While playing on the TPU server, we ask that you follow the rules below. Failure to do so could result in your removal from the server. Repeated failures could result in a permanent ban.

00 - Do not use chat to talk about politics, religion, gender, sexual preference, or favourite colour.
There are plenty of places you can express your opinions about contentious issues; TPU chat is not one of them. Attempting to recruit political allies in TPU chat will lead to an immediate ban.

01 - Do not disrupt chat or radio messages.
Sending repeated, taunting, meaningless or otherwise unhelpful messages, making other people's messages unreadable, is unacceptable. Also, please use English if possible since most of our users speak only English.

02 - Do not use abusive, racist, or foul words in player names.
Using a player name that insults other players (or admins) based on their ethnicity, culture, gender, religion, or politics, is unacceptable. Do not use foul words in your player name.

03 - Do not abuse or verbally attack anyone.
Directing insults, threats, or any other language meant to intimidate, towards admins or other players on the server, is unacceptable. This includes attempting to get other players to support your own goals (such as racking up kills), by using insults, threats, or expressing anger unnecessarily.

04 - Spawn camping is allowed on TPU.
On most servers, hiding at, sniping from, or taking a vehicle into an enemy base that can't be captured, is generally frowned upon. And of course killing soldiers as they spawn certainly doesn't sound very sporting. But anti-camping rules really apply more to PvP (human vs. human) servers than co-op servers like TPU. Killing hordes of bots as they spawn just doesn't sound all that bad. Just keep in mind that some players have a real problem with camping, and even though it's technically allowed on TPU, they might give you a hard time about it. The main objection is that camping can be an easy way to pad your stats.

05 - Do not purposely team kill or team wound.
Shooting at teammates with the intent to wound or kill them is unacceptable. On TPU, friendly fire is enabled, and applies 50% of the usual damage to teammates (25% splash, and 25% kickback). Team killers will be automatically kicked after a certain number of TKs, or if they reach a low enough negative score. There can be special circumstances in which team killing isn't a problem, such as teammates experimenting with weapons or stunts. But that's only if all parties involved are in agreement. Also, we all kill other human players by accident. When that happens, it's considered polite to apologize immediately in chat if you know what you did. If you're unaware of what you did, the killed player is within their rights to point it out.

06 - Do not cheat or use game specific exploits.
Prohibited: using programs or settings that are not available in the game options to increase performance, improve stats, provide an edge over other players, or enter areas of the map that are not intended to be entered. Punkbuster is not enabled, but cheating will be detected, and cheaters will be permanently banned. If we decide to start using Punkbuster, screenshots may be taken at any time. Any player found to be blocking screenshots will be removed from the server after three attempts.

07 - Do not use excessive bad language.
We understand that in online gaming, strong language is often used. You won't be kicked from TPU for swearing occasionally, but extreme or persistent swearing are not permitted. Remember that TPU is open to players of all ages.

08 - Do not impersonate a TPU server administrator.
Using admin tags or announcing that you are an admin on the server is unacceptable unless you are an official TPU admin (see https://jdrgaming.com/geeklog/article.php?story=tpuadmins).

09 - Don't be a smacktard.
Griefers, human hunters (see below) and other smacktards will be perma-banned. What's a smacktard? See most of the definitions at The Urban Dictionary.

10 - Do not fight against humans.
This is a co-op vs. bots server. The idea is for a small team made up mostly of humans (with a few bots) to play against a large team composed entirely of skilled bots. The server ratio is adjusted to give more players to the bot side. The ratio alternates between Allied and Axis every six hours. Play on the small team or risk being kicked. At any time, you can press Tab to see how many players there are on each team. You can also determine which team to join by reading the comments on the map description page that displays at the start of each map. If all human players agree, you can play either side, but you must be prepared to return to the small team if any human player objects. You should also be aware that playing on the large team is considered to be an extremely easy way to play, and therefore suited only to small girls in pink, frilly dresses.

11 - Don't be a human hunter.
A human hunter is someone who targets human players consistently and repeatedly. Spawning only to be killed by the same person over and over is not fun, and it reveals the killer as a childish prick.

12 - Do not ignore admin requests.
Pay attention to in-game chat. Admin messages appear as yellow text. If an admin asks you to do something, do it or risk being kicked. If you don't understand (perhaps because English isn't your first language), please say so. Server admins have pre-defined translations of common requests at their disposal.

13 - Don't use stupid player names.
Do not use the default player name (Player), because using it makes it difficult for other players to communicate with you (what if everyone used it?) Also, if you use 'Player', your stats will NOT be tracked. Try to avoid using weird characters or backspaces in your player name; again, doing so makes it more difficult to communicate with you and might cause problems in the stats system. For the same reason, you should not use a player name that is invisible or blank in the game; while this may be useful in PvP games, TPU is a co-op server. Adding a lot of spaces to the start or end of a player name is another PvP trick, and really pointless and idiotic on TPU.

14 - Be aware of the limitations of in-game chat.
This is more of a guideline than a rule, but it's extremely important. Communication failures are the most common cause of bad feelings between players in the game. It's very easy to miss in-game chat messages. Only four are shown at any given time, and messages compete for screen space with server-generated messages. Chat messages are truncated at 63 characters, so keep in mind that long messages are going to get cut off. While entering a chat message, you cannot control your soldier or vehicle, which is particularly deadly in planes. It's also important to recognize that the chat text is almost unreadable at some game resolutions. Here are some tricks that may help:

a) Try to listen for the radio noise that accompanies all chat transmissions. Get in the habit of glancing at the chat messages when you hear this sound.

b) You can see messages that have scrolled off the screen by pressing the tilde (~) key on your keyboard (usually to the left of the '1' key), and pressing the PageUp key repeatedly. Press PageDown to move forward in the chat log. Press tilde again to go back to the game.

15 - Install and use Discord.
Okay, this isn't a rule, but it is important. Discord is a free communication application that includes text, audio, and video chat. The JDRGaming Discord server has several channels, including one just for TPU. Here's an invite to the TPU channel; please feel free to join. When there are disagreements within the game, you may be asked by an admin to go to the TPU channel to resolve it. If no admin is present, consider inviting disagreeing players to the chat room to make conversation easier. All the JDRGaming Discord channels are monitored.

16 - Don't be AFK (Away From Keyboard) for extended periods.
If a player is unresponsive and it's causing voting issues, they may be kicked without any warning. That's regardless of whether or not they are an admin. If you are an admin, you can kick a player or change maps without any voting, so AFK players shouldn't be a problem. It's one of the perks of being an admin.

You may be wondering what qualifies as an 'extended period'. In general, anything beyond a few minutes (eg. to grab a smoke or visit the bathroom) is a potential problem. But it totally depends on whether there are other players, and whether they are trying to vote. If you're trying to vote for a different map, and the vote is getting messed up, even waiting a few minutes can be frustrating, especially since there's no way of knowing how long someone will be AFK. Luckily, being kicked for being AFK is not actually a big deal, since a kicked player can rejoin easily enough.

UD

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-- Jeff (boot13)