Over the last month or so, we've received quite the influx of reports regarding OOC chatter being used to insult, derail, create altercation or otherwise unnecessarily bring personal drama into the server via in-game text channels.

We have noticed the standard slipping over a long time, as I'm sure some of you have as well. While we as staff certainly haven't done enough about it up until now and that is absolutely our fault, it's also clear that a number of the community are continuously pushing the boundaries for one reason or another. Typically isolated incidents of this nature haven't been treated too harshly, but that is going to change as of this post.

The rule as listed above is abundantly clear, and there is no excuse for using OOC chat (using the // syntax to communicate in public channels, omitting the OOC part and just talking to people as if it were an out-of-game chatroom) to air your laundry, trash-talk others, lash out or otherwise break the immersion, stories and/or interactions between players.

OOC is only permitted in PM, group and faction-wide chat channels provided the involved players agree upon how they will communicate with each other. Staff specifically on staff ships may also use it during events only for organisational reasons.

If you have an issue with how an encounter went down, we implore you to clarify things privately after the fact. If you believe there was a rule-breach, report it and do not fight fire with fire, possibly implicating yourself in the process. If there are conflicts between groups of people that are then weaponised in-game, then sit down with each other and sort it out privately. If you feel that it's causing rule breaches, report it to us. Again, do not feed it yourself in-game.

Further breaches of this nature will be met with swift and heavy sanctions.

Thank you for your understanding, and for reading.