As with all things, your use of the Program is governed by certain rules of conduct. These rules of conduct (the "Rules of Conduct"), maintained and enforced exclusively by Blizzard, must be adhered to by all users of the Service. It is your responsibility to know, understand and abide by these Rules of Conduct. The following rules are not meant to be exhaustive, and Blizzard reserves the right to determine which conduct it considers to be outside the spirit of the Game and to take such disciplinary measures as it sees fit up to and including termination and deletion of the Account. Blizzard reserves the right to modify these Rules of Conduct at any time.
A. Rules Related to Usernames and Guild Designations.
Each user will either select a character name or allow the Program to automatically select a character name at random. Additionally, users may form "guilds" and such guilds will be required to choose a name for the guild. When you choose a character name, create a guild, or otherwise create a label that can be seen by other players using the Program, you must abide by the following guidelines as well as the rules of common decency. If Blizzard finds such a label to be offensive or improper, it may, in its sole and absolute discretion, change the name, remove the label and corresponding chat room, and/or suspend or terminate your use of the Program.
In particular, you may not use any name:
- Belonging to another person with the intent to impersonate that person, including without limitation a "Game Master" or any other employee or agent of Blizzard;
- That incorporates vulgar language or which are otherwise offensive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
- Subject to the rights of any other person or entity without written authorization from that person or entity;
- That belongs to a popular culture figure, celebrity, or media personality;
- That is, contains, or is substantially similar to a trademark or service mark, whether registered or not;
- Belonging to any religious figure or deity;
- Taken from Blizzard's Warcraft products, including character names from the Warcraft series of novels;
- Related to drugs, sex, alcohol, or criminal activity;
- Comprised of partial or complete sentence (e.g., "Inyourface", "Welovebeef", etc);
- Comprised of gibberish (e.g., "Asdfasdf", "Jjxccm", "Hvlldrm");
- Referring to pop culture icons or personas (e.g. " "Britneyspears", "Austinpowers", "Batman")
- That utilizes "Leet" or "Dudespeak" (e.g., "Roflcopter", "xxnewbxx", "Roxxoryou")
- That incorporates titles. For purposes of this subsection, "titles" shall include without limitation 'rank' titles (e.g. , "CorporalTed," or "GeneralVlad"), monarchistic or fantasy titles (e.g., "KingMike", "LordSanchez"), and religious titles (e.g., "ThePope," or "Reverend Al").
You may not use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the name restrictions listed above, nor can you have a "first" and "last" name that, when combined, violate the above name restrictions.
B. Rules Related to "Chat" and Interaction With Other Users.
Communicating with other players or Blizzard representatives through the use of in-game voice or text chat is referred to as "Chat." You understand that Blizzard may monitor and record your Chat and you consent to such monitoring and recording. Recordings of your Chat sessions may be reviewed, modified, disclosed, and/or deleted by Blizzard without notice to you. You hereby acknowledge that Blizzard is under no obligation to monitor Chat, and you engage in Chat at your own risk. When engaging in Chat in the Program, or otherwise utilizing the Program, you may not:
- Transmit or post any content or language which, in the sole and absolute discretion of Blizzard, is deemed to be offensive, including without limitation content or language that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, sexually explicit, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, nor may you use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the content and language restrictions listed above;
- Carry out any action with a disruptive effect, including, for example, talking for long periods of time to drown-out other players, intentionally causing the text chat to scroll faster than other users are able to read, or using macros with large amounts of text that can have a disruptive effect on the normal flow of Chat;
- Posting commercial solicitations and/or advertisements for websites, goods or services available outside of the World of Warcraft universe;
- Sending repeated unsolicited or unwelcome messages to a single user or repeatedly posting similar messages in a Chat area, including but not limited to continuous advertisements to sell goods or services;
- Communicate or post any person's personal information in the Program, or on websites or forums related to the Program, except that a user may communicate his or her own personal information in a private message directed to a single user;
- Use programs, bots or other automated techniques to collect information from the Program or any forum or website owned or administered by Blizzard;
- Harass, threaten, stalk, embarrass or cause distress, unwanted attention or discomfort to any person;
- Cheat or utilize "exploits" while playing the Program in any way, including without limitation modification of the Program's files;
- Participate in any action that, in the sole and absolute opinion of Blizzard, results or may result in an authorized user of the Program being "scammed" or defrauded out of gold, weapons, armor, or any other items that user has earned through authorized game play in the Program;
- Communicate directly with players who are playing characters aligned with the opposite faction (e.g. Horde communicating with Alliance or vice versa); or
- Impersonate any real person, including without limitation any "game master" or any other Blizzard agent or employee, nor may you communicate in the Game in any way designed to make others believe that your message constitutes a server message or was otherwise posted by any Blizzard agent or employee.
C. Rules Related to Game Play
Game play is what World of Warcraft is all about, and Blizzard strictly enforces the rules that govern game play. Blizzard considers most conduct to be part of the Game, and not harassment, so player-killing the enemies of your race and/or alliance, including gravestone and/or corpse camping, is considered a part of the Game. Because the Program is a "player vs. player" game, you should always remember to protect yourself in areas where the members of hostile races can attack you, rather than contacting Blizzard's in-game customer service representatives for help when you have been killed by an enemy of your race. Nonetheless, certain acts go beyond what is "fair" and are considered serious violations of these Terms of Use. Those acts include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:
- Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players;
- Conduct prohibited by the EULA or these Terms of Use, including without limitation that conduct prohibited by Section 2(C); and
- Anything that Blizzard considers contrary to the "essence" of the Program.