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"No knowingly teaming with hackers": an Invaded legal analysis

"No knowingly teaming with hackers": an Invaded legal analysis

EnderEyeGames

Active member
EnderEyeGames
EnderEyeGames
Disclaimer: this is not legal advice, it's kinda just for fun, don't blame me if you get banned for following it, staff very often read rules as "what they feel it's supposed to be" (i.e. in a way that makes the rule much easier to punish you for than the text actually says), and that's collective policy, not any one staff member's mischief

On Invaded, you generally have the right to not report players when you see them breaking the rules. However, this global "Gameplay Rule" may be the only one that requires you to report a player in any case. To know what it means and how broadly it applies, we need to answer two questions:

- Who is a "hacker"?
- What constitutes "knowingly teaming"?

For the first question, you would, by default, apply the plain English meaning of the word. That would be "a person who exploits vulnerabilities in computer systems to cause harm" or something like that. Obviously, that's probably not what Invaded means by it. However, we can determine that Invaded uses the word "hacker" in the technical sense known to our industry (Minecraft). This meaning is "a person who is guilty of cheating (using a game mod that is not on the allowed mods list)".

We know this because Invaded, while it doesn't explicitly define the term "hacker", has rules like this (emphasis mine):
  • No hacking/cheating or using any disallowed clients (Allowed Clients)
  • No "fake hacking" meaning you purposely try to look like a hacker; this will carry the same punishment as an actual hacker. (e.g. sitting at spawn spinning around towards players and attacking to make it look like you have kill aura)
and that's consistent with the meaning of "hacker" known to Minecraft players. Of course, you probably intuitively knew that already. Even though you did, it's good to check that there's nothing implying that they get to expand the definition of "hacker" to all rule-breakers. The phrase "hacking/cheating" implies that hacking is cheating, and not any other offense, as does the example listed for "fake hacking".

Great, now we can write a clearer rule to follow:
"No knowingly teaming with any player who is using a non-allowed game modification",
but we still need to figure out what "knowingly teaming" is. Mddey ignored me when I asked, so we have to guess.

This rule was probably written by Zelkam himself back when KitPvP was Invaded's dominant gamemode, though it is a global gameplay rule. In KitPvP, "knowingly teaming" would literally mean collaborating with a player in PvP, which would obviously be an advantage if your teammate was hacking.

If that definition were what Invaded still used, even though Survival is now the dominant gamemode, you would not have to report "hackers" in any case. All it requires you to do is not collaborate with them in PvP. However, I strongly suspect that staff will enforce a broader definition.

The broadest reasonable definition I can think of for "knowingly teaming" is "knowingly gaining any sort of advantage from the actions of [a hacker]". If that's the definition currently used, you would be forced to remove this advantage in some way if, for example, you saw someone using an autoclicker at your mob farm. You would be gaining their AFK time for other farms as well as possibly the items from the mob farm itself depending on the design. You could remove your advantage by banning them from the claim or by reporting them for cheating. If you saw an autoclicking player and ignored them, staff could actually ban you for that.

If they instead use a slightly narrower but still reasonable definition, something like "knowingly collaborating with [a hacker] to gain any sort of advantage", you never need to actively do anything about hackers including reporting them. As long as you didn't ask the hacker to autoclick at your mob farm, it's your choice whether to report them, claim ban them, or leave them be. That would be consistent with the usual doctrine that reporting a player is a choice. [ETA: according to 7gtz, this is the official definition of "knowingly teaming" as of 12/30/2025]

I have no idea whether staff will use the broad definition or the narrower definition. I suspect they will prefer the broad definition because it allows them to punish more players, whether or not that's a good thing for the community. However, I'm sure some mod will reply with what they actually use.

The rule to actually follow, therefore, would be
"No knowingly gaining any sort of advantage from the actions of anyone you know to be using a mod that is not on the allowed mods list".
There are few things I report players for, but cheating at my farms is one of them, just to be safe from this. Staff "encourage" players to always report all offenses they see; however, this may not be in your interest or in the community's interest. It's your job to apply discretion whenever you see an offense other than cheating.
 
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That's nice, my wpm peaked at 104 with my highest ever being in the 130s but that was years ago
 
Players are as always encouraged to report any rule breakers they see to help us keep the server a clean and safe place for everyone. Actively collaborating with someone breaking the rules and benefitting from it is against our rules, such as scenarios where you may have a friend who is X-Raying (this is also considered cheating in this context) and giving you the ores they mined.

We do not require players to report rule breakers (even though it is highly encouraged you do so) and hence will not punish anyone for not reporting someone they see breaking the rules.
 
Well, there you have the official definition of "knowingly teaming": most similar to the "slightly narrower but still reasonable" one I posited. I don't need to report autoclickers at my mob farm in order to be compliant with the rules. The only reason I would do so is because cheaters make it more difficult for legitimate players to grind mobs at the farm.

"Hacker" including offenses that are often thought of as disallowed mods but could be done without them, like x-ray (could be done with a resource pack, that's why a rule against "x-ray" isn't redundant) or autoclicking (could be done with an external macro program that's technically a different rule than cheating) would still be consistent with a normal MC player's definition of "hacker".

Unlike staff, I'm not forced by policy to tell players that they have an interest in a "clean and safe place for everyone". Maybe you don't want that, and that's completely valid! You're allowed to choose to report players only if it directly serves the interests of you or your friends, which may or may not overlap with those of the community at large. You probably will try to get a spammer muted simply because spam annoys you; this benefits the community. You can choose not to report inappropriate builds purely because you're an adult and you don't care (maybe you even want to maintain an environment hostile to young children). You can - as much as I personally dislike people who do this - target a specific person you don't like for reporting minor offenses you wouldn't otherwise report anyone for.

Personally, I use my discretion for reporting in order to keep the "book drop" at my PW safe for authors. Some people think it's a good idea to hand an in-game book to a staff member for approval. This will get you instantly banned if the book is not approved, as you've chosen to create it in-game and show it to staff. With my promise to never report any player for a book dropped in the submission box, and security measures keeping the box safe even from trusted players using hopper minecarts, I can get book text approved anonymously if needed or throw out obviously rule-breaking books before staff see them, keeping the author safe from a punishment. It's not perfect. Staff could still use claim-bypass to read pending books and ban authors if one is inappropriate for Invaded, which is why it's recommended that authors ask for approval off-platform (i.e. text copy sent to a staff member via Discord). This is risk-free, and it's what I need to do with ambiguous submissions anyway without an author's name attached.
 
Some people think it's a good idea to hand an in-game book to a staff member for approval. This will get you instantly banned if the book is not approved, as you've chosen to create it in-game and show it to staff.
This is false. Asking a staff member, either in-game or off-platform whether the contents of a book violate the rules will not get you banned.
 
Magy told me that simply writing and dropping the book is considered "distributing" it, and also didn't suggest that I hand submissions to her in-game (as opposed to getting images of the pages to send on Discord), so... maybe do that at your own risk despite any staff promises. It's like driving to your suspended license hearing. Staff could approve/deny the book in-game... or they could assume you've been distributing it elsewhere.
 
Magy told me that simply writing and dropping the book is considered "distributing" it, and also didn't suggest that I hand submissions to her in-game (as opposed to getting images of the pages to send on Discord), so... maybe do that at your own risk despite any staff promises. It's like driving to your suspended license hearing. Staff could approve/deny the book in-game... or they could assume you've been distributing it elsewhere.
There is a very clear difference between asking staff members whether something is allowed and distributing it by dropping it in areas where players can access them before asking whether it is allowed, for example. If you or anyone else asks one of us in-game whether a book's contents violate the rules, you will not be punished just for asking your question.

We do not punish players based off assumptions.
 
does he actually have that command?
 

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Disclaimer: this is not legal advice, it's kinda just for fun, don't blame me if you get banned for following it, staff very often read rules as "what they feel it's supposed to be" (i.e. in a way that makes the rule much easier to punish you for than the text actually says), and that's collective policy, not any one staff member's mischief

On Invaded, you generally have the right to not report players when you see them breaking the rules. However, this global "Gameplay Rule" may be the only one that requires you to report a player in any case. To know what it means and how broadly it applies, we need to answer two questions:

- Who is a "hacker"?
- What constitutes "knowingly teaming"?

For the first question, you would, by default, apply the plain English meaning of the word. That would be "a person who exploits vulnerabilities in computer systems to cause harm" or something like that. Obviously, that's probably not what Invaded means by it. However, we can determine that Invaded uses the word "hacker" in the technical sense known to our industry (Minecraft). This meaning is "a person who is guilty of cheating (using a game mod that is not on the allowed mods list)".

We know this because Invaded, while it doesn't explicitly define the term "hacker", has rules like this (emphasis mine):

and that's consistent with the meaning of "hacker" known to Minecraft players. Of course, you probably intuitively knew that already. Even though you did, it's good to check that there's nothing implying that they get to expand the definition of "hacker" to all rule-breakers. The phrase "hacking/cheating" implies that hacking is cheating, and not any other offense, as does the example listed for "fake hacking".

Great, now we can write a clearer rule to follow:
"No knowingly teaming with any player who is using a non-allowed game modification",
but we still need to figure out what "knowingly teaming" is. Mddey ignored me when I asked, so we have to guess.

This rule was probably written by Zelkam himself back when KitPvP was Invaded's dominant gamemode, though it is a global gameplay rule. In KitPvP, "knowingly teaming" would literally mean collaborating with a player in PvP, which would obviously be an advantage if your teammate was hacking.

If that definition were what Invaded still used, even though Survival is now the dominant gamemode, you would not have to report "hackers" in any case. All it requires you to do is not collaborate with them in PvP. However, I strongly suspect that staff will enforce a broader definition.

The broadest reasonable definition I can think of for "knowingly teaming" is "knowingly gaining any sort of advantage from the actions of [a hacker]". If that's the definition currently used, you would be forced to remove this advantage in some way if, for example, you saw someone using an autoclicker at your mob farm. You would be gaining their AFK time for other farms as well as possibly the items from the mob farm itself depending on the design. You could remove your advantage by banning them from the claim or by reporting them for cheating. If you saw an autoclicking player and ignored them, staff could actually ban you for that.

If they instead use a slightly narrower but still reasonable definition, something like "knowingly collaborating with [a hacker] to gain any sort of advantage", you never need to actively do anything about hackers including reporting them. As long as you didn't ask the hacker to autoclick at your mob farm, it's your choice whether to report them, claim ban them, or leave them be. That would be consistent with the usual doctrine that reporting a player is a choice. [ETA: according to 7gtz, this is the official definition of "knowingly teaming" as of 12/30/2025]

I have no idea whether staff will use the broad definition or the narrower definition. I suspect they will prefer the broad definition because it allows them to punish more players, whether or not that's a good thing for the community. However, I'm sure some mod will reply with what they actually use.

The rule to actually follow, therefore, would be
"No knowingly gaining any sort of advantage from the actions of anyone you know to be using a mod that is not on the allowed mods list".
There are few things I report players for, but cheating at my farms is one of them, just to be safe from this. Staff "encourage" players to always report all offenses they see; however, this may not be in your interest or in the community's interest. It's your job to apply discretion whenever you see an offense other than cheating.
lwk js stop yapping smh
 
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