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General Conduct
The Sleuth: Shades of Mystery (SOM) message boards, chat, and other services provided therein are not to be used to transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable content, as determined by any SOM moderator, designee or admin. This includes vulgar and abusive language, even when masked by symbolic characters, and includes detective names and agency names.
We reserve the right to remove, at any time, without notice, or refund any user for violations of this Code of Conduct. Decisions made by SOM moderators, designees or admin are final and should not be disputed on the public boards. If further discussion of a decision is desired, it should be done directly with a SOM administrator via private message or email.
The impersonation of any SOM employee or designee is completely forbidden, as is the impersonation of any other SOM user. Spamming should not even be contemplated. Spam includes sending identical and irrelevant or unsolicited submissions to many different users, posting identical and irrelevant information on message boards or chat, this also includes misrepresenting the source of anything you post.
Users play SOM at their own risk and of their own volition.
Neither SOM nor Hypothetical Software allows behavior or content related to illegal activities. If you violate the law, you will be responsible for the consequences. You cannot use SOM to publish, post, distribute, or disseminate defamatory, infringing, obscene, or other unlawful material or discussion. This includes, but is not limited to, child pornography, bestiality, incest, illegal drugs, software and other forms of piracy, racketeering, money laundering, blackmail, murder, prostitution, slavery, fraud, cannibalism, theft, vigilantism, harassment, and acts of treason.
The community message boards are public. Do not attempt to purposely exclude or alienate other players from posts or threads. Do not post messages that contain links to photos, music, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, rights of privacy or publicity, or any other applicable law unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consents. Neither SOM nor Hypothetical Software is responsible for any use of material posted by users.
Plagiarism is strictly forbidden on SOM. Do not claim authorship of anything you did not actually create yourself. You are expected to approach the community message boards in an ethical and respectful manner and to adhere to any posted rules or rules posted in the future.
In addition to upholding this Code of Conduct, you are responsible for adhering to all applicable local and national laws.
back to topGame Play
You are responsible for all of your activities on SOM and for any actions you may take based on advice or information you receive online. SOM does not take responsibility for actions resulting from interference from player family members, household pets, personal computer malfunctions or other acts of God on your end of the keyboard. Use your own judgment when evaluating information provided through any agency or community site, and remember that the information provided could be from people at any age or experience level, and who may not have your best interests in mind.
Do not share your player passwords. If you insist on doing so, you do at your own risk. You are expected to approach game play in an ethical and respectful manner and to adhere to any posted rules or rules posted in the future.
back to topPersonal Protection
We caution you against giving out any personally identifiable information (such as social security number, credit card number, name, address, telephone number, driver's license number, password, etc.) online. This information can easily be used for illegal or harmful purposes. Just because the rules prohibit people from misrepresenting themselves doesn't mean that they'll obey. You never really know who you're communicating with.
SOM was designed for persons age 13 and older, if persons under this age limit choose to play SOM, they do so at their own risk.
We reserve the right to amend or change the Code of Conduct at any time and encourage you to periodically review these guidelines to ensure you are in compliance.
back to topCheating, Hacking and 3rd Party Software
Illegal Hacking Activities
Any breaches of US or international cyber crime or wire fraud laws will be prosecuted. The perpetrators will be banned permanently from Hypoware games and their Sleuth subscriptions will be forfeit without any refunds. Examples of illegal hacking include (but are not limited to): attempting to hack or compromise Hypoware server security, distributing or injecting malicious software code into either the Sleuth server or client code, launching a denial of service attack against Hypoware servers, stealing or intercepting personal or financial user records, spoofing or stealing paid Sleuth subscriptions.
Bots and Automated Game Scripting
It is not permitted to create or use any program that automates Sleuth game play or circumvents the Sleuth game client in order to speed in-game advancement. Practically speaking, this rule prohibits use of any third party program, script or plugin that SENDS data to Sleuth servers. First offenses will result in loss of 50% of detective experience and commensurate loss of skill points and skills. Subsequent offenses will result in full detective resets.
| Offense | Punishment |
|---|---|
| First | Loss of 50% of Experience and Commensurate Skill Points and Skills |
| Subsequent | Full Detective Reset |
URL Hacking and Web Request Spoofing
Modifying, duplicating or spoofing data messages generated by the Sleuth client is considered cheating. First offenses will result in loss of 20% of detective experience and commensurate loss of skill points and skills. Second offenses will result in loss of 50% of detective experience and commensurate loss of skill points and skills. Subsequent offenses will result in full detective resets.
| Offense | Punishment |
|---|---|
| First | Loss of 20% of Experience and Commensurate Skill Points and Skills |
| Second | Loss of 50% of Experience and Commensurate Skill Points and Skills |
| Subsequent | Full Detective Reset |
Abusing Known and Published Exploits
If a game administrator announces and describes a particular activity or strategy to be an exploit of the game on the Message Boards, any further use of that tactic (after the announcement) will result in a full detective reset.
Helper Apps, Case Status Trackers and Crime Scene Searching Aids
It is permissible to use programs, scripts or plugins that passively READ data sent from the Sleuth server to the client.