Rules, guidelines and appeals

DayzUnderground Rules and Policies / How Our Team Handles Your Reports and Appeals

As few rules as possible: Our members should be able to play and create stories without having to keep a large volume of rules and limitations in mind. We are convinced that simple morality, respect, and fair play are the only things our members need to keep in mind while they enjoy themselves while in our servers. Our rules reflect this mindset.

As a mature and genuine person, you will most likely never be in conflict with our rules. From time to time, there is a need for clarification on specific details of what players can or cannot do. We expect all players to familiarize themselves with our rules and expectations. DUG is fortunate to have the reputation of being a respected, mature and helpful community. Let’s keep it that way.

Sometimes DUG Staff needs to contact you to inquire about your actions in-game. We will attempt to contact you via Discord, Reddit, and/or Steam to get the information we need. If we fail to contact you through these means, we will place a temporary ban on your account until you contact an admin. Once you do so the ban will be lifted automatically.

Our Chernarus server is still OPEN to everyone, but a password is now hidden in the rules below. Read and understand them fully (don’t skim) and look for a word that doesn’t make sense where it’s placed. Players caught sharing the password will be temporarily banned.
Livonia does not currently have a password but you are still expected to read and understand our rules while playing on any of our servers.

Help/Support Information

Ban Appeal Information

DayzUnderground’s golden rule is as simple as it is broad: Don’t be a jerk!

General
Server
TeamspeakTS
RoleplayRP

Don't Be a Jerk (DBAJ)

All interactions must have the community at heart. Ensure that whenever you take a significant action against a group or individual there is some in-character (IC) reasoning behind it.

We define a 'significant action' as a raid, an attack on a base, an attack on an event, or other actions of a similar nature. This does NOT include killing on sight (KOS). Keep your reasons realistic and your actions proportional, so instead of tearing a whole base down because the owners robbed you, try to rob them back, raid them to get loot back, send a message or negotiate terms with them. If that's you or your group's whole roleplay or thing you do without provocation, that's cool. Keep it reasonable and think of everyone's enjoyment of the game, not just your own. Make sure every player can have as much of a chance to have fun as you have had.

The following anti-community behaviors are frowned upon on DUG and can be seen as breaking the DBAJ rule:
- Zerging (see Group Sizes and 'Zerging' rule)
- Third Party "Alarms"
- Out of Character (OOC) setups
- Joint raiding
- Hoarding & Over-Building
- Abusing server restarts to move position and gain an unfair advantage
- Dismantling structures built by other players for nails. Structures that do not contain nails are not protected by this rule. However, that DOES NOT mean you can dismantle every shelter you see in an area. Dismantling a shelter or two to use its leather/tarp is perfectly acceptable.

If you ever question the reasoning, feel free to reach out to the other party or open a ticket if you are unaware of who it is. When communicating with other players in an Out-of-Character (OOC) situation, keep that communication civil and polite. Respect other players and respect all playstyles DayZ has to offer, just because you don't like their gameplay does not make it invalid.

While we don't want to restrict IC Roleplay, this rule will not be an excuse to hide OOC intentions that are unfit for our community behind roleplay.

No False Reports

Of course nobody can remember every single detail about every encounter. However, purposefully fabricated reports or allegations will be punished.

Do not lie Out-of-Character (OOC) to Staff or other members of the community regarding events that happened in-game. If you do not want to answer for any reason, just decline to answer with your reason.

Do not lie to Staff about anything in or out of game, doing so will result in a removal from the community and a ban from our platforms.

No Derogatory Language

Any spoken/written bigoted/derogatory language that targets age, gender, race, nationality, religion, or sexuality is strictly forbidden and will be punished. If someone says something derogatory, don’t respond in a nasty manner.

Staff have a zero-tolerance regarding all inappropriate language.

No Ban Evasion

Do not use an alternate account belonging to you or a friend to circumvent a ban on any account you own. We ban players, not accounts.

Any attempts of evading to avoid consequences of rule violations will result in your permanent removal from all DUG platforms.

Knowingly playing with people that are evading a ban or assisting them in their evasion will result in your own ban.

Evading a ban will result in an automatic denial of any ban appeals currently submitted and voids your ability to appeal in the future.

No Metagaming

Do not view content created from DUG to gain information, or pass along information you have gained from viewing the content, to gain an advantage in-game or alter roleplay.
Do not spy on another group’s private Discord server, use information from the DUG Discord, study TeamSpeak channels, or check server listings to see who is online.
Do not watch a DUG stream on any platform while also playing DUG.
Do not pass along information to others while viewing a stream or use it yourself. This includes streams within private Discords.

Stories or content created with the intention of being public knowledge are exempt from this rule.

Group Sizes and "Zerging"

Groups and Factions are limited to 15 active members on their roster at a time. 'Active' means that the member has played within the last two weeks. Groups inaccurately marking active members as 'inactive' to dodge the cap will not be tolerated.

ANY group of 3 or more players is required to open a ticket and request a group roster from DUG staff. This roster is to be updated appropriately.

Groups need to keep in mind proportionality with how they field their numbers: We expect groups nearing or exceeding double digits to split up into smaller groups rather than roaming around and looting. If you are uncertain about whether or not the numbers you are running are reasonable we urge you to contact a member of our Staff Team for advice or input.

If you wish to perform a raid on a group with more players than would normally be allowed while roaming, please reach out to a Staff member to ensure you're fielding an proportionate number.
Events advertised in the DayzUnderground Discord are the exception.

Organic interactions in-game do not directly fall under this umbrella, but we also don't want to see members of our community traveling in "safety herds" or "zergs".

Large groups should strive to fight their own battles, but cooperation can push story. However, two large groups joint-raiding will not be viewed the same as two small groups teaming up against a common enemy. We expect members of our community, especially our official groups/factions, to display self-restraint and consider the fun of others while conducting themselves. Excessive behaviors on this front will fall under our DBAJ rule.

Report All Rule Breaks Witnessed

Please report ANY and ALL rule breaking events that you have witnessed.

A useful report should contain detailed evidence in the form of in-game names, location (izurvive coordinates), timestamps/time zones, chat logs, screenshots, and/or video.

Staff will take reports that are not supported by evidence into consideration and begin an investigation but will not be able to take action without further proof through logs or recordings.

If we discover you did not file a report for a rule break you witnessed or withheld incriminating evidence related to a rule break, you will be considered to have broken that rule as well.

You can create a report by contacting DUG Support

Behavior to Avoid on DUG

Avoid using DUG platforms for discussions of topics and beliefs surrounding politics, religion and sex. If you want to talk about the above topics, please use communities created for that purpose.

Do not use any DUG platforms for malicious activities, even if their results do not directly affect DUG members (e.g. hurting other communities while coordinating from the DUG Teamspeak).

Do Not Masquerade As DUG Staff

Do not pretend to be DUG Staff or use their usernames on platforms affiliated with DUG to avoid misleading or deceiving people. This also includes ingame names such as Admin, Owner, Moderator, etc.

Don't Try to Abuse Loopholes in the Rules

DayzUnderground is a gaming community and not a law firm. We want you to understand our rules and keep them readable.

Use your Common Sense: Just because a specific instance, specific glitch, or a rule break isn’t spelled out in here, doesn’t mean it’s okay. Your punishment will be the same as if you had directly violated one of the rules.

If in doubt regarding a rule or specific situation, open a support ticket to ask the Staff team.

Don't Lie When You Apply

Any attempt to falsify information or content (this includes the usage of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) within our application or ban appeal process will be met with harsh penalties up to and including being blacklisted from our whitelisting process, server bans or both.

No forms of Hacking, Cheating, Glitching, Exploiting or Duping

Staff have zero tolerance towards any forms of hacking, use of glitches, or known defects in the game’s current state.

This can include but is not limited to; clipping storage (fully or partially) inside objects or building geometry; creating stashes that cannot be accessed or created without the use of a glitch; Using floating objects to scale a wall; Abusing hitboxes to force someone into or through an object using another player, vehicle, or object.

The use of third party crosshairs (or any software) that provides the user with a gameplay advantage including color filters to enhance visibility is forbidden.

Do not loot cycle (ie. moving loot to another location to get another 'better' item to spawn)

Common sense: Even if a glitch or exploit is not specifically described here, it is still against the rules. If in doubt, open a ticket to ask the staff team.

No VAC or Game Bans

Players with recent VAC or game bans (within the last 400 days) are not allowed to play on our servers. Even if it's from another game we cannot trust you.
If you have been banned by us for a VAC or game ban and it is older than 400 days you may appeal.
If you feel your VAC or game ban is incorrect please appeal with the Valve support team.

Use Non-Offensive Names

Do not play under names that could be considered offensive or reference real world atrocities. Do not try to circumvent this rule by using “133t5p3@k/Leetspeak” or obscure references.

Vehicles

No player, group, or faction can have more than 3 vehicles locked away (protected by a locked gate/door, inside of a player-built base or existing structure, etc.) at any given time.
Vehicles should be used to travel around the map, not for additional storage in your base.
Players should not be removing or destroying vehicle tires to prevent them from being driven. You can remove any components, but all 4 tires should remain on the vehicle at all times.
If the staff team find more than 3 vehicles locked away or being used as storage by a player or group the vehicles will be deleted with no warning.

Follow All Base Building Rules

Please refer to this section of the website for a full breakdown: Base Building Rules

You can also use the ?build command in the DUG Discord for additional details.

Stashing and Storage

You cannot bury your stashes one on top of the other. We consider this glitching on our servers.
Stash mounds must be at least halfway visible when burying to be hidden around other objects and/or terrain.

Do not store items or create stashes of any kind underwater.

A list of items that can be buried on our servers can be found here: What Can Be Buried and Persistence Timers

Alternatively use ?timers command in the DUG Discord.

Protective cases are limited to 5 on the ground at a time per group. If you'd like to have more, you can, but they are required to be placed inside of an existing storage container like (a tent, barrel, crate, etc.) - Vehicles DO NOT COUNT as a viable container!

Follow All Raiding Rules

Raiding is allowed on DUG (within reason) and can be done several ways:

- Using a lock hammer to break the lock off of a gate
- Using explosives to destroy gates, fences, and doors
- Using guns and ammo to shoot and destroy gates, fences, and doors
- Using melee weapons and objects to destroy gates, fences, and doors
- Guessing the combination to a lock, aka 'rolling the dial'
- Using no more than one (1) other player, a vehicle, or structure to boost. You are allowed to stand on only one player (must be grounded/not floating) at any given time, regardless if they are prone, crouched, or standing. You can stand on one player and move onto another player so long as the two aren't giving you extra height at the same time.
**Do not use shelters, tents, backpacks, fireplaces, camonets or mannequins for this! Keep it logical**

You are required to remove ALL locks on a base BEFORE you can claim ownership, change a lock combination, or put your own lock on even while actively raiding a base.

Repeatedly raiding the same target with no larger storyline or reason behind it will break the DBAJ rule.

Intentionally offline raiding another player can also break the DBAJ rule. It is considered to be offline raiding if you log in outside of your usual play hours in an attempt to raid when you believe the victim is offline. If you equally play during low population hours and high population hours, you should be performing your raids during the higher population hours. Raiding an undefended base is not fun for anyone involved and does not tend to push story.

Do Not Combat Log

Do not log out, or stay logged out after the server crashes/restarts, to avoid other players or any possible negative consequences/interactions.
If you need to leave the game for IRL reasons and are mid interaction with duglands other players, inform them ASAP. If rules were broken during any interactions, please report them.

As a general rule, if you’ve been in combat or interacted with you should leave the area or wait approximately 15 mins to log out as you can never be entirely sure that the interaction has been finished.

Logging out while unconscious is considered combat logging as we have removed the ability to respawn when this occurs.

Do Not Spawn Cycle to Return to the Fight

Do not commit suicide or purposely get yourself killed via PVE or PVP elements to return to a fight or its location even if you believe the fight is over.
If you happen to respawn immediately near the fight you are welcome to return to it.

Do Not Share Accounts

Do not share access to Steam accounts. Offences committed while an account was shared will affect all parties equally and cause the removal of all Steam accounts. This includes VAC and game bans obtained on a shared account.

Do not abuse alternate DayZ accounts

Only Whitelisted DUG Members can use one (1) alternate account on our server.

If caught using more than the allowed amount, all accounts in excess will be permanently banned from the server. On subsequent offenses, ALL accounts will be banned.

- Do not claim to be another character or person you play to avoid in game consequences or interactions. Please change your name in game to reflect who you are.
- Do not use one account to “gear up” another or to store loot for your main account, aka no 'barrel alts'.
- Do not use alt accounts to rejoin a firefight/interaction or change locations to get to a fight quicker.
- Do not use your alternate account to trade loot with another account you own, or swap accounts to trade/give loot to someone else.
- Do not use your alternate account for the purpose of playing the same character or in the same group. You cannot have an alternate account in the same group as your main, or use a second account to play the same character.

Do Not Spam

Do not spam users, DUG Staff, or the Ticketing system (e.g. pokes, chat messages, VOIP etc). If you feel a rule was broken, submit a report.

If you interact with someone in-game and you wish to talk to them about it, send them a personal message over Teamspeak/Discord and wait for a reply. Please remember to be respectful during all interactions.

Do not abuse VoIP to spam Music, Soundboards or other forms of sound effects to other players in a malicious manner (distract, harass, etc.).

Event rules

Certain community events may require event-specific rules to ensure they are possible to carry out. If an event has any specific rules, they will be shared through our private forum and Discord in advance. These event rules are enforced the same as our server rules.

Our Teamspeak is a place for our players to socialize. You can find new friends and talk with the people you’re interacting with in our forums. Various private and public rooms give everyone the ability to find their place in the community.

DUG staff is identifiable by the pink cupcake and silver shield tags, as well as by the [TS Admin] or [Mod/Admin] tags after their names.

Our staff try to be available as much as possible in Teamspeak. Please understand we also play the game and have families and commitments outside of the DayzUnderground community. If you message a member of the staff and do not receive a reply within 5 minutes they may be AFK or in game. Please submit a report in order to have your concern addressed.

Respect the privacy of others and their rooms

If you join a channel and the people inside ask you to leave, please do so. Those failing to meet the request will be removed by DUG staff.

Do not contact users for being upset over ingame events

If you’re upset over in-game events, do not spam users or DUG staff through TeamSpeak with e.g. pokes. If you feel a rule was broken, submit a report.

If you interact with someone in game and you wish to talk to them about it, send them a text message over TeamSpeak and wait for a reply. (You can do this by right clicking anyone’s name and selecting “Open Text Chat”, it’s the first option in the right click menu.)

Users are responsible for their own TS room security

All users can decide freely with whom to be in a channel with or not. If you don’t want someone listening to what you’re talking about, ask that person to leave or switch into a different room just with the people you want to play with.

Organic RP gives players ingame freedom to create and tell stories. There are no rules for initiation of an interaction or killing on sight (KOS). Instead, our rules ensure that everyone is treated with respect and dignity.

AI-Generated Content

DO NOT rely on ANY KIND of generative AI tool and please avoid writing tools that claim to expand on your existing topic, or restructure your text as you've authored it.

Whether it is a piece of art, music, a logo, or a writing prompt, the last thing we expect from our members is perfection or to apply some rigid standards. There are loads of resources available within our Discord to help you find free programs, tools, and creative people willing to help with your projects.

If you believe a content submission contains AI-generated content, submit a ticket to DayzUnderground support or use Reddit's 'Report Post' function.
Enforcement of the server rules and guidelines falls entirely to the staff team, and we WILL NOT entertain witch hunts or public denunciation of others in relation to this rule.

Separate In-Character (IC) and Out-of-Character (OOC) Emotions / Actions

Leave in-game actions and events in-game.There is no reason to have any issues with a player because their in-game character killed, stole from, tortured, or otherwise wronged you. If you have valid concerns with the way another player behaved themselves in-game, resolve it in a mature and respectful manner or submit a report.
Comments created on out of game written communications (such as Discord) are OOC and should not be used to roleplay or respond to IC content or situations.

The DayzUnderground Subreddit may be used to create IC content and comments on said posts may respond in-character.

Have Genuine Out-of-Character (OOC) Intentions and Purpose For All Your Interactions or Roleplay

All interactions must have the community at heart.

DUG is a mature community and our members have explored various dark or morbid RP themes as part of their stories, such as the Cult of Papa. Players showing derogatory RP themes have to make their genuine OOC intentions and purposes clear to the rest of the community and the DUG staff.

To fully understand this policy, you must first understand the difference between In-Character (IC) and Out-of-Character (OOC) communication.
OOC thoughts and actions come from the person and their genuine intentions.
IC actions come from a constructed and artificial persona.

With this policy we are not restricting IC actions, however IC and OOC actions will be judged by their OOC intentions and purpose. While we hardly restrict IC roleplay, it will not be an excuse to hide OOC intentions that are unfit for our community behind roleplay.

When the community feels like a group displaying derogatory themes is not showing a visible and successful effort to outline genuine OOC intentions and purpose, the DUG staff team will intervene to either help support efforts of genuine intentions and purpose, or will censor and punish intentions that are unfit for the community such as specific harassment or complete disregard of others in the community.

These efforts tend to be successful when they include subreddit posts, OOC interaction with other community members, and the ability to compromise as well as unique creativity in roleplay.

Solve Differences with Other Players Maturely

Staff prefer not to become involved in personal disputes between players and encourage them to resolve their own issues in-game and out of game.
Our members are expected to be able to solve differences and make compromises with each other.
If you find difficulty resolving an issue, please contact DUG staff team for assistance.

Communicate, Coordinate, and Collaborate

Everyone is free to be in control of their personal narratives. E.g. permadeath of characters is used by a lot of members but is not forced, and while there are large amounts of lore created, nobody is forced to conform to it.

Story creation within DUG is kept organic and dynamic.

To avoid potential conflicts of story continuity, please communicate and coordinate OOC with community members that are part of your stories. All of our members are creating these stories together.

How we enforce the rules, investigate reports and make sure we remain impartial

A streamlined process helps with consistency

Permanent or temporary bans are issued after a ban report is created and archived. These ban reports follow a pre-set format and have to contain all relevant information and evidence. This can be in form of server logs, screenshots, videos or other formats that were part of the investigation. All server ban messages will contain a reason and date that links back to its ban report. When a community member is banned, we send out a message with the ban reason through our forum.

An impartial staff team is key to fair administration

Bans and appeals are handled by a dedicated DUG staff team with years of experience leading a community. Impartiality, experience, a cool head, and a healthy dose of distance are key to effective and fair administration. If a staff member has any form of personal involvement or investment in an incident, he or she can only supply evidence or information. Participation when decisions are made will not be allowed. In some cases where the incident depends on policies instead of hard evidence, the dedicated team has to anonymize suspects and argue their case in front of the rest of the senior DUG moderation staff.

Innocent until proven guilty

We care about all of your reports, incidents or concerns and want to hear what you have to say. Every report will be taken into consideration and investigated but we will not act upon them if no sufficient evidence is available. Players are to be seen as innocent until proven guilty. If we repeatedly receive valid reports that fall short just for not having suitable evidence, we will still make note of them in DUG’s “naughty list”. All notable rule breaks, minor infractions or reports against players are archived in the DUG naughty list.

Keeping privacy as high priority

When reports are investigated or concluded, we do not release personal information that will aid in identifying another player’s identity in game or out of game to anyone. Policy related issues are frequently handled by keeping suspects entirely anonymous. This way we can remove any potential bias and uphold impartiality.

A fair chance: All bans can be appealed (except ban evasion)

Mistakes happen, evidence can be misinterpreted. While we enforce all rules with confidence, we think it’s unfair to proclaim any and all staff decisions as final. All bans, except those issued for ban evasion, can be appealed.

To appeal a ban, please fill out a ban appeal with all the required information.

Ban appeals may take multiple days to complete while we perform our investigation. We ask that you remain patient throughout the process. If you do not hear back from us via E-mail within 2 weeks, feel free to contact us through a support ticket again to inquire about the state of your appeal.