Eclipse Server Rules - Changelog

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

ECLIPSE SERVER RULES CHANGELOG

All changes to and clarifications on our official server rules will be documented on this forum thread. 

Previous updates (not covered in the changelog):
10/JUN/2019
17/JUL/2019
17/DEC/2019

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

25/JAN/2020

Changed under 13. Fear Roleplay (FRP):

• OLD: Driving a vehicle in an active shootout more than once without the intent of protecting a friend, fleeing with it, or using it as cover.
• NEW: Driving a vehicle into an active shootout more than once without the intent of providing cover for a friend or yourself, or fleeing with it.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Following a staff team meeting, we recognized that the wording of the old line made it seem like you could circle back into an active shootout and ram players in that shootout using "the intent of protecting a friend". This now means that you cannot drive into an active shootout more than once with the intent to ram players in that shootout, unless it's unavoidable when you are trying to flee from the active shootout. 

Added under 15. Player Theft, Prison Breakout, and Kidnapping

• Players can give consent to other players to be kidnapped outside of the stipulations above if the roleplay makes sense, but they should in such cases avoid involving law enforcement in any way due to the consented roleplay.
   
• CLARIFICATION: There has been times when two or more players have been involved in a roleplay where one party has wanted to kidnap the other party, but being unable to do so because they hadn't met the stipulations to do so. We are now allowing players to consent to being kidnapped, however, due to the consented roleplay, we ask that all players involved tries their best not to involve law enforcement. 

(No longer valid since new rules update).

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

22/FEB/2020

Clarification on Powergaming (Carrying Players)

• Carrying bodies / injured players without writing /me's and /do's is no longer considered as powergaming due to the recent server update which imposed timers onto /carrybody, /storebody, /dropbody. The previous clarification written on the 10/JUN/2019 announcement which said that it was powergaming, has been removed. We are applying the same principle as looting injured / dead players through the server script, they are too injured to resist. 

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

08/MAR/2020

Changed under 8. Non-Roleplay (NRP):

• OLD: Cop Baiting - Provoking a reaction from emergency services without a realistic reason.
• NEW: Baiting Government Services - Provoking a reaction from faction services without a realistic reason / or calling faction services to e.g. rob them.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Included calling mechanic / taxi / medic etc. services to bait unrealistically or for the sole purpose of robbing them. It got too excessive and ruined game-play experience for taxi drivers and mechanics alike. 
   

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

14/MAR/2020

Changed under 8. Non-Roleplay (NRP):

• OLD: Spawning a scripted work vehicle and using it for crimes or submerging any vehicle in water.
• NEW: 
  • Spawning a scripted work vehicle and using it for anything other than its intended purpose.
  • Submerging any vehicle in water or unrealistically beaching any watercraft.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Wording change and separation of submersion rule. 

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

2/APR/2020

Changed under 8. Non-Roleplay (NRP):

• OLD: Players who disconnect during roleplay must reconnect and inform other parties in order to resume roleplay. If you are unable to reconnect it may be excused after providing proof.
   
• NEW: 
  Players who disconnect during roleplay must reconnect and inform other parties in order to resume roleplay. If you are unable to reconnect it may be excused after providing proof that would give you a valid reason not to return.
   
• CLARIFICATION: No major change, just wording. If you cannot return to a role-play situation after crashing due to circumstances, you need to have some form of proof to provide a Moderator+ to potentially be excused. We have also added a discord channel #crash-reports where you can notify staff and players of unexpected crashes from role-play scenes, so that they know when they can expect you to return to conclude the role-play. It's still the player's responsibility to make an effort to inform staff / players involved.

Changed under 11. No Crime Zones:

• OLD: Players may not go to a NCZ after engaging in criminal activity resulting in an ongoing chase.
   
• NEW: Players may not go to a NCZ within 15 minutes after engaging in criminal activity, unless you are turning yourself into law enforcement.
   
• CLARIFICATION: No Crime Zones weren't meant for an OOC safe haven against retaliation and so forth. If you've done any form of criminal activity within the last 15 minutes, whether it results in a chase or not, you should not take advantage of the OOC protection that No Crime Zones gives. They were not intended for this purpose. The only reason why you'd do this is if you are turning yourself into law enforcement present at the area. 
   

  Quote

  Moderators+ still reserve the right to exercise discretion under "Non-Roleplay" on whether someone's actions are unrealistic or promotes poor quality roleplay. They can ask players to leave No Crime Zones.

   

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

24/APR/2020

Changed under 8. Non-Roleplay (NRP)

• OLD: Players may not go to a NCZ within 15 minutes after engaging in criminal activity, unless you are turning yourself into law enforcement.
   
• NEW: Players may not go to a NCZ within 15 minutes after engaging in criminal activity or using it as protection from a resulting chase, unless you are turning yourself in to law enforcement.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Simple re-wording. Rule remains the same.
   

  Quote

  Moderators+ still reserve the right to exercise discretion under "Non-Roleplay" on whether someone's actions are unrealistic or promotes poor quality roleplay. They can ask players to leave No Crime Zones.

Clarification around Pets and Player Interactions

• Staff will treat pets the same that we do with rules around players attacking empty cars. It should make roleplay sense to attack an animal, and players going around randomly attacking animals (pets) will be held under 8. Non-Roleplay as it promotes poor quality roleplay. Owners of pets will need to properly escalate the level of verbal / physical interaction against someone attacking their pet to a level where it makes roleplay sense. We will not tolerate players being KILLED over their pets as pets are invincible and run no risk of being harmed from another player.

 

Clarification around Clothes and Robberies

• Players may not go around randomly robbing players and taking their clothes. Taking a player's clothes should make roleplay sense. Staff will enforce this under 8. Non-Roleplay as it promotes poor quality roleplay.

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

27/APR/2020

Clarification around Kidnapping and Player Robberies

• If a player wants to conduct a robbery on another player, they can move them out of sight e.g. into an alleyway or behind a building as long as it's not to an entire new location.  This is not considered kidnapping, however, all other rules applies. 

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

27/APR/2020
 

Added under 14. Deathmatch (DM)

• Vehicles cannot be used as a weapon in an active shootout unless it's unavoidable when fleeing an active shootout.
   
• CLARIFICATION: This was added after deliberation among staff and reading community input from the forums, it's clear that players in cars are more invincible than they realistically would be, thus making vehicles a stronger weapon than actual guns in most scenarios. You will no longer be able to use your vehicle as a weapon against other players if it's in an active shootout. Adhering to the Fear RP rule, you can only enter that shootout if you intend to use your car as cover, or to help a friend escape. If you are fleeing from a shootout with your car, and ramming someone is unavoidable, that's fine. 

Added under 15. Player Theft, Prison Breakout, and Kidnapping

• Robberies are to be conducted in a realistic manner and require the robber to have a reasonable in character motive. High risk, but little reward robberies are deemed unrealistic and should not be performed. Robberies should be performed in secluded areas where there is a low chance to be seen by witnesses.

Read for clarification:

 

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

17/MAY/2020

Changed under 1. Account Ownership and Responsibility

• OLD: Account ownership is non-transferable and is the property of the creator.
   
• NEW: Account ownership is non-transferable and is the property of the creator, and accounts can not be shared.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Re-wording. Sharing accounts is not allowed.

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

07/JUN/2020

Changed under 15. Player Theft, Prison Breakout, and Kidnapping

• OLD: Robberies are to be conducted in a realistic manner and require the robber to have a reasonable in character motive. High risk, but little reward robberies are deemed unrealistic and should not be performed. Robberies should be performed in secluded areas where there is a low chance to be seen by witnesses. Desert and forest areas could be considered secluded but potential witnesses should be taken into account.
   
• NEW: Robberies are to be conducted in a realistic manner and require the robber to have a reasonable in character motive. High risk, but little reward robberies are deemed unrealistic and should not be performed. Robberies should be performed in secluded areas where there is a low chance to be seen by witnesses. Desert and forest areas could be considered secluded but potential witnesses should be taken into account. Desert and forest areas could be considered secluded but potential witnesses should be taken into account.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Desert and forest areas could be considered secluded for player robberies to take place, e.g. Gas Stations on route 68, woods outside of Paleto Bay etc. Does not apply to job areas, and other factors should be taken into account with potential witnesses, reward vs risk factor, and motivation.

Clarification around Player Robberies

• If there is a strong personal reason against the victim the risk/reward & location factor can be eased.  Strong personal reason being e.g. someone has done something to wrong you severely and you want to retaliate. This does not mean that you should not take location into account, we want to see robberies be as realistic as possible, but we also understand that e.g. gang rivalry should allow you to be more reckless, but not to a point where you hold someone up in the middle of the road by Legion Square with 10 cars.
  
  Further clarification might be made at a later date. 

Changed under 11. No Crime Zones.

• OLD: • All government offices, law enforcement offices, hospitals, banks, and the blocks around them.
   
• NEW: • All government offices, law enforcement offices, hospitals, LS & Paleto Main Bank, and the blocks around them.
   
• CLARIFICATION: Fleeca Banks are not considered No Crime Zones.

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

30/JUN/2020

Changed under 6. Advertising and Public Chat

• OLD: Players may use offensive language in IC chat for roleplay but not excessively.
   
• NEW: Players may use offensive language in IC chat for roleplay but not excessively, and must stop if asked by another player OOCly. 
   
• CLARIFICATION: While we respect the fact that we're a roleplay server and we expect community members to create their fictional characters and RP around them, we also want our community to be welcoming for everyone. It's important that you understand that it should make RP sense for your character to behave in a way it does, whether that's being racist, homophobic etc - At some point, it becomes someone pushing their OOC ideology onto their IC character, thinking it's acceptable. 
  
  This minor change does not pertain to the usage of offensive language OOCly. We will not tolerate e.g. racial slurs OOCly, whether it's to a friend or someone else, it does not have any place on our platform. This change only strengthens the ability for players to be more comfortable playing on our server, and feel more welcoming. 

[BallinByNature 1,045]

01/JUL/2020

Changed 

• Removed unnecessary extra wording of some rules which did not effect the meaning / minor formatting differences to keep rules in-page.
• Moved Metagaming to 8 and Non-RP to 9 for formatting purposes

Added under 7. IC and OOC Interactions

• Players may not use real world images depicted as their character or post in-game images not possible to be taken from Eclipse RP.

[BallinByNature 1,045]

Added under 8. Metagaming

• Players may not have any interaction or knowledge of their alternate characters.

 

(Clarification for LifeInvader only, was always considered a rule)

[BallinByNature 1,045]

Eclipse Roleplay Server & Roleplay Rules 2020 Edition was released.

[BallinByNature 1,045]

05/AUG/2020

Changed 12. No Crime Zones (NCZ)

• OLD: Inside or very near to a No Crime Zone, indicated by the HUD or /NCZ command, players may not commit any crime or disobey law enforcement orders but are allowed to flee.
   
• NEW: Inside or very near to a No Crime Zone, indicated by the HUD or /NCZ command, players may not commit any crime or disobey law enforcement orders but are allowed to flee, lie, or scam IC.
  
  CLARIFICATION: This has always been the case but is now clear for new players who have just read the rules that lying and scamming is not protected under NCZ's.

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

05/DEC/2020

The State of Eclipse Roleplay

Changes to how we view and react to a player's general roleplay quality and contribution to the general community environment

We've reached a point where the general environment on the server is often unhealthy. Certain groups of players focus on low quality 'shooter' gameplay - where their "roleplay" primarily consists of engaging in shootouts with other players or other miscellaneous action roleplay. We've also noticed an increase in "win" mentality - using the fastest cars/bikes, using cars that are affected by broken game mechanics (FPS dependent cars) in order to win situations. We've also noticed an increased in "ruleplay" a term which is not properly defined, but one that describes a player that deters from immersion and realism to play by the border of the rules. 

In order to improve things, community management has decided that we're going to fix the general quality of roleplay by; 

• Removing players that have no focus on providing quality roleplay to all of the community, or players that have a toxic overall attitude that diminishes a healthy environment.
• We believe in leading by example - we've previously been very lenient against factions and their behavior, however - moving forward, we're going to be more strict with removing official statuses and if needed, force groups to disband. 

We encourage players to break free from unhealthy cliques and other groups and to lead by example among friend groups.

If you are among those players whose only gameplay is e.g. to login, grab your gun and vehicle, and move between drug labs to look for players to rob or create a conflict with, then this is aimed at you. You need to mix your gameplay up - you need to add creativity to your gameplay and create roleplay. Not everything can or will be scripted.

We want to reach a point where our server rules can be loosened up with less "limitations", however, at this current state - we're not anywhere close to that. 

The State of Player Reports

Changes to how we will approach player reports and appeals

Staff will now record denied reports as a note on a player's record, and include whether the report is petty or not. Players creating petty reports against players is often a result of spite. We've noticed a common pattern especially during gang conflicts that opposing gangs create petty reports against rivals for the smallest things in order to get them punished by server staff. 

If a player post frequent reports that are denied, it could also be a sign that the player are not familiar with our server rules - and thus due to their lack of understanding or reading ability, they waste a lot of server staff's time and create this unhealthy environment of throwing reports at one another. 

Senior Staff will review players with a large numbers of petty reports, or a large ratio between denied and accepted reports. This could result in punishments anywhere from being unable to post player reports for X period (which means no one can do it for you either), or being removed from the community for a certain period.

The State of Behavior during snow

Clarification to Non-Roleplay behavior during snow weather

The snow weather is not purely aesthetic. We want players to behave and act as they would around snow in real life. Players are expected to dress up properly for the cold weather. (Faction uniforms are exempt as they cannot be changed In-game).

Players are also expected to leave their non-off road bikes in the garage and apply appropriate tires to non-off road vehicles for the weather if they are to be used. (Tires is exempt for faction spawned vehicles as they cannot be changed In-game).

The State of Mountain Driving

Added under Non-Roleplay:

• Non-off road vehicles may not drive up mountains or steep hills. LSEMS, Mechanics and PD are exempt.
   
• CLARIFICATION: After deliberating among the staff team on the topic of unrealistic driving, we have decided to adopt a version of a rule from Lithuanian Eclipse Roleplay that covers this topic. When we rule on these types of topics surrounding game mechanics we try to focus on the things that affects players and the general flow of roleplay the most, and this has been one of those topics.
  
  It will now be considered as poor roleplay to operate your non-off road capable vehicles up mountains or steep hills. (off-road tires does not make your sports or supercar an off-road vehicle). 
  
  This will simply be ruled as Non-Roleplay by our staff, and like all of our rules, it will apply to everyone on the server equally, except for in certain circumstances. LSEMS and Mechanics will be exempt from the rule, and PD (temporarily) until they get a addon vehicle added for off-road purposes. This only exempts regular patrol cars for PD.
  
  We understand that it will take some time to adapt to this new stance of ours, and our staff team stands ready to educate players should there be any confusion. Please remember to always focus on roleplay over "ruleplay", don't drop your character's (and faction's) lore in order to go out of your way to drive vehicles that can off-road simply to win situations

[FatherOsborn 2,326]

Added 6. Ruleplaying
 

Quote

6. Ruleplaying

• Purposefully using, manipulating or interpreting rules or rulings falsely or outside of its intention, in an unrealistic or unintended way that does not constitute quality or realistic RP standards.
   
• Examples of ruleplaying for clarification (not an exhaustive list):
  - In a criminal chase, driving at slow speeds knowing that your pursuers are unable to attack you because they can't deliver demands.
  - Walking into a hostile situation with your hands up, knowing your backup is hiding, in order to bait deathmatching rights.
  - Taunting e.g. an enemy at a public place (e.g. fishing pier) knowing that they can't retaliate at said public location, effectively showing no fear for your safety.
  
  Each situation will be reviewed and dealt with as case by case basis by staff, the examples above is not precise and there could be realistic context to someone's actions.

Changed under Non-Roleplay:

• Non-off road vehicles may not drive up mountains or steep hills. LSEMS & Mechanics and PD are exempt.
  
  PD now has access to off-road police scouts.