Honour

Honour is a style of gameplay adopted by certain clans as a means of ensuring fairness during an engagement with an adversary.

The Wilderness Guardians have always maintained a code of honour.

Universal Honour Code

Historically, a clan was considered honourable if they would abide by a set of de-facto rules of gameplay known as the Honour Code or Code of Honour. In the early years of RuneScape the vast majority of clans upheld the code, though over time more and more clans which chose not to were established and deemed No-Honour or NH. The code itself is a gentleman's agreement, and elements were subject to the preferences of the entire clan world, with many clans having their own interpretation. The code itself also adapted over the years as aspects which once were considered dishonourable became overwhelmingly common, such as a player dying during a fight, re-gearing and returning to the battle.

Modern Aspects

As a general rule of thumb, clans considered honourable will generally avoid taking part in the following:

• Breaking Terms of War - the act of disobeying any pre-determined fight rules such as boundaries, gear and items.
• Law and Rule-Breaking - the act of breaking Jagex's code of conduct (such as scamming or hacking enemy players' accounts), or breaking real-world laws (such as leaking enemy players' personal information (doxing) or orchestrating Denial of Service attacks (DDoSing))
• Spying - the act of sending a player to join a rival clan solely to feed or leak information and intelligence.
• Welfaring/Ragging - the act of fighting in cheap gear such as just black dragonhides, or one-iteming.
• Backstabbing - the act of attacking members of your own clan/team/group.

Debatable Aspects

There is currently no consensus on whether taking part in the following is dishonourable or not:

• Flaming - the act of verbally abusing an opponent in-game in an attempt to demoralise them. While still considered somewhat dishonourable, this has become overwhelmingly common between clans in Old-School RuneScape, with almost every active clan engaging in it.
• Multiclanning - the act of a single player joining multiple clans at once. While many clans still retain rules against multiclanning, the prominence of teams and the blurring of the distinction between teams and clans makes this somewhat difficult to enforce.
• Camping - the act of targetting and constantly attacking a single player as often as possible. This is sometimes considered player harrasment by Jagex, but occurs frequently in multi-combat fights without consequence.
• Skull Tricking - the act of tricking an unskulled player (usually a PvMer) into obtaining a skull so that they can be killed for valuable items. Skull tricking is a frequently-debated topic within the wider RuneScape community.

Defunct Aspects

Historical and now-redundant aspects of the honour code included avoiding taking part in the following:

• RPKing - the act of attacking players in the Wilderness who are not there for PvP, such as PvMers, skillers and clue hunters. Over the years it has become increasingly common for clans to simply attack any non-friendly player on sight.
• Praying - the act of using prayers, specifically overhead prayers such as Protect from Melee during a fight. This was later reduced to praying while in single-combat only being considered dishonorable, before falling from the honour code entirely.
• Object Hugging - the act of maneuvering around in-game furniture to avoid an enemy's attacks. Hugging was a tactic developed by the more innovative clans around 2004, and many spoke out against it. Within 6 months of RuneScape 2's release, almost every clan was using this tactic and it has since become a staple for multi PvP.
• Returning - the act of a player dying during a fight, re-gearing, and returning to continue fighting. This was popularised by Damage Incoporated in 2005, and has since become an essential part of both planned and unplanned fights.
• Dragging - the act of running away from the main battle when under attack. This does not include breaking the boundaries of a planned fight, which would come under breaking the Terms of War. Dragging was popularised by Dark Slayers.
• Account Sharing - the act of sharing account(s) between multiple players within a clan, which was formerly against the RuneScape rules. This was pioneered by several clans including Adelais and initially recieved backlash, but has since become common with Jagex turning a blind eye to it and its overwhelming usefulness in aspects such as the Deadman tournaments.
• Single Hugging - the act of attacking an enemy in a multi-combat zone from within a single-combat zone, reducing the enemy's ability to retaliate to effectively none. Historically, most clans fought between Annakarl and the giant spider hill in deep Wilderness, and fleeing to a single-combat zone was considered retreating and dishonourable. This has since become a popular tactic, notably at the entrance of the Revenant Caves.
• Retreating - the act of ending a fight by either running to a single or safe zone, logging or teleporting out. Honourable clans were expected to fight to the death, but most clans now choose to leave when overwhelmed and try avoid having their members take a final death. Teleporting out is especially common in the Revenant Caves.
• Sniping - the act of one player or group of players choosing to attack other targets other than their clan's main pile. If the entire clan did not have a pile, it was considered "mass-sniping". This was originally considered annoying and frowned upon, though sniper caps started to be introduced in planned fights, and it has since become a legitimate tactic.
• Crashing - the act of engaging with two or more clans already in battle. Interrupting a fight was originally considered dishonourable, but eventually started to apply only to planned fights rather than run-ins. Today, many clans will often call their allies to aid them in a fight.
• Tagging - the act of hitting enemies sporadically in a single-combat area so they cannot get kills. This differs from Player-Jumping (PJing), where the aim is to interfere in a two-player battle. Both have become exceptionally common.
• PJing - the act of Player-Jumping which has become very common within single-combat, as multiple people from a clan will take turns dealing damage to a single target.
• Luring - the act of tricking a player to enter a dangerous area such as the Wilderness. While still against Jagex's code of conduct, the ability to perform this has reduced drastically over time. Historically, this also applied to luring players from a single-combat zone into multi.

WG Honour Code

The Honour Code (or Code of Honour) of the Wilderness Guardians in effect today contains the following provisions:

• Guardians must not verbally abuse another player (Flaming)
• This clan will enver crash a planned fight (Crashing)
• We do not spy on other clans (Spying)
• Guardians must adhere to the agreed rules of a planned fight (Breaking Terms of War)
• Guardians must not flee a battle (Retreating)
• All members must wear appropriate PKing equipment (Welfaring/Ragging)

There are also two optional provisions, which members are not required to follow:

• We do not kill non-PKers in the wilderness (ARPKing)
• Share loot from your kills (Splitting)

History

The original Honour Code of WG was combined with the general clan rules, in a document titled The Rules and Beliefs of the Wilderness Guardians (shortened to Adopted Clan Rules & Belifs). It was outlined on the clan's AvidGamers Website and contained 7 provisions:

• Rule 1 on ARPKing, which prohibited members killing unskulled players.
• Rule 2 which prohibited multiclanning, with the exception of Clan Representatives.
• Rule 3 which prohibited disobeying orders from members of a higher rank.
• Rule 4 which prohibited scamming.
• Rule 5 which outlined the right to voice opinions, but prohibited swearing, racism, sexism, discrimination, insulting individual(s), irrelevant content, advertising and adult material.
• Rule 6 which prohibited hacking RuneScape-related websites.
• Rule 7 which prohibited breaking the RuneScape rules.

The document was later split, separating the rules from additional beliefs, with an 8th rule added prohibiting spamming of the Forums. With the release of the clan's Flash Website, the Honour Code continued to be interlaced with general clan rules, but updated accordingly with modern interpretations such as prohibiting the hacking of player accounts. An interesting development was the addition to allow luring - a debated aspect within the RuneScape community. However, His Lordship deemed it acceptable to lure a solo player from within a single-combat zone into multi to be acceptable.

Controvery over ARPKing arose after December 10th 2007, and WG's ARPKing code would change multiple times and occasionally fall out of use.

Following The Reckoning in 2011 the Honour Code of WG was finally distinguished from the other clan rules, and given its own separate topic on the forums. This was split into three sections: the code during clan Raids and PK events, the code when PKing with another clan, and the code while PKing solo or with a team of friends. Provisions included:

• Prohibiting breaking the ARPKing policy.
• Prohibiting crashing.
• Prohibiting welfaring, but allowing 1-iteming while solo PKing against enemies of the clan.
• Allowing reteating from a clan which is clearly overpowering WG.
• Allowing the use of a Ring of Life on PKing trips.
• Allowing luring but prohibiting backstabbing.
• Allowing tagging if the opponents are also tagging.
• Prohibiting PJing.
• Allowing retreating/teleporting/running/logging when solo PKing.

In October of 2011, two additions were made by Vio which stipulated prohibiting both breaking Terms of War and Single Hugging, and clarifications were made in regards to retreating and teleporting, which where prohibited in fights unless called by an official. The ARPK policy also recieved a re-work, increasing the criteria for acceptable targets to include players with combat weapons, with a clan or team, who attacks a WG member first, who requests to be killed, or is clearly using botting software.