Rules of Conduct

Evervale is made by gamers, for gamers. The people running it are players too: we have bad days, tilt after a lost match, and have stayed up too late for one more run. We know that games are sometimes where people go to feel okay, and sometimes where it all piles up. Both are real, and neither is something to be ashamed of.

So before any rules, a few things we believe:

• You matter more than the match. If a game is making you feel worse and not better, it is fine to log off. Nobody here will think less of you.
• Rough days are allowed. You can be frustrated, sad, tired or on edge and still be welcome. What we ask is that you do not take it out on someone else.
• Asking for help is strong. If you are struggling, tell a friend, a guildmate, or someone who can really help. The safety section below has places to turn to in your own country.
• Staff are people too. We will try to be kind, to explain ourselves, and to say sorry when we get it wrong.

Everything below comes from one idea: this should be a place where you feel safe enough to have fun.

The best thing about an online world is the people in it: the stranger who revives you mid-fight, the guild that adopts you, the rival you end up friends with. We want to protect that.

• Be a good teammate. Call out a good play. Say "good game" when it was. Be patient with new players; every one of us was lost once.
• Competitive is fine, cruel is not. Trash talk that both sides enjoy is part of PvP. If the other person has stopped enjoying it, it has stopped being banter.
• Make room. Welcome people of every background, age, accent, skill level and playstyle. You do not have to like everyone, only to treat them decently.
• Look out for each other. If you see someone being picked on, a kind word or a report helps more than you think.
• Take a break if you need one. Mute, block, leave the channel. You never owe anyone your attention, and blocking is private: nobody is told.

Disagreeing is fine. Making someone feel unsafe or unwelcome is not. That covers insults aimed at one person again and again, following someone from channel to channel, stalking, unwanted messages after they have told you to stop, and encouraging others to pile on.

Attacking people for who they are (race, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality and the like) has no place here, including in character names, guild names and guild text. If you are not sure whether a joke crosses the line, it probably does; ask yourself who is laughing and who is not.

Threatening to hurt someone, in the game or outside it, is never okay, even as a joke and even in the heat of a match. This includes threats against staff.

This is the one we are most serious about. Any sexual or romantic contact with a child or teenager, grooming (befriending, flattering, isolating or pressuring a young person towards something inappropriate), asking young players for personal details, photos, or to move to a private app: all of it is banned, immediately and usually for good, with no appeal. We will not be persuaded by "it was a joke" or "they said they were older".

If you are young and something feels off, you are not in trouble. Tell a trusted adult, report the player, and block them. If you are a parent and something concerns you, contact us through the support page.

Do not share, hunt for, or hint at someone's real name, address, workplace, school, photos, or other private details, and do not share screenshots of private conversations to shame someone. Everyone has the right to have their privacy respected.

This one works differently, because it is not about punishing anyone.

If you are struggling, talking about it in the right place can help. Staff and other players are not counsellors, and a game chat is not the safest place to carry something heavy, but you are not a rule-breaker for having a hard time. If you tell us you are in a bad way, we will answer with care, not a sanction.

If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number. For free, confidential support in your own country and language, findahelpline.com lists helplines worldwide, and it is a good place to start wherever you live.

If you are worried about someone else, report them (in game, Report Player) with a short note. A moderator will look at it with care, and we can point them to help. Please do not try to handle a crisis alone.

What is not okay is telling other players to hurt themselves ("go kill yourself" and its many disguises), or mocking someone who is struggling. That is harassment and is treated as one of the most serious kinds.

Fun PvP only works if the contest is fair. Aim or movement help, modified files, speed or damage changes, knowingly repeating a bug that hands out wins or rewards, and bots or macros that play for you (more than one action per key press) are all out. If you find a bug, tell us through the bug reports, because that makes you a hero, not a cheat. Hammering the website or Companion with automated requests counts too.

The game server is the referee: it checks what happens, so a lot of cheating is simply not possible. Where it is, we look at evidence, not hunches.

Evervale has no shop. Trading items, currency, characters or accounts for real money, gift cards or any outside value is not allowed, and neither is advertising such a sale. It is also one of the easiest ways to get scammed.

Claiming to be staff, or copying staff names and titles to mislead people, is not allowed. Real staff will never ask for your password, your login code, or your recovery details. If someone does, do not give it and report them.

An account is for one person. Sharing, selling or lending it puts your own security and everyone else's trust at risk, and you are responsible for what happens on it.

Flooding a channel, repeating the same message, or advertising other services, servers or products in chat, forums, mail or names.

The rules for text chat apply to voice chat too.

• No harassment, hate or threats in voice.

Any player in a voice channel can report it. A report can be reviewed using a saved clip of the last 90 seconds of that channel. What is saved, who can see it and how long it is kept is set out in the privacy policy.

Staff are held to the same rules as everyone else. Reports about staff are reviewed by more senior staff, and nobody can act against an account of the same or higher rank than their own.

If something is not okay, tell us. You do not need to be sure, and you will not be in trouble for reporting in good faith.

• In game: right-click a player and choose Report Player (or Report Spam), use the report button on unit frames, chat lines and scoreboards, or type /report.
• On the website: use the flag on a character profile, or on any player on a match page.
• In the Companion: use Report on a player. Reports are never shown to the player you reported.
• Reasons: chat, harassment, spam, cheating, botting, griefing, going AFK, voice, or other. Add a short note; it helps.
• Bugs are different: use the bug reports page for things that are broken, not for people.

What happens next, honestly:

• An in-game report saves the context for us automatically: the player's recent chat lines, the match, the place and the time. For voice, a short clip is only kept if report clips are switched on (see above).
• A person reviews it. A report is never an automatic punishment. It is a pointer for a human to look at what really happened.
• One report per person per player per reason in a day is enough; sending more does not make it go faster. There is also a limit on how many you can send in an hour, which keeps the queue useful.
• Reports are weighed by how reliable the reporter has been. Trusted reporters move faster. A group of people reporting the same player at once is looked at carefully for pile-ons, and false or malicious reports count against the people who send them.
• We may not be able to tell you the outcome of every report, because we protect the privacy of everyone involved, but every one is read.

We would rather help someone do better than get rid of them. Most of the time the answer to a first problem is a conversation or a short break. Things escalate when they repeat, and some things (see the safety lines above) go straight to the top.

The steps, from lightest to heaviest:

• Warning. A heads-up with the reason.
• Mute. You cannot use chat for a while: an hour, a day, longer if it keeps happening. Repeated filtered messages can trigger a short automatic mute, which a person can review.
• Suspension. Your account is locked for a set time (a day, three, seven, up to a month), or until the situation is resolved with us.
• Permanent ban. The account is closed. Reserved for the most serious things, or when everything else has been tried.
• Rated ban. In some cases you can still queue for casual play, but not for rated matches.

Each ban or suspension comes with a reason in plain language: a short title (such as Harassment, Cheating, Gold selling, Fake staff, Account sharing, Botting, Spam), a fuller explanation, and, where it helps, a personal note from the staff member. Staff pick from the same set of reasons and explanations, so everyone is treated the same way. You can read it at any time at the account notice page.

People make mistakes, and so do we. If you think a ban or suspension is wrong, or you simply want to explain, you can talk to us.

• Where: sign in to the website or the Companion as usual. Even while your account is locked, you can still reach the account notice page, and that is the only part of the site open to you then.
• What you see: why it happened, when it ends (or that it lasts until resolved), and a message box. Every ban or suspension has its own ticket.
• How it works: write to us and a staff member answers in the same thread. You can write up to 2,000 characters a message, five messages an hour, fifteen a day. Please tell us your side, calmly: it is the fastest way for us to review fairly.
• Statuses: Waiting for you (we are waiting on your reply), Staff will answer (we owe you a reply), Closed (the sanction has ended or been lifted), or Final.
• What staff can do: lift a suspension, shorten it, extend it, or change a suspension into a ban or the other way round. If we got it wrong, we will say so and lift it.
• Final decisions: a permanent ban for the most serious things (for example, harming children) can be marked final, with no appeal. The notice says so clearly. A suspension can always be appealed.

Please be patient with us, and please be kind to whoever answers. They are people and players, too. Making a new account to get around a ban makes things worse for you and will not help your appeal.