Proclamation by the Council of the Wise

Hear all, hear all.

Herein we set forth the Code of Darkland.

This code applies to all the land, without any exception whatsoever. It has been decreed by the ruling council and ratified by the treaty of Claw’s Pass for the territory under their control.

A body of Judges has been created to apply the law. In them is invested the highest authority of the law, with the right of high and low justice.

Process of Law

It is hereby decreed that Judges shall have both auctoritas and potestas. In rough terms, this means that when faced by unforeseen circumstances, a Judge can decide on what law applies or create jurisdiction, and then the Judge has the power to apply it at once.

Judges have the duty to be fair and even-handed and must thoroughly verify the circumstances before they render judgement.

Players may contest the decision and demand that another Judge be called to arbitrate their case. This should only happen if there is reason to believe that the Judge is acting from personal motives rather than according to the fair tenets of justice.

Do not invoke this right unless you know you are in the right.

Should the decision go against you it will be assumed you were trying to escape the consequences of your deed by casting doubt on the original judge, and as a result you may count on having the penalty greatly increased

The offences described below are those for the most severe case. Because of this, unless otherwise specified the standard procedure is to apply the High penalty. Every case is a case, though, and this is not a strict rule but a guideline for the Judges.

This code is under constant revision. Make sure you check it frequently.

Penalties

The arm of the law has a heavy hand. These are the possible consequences for unlawful deeds:

Supreme penalty- permanent exile from Darklands.

High penalty- massive confiscation of property, having the character crippled or erased. To be applied according to the crime.

Low penalty- whatever is appropriate, including fines, jailing and minor crippling in the case of minor abuses.

Rule of penalty: In all cases the penalty should be superior to what could possibly be gained by the crime.

Author's note: we are not the Gestapo and this is not a police state. We can always be reasonable and every case is an individual case. It is possible to make a mistake, sometimes a situation is ambiguous and in other cases we may have no proof of wrongdoing.

However, knowing human nature, we will tend to assume the worse. All the situations described as forbidden are disruptive to the game.

Our aim is for you, the player, to be protected from behaviour that will insult you, destroy your game experience or place you under an unfair disadvantage.

The Judges are not repressive policemen, but people who are trying to protect you and the world. Because of that, you may rest assured that we will apply these rules without hesitation.

General Laws

1-     Instructions or directives found in "NEWS" are considered rules as well. The most recent regarding the same item take precedence over the oldest. These "Rules" take precedence over the "News", in the case that there is some accidental contradiction.

2-     One person may have only one account. One account may have only one character. In case you make a mistake and create another character by accident, DO NOT MOVE IT FROM WHERE IT IS, and call a GM.

3-     Lack of knowledge of the law is no excuse, under any circumstance whatsoever.

4-     The player is always responsible for his account.

5-     Lending or selling accounts is forbidden.

6-     This is a roleplaying shard. You have great latitude, in your role, but you are expected to stick by it. Consistently talking out of character is a fast way to discover what the penalties are all about.

7-     Personal insults are forbidden in all circumstances. Character insults are acceptable- a Human player calling an Orc player “An unwashed pig” is OK, calling him a “sonovabitch” is not. Be aware that when in doubt the worse case will be assumed, so ambiguity will not be an excuse.

8-     Macroing is forbidden. This will be strictly enforced, and therefore let us define the concept. In some cases, an activity may prove to be very repetitive and boring, and a small macro- a program to press a key and activate a client macro, for example- is perfectly acceptable. Craftsmen in particular are likely to feel the need for such aid.

The act of "macroing" happens with unattended use of macros, that is, when the character is made into a sort of robot while the player is not present. This is what will not be tolerated at all. When the Judges check on a player and talk to him, be sure to answer immediately, thus proving that you were, indeed, present. The excuse that the player was gone only "for a leak" while leaving the character working alone will not work at all.

To account for the times when pressing need pulls us away from the computer (phone, bladder, whatever) there is a very simple method.

Having the character simply lying still while unattended is not macroing. Therefore when you have to leave the character alone for a while simply turn off the macro and let it stay quiet; you will receive no penalty for that. When the judges check they will see that nothing is being done, no skills being raised- and go away.

Be warned that the penalty for this will be generally to find the most useful skill a player has, the hardest to gain- not necessarily the highest- and cripple it, say 5.0 to 30.0 depending on seriousness.

9-     If two players are training together they should be active and keeping to their role. Take care, sparring is too near macroing for the Judges to allow latitude; if there is evidence of wrongdoing the players will be considered to be macroing and duly prosecuted.

10-     Power-gaming is frowned upon. It is hard to define, and therefore this has the force of a recommendation rather than a law.
Still, if it is too blatant, you may find that you are plagued with bad luck or made an example of. Walking around in your own firefield, training parry with blade spirits and so on are considered bugs and will be dealt with accordingly.

11-    In case of doubt, ask first. You will never ever be penalised for just asking something. If your question raises an interesting point, something we hadn't thought of, clarifies an issue or is otherwise helpful to the game you will be rewarded.

12-    All cases not covered by these rules will be judged individually, and the rule will then be written down.

Many players think they can outsmart the system and the Judges.

No one is infallible; we know that very well and we have every confidence in the resourcefulness of our players. We do ask you to consider one thing:
The Judges have played the original Ultima Online and they know very well how to macro and the many ways this can be done, and just how this really affects the game. The Judges have exploited bugs, done all sorts of macroing, abused sparring and generally played hell with the system.

It is something we considered unavoidable at the time, as experiences in "playing fair" fell flat before maxed-out macroed competition. We have seen just how much this affected the game, and it was not a pleasant sight. We wish we could have played it fair, and we intend to give our players the opportunity to enjoy a fair game.

Building a New Character

1-     The information given when requesting the admission must be true.

2-     When creating the character, it must be made according to what was requested during admission. Should the Citizen desire to change it, he must fill and send the form to the Account Administration address.

Bug squelching

1-     As in all that relates to computers, you may find bugs in this game.

2-     Bug abusers are subject to permanent exile.

3-     When you are in doubt whether it is a bug or a feature, ask.

4-     The first player to report a bug will be rewarded, in proportion to how disruptive or unfair the bug would be if abused. This reward can take many shapes, from minor skill increases to unique items.

5-     Players who denounce bug-users, if they are convicted, will receive as bounty a proportion of the bug-users property which was not acquired through use of the bug.

Player Conflict

1-     Everything that relates to conflict is of necessity a grey area. The Judges are aware of this and will deal accordingly with such cases. This works both ways, the Judge may decide that there is no proof or that the event is too ambiguous to rule upon. He may also decide to make an example of those involved.
When in doubt, tread by the side of caution. Common sense and honesty will always guide you well.

2-     Players are allowed to kill one another, IF AND ONLY IF they have a good, in-game reason to do that.

3-     Insane murderers will be subject to the supreme penalty

4-     Even while fighting keep to the role. “I’ll rox yur ass” is an example of erroneous behaviour.

5-     Valid reasons include highway robbery, city and unit conflict. But if you are sticking up people in a road, or if you are the victim, the robbers must give the victim a chance to surrender and the victim should wait for the robbers to make their threat.

6-     It is allowed to take all the loot, with no exceptions, from a vanquished enemy.

7-     The act of looting an abandoned body, or one from a fellow citizen, is a matter to be solved in-game. It can lead to in-game solutions, such as being banished from the city, being declared a traitor or anything in between. In this context looting equates with attacking a fellow citizen.

8-     Looting somebody else's prey is also a matter for in-game roleplaying. It is certainly a reason for a fight, though it should at least be preceded by a demand to stop doing it and/or return what was stolen.

Text written by Crom aka Lettow aka Pedro