TERMS OF SERVICE

Echoes Beyond is free to play, and you can play all of it without ever spending anything. Credits buy two things. Pictures from the forge — emblems, ship portraits, art for your own empire — change nothing in the game. Premium does, and says so: while it runs, your build and research queues hold six orders instead of one, you get one more fleet slot, and your mines produce 5% more. Premium can also be earned by recruiting other players; credits are never earned by playing. The rest of this page is the fine print, and it is short on purpose.

These terms govern the use of playechoesbeyond.com and the game behind it. Your counterparty is the operator named in the imprint: IT Falke, the sole proprietorship of Benjamin Falk, based in Germany. They take effect when you create an account, and the version in force is the one on this page, dated under the heading.

One account per person. The commander name and the empire name are yours for as long as the account lives. Keep the password to yourself: anything done from a signed-in session is done as you. We may suspend or close an account that cheats, that is one of several run by the same person for an advantage, that harasses other players, or that attacks the service itself — and if such an account holds credits, write to support and the balance will be dealt with fairly. Ask at the address in the imprint and your account is deleted.

The game is unfinished and says so on every page. There is no promised uptime, features may change or be withdrawn, balance will be rewritten more than once, and the galaxy may be reset — a wipe is an ordinary event in an alpha, not a failure. Three things a reset does not touch: the credits in your wallet, the pictures you have forged, and the Premium time you have left. Those belong to the account, not to the galaxy.

A credit is a voucher for the forge and for Premium, not money. It has no cash value, cannot be paid out, cannot be moved to another account, and does not expire. Credits are bought in packs or granted by us; they are never earned by play. They land in your wallet the moment Stripe confirms the payment. Pictures from the forge change nothing in the game. Premium does: for as long as it runs, build and research queues hold six orders instead of one, you get one more fleet slot, and every mine you own produces 5% more. It is bought for 30, 180 or 365 days at the price the store shows before you buy, starts the moment you buy it, and adds its days to any Premium already running. Nothing else bought with credits touches the game: no resources, no ships, no combat strength.

An emblem sheet has a fixed price, printed on the button before you press it. A picture, a revision and a turn with the Prompt Designer are metered: they are charged by what the model call actually used. Before the call runs, a few whole credits are held — the most that one action may charge — and the moment it answers, the difference between the hold and the real charge comes back to the wallet, down to a thousandth of a credit. The charge itself is the model provider’s own list price for that call, converted to euro, multiplied by a fixed factor that covers the payment fee and the running of the service, and divided by the price of a credit. The factor and the price of a credit are the same for everybody. What each call charged is shown on the picture it made and on the designer’s reply, every time. If a call fails, the whole hold comes back and nothing is charged.

Credits are not refundable once they are in your wallet, spent or not: they are digital content, delivered the moment the payment goes through, and at checkout you agree to exactly that (see the right of withdrawal below). A picture that failed was never charged for in the first place. Premium is not refundable either: it is a digital service that starts the moment it is bought, its days run whether you play them or not, and you agree to exactly that before you buy it. None of this takes away a right the law gives you: if a purchase went wrong — you paid and no credits arrived, you were charged twice, or something we sold does not work as promised — write to the support address in the imprint with the account and the purchase, and it will be put right.

As a consumer you normally have fourteen days to withdraw from a distance contract. Credits are digital content delivered immediately, so before it takes the payment the checkout asks you to agree to two things: that delivery begins at once, and that on delivery you therefore lose the right of withdrawal (§ 356 Abs. 5 BGB, Art. 16 lit. m of Directive 2011/83/EU). The box you tick in Stripe Checkout says exactly that, and without the tick there is no payment. Because of it, credits are not refundable once they are delivered, whether or not you have spent them. After every purchase, credits or Premium, you get a confirmation by mail that records this agreement. Premium is a digital purchase too, and it starts the moment you buy it. Before a Premium purchase goes through, the store asks you to agree that it starts at once, that you therefore lose the right of withdrawal, and that it cannot be refunded; the box you tick beside the confirm button is that agreement, and we keep the time you gave it with the purchase. Without it, Premium is not sold.

A picture is made by an AI model from what you asked it for, and you are responsible for the asking. Do not ask for someone else’s trademark, logo, character or photograph; nothing hateful; nothing sexual involving minors; nothing illegal. Everything you make in the forge belongs to your account alone: no other player can select or use your emblems or pictures. Emblems are reviewed before you can wear them and may be rejected; any picture the forge makes may also be removed later if it breaks these rules. Credits are not returned for a rejected emblem or a removed picture unless that was our mistake. Pictures of your own ships, buildings, research and defences are shown only to you. The emblem you wear is shown to other players, for example on the galaxy map and elsewhere in the game; by wearing it you allow us to display it inside the game and in material about the game. You may use your own pictures elsewhere. What rights a machine-made image carries is an unsettled question in most countries, and we promise nothing about it.

We are liable without limitation for injury to life, body or health, for intent and gross negligence, and wherever the Produkthaftungsgesetz imposes liability. For simple negligence we are liable only where an obligation has been breached whose fulfilment makes performance of this contract possible at all and on which you may routinely rely, and then only for the damage typically foreseeable in a contract of this kind. The game is free to play and is provided as it is. Nothing written here limits a liability that the law does not allow to be limited.

We may change these terms — the game changes, and a document that describes it has to follow. A change that materially affects you is announced in the game and by mail to the address on your account at least four weeks before it takes effect. If you do not accept it, stop using the service and ask for any unspent credits back. Playing on after it takes effect is acceptance.

German law applies, to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer resident in the EU, this choice does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory provisions of your own country. We are neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.