Birdcage | Permanent Death Guidelines

janboe_mcflurry · February 27, 2023, 6:29pm

                                Official Guidelines

This is a guide containing any necessary and relevant information related to permanent death gameplay within the community-game of Birdcage. Information here will be kept comprehensive, and may change at any time by direction of the project leader.

Permanent Death

Birdcage, in specific definition, utilizes a concept known as “Permanent Death” during specified events, activated by authorized Game Administrators. All players within the event risk entire and total character data loss as a result of in-game death during such events. See Voiding for more information based on game bugs/unfair deaths interfering with gameplay.

PD Player Conflict

PVE - Players vs Titans, bears, NPC actors, or any other form of conflict device given to players in on-going events.
PVP - Player vs Player combat may be intentional, or accidental, but random killing is not allowed. Pre-meditated conflict must have incentives approved. The players are expected to confirm themselves, who to attack and what to consider as hostile intent. You may use ‘Aggressive Actions’ as immediate incentives to kill players committing AAs toward you or your general group.
PVPVE – It may be possible to utilize or bait Titans, bears, etc. into areas where they are usually not found. While doing this, your decisions may be interpreted as an ‘Aggressive Action’

What are 'Aggressive Actions'?

They are defined as the following:

A tool/ability with deadly ability has been enabled/equipped (melee, firearms, explosives, ODMG blades) facing toward your vicinity, or within close proximity (any ranged weapons from afar toward your vicinity may count).
Movement is aggressive within your vicinity (Sprinting/moving towards you/your faction [Ignored request to stop/move away], evasive/dramatic/attack maneuvers from any kind of vehicle)
Verbal aggression in the form of a threat to harm another player in-game.
A physical attack of any kind against you or your faction.

(AFOREMENTIONED ABOVE DESCRIBES BASIC BEHAVIOR AND CAN BE BASED ON ACCIDENTAL MISTAKES OR INSTINCTIVE DEFENSE)

Aggressive Actions can be used as ‘legal’ self-defense to put a stop to any potential loopholes in random-killing as an act of unapproved/non-lore justified murder.
AA’s committed outside of lore may not be used in-lore.

Spawn-killing, or waiting at a spawn area to kill someone is NOT ALLOWED.

Player detainments may not last longer than 7 consecutive days.

When a permanent death event is enabled, PVP is allowed unless specified otherwise.

In order to use supplies such as gaspacks, gas/blade carts, you require high-command permission, otherwise you need to steal it in-game to use it.

Pre-meditated Player Conflict

You CANNOT take action (murder/attack/etc) while being under THREE DAYS of existence with your current in-lore character. You may only react to aggressive actions committed against you.

Actions such as assassinating, invading, interdicting, ambushing, and other methods of PVP against another player’s jurisdiction/character require incentive approval.

Anything that does not happen in-game with immediate Aggressive Action will be defined as pre-meditated, and must be discussed for Incentive Approval with the proper level of administrator.

You have 5 days to act on an aggressive action committed against you. Be prepared to notify lore team+ (lore dispute ticket) when you are going to act on something. You must provide any relevant evidence or you may be banned for RK.

All possible incentives cannot be listed.
All requests will be reviewed based on context of situation.
If other methods of non-lethal punishment exist, you may be directed to them.

Valid incentive examples include:

- Murder: accidental or intentional against relative teammate/collaborator/coworker/family member

- Full Obstruction of Players’ ambitions/goals: physically, ideologically, purposefully, or constructively

- Malicious, deadly, instigative, or subversive plotting: in any written form regarding the games’ lore, or verbal recollection/memory of in-game conversation. This also includes corruption of any kind, such as working with enemies of your faction.

- Full banishment/exile/lock from a large area of the game: in entirety of Military rank/position, entirety of any Govt position, entirety of any Royal Family position, etc.

- Subversion, disrespect, defamation, and general malice towards Strategic Roles{Branch Commander, CIC, Governors, and Premier}

EXAMPLE:
An individual disrespects & defames the Branch Commander in-front of a large group of Scouts. This action undermines the integrity of authority & organization processes within the branch. Incentive would be approved.

A Branch Captain is not granted the same ability, because of their position as a Tactical Role, and should use other methods available{Rank lock, arrest, expulsion from branch, player written-law, etc.} Incentive would not be approved.

- History of Micro-aggressions: Players will be expected to keep a log of general activities by their suspected/alleged offenders. Based on context, you may or may not need a long list, or a very long list. This is the only alternative to “Strategic Subversion” at tactical levels.

Voiding

The only form of evidence accepted for requesting a void on a character death is video format.

We will not consider requests to void injuries, staff members will void injuries if we know it’s justifiable. Do not ask.

You are responsible for recording your own gameplay void evidence.

In the case of Player vs Player conflict, administrators may request recordings from witnesses both dead and alive, as well as aggressors and defenders, dead or alive.

Gameplay Rules

Chatlocking a player intentionally is now considered bannable, and voidable. We will not act on hearsay or assumptions, and the staff team empathizes as much as possible that only reports with significant proof will be acted on.
A developer can not make a Mythic/Special Ability without consulting lore team originally. A developer can not prioritize a Mythic/Special Ability over Lore Team requested content.
Asking someone for a screenshot of language usage is now Metagame (due to the Native Language update see: Discord ) For example: Eldian suspects player to be a foreign spy, they ask them to screenshot their eldian message to see if [ELD] appears or not. This is BANNABLE
Players can be hunted/flashed during eco-frees & PD Trainings. Though either or both of the commands must be run a second time to disable the pseudo-event – and the a grace period of fifteen seconds will occur after an SM goes out informing the players of the change. After that, the event will proceed as regular without the training command enabled.
When held/captured by enemy forces, EVEN if you’re on the same map and they’ve fled the area, you CANNOT STREAM YOUR LOCATION or GIVE CALLOUTS OF WHERE YOU ARE – this is metagame.

Research Event Guidelines

Research Event Guidelines
A ‘Research PD’ is any permanent-death event that a faction/business makes progress on a blueprint/approved research project. In order for the event to be considered progress towards completion of the project, it must last for 30 minutes. Players can only research one item per event. Players must record the full event.

An approved research project requires at minimum 3 players in attendance to make actual research progress, this is subject to change depending on Lore Team+ input on the project’s complexity, and also the overall capability of the players attending (e.g, human calculator could possibly do a project on his own). Lore Team will inform you if you are an exception to this.

A business/faction can only have 1 research PD hosted per day, no matter what. An approved project may only be researched by 1 company/faction a day, meaning that several factions/groups can not contribute to a project together to progress research quicker. There may be exceptions to this which lore team will inform you of, given that this is the case.

Players may only contribute to one research PD per day. This does not mean attendance to further events is prohibited, just contribution.

|| written by <@444427377188274177> ||

Faction Recruitment Guidelines

Faction Recruitment Guidelines
Definition of a Faction: A faction is defined as an organized group with a specific objective or purpose. This can encompass a wide range of organizations, including but not limited rebel groups, criminal organizations, or any collective entity formed around a common goal or ideology, or a state of self-governance that has no plausible way of exponential and nigh-infinite faction growth, besides recruitment outward.

Exclusion Criteria: This rule applies to any Faction excluding Marley, Eldian-Military||(aslong as they are a sanctioned entity)||, Scouting Legion, Stationary Guard, Military Police, Government, and Trainee Core.

Cooldown Period: If a member dies within a Faction, they are ineligible for rejoining or recruitment into the same Faction for a period of 14 real-life days.
Lore Team Notification: Recruitment into Factions should be communicated exclusively to the Lore Team, ensuring adherence to storyline consistency and coherence.

(Further rules may be added, depending on future situations)

i.e A group such as Malkavian Architecture (business) would not fall under this rule, but an organized Player-Criminal faction would.
You are still subject to group-removal for inactivity during these periods.*

Bloodline Prominence Guidelines

Bloodline Prominence guidelines:

You have a higher chance of attaining prominence if multiple of these points are true for your bloodline.

A grace period of 1-2 weeks will start from this post, before Prominence removal becomes possible.

Your bloodline must actively maintain some or most of these bullet points as true.

Bloodline has Commander(s) / Multiple high-ranks/hicom in branch/govt.
Bloodline has notable famous/infamous activity in lore. (Known criminals, Known inventors/businessmen/inventors etc).
Bloodline has amassed wealth at or over 100,000 geld in net worth or pure geld amounts.
Bloodline has known achievements/distinguishing qualities (Hessel’s sacrifices/shifter, Karhu independence/autonomy)
Bloodline has existed with good activity for more than 1 month (IRL)

Jailbreak rules

Two auxiliary minimum will be present at your assassination or jailbreak, both played by lore team (unless stated otherwise by project lead). Lore team reserve the right to delay your jailbreak/assassination at any moment. The server will be locked while the lore team are setting up to ensure that players do not join while set up is ongoing. Jail breaks or jail assassinations can not happen during offline times. They are only approved to happen from 12:00 PM CST to 9:00 PM CST.
Going to jail for a crime and going through with the full sentence will clear all incentives related to the crime unless it is murder or subversion.

Flash PD rules

When being flashed, you are locked into a server when:

A staff member joins the game and makes it aware there is a flash PD

Leaving before the staff member can type a message will not protect you.

5 minutes have passed of you being in the server (loitering)

If you leave after 5 minutes and players get a staff member online or are actively attempting to do so, you can be called back in game.

There is a limit to how long you can be out of the game before being called back in game. This is on a contextual basis and each case is decided by staff.
- If necessary, time may not matter in case there is attempted loopholing of guidelines/specific ruling made on a conflict. This is on a contextual basis.

When a flash event begins, you must stay still and not move or attempt to get closer to an exit-point. This is considered metagaming if you do so.
Upon the start of the event, you are allowed to immediately move towards an escape. Alternatively, you can choose to fight the ones initiating the flash

“Taking any actions that would be seen as aggressive” will be further clarified and interpreted as ANY PARTY complicit in taking aggressive action against or being the VICTIM of aggressive action.

It does not make sense to give further ‘grace’ to any intended target and focus of a Flash PD. This goes for rogues, MP, Marleyans, Eldians, and all player factions to come.

A player will be given a 10 second period of grace upon joining game and loading in from their perspective, if joining an active event.

Taking any actions that would be seen as aggressive such as pulling out your blades, rushing towards combat, etc, will nullify the grace period.

Conflict Chasing Guidelines

Chase Guidelines

In order to chase, the person attempting to chase must find the spot the escaping player escaped at within 2 minutes of them escaping, if they are unable to do this, will not be able to chase.
The person being chased will get a head start equal to the amount of time the chasing player took to find the spot they were escaping at.
Players can join the chaser who found the spot, as long as they get there within 2 minutes of the person escaping, otherwise anyone else who gets there between 2 and 5 minutes of them escaping will be sent to chase 5 minutes after the chase begins.
Chases can be delayed for certain reasons, however you will be expected to let the staff member know your usernames in order to facilitate this, the chase will happen exactly as it would have had it not been delayed. (Please make this as easy as possible on the staff members doing this).

Conflict Escaping Guidelines

Leaving before escape is clarified to be available by staff members is considered combat logging and bannable. There is a 30 second timer between reaching the edge of the map and escaping the map. This means you must be out of combat for at least 30 seconds before being kicked from the game. This may be bypassed if you are not involved in active conflict, but conflict is ongoing in the same server (e.g, you’re just a civilian that fled from branch vs branch conflict).

Upon an individual leaving the region, there is to be about 2-3 minutes before an sm saying “An individual has left the region.”
This message will not appear if chase is available to prevent metagaming.
This guideline will remain as is, and unless lore team has informed both parties of a specific conflict that the time does not matter, it does by DEFAULT.

You are unable to leave for a duration of two minutes after attempting or succeeding an aggression on another player. After these two minutes expire, you will be able to escape after thirty seconds. Manually leaving the game without properly escaping will always result in a wipe. You can not escape while moving.

Elite Squad Guidelines

Elite Squad Guidelines Updated
A player can not return to an NCO position in their previous branch after wiping for 1 month.
A player can not return to an Elite Squad in their previous branch after wiping for 1 month.
A player can not be in a ES for two weeks after joining a branch, including transfers, unless LT-approved.
A player can only be in one ES at a time. ||ES may merge their events in certain regards if the need arises, and specific players of another ES may be allowed to attend specific events if they are crucial to it’s completion and it makes sense inlore- though it’ll be up to the host who they want to allow for the purposes of the PD. ||

Elite Squads must fit into their respective branches purposes.
There will only be one allowed ES per branch, designated at the bottom of this guideline. Government may be given exceptions, as long as they fulfill actual requirements and have a unique purpose and identity that gives them that right. Loreteam may rescind ES permissions if these identities are disregarded.

Reminding player base about these rules-- we’re not gonna be actively watching HICOM and Elite Squadrons regarding this rule. The players must send in a report if they suspect that a player is breaking the cooldown guidelines.

Special Operations Squadron
Vanguard Squadron
First Interior Squadron
Royal Guard

Faction VS Faction Guidelines

Faction VS Faction Guidelines [[updated as of 6/21/2024]]

→ Major battles will attempt for a server cap of 110. The defending faction will be granted slightly more allocated serverspace, and the defending faction will never have less than 50% of it. A general rule of thumb is that Campaigns (later defined) will be more 50/50, while 5-10% more serverspace will be given towards Defenders otherwise.
→ Raids from opposing factions can no longer happen on major holidays*, and must happen on a weekend, unless it is during a break. Additionally, it must start on a time between 11 AM EST and 9PM EST
→ A raid has a cooldown of two weeks, unless a foothold is established within a factions main-territory, then the definition will change from raid, to a campaign. There is no cooldown on attacks at this point.
→ Battles beginning outside of faction-held territory will not be considered a raid, even if a force retreats into their own held territory, as long as the chasing party is able to begin their chase within 20m. Further reinforcements will have to take into account travel-time to the location, via Zeppelin or Horseback from the nearest same/allied owned faction location.
→ If a major location is captured during one of these chase-follow ups, the definition will not change into a campaign until the original (if applicable) 2-week raid cooldown isn’t already over.
→ If a raiding faction takes control of a location, they will still be considered the ‘attacking’ force even if a counterassault is begun by the defending faction. If the defenders cannot mount an assault and the PD concludes, the rest of the campaign will be given a 50/50 server split.

→ Staff will create an invisible wall to prevent the offensive faction from being attacked, as well as to prevent them from moving, until both factions are ready. (This doesn’t apply to Flash Raids).
→ Eldia will be given a five minute warning per map that has a manned Forward Operating Base. (sw1==5m, sw2==10m) unless they are destroyed in an event leading up to it, and no auxiliary units are able to escape.
→ To escape a map-in battle, you must be at the edge of the map and out of combat for thirty seconds while standing, and not moving too far from your location of escape. You will be travelled to the nearest available escape-map (the map next in line for attack) and then have to reach the edge of that map. If there is an active enemy force, you must do this again. Staff will always have one map for defenders to retreat into, and one map for attackers to retreat into available at all times.
→ To have a location be server-locked the attacking faction must have control of a majority of the entry points into the map from the defenders-side. Defenders may still rally in a separate location, and physically travel into the map in a coordinated counterattack.

→ If the attackers of a raid retreat, there’ll be a twenty minute window to chase before the allocated escape-map will be closed and the attackers will have to organize further.
→ To successfully interdict an escape a player must hit another to prevent them from escaping, this applies to shifters as well. (The place command often lags during these events, so please keep that in mind if you’re about to hit a player or have and they instantly disappear.)
→ During raids, refrain from using ;help (message) unless absolutely nescesary, i.e thunderspears breaking, shifter bug (please include your user as well shifters when using help).
→ If staff are unable to properly deploy to a soon-to-be battle map before players fully rally, they will have the authority to kick as many players until there is an appropriate amount of server space available for the assaulting forces.

→ Infiltrations that go accidently hot will not have a cooldown, and will not be counted as raids.
→ Infiltrations into factions must have a specific goal predefined and communicated to Lore Team by the infiltrating faction or else they’ll be counted as a raid.

Hunting Guidelines

Rogues or players in hiding must now choose a location to reside in, so that when players attempt to search for said player, you can be called ingame. This is to prevent players from hiding outside of the game until conflict arises to begin conflict.

In order to change your location after choosing it the first time, you must do an event to travel. Maps you choose must be an accessible map, whether it be by the menu, or through ingame means.

You will not be called ingame for every event, only for events where players are specifically tracking you. This is case by case, though.

If you are inactivity purged while in hiding, you will not be re-accepted.

Business/Corporate Faction Guidelines

Definition of a Business/Corporate Faction: A Business or Corporation is defined in these guidelines as gathering a group of individuals to perform a profession and/or trade to engage in commerce and financial gain for their Business/Corporation’s own benefit.

Business/Corporate Factions must have a minimum of five active members.
Specified trade/profession.
Defined hierarchy/business structure.
5,000 Gelds of funds before creation.
Business/Corporation owner holding citizenship+.
Permeant Headquarters in a plot of land the business/corporation owns.
Lore team approval.

(Further rules may be added, depending on future situations.)

Personal Conduct & Acceptable Community Standards

Personal attacks and going after someone beyond the scope of the game and using the community/game to initiate these personal attacks or witch-hunts will result in a permanent ban.
Rage-baiting, or otherwise known as malicious attempts to incite anger/frustration will be seen as trolling/stimming/excessive toxicity. You will also be banned for this.
Downplaying, or otherwise known as malicious attempts to talk down/gas-light the severity, validity or legitimacy of an administrative decision such as a ban or void, will be seen as excessive toxicity and can be bannable, or can lead to extra ban time on top of an on-going staff action.

Witch-hunting in depth is bannable.

Witchhunting/Toxicity Guidelines Explained:

Definition of Toxicity: Attacking, harassing, provoking, or otherwise breaking any rules related to 1.1-1.9 of the listed guidelines in a serious manner; toxicity is generally conducted by one person against another individual or group out of anger or hate.

Definition of Witchhunting: Attacking, harassing, provoking, or otherwise breaking any rules related to 1.1-1.9 of the listed guidelines in a serious manner; witchhunting is generally conducted by multiple people against another individual or group in a coordinated/somewhat coordinated manner (eg. calling upon your friends to attack someone or be toxic towards them)

Bans for toxicity generally last a few days to two weeks, with permanent bans considered at the second offense.
Bans for witchhunting will have permanent bans considered at the first offense for all individuals involved, depending on severity.

Examples of general toxicity:

Person A insults Person B’s gender identity with a harmful slur or other hate speech (1.2, 1.5, 1.6)
Person A calls for real-life harm against Person B in a serious manner (1.2, 1.4)

Examples of witchhunting:

Group A repeatedly pings Person B with harmful messaging after their lore character’s death (1.2, 1.6,)
Group A repeatedly sends messages to Person B via their DM’s in a harassing way. (1.2, 7.0)

Metagaming

Metagame, or known as ‘hypergame’, or “game about the game” , is an approach to gameplay that transcends or operates outside of the prescribed rules of the game, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game.

If you are a witness to an in-game crime/action leading to valid incentive, you must be prepared to present that recording to admins to verify and approve future or immediate pre-meditated/instant incentives.
Any form of conversation about “birdcage lore” is active “in-lore”. You should not attempt to loophole i.e. assassination plans outside of the reach of potential spies/leakers. Any verbal or written form of intentions leading to incentive can be approved if documented properly.
“Dead men tell no tales”; players are not allowed to reveal, use, or share information to be used after their lore-character dies. All individuals and parties involved will put themselves at risk for permanent expulsion from the community-game.
You cannot rejoin previously owned leadership roles after your lore character dies. This includes continuing activity as a Bloodline/Business/Faction leader. Attempts to circumvent this rule by loop-hole will be deemed as a violation of this rule. You are allowed to rejoin in general after you die, but the rules above AND below still apply. — (You may only rejoin leadership if A. At least two faction leaders die before you retake your spot AND/OR B. at least 2 IRL weeks have passed.)
A grace period of two weeks should be followed before sharing anything in OOL public servers/channels. If your character is killed by an enemy player/group, you may not be involved with any actions taken in any offensive measures whatsoever for five days.
This aspect is nullified if an ‘aggressive action’ is committed against you; evidence of this is required.
Changing uniform/clothing mid-event through the usage of admin commands without the means to do so in lore is prohibited.
You may not use any incentive reasons created before your character was alive. For example, someone leaked information, but you died the next day. No matter WHAT happens, you can not act on that incentive. There may be exceptions for this which only consider relevant in-lore circumstances. This rule also includes any action or situation related with your previous character life, such as the witness details of the death or someone else looting your previous character. You cannot be involved whatsoever.
Recorded Streams of Permanent Death event gameplay must have a MINIMUM of 5-minutes delay between real-time and stream. This is to prevent stream-snipers and non-participating info-scrapers during critical lore story-progression gameplay. Content Creators must retrieve lore-team permission for real-time streaming of Permanent Death gameplay. Failure to meet by this rule will be considered metagame in order to protect non-streaming community players.
Screen Sharing of Permanent Death events through Discord or any other real-time mean beyond content creation is strictly prohibited. You may not share your screen of any active Permanent Death event gameplay. The only exceptions to this rule are Gen 4 Exams, Aux Exams, Remnants, and Instructor-related TC Training (Teaching how to use balance trainers, etc.)
You must be in-game at the Permadeath Event in order to have any involvement with it. This means backseat gaming in terms of giving orders without being present in-game is not allowed. Exceptions are only made to reasonable and temporary IRL circumstances notified to the staff team.

We do not consider appeals for violating any rules in this category.

                       𝔅𝔦𝔯𝔡𝔠𝔞𝔤𝔢 Official Guidelines