Rules of the Guild

I. Roleplaying

1. We are, first and foremost, a roleplaying guild on a roleplaying server. As such, all members of the Netherbane will honor the Blizzard Code of Conduct (and also abide by their policies for RP servers, including the Role Play Naming Policy). This is nothing new, and has been an important rule within the guild since its inception. It is important to help maintain the world experience for other players, even if they are not maintaining it for you.

2. We treat all chat channels except for /raid and custom channels as in-character (IC). This does mean that you're free to use out-of-character (OOC) chat indicators like (( )) to designate your OOC speech. However, we would personally request that you keep such things out of /say. If you must speak to someone in an OOC fashion, a whisper is as easy as anything else. It helps maintain the world experience.

3. You are asked to remain in-character publically. This means that you try to avoid overt OOC actions or mannerisms when in a public place on the server (in the population center of a faction city, for example). Examples of “overt OOC actions" include, but are not limited to:

A. Purposefully spamming emotes, either built-in or custom.

B. Running / jumping into or around other characters to try and interfere with whatever they're doing.

If you're in an instance or secluded away from mass public view, these things are not as frowned upon. But please always remember that you are a representation of the guild tag that you wear, and it is in the best interest of all of us to improve and maintain the reputation of the guild. You will get more RP interaction this way.

4. Full Immersion Roleplaying (or even anything close) is not required by, nor expected of, the members of the Netherbane. This means you ARE allowed to go OOC. When you are instancing with friends and allies, talking in OOC channels, or even chatting it up using OOC markers in an IC channel, you are free to just be yourself: the player. Remember that we are looking to help maintain the world experience. We are not looking to completely transition ourselves into this imaginary world. Always remember that this is a game more than a virtual world.

5. Respect the privacy of other players. While you are free to go OOC in private channels and venues, you are not free to demand the same from others. If a person is uncomfortable with the direction of the OOC chatter, please be mindful and respectful of that.

6. The Netherbane does not, nor will not, honor any “RP Blacklist" floating around the World of Warcraft roleplaying community. The idea is offensive and tantamount to griefing, and we will not tolerate our members creating or perpetuating the idea within the roleplaying community. See Policy II.3 below for more information.

II. Griefing

1. Any Netherbane member reported to be griefing another player will be investigated. We define griefing in the following ways:

A. Roleplay Griefing includes, but is not limited to: disrupting an IC RP scene with OOC commentary or actions, verbally harrassing fellow RPers in an OOC fasion, disrupting an IC RP scene with non-sensical “in-character" actions for the purpose of being disruptive, creating characters for the sole purpose of mocking fellow RPers' stories, characters, or friends.

B. PvP Griefing includes, but is not limited to: corpse camping for the sole purpose of repeatedly killing another player and causing frustration, using terrain exploits to gain an unfair advantage in PvP, and purposely AFKing in a battleground or similar instance.

C. It should also be noted that Blizzard has its own rules and regulations regarding griefing and player harassment. These come first.

Any Netherbane member found to truly be griefing another player will be dealt with accordingly.

2. Put simply: don't be a jerk, guys and gals. It's not difficult to be civilized and well-mannered.

3. Legitimizing a “community-wide" RP Blacklist is no different than griefing in the eyes of the Netherbane. We strive to create an environment that can help foster and educate all sorts of roleplayers, from new to veteran. If you have a problem roleplaying with someone, that is fine. However, form these opinions naturally, from YOUR OWN experiences. Do not allow some list to make the decisions for you. And do not try to force others to cease roleplaying with people because of your own bruised pride or ego.

Understand that it's FINE to avoid roleplaying with someone if you've had bad experiences in the past. However, we highly encourage you to actually EXPERIENCE such things first before ostracizing some random person because “Player X said they sucked." If everyone avoided RP with people they either didn't know, or people they've heard bad things about... no one would RP with anyone else at all. Roleplay, even the type that includes the worst god-modes and lore incongruities you have ever seen, cannot permanently change your character if you do not wish it to do so. Therefore the “threat" of bad RP is minimal. There is little true reason for an RP Blacklist to exist. All such things do is force RP to become closed, isolated, and cliquish.

III. Leveling and Questing

1. The Netherbane is a roleplaying guild, first and foremost, but this does not mean we don't enjoy actually playing the game itself. As such, you will find us questing, instancing, leveling, and PvPing in addition to roleplaying. We try to enjoy all aspects that the game has to offer. However, since we are small, we cannot offer guaranteed support when you are leveling or questing on your own. Providing assistance to other members is left to the discretion of each member. However, we strongly encourage our members to help each other out. It just makes it a better place.

IV. Attendance

1. There is no minimum level of activity required to maintain an active position within the Netherbane. However, if you have not logged in for 6+ months, are unavailable for contact, then you will likely be shifted to the rank of “MIA”. Once there, you may be removed from the guild at any point in time unless you have made prior arrangements.

2. If you expect to be unavailable for an extended period of time (anywhere from two weeks or more), please let guild leadership know through either an in-game mail, a Discord PM, or a direct email. If none of those are viable options, then at least let someone who has contact with us know about your period away. This is not required, but is much appreciated. It's also just courteous.

3. While Discord activity is not mandatory, it is highly suggested. Our Discord server is where the creativity of various members is exchanged when outside of the game. Please feel free to contribute to the Netherbane mythos and lore with your fellow members! In addition, this is where officers will post should they become unavailable for an extended period of time.

4. Guild membership is not required to participate in our Discord server. If you roleplay a demon hunter from another server, if you are looking for roleplay advice or demon hunter lore, or if you just want to chat about various aspects of WoW, please feel free to create an account and join us (but if you spam us, troll us, or just general contribute negatively to the atmosphere of the Discord server, we reserve the right to delete your posts and block your account. We may also ban your name, your IP, and your email address from further access. This isn't the place for that type of behavior.).

5. If you choose to leave the ranks of the Netherbane, you are free to do so. All we ask is that you let guild leadership know that you are leaving (please don't just “drop and run"). We would be curious about the reason for leaving. Once again, this is not a mandatory requirement, but it IS greatly appreciated.