Privacy policy

Last updated: [Date]

This is a translation for convenience. Only the German version is legally binding.

This policy explains which personal data we process when you visit the AscendMMO website and play the game, why we do it and which rights you have.

1. Controller

[First name Last name]
[Company name, if any]
[Street and number]
[Postcode City]
[Country]
Email: [Email for privacy requests]

2. Data protection officer

[No data protection officer has been appointed because there is no legal obligation to do so. – OR: name and contact details of the data protection officer]

3. In short

We only process data we need to run the game, keep your account secure and keep the game fair.
No ads, no tracking, no analytics tools, no social media plugins. We do not sell data.
We only use strictly necessary cookies. That is why there is no cookie banner.
We serve fonts and graphics ourselves; no data is sent to Google Fonts or similar services.
You can download your data and delete your account in the settings at any time.

4. Visiting the website and the game

Server log files. For every request our server processes technically necessary data: your IP address, date and time, the requested address (without parameters), protocol, status code and amount of data transferred. We deliberately do not log parameters (they may contain confirmation links) or the referrer. Purpose: delivering the pages, troubleshooting and fending off attacks. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in secure and stable operation). The logs are deleted after [number] days.

Protection against overload (rate limiting). To fend off attacks such as mass password guessing, our server briefly counts requests per IP address in memory. These counters are not stored permanently. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

Cloudflare. Connections to our pages run through the network of Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA), which handles encryption (TLS), delivery and protection against attacks. Cloudflare processes your IP address and the technical data of the request. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (secure and fast delivery, protection against attacks). For the transfer to the USA see section 13.

5. User account

You need an account to play. We store:

your email address,
your password only as a secure hash (never in plain text),
your language (German or English),
your confirmation that you are at least 16 years old and the version of the terms of service you accepted,
the invite code you used (while the alpha is invite-only),
the time of registration and email confirmation, account status and role (e.g. player or moderator).

The purpose is to provide your account and the game. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract for using the game).

Protection against password attacks. After several failed login attempts we briefly lock the login for that email address. For this we only store a hash of the email address and the number of failed attempts; the data is deleted after a successful login or at the latest after about one hour. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

While you are logged in, we store for every session (one device or browser) the time of login and of last use as well as a rough description of browser and operating system (e.g. “Firefox on Windows”). This lets you see in the settings where you are logged in and log out everywhere.

We only use strictly necessary cookies and browser storage (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG; legal basis for the further processing: Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR):

access_token – keeps you logged in; valid for 15 minutes.
refresh_token – renews your login without logging in again; valid for up to [30] days, replaced on every use.
ascend_did – a random device ID that we only evaluate in hashed form to detect account abuse and multiple accounts (see section 9); valid for 400 days.
ascend_maint_bypass – team members only: access during maintenance; valid for 12 hours.
Browser storage (localStorage/sessionStorage) – your language, the reduced-motion setting, when you last requested a confirmation email or hid the reminder about it and (on the homepage on phones) whether you expanded all content. This data stays in your browser and is not sent to us.

The cookies are limited to our domains, cannot be read by scripts (HttpOnly) and are only transmitted encrypted.

7. Playing the game

To make the game work we store your game state: character (name, family name, appearance, class, level, stats), family and generations, inventory and vault, running and finished actions, battles and dungeon runs, an activity log, professions, collections, event progress and cosmetic items. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

Economy. Every movement of the game currencies gold and Jade is recorded in a ledger, as are trades in the auction house and on the Jade exchange, memberships and guild deposits and withdrawals. This serves the game, traceability and the detection of fraud and real-money trading. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR. There are currently no real-money purchases; during the test phase Jade is only granted by the team.

Visible to others are your character name and family name, level, class, appearance, your profile (including an optional profile text), your leaderboard ranks, your guild, your auction house listings and your messages in the public and guild chat.

8. Chat, friends, online status, reports and moderation

Chat. We store messages in the public chat, the guild chat and whispers (private messages) with sender, channel and time to deliver them and to follow up on abuse. An automatic filter checks messages for prohibited content. Moderators only see whispers when they are part of a report. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (chat feature) and (f) (protecting the community).

Friends and blocks. We store your friendships, friend requests, blocked players and your settings (who may whisper to you, whether friends and guild see your online status and location, languages of the global chat). Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

Realtime connection and online status. While you play, your browser keeps a realtime connection (WebSocket) to our server so chat messages and game events arrive instantly. As long as the connection is open we note that you are online; this is deleted when you disconnect. Only friends and guild members see your status and location, and only if you allow it in the settings.

Reports and moderation. When you report a player or a message, we store the report together with a copy of the messages concerned as evidence. Moderation measures (warning, mute, trade lock, ban), appeals and every team action are logged. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (a safe and fair game; recognising repeated violations).

9. Protection against fraud, multiple accounts and bots

Account signals. To detect multiple accounts and account abuse we store per day only keyed hashes (HMAC): a hash of the device ID from the ascend_did cookie and a hash of your shortened IP address (network part only, IPv4 /24 or IPv6 /48). We do not store the full IP address for this. From matching values we derive links between accounts, which for example prevent trading between your own accounts. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (fraud prevention, a fair game economy).

Bot detection (Guardian). To stop bots and macros from making the game unfair, we evaluate gameplay telemetry automatically (profiling): reaction times and click positions on the Momentum button, scene finds, Momentum checks, session times, economy and trade signals and answers to in-game checks. From these we calculate daily features and a score. Possible consequences: a short in-game check (“A wandering spirit blocks your path”), temporarily held trade proceeds or a referral to our team. The evaluation never bans or restricts you on its own: restrictions such as a throttle or ban are always decided by a human, explained to you and can be appealed. There is therefore no solely automated decision within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (protection against fraud and manipulation, a fair game for everyone).

10. Emails

We only send you emails when your account needs it: to confirm your email address and to reset your password. The links in them work once and expire (confirmation after 24 hours, password reset after 1 hour). No newsletters, no advertising. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

11. Staff and moderation

Only the operators and – as far as their task requires – members of the moderation team (e.g. for reports, appeals and reviews of Guardian flags) have access to personal data. Every access through the moderation tools is logged.

12. Recipients and processors

We do not share your data with third parties, except with service providers who process it on our behalf and according to our instructions (Art. 28 GDPR):

Hosting: [Name and address of the hosting provider], server location: [country]. Operation of servers and database.
Cloudflare, Inc. (USA): delivery of the pages, TLS encryption, protection against attacks (see section 4).
Email delivery: [Name and address of the email provider], server location: [country]. Sending confirmation and password emails.
Payment provider: none at the moment. Before we introduce real-money purchases we will update this policy.

Beyond that we only share data if we are legally obliged to (e.g. with authorities).

13. Transfers to third countries

Cloudflare, Inc. is based in the USA. The transfer is based on [the European Commission’s adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, under which Cloudflare is certified / the EU standard contractual clauses – please verify and adjust]. [If the hosting or email provider is outside the EU: add here.] We process all other data in the European Union.

14. Retention

We delete data as soon as it is no longer needed for its purpose. In detail:

Account and game state (including actions, battles, activity log): as long as your account exists.
Sessions: logged-out sessions 30 days after logout, all others at the latest [60] days after they started.
Confirmation and password links: 7 days after they expired.
Server log files: [number] days.
Chat messages: 30 days.
Reports incl. evidence: 180 days after the case was closed; appeals: 180 days after the decision; sanctions: 24 months after they ended.
Account signals and links (hashes): 30 days.
Guardian raw data (telemetry, checks): 90 days; daily features: 12 months.
Ledger (gold): individual entries 180 days, afterwards only aggregated values without personal reference.
Item trade events: 180 days; guild logs: 90 days.
Jade and memberships of the test phase: deleted when the beta starts. Once there are real purchases, we keep purchase records as long as commercial and tax law requires (up to 10 years).
Log of team actions: [set a period].
Backups: deleted data may remain in backups for up to [21] days until they are overwritten automatically.

15. Data export and account deletion

In the settings you can download all data we store about your account as a file at any time (Art. 15 and 20 GDPR). For security reasons the export contains no password hashes and no game secrets; derived Guardian scores of the last 30 days are withheld so the bot detection cannot be gamed.

You can delete your account in the settings. After a waiting period of 7 days (logging in again cancels the deletion) your account, character and all related game data are deleted. Exceptions: ledger entries are anonymised instead of deleted; in reports, guild logs and trade histories you afterwards appear as “deleted player”; we keep sanctions until their period ends to prevent repeated abuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). For 30 days a hashed reference to the device links of the deleted account remains, so guild funds cannot be moved through deleted accounts.

16. Your rights

You have the right to

access your data (Art. 15 GDPR),
rectification of inaccurate data (Art. 16 GDPR),
erasure (Art. 17 GDPR),
restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),
data portability (Art. 20 GDPR),
object to processing based on our legitimate interest (Art. 21 GDPR), on grounds relating to your particular situation.

You can exercise many of these rights directly in the settings (data export, account deletion, chat and visibility settings). For everything else write to [Email for privacy requests].

17. Right to lodge a complaint

You can lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, for example the authority responsible for us:

[Supervisory authority]
[Address of the supervisory authority]
[Website of the supervisory authority]

18. Minimum age

AscendMMO is for people aged 16 and over. When registering you confirm that you are at least 16 years old. If we learn that an account was created by a younger person, we delete it.

19. Obligation to provide data

Without an email address, a password and the confirmations during registration we cannot create an account. All other information (e.g. a profile text) is voluntary.

20. Changes

We update this policy when the game or the law changes. The current version is always available here; we inform you about significant changes in the game.