Terms & rules

General principles

1. A:R Aether Realm is a fun project.
2. The server is free and non-commercial. Nothing is sold, and nothing you obtain in the game has any monetary value.
3. The server is in testing. Errors will happen, the service can be unavailable at any time, and game content, characters, items and progress may be changed, reset or deleted without notice — in particular at the end of a test phase.
4. The schedule of test phases, events and maintenance is set by the team and can change at short notice. Announcements are made on this website.
5. The team may change these terms. Changes are announced in the news; by continuing to play after a change you accept the new version.

Your rights and duties

1. You may play all content the server offers and are welcome to send feedback, bug reports and suggestions through the in-game report function or the community channels linked on this site.
2. Enter truthful information when you register. Do not use someone else's details.
3. Report bugs, do not use them. If you find an error in the game or the service, tell the team. Exploiting an error for an advantage, or spreading it to others, harms every explorer and is sanctioned as listed below.
4. Do not interfere with other people's play, and follow the instructions of game masters.
5. Many people play at the same time — respect their rights as you expect yours to be respected. Not knowing these rules is no excuse.

Account management

1. Your account is yours alone. Do not share it, lend it, sell it or give it away; do not use another person's account. You are responsible for everything that happens through your account.
2. Choose a password you use nowhere else. The game client and the website share the same login; you can change the password at any time under Account.
3. Keep your own computer safe (updates, anti-virus, no "cheat" downloads). The team cannot help with damage caused by neglected account security.
4. One person, one account for play. Additional accounts to gain an advantage (multi-boxing in competitive content, circumventing a ban) are not allowed.

Game masters

1. Game masters (GMs) run the server, help with problems and keep the rules. They treat every explorer the same way and do not take sides in disputes between players.
2. GMs step in when a dispute touches the rules — griefing, scams, harassment, abuse of errors — and may take the measures listed under Sanctions.
3. GMs never ask for your password. Nobody from the team will.

Recovery

Because the server is a test, there is no recovery service: lost items, characters changed by an error, trades gone wrong and data lost to a reset or a crash are not restored or compensated. Report what happened so it can be fixed for everyone; please do not expect a refund of in-game goods.

Sanctions

GMs respect how you choose to play and do not interfere without reason. When the rules are broken, measures follow this table so that everyone is treated alike. Measures can be combined (for example a rename plus a warning), and a serious first offence can start further down the table.

Behaviour	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Selling or buying items, gold or accounts for money or real goods, or advertising it	permanent ban
Sharing, lending or trading accounts; registering with someone else's data	permanent ban
Scams, fraud, deliberately deceiving other players	permanent ban
Cheats, bots, modified clients, unauthorised programs, or distributing them	permanent ban
Exploiting bugs or errors for an advantage or to harm others	7 days	permanent ban
Circumventing a ban or a limit with additional accounts, VPNs or proxies	permanent ban
Griefing: blocking, kill-stealing, disrupting events or other players' play	warning	7 days	permanent ban
Impersonating a GM or the team; abusing support or report functions	warning	7 days	permanent ban
Advertising unrelated servers, products or sites	warning	7 days	permanent ban
Inappropriate names (slurs, sexual content, hate, impersonation)	rename + warning	rename + 7 days	permanent ban
Harassment, slurs, hate speech, threats, sexual content, doxxing	1 day	3 days	7 days	permanent ban
Chat spam and flooding	mute 1 h	mute 6 h	1 day	3 days

This table lists the typical cases. Behaviour that is not listed but harms the game or other explorers can be sanctioned in the same way, including permanently. Appeals go to the team through the community channels linked on this site.

Chat, names and posts

The following is removed and may be sanctioned, whether in chat, party or guild texts, character and guild names, or anything you publish on this site:

• content that is unrelated to the game or disrupts the community, including repeated identical messages;
• sexual content, and content that demeans or threatens other people;
• attacks on, rumours about or harassment of other people;
• promotion of violence, hate, gambling or illegal activity, and hard political or religious campaigning;
• real-money trading, account trading and anything that helps either;
• discrimination by origin, nationality, religion, gender, disability or similar;
• advertising, spam, malware and links to cheats;
• personal data of yourself or others (names, addresses, contact details);
• impersonation of GMs, the team or other people;
• anything that violates these terms or applicable law.

Privacy

The server keeps only what it needs to run the game and this website:

• Account: your username, a password hash (never the password), the optional e-mail address you enter, and the time you created the account and last logged in.
• Game data: characters, inventory, progress, guild and friend lists, chat moderation records — everything your explorer does in the game.
• Website sessions: when you sign in on the site, a session record with your IP address and browser identification is kept for up to 14 days or until you sign out. The site uses only its own cookies (session, form protection, a one-time status message); there are no advertising or analytics trackers.
• Server logs: connection logs with IP addresses are kept for a limited time to find errors and abuse.

Data is not sold or passed on, except where the law requires it. You can change your e-mail address and password under Account, and delete your account together with its characters yourself under Account › Delete account — deletion is immediate and final; bug reports you sent stay with the team without your name.

Changes and contact

These terms were written for the first public test and will be revised as the server grows. Questions, reports and appeals: see the community links in the footer. Thank you for helping.