1. Global Rules

1.1. General

The league administration has the right to decide outside or even against the rulebook in special cases to guarantee fairplay.

1.2. Conduct

All players are asked to behave in a humane way towards other competitors, and to any member of the administration team; treat others as you would like to be treated! If a player is found guilty of misconduct by an administrator, they may receive penalty points. Also, teams risk league kicks, bans and expulsions from ESL competitions.

1.2.1. Insults and offensive behaviour

All insults that happen during an ESL-Match or on the ESL platform, may be punished. This includes ingame chat of the corresponding game, guestbooks, forums, Match- or News-Comments, ESL Messages, Gather-Chat, Match-Chat. Insults that happen on external messengers are not taken into account.

Penalties are no longer limited to Penalty Points and barrages, but may also contain the following depending on the incident, location and frequency of the insult:

• Penalty Points & barrages are given for incidents within ESL-Matches

• Insults or inappropriate behaviour within Comments or other options for contacting a player, will result in a Forum- & Comment ban

• Incidents in Gathers are penalized with a Gather-ban and in repeated cases with a League-Ban for the specific game

Severe incidents including, but not limited to the following points, may be punished in other ways:

• Extremist statements
• Threat of violence
• Sexual harassment
• Stalking
• severe insults
• pornographic linkings

These incidents can also be punished in VS-Matches. The decision is with the Admin-Staff.

The right to appeal is only with the injured.

1.2.2. Spamming

The excessive posting of futile, annoying or offensive contributions within the ESL is considered as spamming. Spamming on the website (forums, match comments, player comments, support- and protest pages, etc) is penalized as follows:

• Written warning for the first offence
• 1 penalty point + 1 week comment ban for the second spamming incident.
• 2 penalty points + 2 week comment ban for the third spamming incident.
• 3 penalty points + 3 week comment ban for the fourth and any further spamming incidents.

The decisive factor therefore is the amount of active penalties for spamming.

1.3. Matches, competitions, meetings

In all competitions there should be a fair playing field for all players.

Every encounter, whether a Gather, ladder match or other competition must be played according to the rules until it is complete and the result on the ESL page entered, or at events the result sheet is completed. Any encounter that did not take place, should be deleted. Matches will be played only by admins to delete exceptions. Matches that did not take place will be considered fake matches and will be punished.

It is not allowed for participants to bet on matches in their own competition. Betting against yourself (in team leagues: against your own team) will get you (in team leagues: your team) disqualified and the betting player banned for at least.

1.4. Game / client

In general, all programs which are not part of the original game, including custom-data and modifications, are not allowed in any ESL game. All external voice programs are allowed (e.g. Teamspeak, Ventrilo etc.). Scripts and changes to the game's configuration are allowed, unless they are partly or completely forbidden by the league specific rules. Programs that provide an advantage during game play (e.g. drivers that allow the removing of walls) are forbidden. Any programs that change the game itself are forbidden.

1.5. Game Coverage

The ESL reserves exclusive right to the coverage of ESL matches. This includes all forms of transmission, including IRC Bots, Shoutcast-streams, HLTV and ESL-TV Broadcasts. The ESL can assign the coverage rights of a match or of several matches to a third party or to the actual players themselves. In this case, terms and conditions would have to be arranged with the ESL management before the match.

In general, the ESL will contact any player or team if they wish to broadcast one of their matches. If no contact is made, individual players are allowed to arrange their own broadcasts. Should the game take place on a server that ESL administrators have no direct access to, it must be made sure that enough slots are available for the according clients.

1.6. Internal Texts

All texts written in either protest or support tickets, or written by the administrators to members of a certain league or tournament, cannot be published without the permission of the ESL.

1.7. Language

The official language of this national section is English. All players should be able to communicate in English and to do so.

2. Fraud/deception

2.1. Deception

The attempt to deceive admins or other players with wrong or fake statements, information or data will not be tolerated.

2.2. Other unauthorized offences

Including but not limited to the abusing of bugs in the website.

These penalties are at the discretion of the responsible admin and are penalized according to severity.

2.3. Cheating

All forms of cheating in ESL matches are forbidden and will be penalized by the ESL.

Players found cheating outside of the ESL may be barraged on the ESL depending on the evidence available. Note, we do not accept publicly submitted demo or screenshot evidence in these cases.

Should it become known to the ESL administrators that any form of cheating was used to the advantage of a player or a team during an ESL match, the ESL reserves the right to punish them to the full extent of the rules available. By breaking any rule a player risks being barred or completely excluded from a specific league or from all leagues. This also includes their team.

2.4. Bypassing of Wire Anti-Cheat

The use of programs (or "hacks") or other methods to circumvent, modify or in any way manipulate Wire Anti-Cheat is forbidden. Any use of such programs or methods will be punished as cheating. Even testing of such programs or methods in a match not happening within the ESL will be punished.

3. Accounts

3.1. Player

An ESL Account can only be created if the user is at least six years old. When registering, each player must provide an up-to-date and correct email address and it is the player’s responsibility to keep this up-to-date. To play in a ladder, a method of contact must be available and visible to all users in your player profile.

Also, the permanent residence must be chosen according to the country he/she is currently living in. Should the country differ from his/her nationality, the player can add an additional flag in the setting.

3.1.1. Multiaccounts

Each player in the ESL must only have one account! If a player can not access his account and then creates a new one, then he/she must write a support ticket explaining in detail the reason for not being able to access the account.

3.1.2. Nicknames, Team Names and URL Aliases

We reserve the right to edit Nicknames and/or URL aliases, if they fail to comply with the following requirements.

Nicknames/aliases are forbidden if they:

• are protected by third-party rights and the user has no written permission
• resemble or if they are identical to a brand or trademark, no matter whether it has been

registered or not

• resemble or if they are identical to a real person other than themselves
• use names of Turtle Entertainment products
• resemble or if they are identical to the names of Turtle Entertainment employees
• are nonsense

In addition to the above, any nicknames/team names/aliases that are purely commercial (e.g. product names), defamatory, pejorative, offensive, vulgar, obscene, anti-Semitic, inciting hatred, or offending against good manners are forbidden. Using alternative spelling, gibberish or wrong spelling in order to avoid the requirements mentioned above is illegal. We reserve the right to extend, change, exchange or delete these rules if necessary.

3.1.3. Photo

A player's photo must clearly show the face of the player, for adding anything else (graphics, other people, other parts of body, etc.) please use the logo function. The photo must always be up-to-date, manipulation of your appearance is prohibited. For anything else please use the gallery. Photos with weapons are not allowed!

3.1.4. Country

A player's country must be set to their country of residence. Deliberately faking the country of residence is punishable.

If a player's country of residence is changed in order to avoid the Trusted (Playercard) league restriction in order to join a ladder, they will punished with 2 penalty points. The player is barred for one week. If the player does so and plays in a team match, the team will get 3 penalty points and the match is deleted.

3.1.5. Nationality

A player's nationality must be set to their nationality that is proven by a current passport. Deliberately faking nationality is punishable.

3.2. Teams

A team's name does not have to be unique, but the ESL reserves the right to refuse clans with the same or similar names as a well-known clan (e.g. If you named your team “Schroet Kommando" or “Schroet Commando” etc, that would not be allowed).

Names which are restricted by law will not be accepted and will be deleted and punished with penalty points if found. Also, names which go against all forms of etiquette and good manors will not be accepted.

If a team deletes its account because of a certain amount of active penalty points and registers a new account, the penalty points will be transferred to the new account if the team rejoins the same ladder. Furthermore 1 additional penalty will be added for the attempted deception.

The logo must represent the team and have some reference to the team's name or to the team's short handle. Copyrighted logos, or logos which go against etiquette and good manors will not be accepted.

3.2.1. Changing team names

A team can change its name at any time. This also applies when a team is restructured.

Changing a team's name in order to fool other teams is forbidden. Extremely long names, or consistent changing of team names is prohibited and can be punished with penalty points.

3.2.2. Team nationality

In general, during matches of ESL national sections, at all times in-game a team must have more than 50% of its players that are residing in or have the nationality of the country or countries that the national section represents.

3.2.3. Players in team

A player may only play for one team in a tournament or league. Participants in an EPS may not also play in the EAS underneath it.

In tournaments or leagues that require Premium or Trusted then only players with this status are eligible to play. In general players that are marked inactive or honorary on a team page are not eligible to play.

If a homepage is required for a tournament or league then a every player that is on the team account must also be on the homepage.

4. Penalty points

If a player or team disregards or violates one or more of the rules of the league, this can have various consequences depending on the severity of the offence.

As a rule, the penalty points are deleted after a certain period of time. There are different clearance periods depending on the amount of points:

• 1-2 penalty points: 2 months
• 3-6 penalty points: 3 months
• 7 penalty points: 6 months
• 12 penalty points: 2 years

In addition to penalty points, players and teams may be barred (also known as frozen, locked and barraged) if they have accumulated a certain amount of penalty points:

• After obtaining 4 penalty points: 1 week barrage
• After obtaining 8 penalty points: 2 weeks barrage
• After obtaining 10 penalty points: 1 month barrage

Barred players and teams must finish playing their open matches. They cannot challenge nor be challenged. Barred players may not take part in team matches with exception of 2on2 teams.

Penalties (penalty points/barrages/bans) given on ESL subplatforms (e.g. ESL Europe, ESL America) are valid on all ESL subplatforms.

5. Participation in prize tournaments

Unless otherwise explicitly permitted, it is not allowed for employees of Turtle Entertainment, its subsidiaries or partners, or employees that are in some way connected to a respective tournament including sponsors, publishers or game developers, to participate in prize winning tournaments or qualification for prize winning tournaments.

Prize winning means any tournaments with physical (e.g. hardware) or money prizes. Tournaments with only virtual ESL awards, such as ESL Premium or awards are exempt.

If in doubt, please contact support.