1. Global Rules

1.1. Behavior

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, he/ she may receive penalty points. Also, teams risk league kicks, bans and expulsions from ESL competitions.

1.1.1. Insults

All insults that occur in connection with the ESL will be punished. This mainly includes insults during a match but also insults within the ESL website (forums, match comments, player comments, support- and protest pages, etc.). Insults via IRC, ICQ, e-mail or other media may be penalized, providing a connection to the ESL is given and provable.

1.1.2. 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) will be penalized.

1.1.3. Unwanted contents

It is forbidden to publicize offensive, pornographic or violence-glorifying content (images, links, texts) which violates applicable law. Furthermore you are not allowed to upload copyright protected images without the agreement of the holder of rights.

1.1.4. Unsportsmanlike behavior

In order to secure a well-regulated and pleasant course of game, it is inevitable that all players act in a sportsmanlike and fair way. A breach of this rule will be penalized with penalty points.

1.1.5. Fraud

Every kind of economic fraud will be reported to the police (forgery and defalcation).

1.1.6. Abusing bugs on the website

Any abuse of bugs on the ESL website is forbidden and can lead to legal steps.

1.1.7. Exclusion from the ESL

In extreme cases a user can be excluded from the ESL.

1.2. Privacy of letters

All contents of tickets (protest and support) and admin e-mails are strictly confidential. The publication of such contents is not allowed without permission on the site of ESL.

1.3. Accounts

User and team accounts are not transferable. It is especially forbidden to trade them on "eBay" or similar pages. The owner of a team account is the leader or the person who registered the account. If a user do not want to use his account anymore for some reason, he needs to open a support ticket especially if he wants to create a new account (which is forbidden).

1.3.1. Registration

Every player is allowed to have exactly one user account on the ESL. You need to be at least 6 years old to register an ESL account.

1.3.2. Multiaccounts

It is not allowed to possess multiple ESL accounts. Multiaccounting will be penalized according to the scope of penalties on the bottom of this page.

1.3.3. Account data

The user obliges that all information, which have been entered during the registration and the usage of the ESL, are given to the best of one's knowledge and belief. False information can be penalized with penalties and barrages.

1.3.4. Games

Every league participant must own a legal copy of every game they play. If it is proven that a player is using a pirate or illegal copy, he/she will be immediately removed from the league and banned from the website. Unless otherwise stated in each ladder, the latest version of each game (update patch) should be used for matches.

1.3.5. Nicknames, Teamnames und URL aliases

Turtle entertainment reserves the right to edit Nicknames and/or URL aliases, if the user fails to comply with the following requirements.

Nicknames/aliases are forbidden if they:

1. are protected by third-party rights as long as the user has no written authorisation

1. resemble or if they are identical to a brand or trademark, no matter whether it has been registered or not

1. refer to personalities

1. consist of names of Turtle Entertainment products

1. resemble or if they are identical to the names of Turtle Entertainment employees

1. are nothing but gibberish

Apart from that any nicknames/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. Names of real persons must not be used as nicknames as long as it is not the users own name proven by the trusted status.

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.

The requirements mentioned above also apply to team names.

1.4. Coverage rights

The ESL reserves exclusive right to the coverage of Electronic Sports League matches. This includes all forms of transmission, including IRC Bots, Shoutcast-streams, HLTV and ESL-TV Broadcasts. The Electronic Sports League 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.

2. Penalties

If a player or team disregards or violates one or more of the legal rules of the league, this can have various consequences depending on the severity of the offence. The ESL possesses an official catalogue of penalty points according to which points are given for each offence.

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:

1. After obtaining 4 penalty points: 1 week barrage
2. After obtaining 9 penalty points: 2 weeks barrage
3. After obtaining 10 penalty points: 1 month barrage

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. 1-2 penalty points: 2 months
2. 3-6 penalty points: 3 months
3. 7 penalty points: 6 months
4. 12 penalty points: 2 years (see cheating)

Insults result in the following penalties:

1. Written warning for the first offence
2. 1 Penalty point + 1 week barrage for the second offence, or first serious offence
3. 2 Penalty points + 2 weeks barrage for the third offence, or second serious offence
4. 3 Penalty points + 3 weeks barrage for subsequent offences

The admins reserve the right to give additional penalties.

2.1. Scale of penalties