing badly or if you are deeply unsatisfied, please contact Sam Tupy or someone with the master rank to see if there is anything that can be done before taking any other action.
If you've gotten to this point, genuinely thank you for actually reading these rules, you've just done something that most players have not! Hopefully we are all in agreement that though the document may seem a bit daunting, if you've got good intentions and the ability to be respectful to game staff when required, you really have got nothing to worry about! And of course the most basic rule of all, have fun!
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