Server rules

Please see the appropriate forum links for further clarification on any of these rules.

General Rules

Ignorance of Rules

Willfully refusing to read the rules and policies of Shards of Dalaya is not an excuse, and you will be punished for any rule breaches regardless of ignorance.

General Disclaimer

We reserve the right to any time, for any reason, deny you access to Shards of Dalaya.

Chain of Command

When faced with an issue that needs the attention of staff, go first to a GM, not a Developer or Administrator, for help. If they feel that the issue needs the attention of a Dev/Admin, they will give you permission to contact one directly.

Bugs and Exploits

If you encounter or become aware of a bug within the game that can be used to your or any other players' advantage, do not use it. Report all bugs by using the ingame /bug command.

Third Party Programs

Any third-party programs that is designed to alter the client, sniff or alter the data communication between client and server, or automate any task within the client are expressively forbidden. Log parsers are ok.

Player Conduct

Show proper conduct in dealing with other players. Deliberate training, killstealing, griefing, excessive vulgarity or otherwise being a prick to other players will result in severe repercussions to yourself. We try to maintain a friendly attitude and expect players to show respect to one another.

The Decency Policies

We strive very hard in Shards of Dalaya to keep the game full of players who are respectful to each other. These are policies that are used by the staff as a way to mitigate discourteous or disrespectful actions without adding unwieldy legalese that would have repercussions beyond our intent. Petitions for these policies will normally be discussed by staff online on a case by case basis. Basically do not be shitty to each other and you will not have a problem - but multiple cases of these sorts of instances will get you serious jailtime. ¹

We are fine with the spirit of competition. If you are racing someone else for a mob every once in a while that's fine. If you go out of your way to steal named at every opportunity using any means possible you will find yourself in jail.
Using higher level characters than the area is designed for to monopolize an unreasonable amount of mobs for the size of your group when there are others looking to hunt in the same area (for instance, a powerlevelling player pulling every mob in an area when there is also a group hunting there, or a player clearing every single mob in BB for faction while people are trying to EXP there)
Try to show general courtesy to players when hunting in the same zone. Excessive leapfrogging, pulling a named after another group kills its placeholder multiple times etc are all fun and games until it's done to you, and it promotes an infected atmosphere between players.
Engaging players in pvp by rezzing a player's corpse just to kill them again is considered griefing. PvP interactions are still social interactions, and a level of decorum is expected even when taking 4 characters to gang up on and kill a PvP flagged character during his/her raid.

In short, try not to be a jerk. When in doubt, communicating politely with the other players involved is a good start.

Casinos and Lotteries

You are free to run your own casino/lottery for platinum/ingame items/whatever, on obligation that you follow these rules:

Keep any announcments to the /auction channel, NOT /ooc.
Do not scam. Seriously. If I catch you scamming other players or not paying out as promised your account is forfeit.
You may not have a character or account as a prize. You can't give your account or characters away under any circumstances, anyway.

Character selling and transfer, bots

You are not permitted to give away your account(s) or character(s) away. Period. You may give ACCESS TO your account(s) away freely, but anyone who is the recipent of your gift of access should understand that they do not get any rights to the character in the eyes of the staff, and the original owner of an account may always claim it back, revoking any access you had. Likewise, if you are not the original owner of an account you have access to, then you are not the current owner of that account either, and doing malicious things to that account such as stripping it off gear, deleting characers and so on may result in an end to your adventures on Dalaya.

Parsing the Listing System

Anyone caught parsing the logs/farming the database/whatever to create a public database of the listing system will be immediately and irrevocably banned. This also holds true for anyone caught doing this in an automated manner for a self-use-only database (this is not unlike automated fishing or mining, which is also bannable). We discourage making full logs of the listsold system for personal use. That's a lot of server queries just so you can Ctrl+F to find out the lowest price for Bone Chips, you inconsiderate jerk.

We encourage you to advertise your wares outside of "#listadd" (this includes but is not limited to the forums, your personal webpage, and your guild's forums). This is a social game, after all.

Harassment Policy

Any form of harassment is absolutely unacceptable on Shards of Dalaya, and we do not look kindly on sexism, racism or stalking. All players have the right to play this game without being harassed or the target of unwanted attentions.

Character / Item Sales Policy

You may not attempt to sell your account, items, or any other SOD data for any kind of real currency or real life items/services, nor may you attempt to trade it for in-game items, in-game favors, or essentially request any form of payment at all. Accounts that are sold or traded in this manner will be banned. You are permitted to give your account access away for free to others.

Camp Policy

We do not recognize camps in any shape or form. "Rights" to a mob in the eyes of the staff belongs to whoever engaged it first. There are some exceptions to this rule in 'raid' zones, please see the Policy Plaza forum for details.

Multi-Client Policy

No more than two clients are allowed to be played by the same person at the same time. This rule is entirely grounded in real life persons, not IPs, computers, or any other medium. Two characters at the same time per living, breathing person, whether you share IPs or not.

Be aware that if you are playing more than one character at the same time they must be on separate accounts. Multiple characters from the same account being online uses up many more resources and is a jailable offense. Accounts are free - you can make as many as you want!

Staff Conduct Policy

The staff of Shards of Dalaya is bound by strict policies that forbid favoritism, corruption, and abusing knowledge gained as a GM to further their player characters. The fact that we maintain a clean house also means that we do not enjoy having rumors spread about GMs by people in rivaling guilds or with personal grudges. If you have a problem with a staff member, take it up in private with an Administrator, so that we can investigate and take action if your allegations turn out correct. If you have a problem with an Administrator, take it up with a Woldo or Zoie directly. On the same token any attempts to solicit staff favors in any form are dealt with harshly. This applies both to a staff members staff character and player characters.

Backseat GMing Policy

When you notice another player breaking the rules or naming policy, report them in private via /petition or by notifying a GM. Do not call them out publicly or start a racket in OOC over it. This only creates needless drama, especially if it turns out your interpretation of the rules was incorrect.

Evasion of Punishment

At no time should you attempt to evade a punishment by doing things such as creating a new forum account, or logging onto an unjailed toon to continue posting or playing respectively. Rerolling another toon after a ban is only acceptable on a case by case basis, and it must be cleared by the staff.

Loaning of Characters

Be aware that the actions of your character are your responsibility regardless if you are the one playing the account. If you give your characters information out and abuse results the fact that you were not the one playing the character is irrelevant. Both your character and the person who committed the abuse on your character will receive punishment.

Minor Offenses

The following is a brief list of things that will earn you a jailing sentence or a ban from the forums if you do them/bring them up here or in the in-game global channels. Things on the list are generally jokes done to absolute death, to the point that we never ever want to hear them again. This list will be updated as new annoying things come along. ¹

Virulent catchphrases and memes. This list is tentatively empty, but things that become a problem in OOC may once again be added to this rule.
Asking if there are any GMs online. Use /petition.
Nationalist, sexist, racist or otherwise comparable jokes or slurs (this includes ones regarding sexuality).
Jokes about prison rape (particularly when someone is jailed).
Asking to be jailed. We won't necessarily comply with the requested duration of your jail sentence.
Making blanket statements about which classes are useless. For that matter, unless you have some intelligent commentary to make, leave this off the forums also.
Main Quest quiz spoilers - don't do these on the wiki, in ooc, in /gu, in tells, or anywhere else. The point of said quizzes are that people should at least skim the lore books, and having someone provide the answers defeats that purpose entirely.
Unsolicited messaging to GMs, Devs and Admins in game and out of game (IRC). Use /petition in game or ask in #sod if it is okay to directly PM a staff member.
Personal attacks based on Auctions or Item Prices. If someone wants to auction a Mithril Short Sword for 1500pp, they may do so. If someone chooses not to acknowledge the bids of a particular character, they may do so regardless of whether they have that character on /ignore. If someone wants to start an auction for a Bone Chips at 100pp or it gets sold to a vendor, they can do that as well. None of those actions give you the right to verbally attack or harass them.

Naming Policy

Titles

No titles. You can't be "Lordgrey" or "Jackthegreat". Sorry.

Stupid or Well-Known Names

No names from well-known, popular media. You can't be Aragorn, Gandalf or Garfield. On that note, no unrealistic or completely idiotic names either. "Rogue" or "Iksar" are not acceptable names.

Wordplays and Wordmeshes

No wordplays. "Froak Frog" is not an acceptable name, nor is Frog or Froak by itself, but those go under idiotic names anyway. In the same avenue, no combine-word names. You can't be Rockjumper or Swordswinger or Deathdancer. These are acceptable last names, but not acceptable first names.

Gibberish Go Away

Your name must be something resembling a name. You can't be Xbaihjsfa, Qwwwwb or otherwise have a name with no wovels like Fgbnm or Xfds.

The Linguistic Lambada

Cleverly bypassing the naming policy by using a different language, spelling it differently/backwards or using an obvious anagram will not win you any sympathy points. We will still change your name when we find out.

Kooky Combinations

If you create a pair of characters with names that carry an obvious meaning together, or form a word play together (for example Louise and Thelma) they will be changed even if the individual names do not violate policy. This rule does not apply to simply having two similarily named characters, such as Ling and Leng or Ling and Gnil.

Even Then!

That "you used this name on live" does not mean it magically bypasses the policy. We will not tolerate this excuse. Use the rules here, not the non-existant name rules on EQlive.

Spirit of the Law

Finally, the rules above are a guideline for staffers, not an absolute set of rules, so use common sense and try to follow the spirit of the law. If you feel your name has been unjustly changed, send an email to staff @ shardsofdalaya . com stating your case.

Naming Policy Additions and Clarifications

First Names

What defines well known and popular can be subjective. Basically if your name comes from any remotely popular book, movie, tv show, magazine, etc. you may expect to have it nerfed sooner or later.

Objects/Places/Adjectives/Verbs in English: Generally not okay. You can't be "Rock" or "Salmonella", "Norway" or "Constantinople", "Fast" or "Colorful", "Jumping" or "Hiding"

This is still generally true, although players with names of objects from different languages Can be okay if they are unrelated. The Navajo word for "Holy" would not be appropriate for a Priest or a Paladin, but would work for any other class. The Swedish word for "spider" wouldn't fly for a rogue but might be okay for other classes. The Spanish word for "hill" could be appropriate for any class.

Sound Alikes: Depends on how close to the original you are. If it's instantly recognizable, not allowed. Merely adding letters as in "Hiiding" would not be okay. "Hydieng" could work.

Wordplay: You can't have two words in your first name that combine to make a phrase. You can't be "Lookhere" or "Jumpnow" or "Walkby". Nor can you do so in another language.

Real Names

Generally okay, with some exceptions for extremely famous people. Bill, Humphrey, Maria, Ashley, Hillary are all OK. No, you cannot be Jesus or Ghandi. Other famous people work, so long as they are not related to your character: Shakira is okay, BUT not for a Bard. Shaqille would be okay, BUT not for an Erudite. And just because some kooky person named his child "4Real" or "Gandalf" doesn't mean that because its a "Real Name" you can bypass the rest of the policies.

Real Surnames: Sometimes okay with some exceptions for extremely famous people. Adamson and Ludwig are OK. Clinton and Spielberg are not. Also, many surnames that have other meanings would not be allowed, such as "Baker", "Smith", "Lake" etc. Again, just because its a "Real Name" doesn't mean you can bypass the rest of the policies!

Real Companies: Sometimes okay with some exceptions for extremely well-known businesses. "Yahoo" and "Microsoft" are not okay. Also if it makes reference to your class/character, not okay - ie an entertainment business name would not be appropriate for a Bard; nor would a health care related company work for a Priest.

Surname Policy

When your surname is nerfed, it is replaced with an underscore "_" which effectively prevents you from EVER making a new one. Since surnames are optional and much more difficult to police, you will never have the choice to pick a new one. A nerfed surname is forever nerfed. Choose Wisely!

Surname Gibberish Go Away: If your surname is long and extremely goofy or gibberish, it will be underscored. "Lovesunhappywow" and "Asdfghjkl" would both be underscored.

Phrases: If your surname makes a phrase on its own, it will be underscored. "Dancewithme", "Imsilly", and "Whatajoke" would all be underscored. Also true in another language.

Phrase Combinations: If your surname combines with your first name to a) make a phrase, b) make reference to a famous person or c) make reference to an object it will be underscored (but the first name will not be nerfed) "Yumyraz Berry", "Risolu Killsyou", "Horky Rocksyourbottom", "Jessica Alba", "Hillary Clinton", and "Stein Way" would get underscores - though all of the first names are perfectly appropriate.

Still true, as of course these as surnames don't make phrases by themselves or with the firstnames they accompany.

Requests for Name Nerfs

If you find another player's name offensive, you may feel free to petition about it. Official policy for GMs is not to reply to the petition unless they have a question. When a GM sees the petition, it will be taken into consideration amongst staff (all names that are blatant violations are actually discussed amongst staff first). This is not an open invitation for you to petition everyday with a laundry list of names you don't like. Unless it's offensive or from Naruto (see: offensive) or for some reason a really bad name that you think may have gone unnoticed (see: from Naruto), you should just give it some time.

If your name was recently nerfed and you are petitioning out of spite where you never would have before then you'll be thrown in jail.

No names are nerfed on request of the player unless they are in Actual violation.

If you feel your name was nerfed unfairly, proper protocol is to send a politely written formal appeal to [email protected] and wait patiently for a response.

Apostrophes and Accent Marks in Surnames

These are no longer done. In fact, any we see from when it used to be okay are subject to removal.

Raid rules

Full Raid rules

These rules apply both to zones that are primarily raid encounters and to specific mobs in zones that are raid encounters. In the latter instance mobs that are not raid mobs that share the zone with a raid mob do not follow these rules. For instance if a zone is primarily exp or kiting mobs and there is a giant gorilla raid mob in the back you can not cite this post to claim you had rights to their generic skunk kill.

18 characters and only 18 characters

You may have only 18 characters actively benefiting a raid at any time.

After a wipe, you may not log in a 19th person to fill a class role that is not present on your raid. I.E. No logging in a bot mage to DS/mod rod while you rebuff. Swapping in a mage and swapping him back out afterwards is not a clever way to get around this. This also means logging in a 19th person to rez the raid is disallowed.

You may have more than 18 people in the zone only if they are coming to replace someone that is leaving, and the above rule still applies.

Raid leaders and guild officers this is your responsibility to manage, so it will be you that is punished if this policy is broken.

Loot Reward Rights-

Those in the raid force who have actively helped achieve the raid objective are those who lay claims to loot gained by that raid. This goes for quest items, regular equipment and even quest flags/turn ins achieved from that raid.

Pick-Up Raid Loot Distribution

In a pick-up raid, the raid leader has the freedom of distributing loot as he or she sees fit. This freedom is not absolute and comes hand-in-hand with the responsibility to announce the procedure of loot distribution in the Raid MOTD.

In the absence of a clear, unambigious Raid MOTD (ambiguity is a GM judgment call that will usually favor the party that did not draft the loot rules), the loot distribution for each item in question will default to the following method: Every character in the raid that wishes to loot an item has the right to a equal random chance at the loot, and this random chance is to be done with /random within an audible distance of the corpse in question in a reasonable time frame allowing for resurrections but not for corpse rotting.

Attempts to abuse this policy in ways including but not limited to the following may be met with severe jail sentences or bannings:

Trying to get loot on an under-level character
Trying to obtain no drop gear you cannot equip, use for a quest, etc. in order to keep another player from obtaining it
Deceiving a raid member with clever or tricky wording into believing they have loot chances they not
Trying to get loot on a character not engaged during the fight.

This policy is not restricted to [NO DROP] loots. You must include coin and cash loot in your "making everything clear". The "standard" that these items default to the raid leader does not exist. You must claim those items in your Raid MOTD. These Raid MOTDs are logged and timestamped; don't try to lie to us, and don't try to change a raid MOTD in the middle of your pick-up raid to change the loot distribution.

As the title suggests, this policy does not apply to guild raids. It also does not apply to joint guild raids consisting entirely of 2 guilds; you can call it a joint guild raid (it would be wise to note this in the Raid MOTD), and the leadership of the two guilds will be expected to handle loot without staff in the same way a guild raid would. If there's 3 guilds or unguilded characters, a Raid MOTD is required as though it is a pickup raid.

Raid Content with Prerequisite Content

The concept of raid-based prerequisite content, like a guild having to do Plane of Valor before Stronghold of Enthann, is now defunct (as is that unpuggable zone rule, yay). In its stead, a character-specific design based paradigm for raid content with prerequisite content now exists. As such, when clear barricades to raid content exist for characters who have not completed the prerequisite content, circumventing these barricades constitutes content skipping and will be treated as such. To be clear, this means that if you can get into a zone without using an obviously unintended means, then you can raid there.

Right of Way-

To claim a wing/zone/encounter, you need 6 people present. This claim is invalidated if you have done nothing in the wing/zone/encounter, and continue to do nothing for 30 minutes or more from the time a dispute occurs. A single guild may not lay claim on more than one wing/zone/encounter at a time (i.e. can't have 6 claiming lower thaz water and 6 claiming lower thaz earth at the same time). This limitation applies to 12-man and 18-man content in the sense that only one of either is allowed and not one of both. Abuse of this rule to 'squat' with 6 players while you wait for 2 hours for the rest of your guild to log on will result in jailtime.

Additionally, if you have a dispute in petitions and you leave the zone/wing/encounter where you and the other guild are waiting for a resolution, your claim is automatically lost and you will be considered to have ceded the claim to the other party. This may happen if no claim on right-of-way is made, but a guild decides it might be better worth their time to go kill undisputed raid mobs instead of wait for a GM to rule on the petition.

The exception is for raid zones like prison that are large enough to be divided into wings (inner prison would be one claimable area for instance). Once that force has less than 6 players in the zone for an hour or more, the claim ceases (so you can't just jump in if they wipe unless they aren't coming back within an hour).

Some zones are split regarding the Right of Way rule. The following is a list of these splits:

Cyrtho Malath - by wing (1,2,3,4). 6 man 'raid type rules' apply.
Dragonhorn Keep - Split into North and East/West
Emberflow Caverns - Split by wing (1,2,3; meaning Dark Elves, Demons, Kralaws). 6 man 'raid type rules' apply.
Plane of Valor - Split by trial
Plane of Torment - The Tower is considered separate from the rest of the zone.
Prison of Admyrrza - Split into Outer/Inner/Sanctum
Thazeran's Tower - Each of the 4 lower wings and the 4 upper wings are separate and clearly demarcated.
Tower of Tarhyl - First 2 tribes are claimed together. All others are by wing (Eternal Well is a part of the Farhag wing).
High Keep - levels 2-4 are claimable by one group, basement by another. 6 man 'raid type rules' apply.
The Rust - Factory is split into Raid/Exp areas, the Raid area can only hold one raid at a time.
Azmaen, Heart of Frost- Split "Right Wing" and "Left Wing"
Haegra Malath- Split "Terror tunnel" and "Praetors", note that you may not for any reason be in the terror tunnel unless your character triggered that instance, the rez spots are for recovery from wipes you cleared to that session. You are allowed to switch members of your group out, however, and this is the only time it is okay to use the 6-char corpsecall to get them back to the group, so long as most of the group (4+) died at that boss or further in. This and Nadox is the ONLY PLACE IN THE GAME you can do this legally. If you do it anywhere else, we will probably ban you.

Right of Way-Post Patching

For claiming content after server downtime due to patches, if nothing has been engaged and the patch lasts less than 15 minutes, the group that was there beforehand still has the claim - but only for 15 minutes after the server comes back up. Also, this is kind of a claim that can only be verified by logs and any incoming groups/raids can't necessarily be expected to know you were there - so if you're a jerk about it we may not give it to you anyways.

If you have been actively clearing trash, you get 30 minutes. This is shorter than if you were wiping to the trash, but intentional since oftentimes players log for patches and don't come back, and if they do it's not always as clear that the guild is in the zone/wing as if they were there actively wiping.

Also, the rare patch which respawns raid mobs regardless of the timer wipes all claims unless trash has actually been cleared.

Claimed content and outside players

New Jan 2013

There are certain times when more than 18 characters may be present in a raid zone or wing. In these instances, the standard of "you may have only 18 characters actively benefiting a raid at any time" still applies. Characters may occasionally be loaded (such as trackbots) into a claimed area. These characters, loaded with a specific purpose, are permitted to be in the claimed area so long as they serve their purpose and leave within a timely manner. We don't have a formal time limit on how long these characters may be used, but a time of five minutes is believed to be more than sufficient in almost all such cases. Attempts to abuse this allowance by loading in a sequence of trackbots or sequence of players loading trackbots in the same zone to spy or annoy a raiding group is considered raidstalking.

Another instance of this (by popular PvPer demand) is if a person in the raid is flagged PvP. In this case, players outside the raid may go after that person as long as they are not following the raid around for a prolonged length of time. They, like trackbots, must serve their purpose and leave within a timely manner. Remember that harassment rules still come into play during pvp - but in the end it is the raiders responsibility to not be flagged PvP if they do not want to be attacked by other PvPers.

It is permitted now for two raids to share a single raid zone or wing. In these situations, the first raid to be in the zone retains claim and can grant permission to another raid to be in the zone if they choose to do so. This permission is revokable at any time and for any reason by the leader of the raid with claim. The two raids must not assist each other on any encounter or individual trash pull. To clarify, that includes but is not limited to each raid killing 2 mobs in a 4-pull, a second raid killing the adds of an encounter, or a second raid engaging a mob right as the first raid wipes and before the encounter resets, or members of one raid providing buffs/mod rods/rezzes for the other raid.

Content skipping-

Explicitly skipping mobs that are obviously intended to be part of the clear to an encounter, for instance training away inner prison statues and beelining directly for the dragons is not allowed. Obviously if mobs do not see invis you can invis past them and things like that. This also includes rezzing your group / raid past mobs.

Since it has come into question before the Plane of Earth is exempt from this rule. You are *supposed* to skip as much as you can by any means possible.

6 Man Zone and 12 Man Zone Rules

6 man zones are basically raid zones that are balanced for groups of 6. This means that they follow the raid rules listed above while still being groupable content. In these situations you must have at least 4 characters to claim via the Right of Way rule and you may have only 6 characters actively benefiting a raid at any time. 6 man content claims do not apply to the one-claim-per-guild limitation as noted above. All other rules are applied to 6 man zones verbatim.

12 man zones are basically raid zones that are balanced for groups of 12. This means that they follow the raid rules listed above while still being 2-groupable content. You may have only 12 characters actively benefiting a raid at any time. All other rules are applied to 12 man zones verbatim.

Zones following 6 man and 12 man rules and their individual partitioning are as follows

Cyrtho Malath (6 man) - SPLIT by wing (1,2,3,4).
Emberflow Caverns (6 man) - Split by wing (1,2,3).
Catacombs of Elthannar (6 man) - Not split
Highkeep (6 man) - levels 2-4 are claimable by one group, basement by another.
The Abyss (12 man) - Not split
Haegra Malath (6 man) - The 6-char terror tunnel is the only place restricted in this way, note that you may not for any reason be in the terror tunnel unless your character triggered that instance, the rez spots are for recovery from wipes you cleared to that session.
Haegra Malath addendum - You are allowed to switch members of your group out, however, and THIS ONE TIME ONLY it is okay to use the 6-char corpsecall to get them back to the group, so long as most of the group (4+) died at that boss or further in. This is the ONLY PLACE IN THE GAME you can do this legally (update: and Nadox). If you do it anywhere else, we will probably ban you.

Specific rulings for 6-man content areas in zones that aren't "6 man zones"

Claw Commander Era`velu in Citadel of the Claw / Dreadlands and Supreme Ritualist Ofgats in The Bloodied Quarry - Only the boss events themselves are considered "6 man content", so there are no restrictions from rezz/buff bots or even for using a full 18-man raid to clear the mobs in front of the boss himself. The golems in front of Claw Commander Era`velu are considered part of the boss event.
The Fae in Shadowdale – You must have at least 4 characters in the “treetops” area actively clearing in order to claim if there is a dispute. The entire "treetops" area is considered "out of bounds" for any rezz/buff bots. This is recognizably awkward, since those bots and their use are permitted at ground level. This is a huge concession in your favor, so follow the spirit of the rule and don't make us police this one.
The Aqueducts in The Remnants of Old Ikild - the entire "upper area" is considered 6man content and is "out of bounds" for any rezz/buff bots.
Ruins of First City - The entirety of the Tarhyl area, everything past bloodfires (read: everything past the shattered gate at the upper end of the tunnel leading down to Rohk building), is now 6man only (including Rohk and Elders). No 7th man rezzing or buffing will be allowed past bloodfires. It is also illegal to use the shortcut Tarhyl worshippers get to rez, even if said Tarhyl worshipper is part of the group going down there.