Important The Rules

Rules of Aphelion's Roleplay

1) You must Roleplay
2) Respect the rules
3) Show respect towards other players (they are human too!) and treat people how you wish to be treated
4) All wars must involve Roleplay
5) You must accept one term of any race that you lost a war against
6) Do not grief or take from teams that you are not at war with, unless it's a term of a war being won
7) Do not perform hacking, spamming or impersonation of other players
8) Do not build swastikas
9) Do not exploit bugs
10) Do not be a jackass/idiot/retard/dick/asshole (as determined by an admin)

These rules apply to everyone.

Our admins are all different in the way they act and deal with situations with rulebreakers, that is why sometimes it will be considered "Abusive" if an admin is very to the point and short tempered with a greifer or rulebreaker while other times admins are more patient and kind about dealing with similar situations, however we moniter our admins and we can tell if they are abusing the position and reaping benefits or doing it under the goal of bettering the server, please refrain from thinking otherwise.
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A Larger explanation to the rules. I suggest you read them. Made by Zhuum.

Often, many players seem to not grasp the meanings of the first (You must roleplay.) and fourth ( All wars must include roleplay.) rule of the Roleplay server. This following information should help you all to understand the rules better.
some terminology, if you did not know before,
IC/ic - in character
OOC/ooc - out of character
1) You must roleplay.
But what does that really mean? Moreover some new people completely oblivious to the concept may ask - What is roleplay?
Well roleplay is an play where you take charge of one character, their actions, their thoughts, and their emotions. The character can be anything of one's choosing, they can be anything and of any race, but with a small remark - character should fit into the lore. It is true the lore for this server has not yet been published out fully and as such is up for discussion as of now.
The main point is that the character is in its own a completely new entity, it is not you. It can have bits and pieces of you but generally a character is a completely new personality. (Though, if you really wish so and think it is best for you, roleplaying as yourself is not prohibited. There is no rule against it really, but that will just defeat the point of the play.)
So when character of your liking is made up you can play with him, and the first rule in its simplest way means, you must act like your character is. Whenever in doubt it is best to ask yourself: What would my character do? Not you, nor your friend (unless the character you play is based on your friend), but your character. Your character is completely different entity, so in ways, the character lives on its own. It is fun to see and feel, that your character and thoughts they should have in their situation are often much different than your decisions.
That ought to explain it what the roleplay is.
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Now for more specifics,
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A hidden rule in roleplay is no meta-gaming. It means your character does not have the information you have. Upon explaining this more you can see that this rule is little bit more flexible given the context of kag and the average mind of a roleplayer you see on the server. Some points must be followed always as they are part of roleplay and its essence but some special remarks can be debated over.
•Your character cannot see and hear things that are out of his view range.
This means, any chat you may read on chat box, which is out of your characters view is not actually heard. In your characters point of view some thing like "chat box" just does not exist. And in no way they can react to things that are said there. This goes only for IC chat. OOC chat that can be responded to only with another OOC chat (This is marked with // before or after the text. Having // in your chat makes the whole thing you say counted as ooc text)
Sub-point of this is: •Your character cannot see/hear through walls,
This can be debated over with roleplay reasoning and that your character may have had special powers to do so. This sub-point is largely ignored and even harder to enforce, it is mostly meant only for pre-arranged roleplay with another player(s) that understand the point as well.
•Your character does not have information you have,
This means any information you have got from OOC texts, going on spectator mode to scout out all the resource locations, or having a friend on other team that relays information to you through another means of media (voice chat, stream). This is the point of meta-gaming and should be followed as much as possible. It is possible to bend this, but not for your characters benefit or anyone's benefit. Sometimes this is ignored to prepare an proper roleplay, done only by those who know what they are doing and as such inform the others about it. But if anything ignoring this point is not looked good upon, and is often considered offence for ban.
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Another thing is the rule of no god-mode/power-play. That means in its essence no taking control of another player's character, being unbeatable, or immune to actions of others. A good player knows when they got hit and when they are going over the limits of the power they think their character has. Anything must have a reason. Players that have claimed immortality or seem to be doing godlike decisions are either entitled to do so or their characters are know to be this powerful. This entitlement comes with time and respect to your character, being an admin does not have large effect here. many admins can choose to play as mortals that can die. But in no way can one do things for another player.
This can only be done or allowed if your character knows mind-control magic. And that too is debatable as it exists only in roleplay with others that have agreed upon such roleplay scenario.
In broader term, all characters are equal unless special powers are declared by the game master.
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Last point is about not ignoring the environment around your character. It is generally bad to ignore things that happen around you, since in reality your character would react to them, even if they are blind or deaf. Actions that touch your character, literally and metaphorically, ought not to be left unignored. If you do now wish to talk then you can act as mute, but you must make sure your emotions are expressed in some way (emoticons for example). if you are too shy to roleplay and are afraid of being made fun of, then act as shy. You ought to make sure your character's feelings are out there, because otherwise you can be counted as just ignoring the environment around you.
Even if you do not wish to roleplay at that point but want to roam around, you should let the players around you know in OOC text that you are not in character. But if you wish to just observe a player or sightsee the nice buildings made, then choosing to play as spectator would be an better idea - that is just an advice.
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4) All wars must include roleplay.
This is another highly debated rule and as such highly ignored. This is however one of the most important rules to keep the server as roleplay server and not another TDM/TTH type of game. Roleplay is what makes wars fun and roleplay is the glue that holds chaos in check. As such roleplay must be honoured, encouraged and if needed even enforced.
To start a war you must have an reason to do so. This means your character must have feelings that the current diplomatic issue needs resolution through fighting. More importantly what seems to be the issue here is many players not declaring out their reason. It is upon the declaring race to make sure the other race knows the reason why they are being attacked. These reasons are, but not limited to:
• Previous border agreement(s) were violated. This means any kind of border terms that were set via discussions, if they were broken, it is an cause for war.
• Resources were "stolen"/ gathered unlawfully. This means if another player has come to your land that you have claimed to yourself and started to mine there without permission, you have reason to war. This applies only when they were taking resources such as ore, stone, gold or wood. If their digging seems in any ways suspicious of setting up trap or making the terrain unusable for habiting race it can be counted as light griefing. However, if one race does not like another player digging around at their land, they can declare war.
• You start revolt against the oppressors. If you had lost war and were made to work for their terms, you can gather your resources build up an army and in right time, have revenge. This means, with declaration, just warring because they warred you and not saying anything is still not allowed.
• Your race needs to claim more land. If your race has grown more and seems to have been cramped too much together , claiming land from weaker races can be allowed. That means the land your race has is too small for all of you living there, but as with any reason the reason must first be declared to others.
• Your race demands tribute to their rulers, or same with tax. This can be done if your race has got powerful enough to be considered ruling force of the land.
And lastly,
• If someone has disrespected your rule. This is an very vague reason and as such should be used in very extreme cases. Usually claiming this must mean your race is well in majority and/or powerful enough to defend themselves and hold things under control.
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I must point out it as much possible, before voting for war you must have declared out the reason beforehand. Not doing so renders any war vote as random.
Some examples :
"You were banished to come to our land! Leave now or face war!" / "You came to our lands without permission! This means war!" / " You crossed the border without paying to our toll customs! You must be punished with death!" - These are some lighter and some more direct harsher declarations about border issues.
"You owe tribute of X amount of X resource to our ruler! Pay up or we must search you with force!" - An example for asking for resources.
"For oppressing us to pay unimaginable amounts of X resource we will show you that we do not take such tyranny!" - Example of revolt.
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If anything, then before war there should be diplomatic discussions, agreements up on terms and so. But if all else fails, there can be war, if only it has reason.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 21, 2015, Original Post Date: Jan 12, 2015 ---

Rules updated with a more thorough and player friendly explanation.

Provided by Zhuum. I suggest you all read it.