Monsters and Memories Play Nice Policy

Our Community Vision

Monsters and Memories is built on the foundation that MMORPGs are shared worlds where thousands of players create stories, forge friendships, and overcome challenges together. Our Play Nice Policy ensures that every player can enjoy this experience in a safe, fair, and welcoming environment.

We believe in competitive gameplay, meaningful player interaction, and the social bonds that make MMORPGs special. This policy protects those values while addressing behaviors that undermine the community experience.

Core Principles

• Respect: Treat all players with basic human dignity, regardless of their skill level, playtime, or background.
• Fair Play: Compete honestly without cheating, exploiting, or gaining unfair advantages.
• Shared Spaces: Recognize that game areas, spawns, and resources are shared among all players.
• Community First: Consider how your actions affect others and the overall health of our community.

Prohibited Behaviors

1. Harassment and Abuse

Harassment includes any behavior designed to intimidate, silence, or drive away another player:

• Identity-based attacks: Discrimination, slurs, or targeted harassment based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or other protected characteristics.
• Sexual harassment: Unwanted sexual advances, explicit content, or sexually suggestive behavior toward other players.
• Stalking and targeting: Following players across servers, zones, or characters to continue unwanted contact.
• Coordinated harassment: Organizing groups to target individual players.
• Doxxing: Sharing or threatening to share personal information about other players.
• Real-world threats: Any threat of violence or harm outside the game.

Note: Competitive trash talk during PvP or challenging content is acceptable provided it doesn't cross into personal attacks or protected characteristics.

2. Cheating and Exploitation

Zero tolerance for any form of cheating or unfair advantage:

• Third-party programs: Bots, automation tools, speed hacks, teleportation, or any software that modifies game behavior.
• Bug exploitation: Knowingly using game bugs, glitches, or unintended mechanics for advantage.
• Circumventing restrictions: Creating new accounts to avoid penalties or restrictions.
• Data mining: Extracting game data through unauthorized methods.

3. Real Money Trading (RMT)

Strictly prohibited in all forms:

• Selling or buying in-game currency, items, or characters for real money.
• Account sales or transfers between players.
• Boosting services for real money (power-leveling, quest completion, etc.).
• Advertising RMT services in-game or on our platforms.
• Acting as intermediary for RMT transactions.

4. Disruption and Griefing

Behaviors that deliberately interfere with other players' enjoyment:

Camp Disruption:

• Training mobs to players with established camp priority.
• Deliberately disrupting established camps through zone trains or similar tactics.
• Repeatedly attempting to contest camps through disruptive rather than competitive means. This includes fraudulent or unnecessary petitioning.

General Disruption:

• Zone disruption through trains, excessive corpse creation, or similar tactics.
• Deliberately misleading players about game mechanics.

5. Communication Violations

Maintaining appropriate communication standards:

• Hate speech: Slurs, discriminatory language, or content promoting hatred toward protected groups.
• Spam: Excessive, repeated, or automated messages in any chat channel.
• Inappropriate content: Sexually explicit content, graphic violence descriptions, or disturbing material.
• Political extremism: Promoting violent ideologies or extremist political content.
• Scamming: Deliberately misleading players about trades, services, or game mechanics for personal gain.

Note: Role-playing does not grant license to violate these rules.

6. Name and Character Violations

Character and guild names must be appropriate. The following are not allowed:

• Offensive, discriminatory, or hateful names.
• Names that reference bodily functions or reproductive organs.
• Copyrighted names from other games, movies, books, or media.
• Names designed to impersonate staff or officials or of real people.
• Names that violate other policy areas (sexual content, harassment, etc.).

7. Account Sharing

Account sharing is not sanctioned.

It is highly recommended that you never share your login information (username and password) and that you maintain 2FA on your account.

Account sharing is the number 1 cause of 'hacked' accounts, mass item deletion, guild item deletion, guild disruption, and similar issues.

Account bans due to severe disruption (ex. using bannable language in public channels) are often linked to shared accounts.

We are realistic about the fact that players will share account information despite the risks. While we will not take action against shared accounts, we WILL NOT provide assistance for issues arising from a shared account.

Contested Content and Competition

Our Philosophy

Monsters and Memories is highly focused on the social experience. It embraces both cooperation and competition. We encourage players to share contested content when possible, but recognize that competitive play is natural and acceptable in an MMORPG environment. These guidelines provide as much clarity as possible, but we realize that some situations require a neutral 3rd party to assist in conflict resolution. GMs are here to help support you and maintain a positive social experience.

Camp Definitions and Rules

What constitutes a camp:

• Indoor zones: A named mob and any mobs within line of sight of that named mob.
• Outdoor zones: Enclosed/covered areas (tents, buildings, structures, etc.) and known established camp areas should be respected; otherwise, players may claim a single respawn location.
• Freely roaming mob spawns, not associated with a static camp, are not considered camps and cannot be claimed.
  • Ex. A patrolman circling a nearby tent is part of that camp
  • Ex. A rare giant that spawns randomly in a large wander volume is not a camp
• Multi-group ('raid') Targets: For multi-group encounters and targets, the first group to engage the target has priority. Other players should not interfere with or attempt to claim an actively engaged target.
  • Examples:
    • Level capped encounters
    • Wandering world bosses (free roaming dragons)
    • Static multi-group encounters (dragon spawn points)
• Multiple Camps: Each player or group counts as one unit and they may claim only one camp at a time.

Note: Resource nodes (mining, herbs, etc.) are first-come-first-served and cannot be "camped."

Camp Ownership and Priority

Establishing Priority:

• The first individual(s) (solo player or group) to establish presence at a camp has claim to it.
• "Actively engaged" means present, fighting, or clearly waiting for spawn.
• Priority continues as long as the player remains engaged.

Multiple Camp Situations:

If multiple camps exist in an area with some unclaimed, the unclaimed mobs become free-for-all (first to tag owns the mob).

Ex. If there are 3 camps: A, B, and C. Groups at Camps A & C may both pull mobs from Camp B in the middle.

Monopolizing Camps:

• Players camping for extremely extended periods (many hours continuously) may receive welfare checks from staff to ensure player health and verify the account is not being automated.
• We realize that some camps may require an extended period of time for the mob to spawn or for repeated mobs to spawn when camping items, and will take that into account.
• Locking down a camp for the purpose of selling 'loot rights' is considered disruption. Sharing is caring.
• Passing a camp to a player or group, other than the players who fairly established themselves as 'next,' is also considered disruption. This can be verified via our logs.
  • Example: Handing the camp off to guildmates, despite another player or group waiting for it.
• Cycling other players into a group at a camp is fine. You are not required to group with other players, but it is encouraged.
• Cycling other players into a group indefinitely to lock down a camp will likely result in a GM checking in to discourage the behavior.

Competing for Camps:

• Respectful competition for unclaimed camps is acceptable.
• Wait for the current individual(s) to leave or complete their session.
• Communicate politely about sharing or rotating access.
• Do not use disruptive tactics to force other players away.
• Kill stealing from an established camp is prohibited.

Losing Priority:

• Extended AFK periods.
• Leaving the immediate area for extended periods.
• Completing your intended purpose and moving on.

Camp Dispute Resolution

Camp disputes should begin with a civil dialogue between the individual(s) involved. It is our hope that players will be able to compromise and work things out amongst themselves before involving GMs.

Enforcement:

• GMs will actively investigate and resolve camp disputes when petitioned.
• Both camp stealing and frivolous/bad-faith reporting of alleged violations may result in disciplinary action.
• Players should familiarize themselves with camp policies to avoid misunderstandings.
• "Rules lawyering" or attempting to grief others through manipulation of camp rules will not be tolerated.
• Once a GM has made a decision about which individual(s) own a camp, all players should respectfully abide by that decision.

The intent is to maintain a fair playing environment where players respect each other's camps while preventing exploitation of the system through either monopolization or false reporting.

Dungeon Etiquette

• Respect established groups in dungeon areas.
• Communicate before entering occupied rooms or areas.
• Don't deliberately interfere with ongoing encounters.
• Share loot fairly when joining others.
• If you don't know where you're going and you're overwhelmed by mobs, look for the closest landmark while avoiding other players and/or die in place.
• Telling the zone you took one for the team in /ooc is more likely to get you assistance recovering your corpse than training everyone in a blind panic.

Enforcement and Penalties

Progressive Penalty System

Most violations follow a 4-tier escalation:

1. Warning: Educational response explaining the violation with policy guidance.
2. 3-Day Suspension: Complete account suspension with clear expectations for return.
3. 14-Day Suspension: Extended suspension with termination review.
4. Permanent Ban: Account termination for severe or repeated violations.

Note: Not all penalties will follow this structure.

Immediate Permanent Bans

Certain violations bypass the progressive system:

• Doxxing or sharing personal information.
• Real-world threats of violence.
• Serious real money trading operations.
• Repeated account creation to circumvent penalties.

Enforcement Principles

• Consistent: Similar violations receive similar penalties.
• Proportional: Penalty severity matches violation impact.
• Educational: Focus on helping players understand and follow community standards.
• Fair: All players held to the same standards regardless of status.

Appeals Process

Your Right to Appeal

All penalties may be appealed.

Appeal Timeline

• Target Response: 7 days for appeal review.
• Information Required: Clear explanation of why you believe the penalty was incorrect.
• Evidence: Any relevant screenshots, logs, or context we should consider.

Appeal Outcomes

• Upheld: Original penalty stands.
• Reduced: Lesser penalty applied.
• Overturned: Penalty removed and record cleared.

False Appeals

Repeatedly submitting frivolous appeals or misrepresenting facts may result in extended penalties and loss of appeal privileges.

Reporting Violations

How to Report

Use the In-Game reporting tools (accessed by typing /petition) for immediate issues.

What to Include

• Player names and server information.
• Specific violation type and description.
• Date and time of incident.

Note: Please have a single person petition an event. Multiple people submitting for the same issue slows down resolution time.

Report Review

• All reports are reviewed by trained staff.
• False reports may result in penalties for the reporter.
• We do not provide specific details about actions taken against other players.

Transparency and Accountability

Policy Updates

• Clear explanation of changes and reasoning.
• Updated effective dates clearly communicated.

Staff Accountability

• All enforcement actions are logged and reviewable by other staff.
• Regular training ensures consistent application.
• Escalation procedures for complex cases.
• Community feedback helps improve our processes.

Regional and Legal Compliance

Privacy Protection

• All enforcement data handled according to applicable privacy laws.
• Players may request information about their account history.
• Data retention follows legal requirements and policy timelines.

Regional Variations

• This English policy takes precedence for all accounts.
• Local laws may require additional protections or restrictions.
• Regional community standards may influence enforcement severity.