1. About these Terms

Daedric Online is a community-run, free-to-play roleplay server for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, operated by its administrator ("Daedric Online", "we", "us", "our"). These Terms of Service ("the Terms") are an agreement between you and Daedric Online.

The Terms cover everything we provide ("the Service"): the Daedric Online launcher ("the Launcher"), the client files it installs into your Skyrim installation ("the Client"), the game server and the proximity-voice server ("the Server"), our Discord community, and the website at daedriconline.com.

By pressing I agree in the Launcher, or by connecting to the Server, you accept the Terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the Service. You can stop using the Service at any time by closing the Launcher; Revert to Vanilla in its Settings removes what we installed.

Two other documents apply alongside the Terms. Our Privacy Notice explains what information we collect and how we use it. The server rules posted in the #rules channel of our Discord are part of the Terms; where the rules are more specific than the Terms, the rules apply.

2. Who can play

• You must be at least 18 years old. The Service is written for adults, and Skyrim itself is rated for mature audiences.
• You must own a genuine copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, with the free Anniversary Edition content installed, on the game version the Launcher checks for. We do not provide the game.
• You must have a Discord account, be a member of the Daedric Online Discord, and link that account in the Launcher. We may decline to link Discord accounts that were created very recently.
• You must not have been banned from the Service, under this account or any other.

The Service depends on other companies' products, and you must also comply with their terms: Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Media for Skyrim, Steam or the store you bought the game from, Discord, Nexus Mods for the mod collection, and Patreon if you choose to support us. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them.

3. Your account

Linking Discord sends you to Discord's own login page and asks only for the identify permission: your Discord user ID, username, display name and avatar. The Launcher never sees your Discord password. The Server verifies the link with Discord directly, stores your user ID and display name, and issues you a player number. The Launcher also generates a random installation identifier on your PC, which the Server uses to recognise the installation and to authorise the voice connection.

• You are responsible for everything done through your account. Keep your Discord account secure. Staff will never ask you for your password.
• Use your own Discord account. Several people may play from one PC, but each person must link their own account: Log out in the Launcher switches accounts, and each account has its own characters.
• Do not create or use additional accounts to evade a ban, to hold more characters than you are allowed, or to gain an advantage. Playing from a PC or a network that someone else also plays from is allowed; our tools flag accounts that share a machine or an address, and staff may ask you about it.
• Accounts, characters and player numbers are personal. You may not sell, buy, rent, give away or otherwise transfer them.

4. What the Launcher does on your computer

The Launcher is an installer, an updater and a launcher for a heavily modded game. Because it changes files inside your Skyrim installation, you should know exactly what it does before you use it. It:

• Finds your Skyrim installation by reading Steam's registry entries and library files, or uses the folder you set in Settings.
• Downloads our client files from the Server and installs them into the Skyrim folder, and re-checks them before every launch. Files of ours that have changed are replaced. Original game files that our files replace are backed up under a DaedricData folder inside the game folder.
• Writes the game's plugin load order (Plugins.txt, after backing up the previous one) and a client settings file containing your player number, a per-launch session token and your voice and key binds.
• Moves aside, and records where they went, files that would break the build: another server's launcher folder, SkyrimPlatform plugins we did not ship, and a short list of files known to crash the game. Mods of your own that are not part of the collection are disabled only if you agree when the Launcher asks. These steps move files; they do not delete them.
• Puts back stock game files that another server's launcher moved out of the Data folder, and clears a stale Creation Club catalogue file when it would crash the game.
• Checks the game version. If Steam has updated Skyrim past the version we support, the Launcher offers a guided downgrade: you enter the download commands in Steam's own console, and the Launcher verifies the downloaded files, copies them into place and backs up the files it replaces. The Launcher never asks for or handles your Steam login.
• Offers a recommended graphics profile that edits SkyrimPrefs.ini (with a backup and a revert button), and an optional Community Shaders mode. Neither is applied unless you choose it in Settings.
• Starts the game through the Skyrim Script Extender and watches whether it is still running.
• Hosts proximity voice while you play. Your microphone is captured only while you hold the push-to-talk key; the audio is sent to the voice server, which relays it to players near you in the world.
• Keeps itself up to date. It checks our server for new Launcher versions, downloads them in the background and installs them when you restart or close the Launcher.
• If a Daedric Online admin asks you to help diagnose a crash, you can turn on the crash watchdog in Settings. It downloads a small debugging tool from our server, attaches it to Skyrim, and writes full memory dumps of the game to your AppData folder when the game freezes or crashes. The dumps stay on your PC unless you choose to send them to us; they can contain anything the game had in memory at the time.
• Stores its own settings, logs and diagnostics under your Windows user profile (AppData).
• Offers Play other servers / singleplayer, which parks our files so the same Skyrim installation can run elsewhere, and Revert to Vanilla, which removes everything the Launcher installed and restores the backups it made.

The Launcher does not change Windows settings, security or firewall settings, your Steam settings or your audio device levels, and it does not keep running in the background after you close it, beyond finishing an update it has already downloaded. Some antivirus products flag the crash-watchdog tool, and occasionally the Launcher itself, because attaching a debugger to a game looks like malware behaviour; the Launcher never disables or reconfigures your antivirus.

5. Hardware identification, bans and alternate accounts

To keep banned players out and to detect alternate accounts, the Launcher identifies the computer it runs on. Each time you press Play, and when your account is first registered, it reads the following values from Windows:

• the motherboard's SMBIOS UUID and serial number, and the BIOS serial number;
• the serial number of one physical disk;
• the hardware address (MAC) of one physical network adapter;
• the Windows installation identifier (MachineGuid) and the Windows hardware-configuration identifier;
• and, when Windows reports that it is running in a virtual machine, the name of the virtual-machine vendor.

Each value is turned into a one-way hash on your own PC, using a fixed key, before anything is sent. Only those hashes leave your computer, and placeholder values that manufacturers ship on many identical boards are discarded. We do not receive the underlying serial numbers and have no way to turn a hash back into one. The Server also records the internet (IP) address you connect from, as described in the Privacy Notice.

The Server uses these identifiers to:

• enforce machine bans, which apply to a computer regardless of which account is used on it;
• detect accounts that appear to share a computer or a network, and report that to staff as evidence to weigh, not as proof; two independent identifiers must agree before accounts are linked;
• recognise a computer across a reinstall of the Launcher.

You should know three consequences. A machine ban affects everyone who plays from that computer, including other members of your household; if you share a PC with someone who has been banned, contact staff. If the Launcher cannot read at least one identifying value, for example because security software blocks it, the Server may refuse your login until it can; staff can help. And these identifiers are read on your own computer, so they are not tamper-proof: you must not spoof, block or alter them, edit the Launcher's files or settings to misrepresent your identity, or use virtual machines or similar techniques to evade a ban. Doing so is itself grounds for a ban.

6. Client integrity, cheating and exploits

Everyone plays on the same build. Before each launch the Launcher verifies our client files against the Server's manifest and tells the Server which build it is running; when the game connects, the Client reports which plugins it actually loaded. The Server may refuse or disconnect clients that do not match, and it may treat a mismatch as evidence of tampering.

You must not:

• modify, replace or remove our client files, plugins or scripts, or inject code into the game or the Launcher;
• alter, replay or forge network traffic between the Client and the Server, or read or edit the game's memory to gain information or an advantage;
• use cheats, hacks, trainers, macros, bots, auto-clickers or any automation of play;
• load SkyrimPlatform plugins we did not ship, or use another server's launcher on the same installation while ours manages it;
• abuse bugs or exploits. If you find one, report it with /ticket in game or in #bug-reports on Discord, and do not use it in the meantime.

Mods outside the collection are unsupported: the Launcher may ask to disable them, and anything that changes gameplay, gives an advantage over other players or interferes with the Client may be treated as cheating.

7. Conduct in the world and in the community

The full rules are posted in #rules on our Discord and may be updated there. In summary, you agree to:

• Earn it in the world. Reputation, rank, wealth, factions and legend are won through play, not claimed in Discord.
• Stay in character where it counts. The game world is in character by default; keep out-of-character talk to the OOC channels.
• No metagaming. Do not use knowledge from Discord, streams or other out-of-character sources to drive your character's actions.
• Respect the systems. PvP, robbery, cuffs, death, respawn and looting are decided by the server's mechanics; do not force outcomes the game did not grant, and do not circumvent them.
• Keep it Skyrim. Stay lore-plausible unless an event sanctions otherwise.
• Consent and comfort. Respect an out-of-character "no", fade to black, and keep extreme or mature content out of shared spaces.
• No harassment, hate speech, slurs, threats or discrimination of any kind. No doxxing or sharing anyone's personal information.
• No advertising other servers, no spam, no scams, and no impersonating staff.
• Respect staff and game-master decisions, and appeal through the proper channel rather than arguing moderation in public.
• One community, one standard: a ban on Discord is a ban in the game, and vice versa.

8. Moderation and enforcement

Staff (the administrator and the game masters) may warn, kick, mute, restrict, freeze, rename or move characters, remove content, and temporarily or permanently ban accounts and machines. To investigate a report they may inspect an account's characters, location, inventory, spells, property, activity logs and linked-account reports. Staff actions are recorded in our moderation logs.

A ban from the game is mirrored to our Discord, and a Discord ban is mirrored to the game. Moderation decisions are made at our discretion; we aim to tell you the reason and, for a temporary ban, the duration. To appeal, use the appeal route described in our Discord, or write to us at the contact address below.

Because the Service is free, our remedy for a breach is to restrict or end your access. We do not owe compensation for lost play time, characters or items when we do so.

9. Characters, items and progress

Characters, items, gold, property, mastery and every other form of in-game progress are features of the Service. They have no real-world value, are not your property, and may be changed, rebalanced, moved, reset or removed as the game develops. In particular:

• The Service is in open alpha. Bugs, rollbacks, wipes and resets are possible, and we may change any system at any time.
• We keep backups of the world, but we cannot promise to restore lost progress.
• Deleting a character is a soft deletion; staff may be able to restore it for a time, but we do not guarantee it.
• The number of characters an account can hold depends on its supporter status.
• You may not sell or buy characters, items, gold or accounts for real money, or advertise such trades.

10. Supporting the server

Playing is free. Supporting the running costs is optional and is handled entirely by Patreon, under Patreon's own terms. A supporter role assigned to your Discord account grants in-game benefits, such as additional character slots. Support is a voluntary contribution, not a purchase of goods or services from us: benefits may change or end as the game develops, we do not process payments, and we cannot issue refunds. Refund questions go to Patreon.

11. Content you create

Character names, chat, voice, letters, notice-board posts, ticket text, bug reports and anything else you create through the Service are yours. So that we can run the Service, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to store, display, relay, moderate and reproduce that content within the Service for as long as it is needed, including showing it to other players and keeping copies in moderation records. You must have the right to use anything you submit, and it must follow the rules above. We may remove content, and staff may rename characters whose names break the rules.

12. Software, ownership and third parties

The Launcher, the game logic on the Server, our own plugins, assets and website are the property of Daedric Online and its contributors. You may use them only to play on the Service. You may not redistribute our client files, run your own server with our content, or reverse-engineer the Launcher or the Client except where the law or an open-source licence allows it.

The Client is built on the open-source SkyMP project and SkyrimPlatform, licensed under the GNU GPL and AGPL version 3. Those components remain under their own licences, which give you rights the Terms do not take away, and the corresponding source code for the versions we distribute is available on request. The mods in the collection belong to their authors and are used under their own permissions; see our credits page. The Elder Scrolls and Skyrim are trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc.

13. Privacy

How we handle your information is set out in our Privacy Notice. In short, we hold your Discord user ID and display name, the roles you hold in our Discord, your player number and installation identifier, the hashed device identifiers described above, a small number of recent IP addresses, your characters and their gameplay data, connection and build-verification logs, moderation records, and whatever you send us in tickets and reports. Ordinary chat and proximity voice are relayed to nearby players and are not recorded by us; other players may, of course, record their own screens. We do not sell personal information. Contact details for privacy requests are in the notice.

14. Availability, changes and ending the Service

We may change, suspend, restart or shut down any part of the Service at any time, with or without notice, and we may end or restrict your access if you breach the Terms or the rules. You may stop using the Service at any time. When your access ends, we may keep the information described in the Privacy Notice for as long as it is needed to enforce bans and keep moderation records.

15. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

The Service is provided free of charge, as is and as available, without warranties of any kind. The Launcher modifies files inside your Skyrim installation and the Client changes how the game runs. We cannot promise that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or compatible with your hardware, your other mods or your save games, and we recommend keeping your own backups.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of the Service, including loss of data, save games, mods, game files, progress or play time, or any indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in the Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for wilful misconduct. If you are a consumer, you keep every right that the law of your country gives you and that cannot be waived by agreement.

16. Changes to the Terms

We may update the Terms as the Service develops. Each version carries a number and a date, shown at the top of this document. When we make a change that matters to you, the Launcher will ask you to read and accept the new version before you can play again; smaller corrections take effect when they are published on the website. Continuing to use the Service after a change means you accept it.

17. Governing law

The Terms are governed by the laws of the country in which the administrator of Daedric Online is established, except where the mandatory consumer-protection law of your country of residence applies. If you have a dispute with us, please contact us first so that we can try to resolve it informally.

18. Contact

Questions about the Terms, appeals and privacy requests can be sent to [email protected] or raised in our Discord community.

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