Note: No preceding letters indicates General Rules; “GD” = Game Discussion; “S” = Suggestions; “BR” = Bug Reports; “MRR” = Moderation Review Requests; “M” = Marketplace; “G” = Guilds; “A” = Art. For example, “BR2” would be Rule 2 of the Bug Reports Specific Rules, and “2” would be Rule 2 of the General Rules.
It is important to know that breaking multiple rules which would result in feedback, especially for the same rule violation within a short timeframe, puts you at risk of potential punishment.
Furthermore, note that points and punishments are given at the discretion of the staff member issuing them. They may not always strictly adhere to the table above.
Note also that forum bans are permanent, and only accumulated points (NOT bans) get reset each year except in severe cases.
Based on the situation, consequences can be extended to the Discord server or in-game if the transgression is of such a caliber.
If there is a need, more rules will be added as deemed necessary. All rules are subject to change.
If at any time you are seeking assistance, have any questions or any concerns, contact a staff member in the @moderators group.
2. Do not engage in or post content to harass individuals or communities. This includes harassing them privately via forum PMs.
2.1. Do not insult individuals. You are free to disagree on and constructively criticize the content of their posts, but it does not warrant you to resort to ad hominem / name-calling to make your point.
2.2. Swearing is allowed to an extent, but do not be excessively vulgar or bypass filtered words. Do not direct profane language towards other people; be civil with your language.
3. Do not participate in harmful trolling. Think before posting here on the forum. Joke posts are allowed, as long as they aren’t taken as trolling detrimental to the forum. For example, making a funny satire post about a guild or the game is fine, but purposely being hostile or spreading fake rumors about users, the game, or its groups is not.
3.1. Do not create posts with no content.
3.2. Do not mislead users with clickbait in which the body of the OP is completely unrelated and titled solely to get clicked. This excludes satirical and joke posts but applies for everything else.
4. Do not intentionally cause drama. Civil arguments are permitted as long as it doesn’t become fallacious or pointless. Drama would be classified as meaningless arguments or threads to shame people, and posts that are deemed to spark such drama would be counted as intentionally causing drama. For instance, if a user made a post saying “I HATE [insert random person/something here]” with no real purpose than to cause fights or carry on a discussion that already got out of hand from a closed thread, it would count as intentional drama. In addition, do not involve yourself into drama either; only report it.
4.1. Drama in the #guilds category is fine under the condition that it is friendly and doesn’t devolve into toxicity.
5. Do not make insults or insensitive jokes based on race, sexuality, gender or any other discriminatory category. This includes using any kind of slurs.
6. Do not post NSFW content of any kind. Intentionality matters, meaning anything that is borderline or debatably NSFW will be considered unintentional. If you are unsure whether or not something is safe to post, contact a staff member. On the other hand, any post that is blatantly NSFW will be considered intentional and yield a harsher punishment. Look back at the Broken Rules Matrix for the difference in punishments.
6.1. Use an appropriate profile picture that is safe for work. Your profile picture will be reset if it is deemed as NSFW.
7. Do not discuss political, religious or any other similarly controversial topics unrelated to Arcane Odyssey. These types of discussions typically do not end well and are usually contentious. Having a username or profile picture inspired by a political/religious figure (as long as the figure is not controversial) is permitted, however.
7.1. Do not make insensitive jokes regarding these topics.
8. Do not spam posts. This goes for both topics and replies.
8.1. Do not post large walls of text with minimal separation. When making a lengthy post, make an effort to format it and split it into paragraphs for it to be easier to read. If you need help with formatting, you can privately ask for help from staff.
8.2. Do not bump old topics without a valid reason. This brings aged discussions to the top of Latest. Check the date of the last reply of the topic you wish to reply to, and determine if it would be reasonable to revive it. It is alright to bump old posts if the topic still relevant and there is a good reason to do so.
8.3. Do not create posts that encourage spamming, such as low-effort chain topics (etc. counting to 1000 in replies).
8.4. Only mention users if you are trying to get their attention in a topic, as this notifies them.
10. Do not discuss any moderation action publicly. This includes moderation on the Discord server. There are exceptions though such as in the circumstance that the manner of the topic is genuine, reasonable, and respectful, only in the situation in which the moderation action taken was clearly irrational or unfair. The consequence of breaking this rule aside from its exceptions varies based on the action at question. Though in any circumstance, If you wish to discuss action taken by staff that you deem unfair, it is preferred that you PM the @moderators.
10.1. Do not publicly question why a post was hidden via flagging. If you feel that your post was flagged unfairly, contact the @moderators privately.
10.2. Do not attempt to circumvent moderation action such as suspensions or silences by making an alternate account. This will result in an extended punishment and deletion of the alt.
10.3. Do not abuse the flagging system to maliciously hide posts.
When requesting review of moderation action taken against you, be civil, respectful, considerate, and direct in your appeal.
11. Do not post links that appear suspicious or are malicious.
11.1. Do not advertise anything unrelated to Vetex’s Games through links. This includes using private messages to do this en masse. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as recommending a game for users to play in the meanwhile.
13. Do not misuse categories, and abide by their guidelines. Create topics in the categories they would most fit in along with appropriate tags.
13.1. Regulars (trust level 3 users) are only permitted to recategorize topics of other users if the topic is wrongly categorized or if it is missing proper tags. Regulars should only change the title of topics to clarify it for other users or if it breaks the rules in some way.
14. Do not unfairly increase your forum stats. This includes making an alternate accounts to like your posts or creating artificial activity on the forum.
18. Do not tag Vetex. This may result in a punishment by his discretion. It is preferred that contact him on Twitter @_vetex, or send a private message to him on the forum if it is urgent.
19. Do not spread misinformation about the game on the forum, especially with intent. When giving info, please make sure that you have a source if it isn’t common knowledge or publicly confirmed anywhere.