Offence System Updated

As part of our focus on the RuneScape community, we’ve transformed our offence system; we’ve also made some changes to the Rules of RuneScape. Most importantly, many offences will now expire after 12 months.

The main reason we’ve done this is because we accept that many people learn from their previous mistakes, especially small offences committed long ago. This means that if you have an account that had offences on it, it’s entirely possible that they’ve been removed!

To support this, we no longer issue black marks, we simply record the offences themselves. If you log into the Offence Appeals page, you’ll see two pillars: one records offences that can result in being banned, the other records offences that can result in being muted. It should now be much simpler to see your account’s status and where you stand.

If you have an account that is still banned or muted after today, we’re allowing you another chance to submit an appeal. Our Player Support team will then reassess your offences and decide whether to remove some or all of them.

Furthermore, we have changed the system to allow players who have had their accounts stolen a chance to appeal offences that occurred while it was hijacked. Typically, this happened because the hacker unsuccessfully appealed, leaving the real owner with no chance to appeal for themselves. If you have ever had membership on the account and have built up a significant amount of game time, you’ll have another chance to appeal after 21 days.

The Rules of RuneScape

We’ve updated the way the rules are organised to make it simpler for you to report abuse and to keep yourself free of offences. The rules are now organised under three general headings (click here to read about the rules in full):

• Honour
  Offences related to cheating (like scamming, macroing, real-world trading, etc.)
• Respect
  Offences related to inappropriate behaviour (like obscene language, discrimination, bullying, etc.)
• Security
  Offences related to real-world safety and security threats (like asking for real-life contact details, website advertising, etc.)

To help out with this, we’ll also be updating the in-game report abuse feature. You’ll then see two screens – one for entering the player’s name, and another for selecting the rule they’ve broken.

Due to the size of this project, we’ve launched all of the website features today, while the in-game interface will be released with this week's server reboot.

Final Note

If you receive a ban or mute in-game, this will also prevent you from using the forums. Equally, if you receive a forum ban, you’ll be muted in-game. This is because we believe that players should be treated equally whether they’re playing the game or posting on the forums.

Please note that because of the changes to how different offences are treated, it’s possible that any ban or mute you are currently affected by may have changed. For example, if you had three days left of a five-day mute yesterday, today you could have five days left of a ten-day mute, or one day left of a three-day mute.