Terms of Service

01Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, accessing, or playing on ShinyMS (the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you must not register for or use the Service.

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and the volunteer team that operates ShinyMS (the "Server", "we", "us", or "our").

02Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you confirm that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf.

By registering, you confirm that the information you provide is accurate and that you are legally permitted to use the Service in your location.

03Description of the Service

ShinyMS is a free, non-commercial, fan-made private server emulating the MapleStory v83 client for nostalgic and educational purposes. It is operated on a hobbyist basis with no guarantee of availability, performance, or data persistence.

ShinyMS is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or associated with NEXON Co., Ltd. or Wizet. MapleStory and all related characters, names, and assets are trademarks and copyrights of their respective owners.

04Account Registration & Security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.

• ▶You must provide a valid email address at registration. We use it for account recovery and important account or service notices, as described in our Privacy Policy.
• ▶You may not share, sell, trade, or transfer your account to any other person.
• ▶You must notify us promptly (via our Discord) if you believe your account has been compromised.
• ▶We are not liable for any loss arising from unauthorized use of your account.
• ▶One person may not operate accounts to gain an unfair advantage where this is prohibited by in-game rules.

05Code of Conduct & Acceptable Use

To keep ShinyMS fair and enjoyable for everyone, you agree NOT to:

• ▶Use bots, macros, automation, third-party hacks, memory editors, packet editors, or any tool that provides an unfair advantage.
• ▶Exploit bugs, glitches, or duplication methods instead of reporting them to staff.
• ▶Engage in real-money trading (RMT) — buying, selling, or trading in-game items, mesos, accounts, or services for real-world currency or goods.
• ▶Harass, threaten, impersonate, defame, or discriminate against other players or staff.
• ▶Post spam, advertising, sexually explicit content, or content that is illegal in your jurisdiction.
• ▶Attempt to disrupt, overload, attack, gain unauthorized access to, or reverse-engineer the Service or its infrastructure.
• ▶Evade bans, mutes, or other moderation actions through alternate accounts.
• ▶Engage in any other conduct that we determine, in our sole discretion, to be harmful to the Service, its players, or its staff.

06User Content & Chat

The Service lets you submit content such as character names, guild names, chat messages, and notes ("User Content"). You are solely responsible for your User Content and represent that it does not violate any law or third-party right.

You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to store, display, reproduce, and moderate your User Content as needed to operate the Service. We may review, log, filter, or remove any User Content at any time, without notice, for moderation, anti-cheat, and security purposes.

We do not pre-screen User Content and are not responsible for it. Opinions expressed by players are their own.

07Assumption of Risk & Release

The Service is a multiplayer environment. You may encounter content, conduct, or trades from other players that you find objectionable or that cause you in-game loss. You interact with other players at your own risk.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release the ShinyMS team from any claims, demands, and damages arising out of disputes between you and other players.

08Virtual Items Have No Real-World Value

All in-game content — including characters, items, mesos, NX, levels, and any other virtual goods — is licensed to you for personal, non-commercial entertainment only. You do not own these items.

Virtual items have no monetary value, cannot be redeemed for cash, and may be modified, reset, or removed at any time, including during server wipes, maintenance, or rule enforcement, without compensation.

09Donations

ShinyMS is free to play and is not pay-to-win. If voluntary donations are ever accepted, they are gifts to help cover hosting costs and do not entitle you to any product, service, in-game advantage, or refund. Donations are non-refundable to the fullest extent permitted by law.

10Communications

By creating an account you agree that we may send you essential account and service emails, such as security notices and account-recovery messages.

Announcement emails (server news, events, and updates) are optional. You can subscribe from our homepage and unsubscribe at any time using the one-click link in any such email, without affecting your account.

11Intellectual Property

MapleStory, its artwork, music, characters, and game data are the intellectual property of NEXON Co., Ltd. and Wizet. ShinyMS claims no ownership over these assets and uses them solely for non-commercial, nostalgic purposes.

Any original code, tools, website content, or custom assets created by the ShinyMS team remain the property of their respective authors. We will comply with valid takedown requests from rights holders.

12Service Provided "As Is"

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted availability, or data preservation.

We do not guarantee that the Service will be secure, error-free, or continuously available, and we may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of it at any time without notice.

13Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the ShinyMS team shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, progress, virtual items, or goodwill arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Service.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service shall not exceed the amount you have paid us for the Service in the twelve months before the claim arose — which, for this free Service, is zero — or, where a minimum is required by law, the smallest amount that law permits.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages; in those jurisdictions, these limitations apply to the fullest extent permitted.

14Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the ShinyMS team and its volunteers from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or connected with: (a) your use or misuse of the Service; (b) your User Content; (c) your violation of these Terms; or (d) your violation of any law or third-party right.

15Suspension & Termination

We may suspend, restrict, ban, or delete any account at our sole discretion, with or without notice, for any reason — including violation of these Terms, cheating, or conduct that harms the community. Moderation decisions are final.

We may also modify, suspend, or permanently shut down the Service, in whole or in part, at any time and without notice or liability. Because virtual items have no real-world value, no compensation is owed for any loss resulting from suspension, termination, or shutdown.

You may stop using the Service at any time and may request account deletion as described in our Privacy Policy.

Sections concerning virtual items, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, release, and dispute resolution survive termination of your account or these Terms.

16Dispute Resolution, Governing Law & Class Action Waiver

If you have a dispute with us, you agree to first contact us via our contact page or Discord and attempt in good faith to resolve it informally for at least sixty (60) days before starting any formal proceeding.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Service operator resides, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and any claim must be brought in the courts of that jurisdiction, except where the law of your place of residence mandatorily provides otherwise.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and we agree that any proceeding will be conducted only on an individual basis and not as a class, consolidated, or representative action, and any claim must be filed within one (1) year after it arose or be permanently barred, except where a longer period is required by law.

17General Provisions

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede any prior understandings.

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account; we may assign our rights and obligations, for example to a successor operator of the Service. We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of hosting or network providers.

18Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced through the website or our Discord. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

19Contact

Questions about these Terms can be directed to the ShinyMS team via our contact page at /contact or through our official Discord server, linked in the site footer.