Terms of Use

1. What Lotus Net is

Lotus Net is a free, fan-made lobby and LAN-style networking tool. It helps players meet, chat, create game rooms, and connect their own copies of Battle Realms to each other over the internet as if they were on the same local network. Lotus Net does not include the game, does not sell anything, and does not modify Battle Realms or its files.

The Service is a hobby project run by one person. It is offered free of charge, with no ads and nothing to buy. We may add, change, pause, or stop any part of the Service at any time.

2. Who can use it

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account or use the Service.
• If you are under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, you may use the Service only with the permission of a parent or legal guardian, who agrees to these Terms for you.
• You may not use the Service if we have banned you before, or if the law where you live does not allow you to use it.

3. Your account

• Give a real email address that you control. We use it for logging in, password resets, and important messages about your account.
• Keep your password secret. You are responsible for everything done with your account. If you think someone else has access to it, change your password right away and tell us at email us.
• One person per account. Do not share, sell, trade, or transfer your account, and do not use someone else’s account.
• Do not create accounts in bulk, with automated tools, or to get around a ban, mute, or block.
• Your username and display name must not impersonate another person (including BenLotus, BenLotusAI, or other players), and must not be hateful, sexual, threatening, or otherwise offensive. We may change or remove a name that breaks these rules.
• We do not delete accounts because of inactivity. Your account stays open until you ask us to delete it, unless we suspend or remove it under section 10. You can ask us to delete your account at any time by emailing email us (see section 10).

4. The game and fan project status

• Lotus Net is an unofficial fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the developers, publishers, or any other rights holders of Battle Realms, or by any other game publisher.
• Battle Realms and related names and logos belong to their respective owners. We use the name only to describe which game Lotus Net works with.
• You must own a legitimate copy of Battle Realms to play it through Lotus Net. Lotus Net does not distribute commercial games or their game files, and you may not use the Service to share pirated copies, cracks, or other files you do not have the right to share.
• Lotus Net works with Battle Realms 1.50q (Winter of the Wolf) and Battle Realms 1.0. You need your own copy of each game you want to play. It is not designed for, and we do not promise it works with, other versions such as the Steam Battle Realms Zen Edition.

5. Rules of conduct

Lotus Net is a small community. Play fair and treat people well. When using the Service, you must not:

• Cheats and hacks: use Cheat Engine, trainers, memory editors, modified game files or executables meant to cheat, or any other third-party program or tool that gives you an unfair advantage over other players in games started through Lotus Net. We will ban accounts caught doing this.
• Attack the Service: hack, probe, scan, overload, flood, or try to break into the Lotus Net servers, VPN servers, website, or other players’ computers; interfere with other people’s connections; or deliberately use a bug or weakness in Lotus Net itself (the app or servers) to crash other players, disrupt rooms or games, or get around bans or limits. If you find a bug like this, report it to email us instead.
• Reverse engineer to attack: decompile, reverse engineer, or modify the Lotus Net app or its network protocol in order to cheat, get around security, rate limits, bans, or version requirements, collect other users’ data, or harm the Service or its users.
• Automate: run bots, scripts, or automated clients against the Service without our written permission, or scrape data about other users.
• Harass: bully, threaten, stalk, dox (share someone’s personal information), or target anyone with hate based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or similar traits.
• Post harmful content: share sexual content, especially anything involving minors; graphic violence; content that encourages self-harm or illegal acts; malware; phishing links; or scams.
• Spam: flood chat, send unwanted advertising, or repeatedly post the same message.
• Impersonate: pretend to be BenLotus, a Lotus Net admin, BenLotusAI, or another player.
• Misuse the VPN: use the BenLotus VPN for anything other than normal personal use, or for anything illegal, abusive, or that harms others.
• Break the law: use the Service to break any law, or to infringe anyone’s copyright, trademark, privacy, or other rights.

About the game itself

Lotus Net works with the original Battle Realms: the classic version that is still sold on GOG.com and is older than the Zen Edition. Lotus Net has no server authority over the game itself, so it cannot prevent or fix the game’s own bugs or quirks. You are free to play the game as it is, at your own risk. What is not allowed is using cheats, hacks, or other third-party tools to get an unfair advantage, as described above.

6. Your messages and content

• “Your content” means things you put into the Service, such as your display name, profile bio, status message, room names and descriptions, lobby and room chat, private messages, and reactions.
• You keep whatever rights you have in your content. You give BenLotus a free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to store, copy, display, and send your content as needed to run, secure, and improve the Service. For example, we show your lobby messages to other players and deliver your private messages to the person you send them to.
• Lobby chat, your display name, profile, presence, and game room details are visible to other users. The public live status on our homepage also shows who is online. See the Privacy Policy for details.
• You are responsible for your content. Do not post anything you do not have the right to share, or anything that breaks these Terms.
• We do not pre-screen content, but we may remove any content, at any time, for any reason, including to enforce these Terms.

7. BenLotusAI

• BenLotusAI is an automated chat helper powered by various AI models, such as models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others. It replies when someone starts a message with /ai or !ai in a public lobby, a game room, or a private message, and only while the feature is turned on.
• To answer a public question, chat from the public lobbies and game rooms may be sent to the company that provides the model, as described in the Privacy Policy. A private question sends only that private chat. Do not ask BenLotusAI about, or post in a public chat, anything private or sensitive.
• AI replies are generated automatically. They can be wrong, outdated, or inappropriate, and they are not the views of BenLotus. Do not rely on them for anything important.
• Do not try to trick BenLotusAI into producing content that breaks these Terms.

8. Connections and the VPN

• Lotus Net connects the players in a room over the internet so Battle Realms can see them the way it would on a local network. Other players in your game can see your IP address, the same as in most online games. Only play with people you are comfortable connecting to.
• The BenLotus VPN is optional. When you turn it on, all of your computer’s internet traffic, not just Lotus Net, goes through a VPN server run by a third-party VPN provider until you turn it off. Use it only for normal personal use and in line with these Terms and the laws where you live. Whether a VPN is legal is your responsibility to check.
• Connection quality depends on your internet, your network setup, and services we do not control. We do not promise that any game will connect or stay connected.

9. The app and updates

• We give you a personal, free, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to download and use the Lotus Net app on your own Windows computers to use the Service, as long as you follow these Terms.
• Download the app only from this website (or links on it). Copies from other places may be modified or unsafe.
• The app updates itself. Some updates are required: older versions may be blocked from logging in, hosting, or joining games until you update.
• The app may ask Windows for administrator permission to set up networking features such as the VPN. It needs a path to your own Battle Realms installation to start the game for you.
• The app automatically sends diagnostic logs to our server while you are signed in, so connection problems can be fixed. See the Privacy Policy.

10. Moderation, bans, and termination

• We may warn you, remove your content, kick you from rooms, limit features, suspend, disable, or permanently ban your account, with or without notice, if we believe you broke these Terms, put other users or the Service at risk, or if the law requires it.
• Game room hosts can kick players from their rooms, and any user can block another user. These tools are in addition to our own moderation.
• You can stop using the Service at any time. You can also ask us to delete your account at any time: email email us from the email address on your account (or otherwise show us the account is yours) and ask, and we will delete it for you. We do not delete accounts because of inactivity, but we may still suspend or delete accounts that break these Terms, as described above.
• We may shut down the Service, in whole or in part, at any time. Because the Service is free, there is nothing to refund.
• Sections 4, 6, and 11 to 17 keep applying after your account ends.

11. No warranty

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, FREE OF CHARGE, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE.

We do not promise that the Service will be available, uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or free of harmful components; that games will connect; that messages will be delivered or kept; or that the app is compatible with your computer, network, antivirus, or copy of Battle Realms. You use the Service at your own risk. Some places do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so some of these may not apply to you.

12. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, BENLOTUS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, GOODWILL, OR USE, OR FOR DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS, EVEN IF WE WERE TOLD THESE DAMAGES WERE POSSIBLE.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO FIFTY U.S. DOLLARS (US$50). We are also not responsible for the conduct or content of other users, or for services run by others, such as Battle Realms itself, our hosting and network providers, the VPN provider, the AI provider, or your internet provider. Some places do not allow these limits, so they apply to you only as far as the law allows.

13. Your responsibility to us

If someone makes a claim against BenLotus because of your content, your use of the Service, or your breaking of these Terms or the law, you agree to cover the reasonable costs, damages, and legal fees that result, to the extent the law allows.

14. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute relating to the Service or these Terms will be handled only in the state or federal courts located in California, and you and we agree to the jurisdiction of those courts. Before going to court, please email us first so we can try to solve the problem informally. Nothing here takes away consumer rights that the law where you live gives you and that cannot be waived by contract.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. If a change is significant, we will also try to give notice, for example in the app, on this website, or by email. If you keep using the Service after the new Terms take effect, you accept them. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and ask us to delete your account.

16. Other terms

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
• If any part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.
• If we do not enforce a part of these Terms right away, we still keep the right to enforce it later.
• You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours if the Service is handed over to someone else.
• If these Terms are translated, the English version controls.

17. Contact

Questions, reports of abuse or cheating, copyright concerns, or account requests:
BenLotus — email us

See also the Privacy Policy.