Forum Rules & Other Things You Should Know

[Tecumseh]

GENERAL GOA.COM RULES

Behaviour Charter (http://www.goa.com/i18n/footer/en/behaviour.html) & General Conditions of the Use of Service (http://www.goa.com/i18n/footer/en/terms.html)



GENERAL READABILITY RULES

You will at all time abide by the rules set in the User Agreement and the Forum Rules. By having a GOA account a user agrees implicitly to read and respect the Forum Rules and User’s Agreement. Failure to do so or ignorance of the rules will in no case be accepted as an excuse for bad or inappropriate behaviour.
You will always respect GOA staff and will refrain from contesting their decisions outside of the dedicated channels.
You will always respect your fellow forum users and do your best to be polite to them. You will also respect their right to have their own opinions and express these within the limits defined here.
You will not troll (i.e. post derogatory messages about sensitive subjects to bait users into responding).
You will not flame (i.e. post messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting).
You will not flood (i.e. post empty, repetitive or nonsensical messages).
When starting a new thread, you will always try to find the most relevant forum or sub-forum, so as to avoid being off-topic. Accordingly, you will not post in a language other than the one the forum you have chosen is dedicated to.
You will always ensure maximum readability of your posts by using standard grammar, syntax, punctuation and spelling. SMS-type spelling or abbreviations are strictly forbidden.
You will always use descriptive and pertinent titles for the threads you start.
You will refrain from diverting a discussing from its original subject.


LIST OF UNWANTED CONTENT

The Goa forums are family-oriented and in consequence a number of topics are banned:

You will not post erotic or pornographic content of any kind (images and texts alike).
You will not discuss pirated software or cultural content (such as music, videos or e-books), nor will you post links to websites discussing such things. This includes also all Peer-2-Peer web sites and software.
You will not discuss hacking or cheating. This includes discussing potential security loopholes on www.goa.com and/or discussing ways of harming or prejudicing GOA.
You will not post racist/xenophobic/bigoted/sexist/homophobic or generally intolerant and derogatory contents.
You will not discuss ways of physically or psychologically harming others (or yourself).
You will not discuss the distribution, handling or manufacture of drugs in any way.
You will not post ads or commercial links of any kind. This includes any form of begging and/or unauthorised fundraising on the forums.
You will not post anybody’s real-life personal details, be they your own. This includes a person’s surname, address, phone number and picture.
You will not post propaganda of any sort.
You will not try to promote a positive image of any act of illegal nature, be it petty offences or major crimes.


IN GAME RULES

Naturally, all restrictions listed in the Behaviour Charter and the General Conditions of the Use of Service apply in game, but one should bear in mind that the following behaviours and practices will invite sanctions that can go as far as a permanent ban from the GOA.COM platforms.

Account Sharing. Sharing your account details with another person is not acceptable, even if they are family members. This includes password, email address, Login ID & any kind of personal information that might be used to access your account. This is not accepted, as it may lead to accounts being damaged or stolen, or may give that account an unfair advantage over other players.
Free Killing. Free Killing involves playing numerous games with another player, having agreed beforehand that one player will generally win, and one player will generally lose, with the intentions of quickly increasing gold or rank on one account. This is not how our games were intended to be played, and gives an unfair advantage over regular players.
Using third party software. Using any cheating tool, modifying our game files, or attempting to alter servers or events is strictly forbidden.
Using formulas or calculators. The use of formulas or calculators to aid a player is strictly forbidden. Our games were intended to be played as they are, and no single player should have any external advantage over another.
Advertising formulas or calculators. Discussing/promoting formulas or calculators as gaming aids is strictly forbidden.
Advertising 3rd Party Software. Advertising any cheating tools on our servers, in any way, is not tolerated. This includes the naming of characters.
Providing a false report. Willingly providing a false report about another player is not tolerated. This may constitute an accusation of cheating, hacking harassment, etc.
Impersonating GOA Staff. Impersonating GOA staff is pretending to be an employee of GOA, for whatever reason. This also applies to the naming of characters.
Perturbing GOA Events. Creating fake rooms, misbehaving on the chat or any other kind of misbehaviour during events will lead to sanctions.
Swearing and inappropriate language.This includes, but is not restricted to, racist/xenophobic/bigoted/sexist/homophobic or generally intolerant and derogatory speech. This also includes the naming of your character.
Flaming. Flaming is defined as writing messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting.
Flooding. This includes, but is not limited to, posting repetitive or nonsensical messages.
Advertising. This includes promoting any other product or service (through your writings or the naming of your character) on our servers.
Harassment. Harassment can take many forms, including sending constant friend requests, always speaking to a player without their consent, constant game invites.

The GOA Team

[Tecumseh]

THE BASICS OF FORUM BROWSING

How do I create an account on GOA.COM?

To create an account on GOA.COM, you just need to fill out the information on the registration page of the website and when you receive the confirmation e-mail click the link! Once you do those things you are all set to download the games and get to the fun stuff.


How can I protect myself from being hacked?

Check for hacking tools with vaccine programs before running the game.
Do not share your personal information (ID / Password / email). We are not responsible for any loss from this mistake. GOA.COM will never ask for your personal information over the web or in-game. If you see anybody asking for this information pretending as the GM or hacking specialist please take a screenshot and report to us.
Do not share your account or visit sites asking for your ID/Password. Any loss from these actions is not the responsibility of GOA.COM.
Do not open any suspicious emails or accept invitations from unknown users on MSN messenger.


How can I change my name in-game?

You can't change your nickname. If harassed, you can report the incident by using the contact Customer Support function on our web page. Please always try to settle the problem with the concerned player before you issue a complaint. If you cannot manage to discuss the matter with the player, then report the incident directly to the Customer Support team. Your complaint must be legitimate and accurate.

Always give us the following information:
- name of your character
- name of the offending player
- nature of the harassment
- a short summary of what happened
- extracts from the chat.log and/or screenshots

The final decision always belongs to the customer support which will decide the actions to be taken according to the results of its investigation. For more details please see the Code of Behaviour.


I forgot my User ID or password, what can I do?

If you have lost or forgotten your password don't worry. When you try to log-in you should find a prompt marked Forgotten Password. Simply fill out the details as prompted and an e-mail will be sent to the address you registered on the site with.
Please remember that we will never ask you for your password.


I can't sign in to my account.

Check to make sure your user name and password are spelled correctly and that Caps Lock isn't on. Check to make sure your internet connection is working.

If neither of these works please contact the help desk.


Someone is acting inappropriately, how do I report them?

At GOA.COM, we hope that each user will treat every other user with proper respect. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way.

We ask that you take a moment to review the conduct policies to be certain that another user is in violation of it. We take these matters very seriously. You may view these policies by clicking on the Terms of Use link at the bottom of GOA.com web page.

There are multiple ways to report another user. To file a full report, go to the FAQ to the "Ask a Question" menu item. Fill out the form on that page and please be as specific as possible. The more details you provide us, the better we can handle the situation. Also if you can include the Game ID of the abuser, what they were doing, and the timeframe it happened. To further help us a screen shot of the abuser would help as well.

We appreciate your concern for the community and apologize for any trouble you've experienced.

Rest assured we will take care of the situation.

[Tecumseh]

PHISHING ALERT

Hello,

Recently there have been multiple cases of phishing attempts on Gunbound and Pangya. Some of you might be aware of the ongoing problems of phishing on the internet in general and know what to do to avoid this problem, but then some of you might not be familiar with the problem. For this reason here is a recap of how to be safe.

What is Phishing anyway?

The word “phishing” describes the attempt of illegally gathering user details such as login names and passwords via seemingly harmless websites.

The faked target pages often possess fake names or descriptions that look similar to those of the official page or company. They look almost identical to the real websites which makes it almost impossible to distinguish them from each other without taking a closer look.

A common trick phishers use is to replace characters with those from another alphabet – for example the Cyrillic “a” looks identical to the Latin “a” but is handled as a different character. So http://www.goa.com with a Latin a would lead you to a different site than http://www.go?.com.

What can I do against that?

There’s only one answer really: be cautious!

GOA.COM employees will never ask you for your password.

If you’re not certain whether a page is trustworthy or not: don’t take the risk.

And last but not least: do not give your password to anyone, no matter how trustworthy you think he is.

The GOA Team

[Tecumseh]

NEW ACCESS POLICY

Originally posted on 19/12/2007 (LINK (http://forums.goa.com/showthread.php?t=1051))

Striving to offer an unforgettable gaming experience!

With the European licence for such amazing games as Gunbound, Kart n’ Crazy and Pangya, GOA.COM is dedicated to offering its members the best gaming experience possible. With this in mind GOA.COM has decided, amongst other things, to only guarantee European players access to its servers. This will allow us to focus our efforts and energy on our dedicated fan base.

Happy Holidays!

The GOA Team

[Tecumseh]

GOA.COM SIGNATURES 1

Originally posted on 21/01/2008 (LINK (http://forums.goa.com/showthread.php?t=2012))

We are glad to announce that we have launched the first stage of our GOA.COM signature programme. Log in and click here (http://forums.goa.com/signature.php) and find out more about our brand new signatures for Gunbound and Pangya, as well was instructions on how to use them.

In the future, there will be more ways to customize your looks on the forums!

Feel free to give us any feedback on the looks, the size or ideas on what statistics or records you'd want to see in your signature.

Have fun!



GOA.COM SIGNATURES 2

Originally posted on 29/01/2008 (LINK (http://forums.goa.com/showthread.php?t=2012))

Hello,

we have made a few changes to the signatures. You can now use your gOA.COM signature on other forums and websites. All you have to do is copy/paste the url of you signature, which looks like this:
http://forums.goa.com/sign.php/286872/2/signature.gif

To have your exact link, please check out USER CP > Miscellaneous > Signature. This should fix the problems related to phpBB and other forums blocking signatures.

Feedback and suggestions are of course most welcome :)

Have a nice day,

The GOA Team