With the current trend for informative articles that help the general populace, I thought I'd try to direct people with questions or problems in the right direction. Most of this information is already available, but many new players, and sadly, a few veterans...seem to forget these sometimes, so I thought I'd gather a few to consider all in one place. ( And I wanted a link I can macro and just paste to 3/4 of the people paging me lately, lol.) Soooooo...in alphabetical order...

Arrests:

If you are arrested, wait in the jail until the staff member who put you there comes in to talk to you. Spinning the wheel to get out will cause PERMANENT stat loss, and will not be replaced by staff. Logging off will most times earn you a ban. Many times, the staff member just needs to speak to you to explain what you've done wrong, and will release you soon after. If we arrive and you're gone...or worse...log off while we're there...we have little recourse except to ban you and speak to you about your offence through abuse.

Bans:

If you are banned, the only way to resolve it is to e-mail abuse@realmsofkaos.com. If you log on from a friend's computer to ask about your ban...or get your friend to page a staff member about it, you run the risk of ban evasion. This will result in the banning of your friends computer and crits too. Abuse e-mails are read daily. Responses are sent out as they are needed. If you didn't get a response, it is quite likely admin is not yet interested in lifting your ban, or needs to do some additional investigation into your situation. A polite, follow up e-mail a few days or so later is fine. ALWAYS include your main crit's name in your e-mail, and the name of the crit who was banned. Failure to do so will result in your mail going unanswered.

Bugs:

If you find a bug in the game, or find your crit's stats are mysteriously changed, or similar problems, e-mail bugs@realmsofkaos.com and report it. If the bug is serious, and may affect game play, by all means...report it to staff immediately.

Charter Memberships:

DM is the only one who can really help you with 99% of CM problems or questions. This is a massive undertaking, and delays are inevitable. Try to be patient, and if you have a question, or concern e-mailing charter @realmsofkaos.com is usually your only chance of bringing it to DM's attention. For information on commands and everything else related to CM's you should read the Charter Membership FAQ.

Disappearing Items:

Once in awhile, due to server crashes and gliches, you may log on to find equipment, gold, or even experience points missing. First...try equipping and unequipping another item. Sometimes it is only a graphic bug and your equipment will reappear. If that doesn't work, and your items are truly gone, all I can say is that this game is still in development and "stuff happens". All beta games are subject to occasional errors, and as testers, you just have to deal with them. Staff is not allowed to replace items or gold lost in this way.

Events:

The event department has gone through a few staff changes recently, and the current event staff are the ONLY people that can tell you exactly when, or if, an event will be running. Event schedules are posted in several locations to give you a reasonable idea when they are due to be run. Asking a warden, or an artist, or a builder, is a total waste of time.

Ghosting:

This is the term applied to your crit not disconnecting properly from the server and remaining in game even though you can't move or do anything. Many times, if you log on an alt, or have a friend page your ghosted crit, it will disconnect them. If that doesn't work, page a staff member to disconnect the crit, and please...include the name of the ghosted crit in your initial page. If no staff are available, you'll just have to wait. They will eventually log off on their own.

Items and General Information:

A lot of the most common pages we receive are to ask what an item is equivalent to...or how much an item is worth. While staff may help in certain cases, we prefer not to give out certain information, and in fact are not allowed to give specific item attributes. Information on areas is rarely shared by staff because we want you to explore, and find out for yourself. It's much more fun that way. Almost every page I have received like this can easily be answered by visiting one of the several excellent RoK information websites, such as www.rokworld.com , www.planet-kaos.com , and others, that are linked to these sites. As far as item worth is concerned...go to the Trollheim Trader Forum and check around. You'll soon find a similar item, and can guage it's worth from the offers placed there.

Language and Harrassment:

This is becoming a bigger issue every day. The bottom line on this is that some people are offended by profanity and obscenity, and some players are quite young. Because of those facts, it is illegal. Having said that....there are going to be instances where someone either swears at you, or at least around you. This game can raise some people's emotions, and tempers get lost regularly. Please...don't page staff every time someone refers to you as a female dog, or you just PK'd them and they page with their appreciation of your skills. If someone is deliberately abusing you , or paging continuously, THAT is harrassment, and should be reported to staff...after you type /ignore . Paging staff with every little instance of someone using a four letter word is unrealistic. Some cursing is a part of life in RoK, and it's impossible for us to police. So use your common sense...get away from the offending person, and block their pages. If they continue...call a staff member.

Mailpasses:

If you are the registered owner of a crit, and need your password mailed to you for various reasons, almost any staff member can help. Please keep in mind that passwords are your responsibility, so write them down and store them in a safe place. All mailpasses sent out by staff are recorded. Illegally obtaining someone else's password will be confirmed by our logs once a complaint is made. This will get you banned a long time...don't even think about it.

Name and Picture Changes:

Name changes can be done at the Charter complex in Terra if you are a Charter Member. If you need more name changes, they will sometimes be done for 200K gold...100K if you are a CM. They can ONLY be done by an administrator. Make sure you have removed ALL your gold from your bank accounts, as you will not be able to access them once your name is changed. Picture changes can also be requested from an admin. The price for a monster pic is 1 million gold. Pictures with 5 digits (i.e. 00012) are not available for purchase. If you want a picture of an existing character pic ( the ones that are available when you roll a crit), they cost 200k for everyone. Again...admins are the only ones who can do this for you. If you can't get ahold of an admin, you can e-mail ronan@realmsofkaos.com. Please make sure you include a correct image number and crit name, and leave 1 million gold on the crit so Ronan can change it for you in case you're not online. (Note: Gender, Divinity, Class and Stat changes are never available)

Quest Item Registration:

You. Period. She is the only one who can, or will, register your quest items.

Shared Passwords:

Despite repeated warnings, people are still sharing their passwords with other players. This includes friends, levelers, and God knows who else. If you share your password you are on your own. I know I've said this already, but it's so important. If you give your pass to another player to level your crit, or use for an event, or whatever...and items go missing, or the crit is stolen or sold it is no longer a staff issue. Your crit and items weren't stolen...you gave them away.

Staff:

If you wish to join our staff, you must have at least six months in game. In some cases you must be over 18 (as in wardens), and you must wait until a department head posts that they have an opening in their respective department. Please keep in mind that many others wish to join our team as well. The last time we asked for wardens, we had 185 responses. My best advice is to conduct yourself as a responsible, concerned tester every single time you log in.Be helpful and considerate of your fellow players and you'll be noticed after a time, so when an opening does come up, you'll have a distinct advantage.

Theft and "Hacking":

Complaints of crits being "hacked" are just simply untrue 99.9% of the time. In virtually EVERY instance, your crit is gone because you gave your password to someone, or allowed them to look over your shoulder, or In some rare instances, you may unknowingly be the victim of a "backdoor virus" which allows the thief to look at all passwords on your computer. Buying crits that can't be registered to you is also a common way to get ripped off. In the same light, getting an item stolen in a trade is also virtually always your own fault. Use of the trade window is completely safe and guarantees you won't lose your items. If your trade involves crits, or an uneven number of items, then have a staff member moderate. If no staff are available...WAIT....many item thieves are fully aware of when staff are not on, and use these times to operate their scams.

Trades:

Staff will now moderate ONLY trades that are impossible to complete by using the trade window. Any trade involving crits that are unregisterable, or "have a dead e-mail address" will NOT be moderated or supported by staff. We strongly suggest you don't get involved with these, but if you choose to do so...you're on your own. We will not recover crits "stolen back" if they were not registered to your e-mail.

I'm sure there are more things to be added to this list, but I chose the subjects that I personally get the most pages about. Please feel free to suggest additions or correct any errors I may have made, and I hope this helps somewhat.