Terms of Service

Please read before creating an account!

By creating and/or registering an account, forum account, character, or by progressing to any further place on the site, forum or server, you are agreeing to the following.

Blackout Ragnarok Online does not represent/approve and/or encourage the accuracy or reliability of any of the information, content, promises (bets), opinions, commitments, or advertisements (hereafter "Content") on: the forums, in-game server, and/or chat interfaces (irc, Discord) related to Blackout Ragnarok Online.

Furthermore, Blackout Ragnarok Online is especially not liable for any losses or damage sustained by a user (regardless of whether such damages or losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise).

Blackout Ragnarok Online reserves and is entitled to the sole rights to override, modify, or completely nullify previous decisions made, regardless of the time passed, when potentially affecting the wellbeing of it or its administrator(s) and/or owner(s) thereof. Any and all awards promised or implied, whether fictional or real, will be handed out at the owner's sole discretion. In all matters, the decision of the owner of Blackout Ragnarok Online shall be final, and no further discussion shall be entered into.

Though connected to your chosen name and email address, upon registration Blackout Ragnarok Online is granted full ownership of your account. This, however, does not change the fact that a user is entirely responsible for the safety of his or her own account information. If the owner has supplied others with their log in information, said user is responsible for any and all actions made on the account in question, regardless of whether or not the respective user has provided consent.

THE STAFF TEAM MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE ACCOUNTS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU. For purposes of explanation and not limitation, most account suspensions, terminations and/or deletions are the result of violations of this Terms of Service.


General Ownership

- Blackout Ragnarok Online does not allow account trading or selling. Any account involved in these activities will be banned immediately, along with the appropriate related accounts. In-game items and currency do not belong to the player. Blackout Ragnarok Online grants limited temporary ownership of items to the player. Selling items/accounts/zenny to make a profit in real-life is strictly prohibited as individual players and guilds do not have the authority to do so.

- Blackout Ragnarok Online facilitates electronic communication between its members, contributors, and administrators. Blackout Ragnarok Online will not be forced to produce any e-mail content, logs, or information of any kind, as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., it relinquishes the need for an electronic communication provider to produce contents of electronic communication, even under a subpoena or court order, except in very special circumstances.

- Blackout Ragnarok Online is based in the United States of America, but does not own equipment or hire workers in the United States. However, Blackout Ragnarok Online does accept volunteers for staff positions. All volunteers must pass an entrance process which generally involves an application and an interview, although special circumstances warrant special actions, and therefore general guidelines are not always applicable. Volunteers receive no form of financial compensation of subsidization for their work, and are never bound or forced into participating. Equipment in the United States is rented, and belongs to the respective companies which offer the rental services.

- Art forms expressed that may occur in the Blackout Ragnarok Online client have the unique use of conveying a more pleasurable game play experience for Blackout Ragnarok Online only; therefore, they fall under a directly different purpose than similar art pieces that may appear elsewhere. Because art is an illustrated concept, this also falls under 17 U.S.C. Section 102(B), and does not violate any copyright.


Interruption of Service

Blackout Ragnarok Online reserves the right to interrupt the Service from time to time on a regularly scheduled basis or otherwise with or without prior notice in order to perform maintenance.

You acknowledge that the Service may be interrupted for reasons beyond of the control of Blackout Ragnarok Online. Thus, there is no guarantee that you will be able to access the service(s) and/or your account(s) whenever you may wish to do so. Blackout Ragnarok Online shall not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes.


Ownership

It is forbidden to attempt to find or exploit any loopholes which may exist for the purpose of legal prosecution or malicious acting. In the event that a loophole is found in our guidelines, Blackout Ragnarok Online reserves the right to apply punishment in any occurrence of improper conduct, seek restitution for all resulting damages, and holds no liability for any damages caused through or by our actions. In addition to this, Blackout Ragnarok Online holds the right to claim compensation for all damages incurred. Blackout Ragnarok Online runs on Hercules, an open-source software licensed under the GNU Public License.

It is forbidden to share your account information with others. If caught doing so, your privileges as a player to request support from the services provided by Blackout Ragnarok Online will be forfeited. It is at your own discretion whether or not you wish to follow this rule.

As always, the team reserves the right to rule on special circumstances as we see fit. We are not a mindless bureaucracy and as such if you're clearly just trolling or appealing to your bans, we will see it and punish it. Keep that in mind when attempting to exploit potentially overlooked loopholes.

By participating in Blackout Ragnarok Online, all players recognize that spending time on Blackout Ragnarok Online is purely voluntary, and they are free to leave or change their level of participation at any time. Players also recognize that Blackout Ragnarok Online has the ability, at its sole discretion, to cancel or change any portion of its services at any time without prior warning, and with no compensation to other parties.

The human operating the device connecting to the server at the time (known as "Player") is said to be the Player of the account at that given instant. Although Players may infringe on policies, it is the character, account, or Owner(s) that take the blame.


Harassment Policy

Harassment can come in many different forms, and none of them are acceptable under Blackout Ragnarok Online rules. Harassment can include, but is not limited to: verbally abusing an individual or group, unwanted following or stalking, spam and spreading rumors. Harassment is defined as "Words, conduct or action, usually repeated or persistent that, being directed at a specific person, annoys, alarms, or causes substantial emotional distress to that person."

- If a Player is being harassed through private messages, that Player is asked to /ex before reporting it. If the offender changes characters to keep harassing the victim, the offender and all related accounts will be punished.

- Players who have nothing good to say about each other are asked not to speak to/about one another. While we will not control what goes on in private chat of party, guild, or PMs of friends, we disapprove of it. Expressed rumor spreading will result in punishment in accordance to the level of severity.

- Sexual harassment involves unwanted sexual comments and actions. Players found guilty of continued sexual harassment on multiple occasions (can be proved with 3 or more screen shots of separate instances) will be punished. However, it is asked that the Player politely asks the offender to stop.

If a Player is being harassed by being followed around or spammed with messages, the Player is asked to first ask the offender to stop and second use @request to request assistance from a staff member. If a staff member is not around, the Player should file a ticket in with detailed and unedited screenshots. If a staff member is available, however, and happens to find there is substance to the Player's complaint, the offender will be punished accordingly.

Punishment for the above infractions can range anywhere from a 60 minute mute to a 7 day temporary ban for first offenses. Players who switch accounts (Ban evasion) to ignore their punishment and continue harassing others will be escalated into a longer ban timeframe.


@request Abuse Should a problem ever surface and you require immediate assistance ingame, you have the right to @request assistance from an available member of the staff team. Abusing this privilege, however, can and will result in serious penalties.


General Rules & Concepts

- Identity should remain unique to each user. Maliciously 'stealing' another player's name with intent to impersonate them or cause other forms of damage will not be tolerated by our staff. This includes impersonation of our staff members; ANY form of 'Game Master' (GM) in a player's name will be penalized.

- Any 'unique identifier' which pertains to a single individual (user) or organizational body (party or guild) should remain solely with its owner or owner(s). Using this 'unique identifier' with the intent to cause any form of damage will not be tolerated by our staff. This includes impersonation of ANY such 'unique identifier' related to Blackout Ragnarok Online staff member(s), such as 'Game Master' (GM) in a player's name or 'Blackout RO Staff' in a party or guild name.

- At no point will offensive, derogatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable language be tolerated by the staff team. This includes, but is not limited to: racial and ethnic slurs, sexism, and harassment. Attempts to surpass this rule with alternate spellings or other forms of internet speak will also fall under disciplinary action.

- The language of the main town Amatsu must always be in English. The staff team keeps a log of which players have been muted and for how long. At first, offenders will be warned. From then on, they will be muted, with the time increasing exponentially for repeated offenses.

- Threats, harassment and any deliberate directing of unwanted attention to another player are unacceptable.

- Altering the game to give you an advantage over other players is inadmissible. This includes (without limitation) the use of third party programs such as WPE, OpenKORE (or any other botting program), hexed clients, and keyboard/mouse/auto response macros.

- If an exploitable bug is found in the game, users are to report the problem to a staff member immediately. If any abuse of the bug in question takes place, the perpetrator may be banned relative to the severity of the abuse.

- You are prohibited to request events from the staff team at any given time. The punishment is up to the discretion of the staff team, and can range from muting to jailing.

- You are prohibited from using multiple clients on the same computer to connect to Blackout Ragnarok Online. Multiple clients on different computers in the same location are acceptable.

- Accusations of cheating or unfair activity should be brought up in private with a member of Blackout Ragnarok Online's staff team. Please provide proof of the rule infraction before you point any fingers. This also applies to the GM team; attacks on our staff will be treated in the same fashion as among players. To report such incidents, please file a ticket with detailed and unedited screenshots.


Kill Stealing

Kill stealing is defined as the repetitive and malicious killing of one player's targeted monsters by another. In general, most monsters are free-for-all, and whoever lands the killing blow reaps the benefits. There are two exceptions which are punishable: > A player is harassing another by following them and killing their chosen mobs > A player is camping another as they spawn monsters using Abracadabra/Dead Branches/Bloody Branches, and killing the resulting mobs

To report a player for kill stealing, a player must submit at least three well defined incidents in screenshots, or one well defined incident in a video. Before doing so, however, please ask the offending player to stop and contact a staff team member using @request if the player persists. The punishment for kill stealing is 24 hours in jail for a first offense. For cases that are not well defined, a verbal warning and/or silence will be issued. Subsequent offenses will warrant character or account bans.


Scamming

Scamming is not allowed on Blackout Ragnarok Online. Actions with the purpose, whether implicit or explicit, to generally mislead in the case of a trade, vend, or other sort of transaction are not allowed.

- Vending non-slotted items for slotted item prices is against the rules. The staff team will not accept "it was a mistake" as an excuse.

- Faking the message produced by the @tradebn command is strictly prohibited.

- If you enter into a typed contract with someone to form a legitimate trade and then fail to complete your end of the deal, you are obligated to reverse the trade. Keeping items without honoring your typed contract is forbidden. However, the staff team will exercise total discretion in dealing with these cases. You should make sure the trade will go through. Obtaining collateral is recommended.

- Attempting to vend goods at the market while holding the max amount of zeny is prohibited, for it puts unnecessary stress on the buyers.

- The punishment for scamming differs from case to case, and will be decided by the relevant staff member's discretion. Offenders will usually receive a ban for up to a week, though repeated offenses may warrant more extended bans.

To report a scamming incident, a player must take a minimum of 2 detailed and unedited screenshots, and describe the situation in a properly typed out manner.


War of Emperium Rules

- Emblem changes with intent of resembling active WoE Guilds (at the staff team's complete discretion) is illegal. Changing your emblem during WoE for the purpose of confusing another guild is not allowed and will be punished.

- Disabling the emblem during WoE is prohibited. Any WoE guild must use a unique emblem during War of Emperium.

- The punishment for breaking these rules is left to the discretion of the staff team, but may be anything up to and including the immediate disbandment of the guild and a temporary ban for the guild leader.

To report an infraction of these rules, a player must take a minimum of 3 detailed and unedited screenshots featuring multiple guild members of said guild, and describe the situation in a properly typed out manner.


Hacking & Cracking

Anyone attempting to crack the Blackout Ragnarok Online servers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In addition, all related accounts and IPs will be permanently banned from the game, forums, irc, and Discord.

The staff team will use total discretion when dealing with hacking cases that do not result from server security problems. Hacking is defined as any unlawful act relating to another player's account, whether access is given willingly or not. The staff team will no longer be dealing with every hacking case, because of the extremely large amount of time required to do so. In the event of a real hacking (server hacking), we will, to the best of our ability, restore everything.

Players who share accounts will receive limited help from the staff team - this includes brewers and guild characters. For any given situation, however, it is the staff team's sole discretion whether or not to aid with a case. Also, note that by using someone else's character, you run the risk of being banned as a result of that Player's actions.


Botting & Macros

Robots, better known as 'Bots', and Macros are programs or scripts that automate the process of playing the game. Such programs/scripts are strictly forbidden on Blackout RO, and anyone found using them will be permanently banned, subject to appeal.

To determine a bot, Game Masters will ask players to perform human actions. Please respond to them when they do so.

Standardized Penalties for Bots:

- The account in question will be banned permanently.
- Accounts with related IPs will be banned for one year.
- The IP Address in question will be banned for two months.

All bans are subject to appeal using the forum's Ticket System.


Exploitation

All bugs must be reported. Those failing to report a bug, after either finding it out for themselves or from someone else telling them will be punished. Those exploiting bugs for whatever reason will be punished. Those who fail to report someone who is exploiting a bug will be punished. Punishments for bug exploits are almost always a ban on all related accounts and IPs. Deals are sometimes made to unban, depending on the situation, and the information the player has to offer in exchange.

Limitation of Liability

USER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT BLACKOUT RAGNAROK ONLINE SHALL NOT ASSUME OR HAVE ANY LIABILITY FOR ANY ACTION BY BLACKOUT RAGNAROK ONLINE OR ITS CONTENT PROVIDERS OR OTHER LICENSORS WITH RESPECT TO CONDUCT, COMMUNICATION OR CONTENT OF THE SERVICES. BLACKOUT RAGNAROK ONLINE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICES OR ANY PRODUCT PROVIDED BY BLACKOUT RAGNAROK ONLINE. YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT ANY OF THE MATERIAL AND/OR OTHER DATA DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOADING OF SUCH MATERIAL OR DATA. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM BLACKOUT RAGNAROK ONLINE OR THROUGH THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE. You agree that Blackout Ragnarok Online cannot be held responsible or liable for anything that occurs or results from accessing or subscribing to Blackout Ragnarok Online services.


Game Master Abilities

Management The staff team will be governed by the Head GM and the Team Manager. Essentially, this means that these persons will handle any disputes arising from mistreatment by the staff team to the population, and vice versa.

Disputes relating to mistreatment or 'corruption' by members of the staff team should be conveyed directly to the Head GM or Team Manager, who will attempt to mediate and eventually resolve all issues presented to them. Similarly, staff members that have ongoing issues with players will escalate the issue to the staff team management in order to dismiss any risk of personal bias becoming involved in that particular case. Any issues that players may have with the staff team as individuals or as an entity should be conveyed directly to the server owner and/or administrator.


Messages

Please remember that Blackout Ragnarok Online is not responsible for any messages posted on forums, irc, and Discord. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of Blackout Ragnarok Online. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use forums/irc/Discord to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by the service. If you have read, understood and agree to these rules and conditions, you may enter the website and/or forums. If you disagree, leave immediately.


Terms of Service Agreement

The failure of Blackout Ragnarok Online or the Service Provider Customer to exercise its rights or insist upon the performance of the user's obligation hereunder shall not constitute a waiver or relinquishment of those or any other rights under these Terms of Service.

If any provision of the Terms of Service is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties intentions as reflected in the provision and the other provisions of the Terms of Service shall continue to be binding on and remain in full force and effect.

The Terms of Service, together with any separate written or online agreement between you, Blackout Ragnarok Online and/or the Service Provider Customer (including but not limited to the Mature Content Agreement if applicable to you) constitute the entire and only agreement, and supersedes any prior agreements between you, Blackout Ragnarok Online and/or the Service Provider Customer, (including, but not limited to all prior versions of the User Agreement, General Terms of Use, and Terms of Service, where applicable).

You agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any action, suit or proceeding arising out of or related to the use of the Service or to the Terms of Service must be commenced within 1 year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred.

Section titles in the Terms of Service are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect or significance.

It is the express wish of the staff team that the Terms of Service and all related documents have been drawn up in English. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this service to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this service.

This agreement is in effect immediately until stated otherwise by our staff. Infraction of these terms could lead to suspension or removal of your account. These terms are subject to change at any time without warning.

I have read and understood these Terms of Service and agree to be bound by all of the items listed herein.