Rules of the city

One person, one character

You get one account. Not one per household, not one per browser, not one for you and one to feed it. Second accounts exist to move money and items to a first account and to farm referral credits, and both of those are theft from everybody else playing honestly.

• Sharing an account with another person is not allowed either. If two people play one character, that is two people using one account, and it is treated the same way.
• Every account needs its own email address.
• Referrals pay on a real character reaching level 5. Inviting yourself ten times is ten characters and no credits.

Names are unique, one to a customer. Do not pick a name designed to be mistaken for a staff member's.

No bots, scripts or automation

Play the game with your hands. No macros, no auto-clickers, no scripts, no browser extensions that press buttons for you, and nothing that talks to the server other than the game itself.

The server keeps its own copy of the rules and checks what your browser tells it, so a client that has been tampered with does not get further, it just gets caught. Accounts that run automation are suspended, and what they earned goes with them.

No real money trading

Nothing in Scartown may be bought or sold for real money outside of Scartown itself. That covers accounts, characters, in-game cash, credits, items and gang positions.

Buying an account is not a safe purchase in any case: it is the seller's email on it, and the account is suspended when it surfaces.

How to behave toward other players

Scartown is a crime game and player-versus-player is open. Beating somebody in the street, emptying their gang's vault or declaring war on their crew is the game working correctly, and nobody owes anybody a fair fight. Being cruel to the person on the other side of it is a different thing.

New players

Nobody can be attacked for their first three days. That window is one-sided, so a new character can attack while it lasts. Spending those three days throwing punches nobody is able to return is working the shelter rather than using it, and staff will end your protection early for it. Doing the same with a string of new accounts is multi-accounting, and that costs you all of them.

Not allowed, anywhere in mail, gang noticeboards, names or profiles:

• Harassment, threats, or following somebody around to make them stop playing.
• Slurs and hate directed at anybody's race, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality or disability.
• Sexual content involving minors, in any form, for any stated reason. This one is permanent and there is no appeal.
• Anybody's real name, address, workplace, photographs or other personal details, including your own.
• Scams that trade on trust outside the game's own systems, and phishing for passwords.
• Advertising other games or services.

The line is simple enough to hold in your head: hunt the character, leave the person alone.

Bugs and exploits

If you find a hole, report it. You will not be punished for finding one and telling us, and we would much rather hear it from you.

Working a hole for profit after you have found it is a different thing. Repeating an exploit, teaching it to other people, or building a character on top of one is treated as cheating, and what it produced is removed along with the account.

Staff

Staff are named in the server's own configuration and the role cannot be granted through the game. Nobody can promote themselves, and nobody who asks you for your password is staff.

Staff can read player mail and act on reports. They do not hand out items, they do not resurrect characters, and they do not settle arguments about who deserved what in a war.

Reporting somebody, and appeals

Every message in the game can be reported from the message itself, and every profile has a report link. A report goes into a queue that staff work through; it is not a vote, and reporting somebody repeatedly does not move them up it.

Tell us what happened rather than how it made you feel, and point at the message. That is what gets acted on quickest.

Suspensions

A suspension can be permanent or for a set number of days. It takes effect on the next request rather than the next login, and the reason is shown to you when you try to play. To appeal, reply to the notice with anything you think was missed.

These rules change

The game is under active development and this page moves with it. Anything material is announced on the news page. Playing after a change means you accept it.