Templar Conduct

It seems to me that the Knights Templar are supposed to uphold the law. They're supposed to help others in need-so long as they are not of an evil alignment- and they have to donate loot to the church. They're supposed to have limited drops and are not supposed to exploit their status, guild hall, and gear to constantly loot Hell. I'm creating this post to say that this is not the case. I'm not accusing all Templars of being corrupt or ignorant but many I have seen these last few weeks certainly are. One in particular: Aaron[playerame- dragonsknife]. 3 times each day this kid will come one line and broadcast that he's buying things over shout, broadcast what he's finding in Hell, and the legendary items he's trying to sell. He broadcasts when he pick pockets someone and gets sent to prison for theft and murder on a pretty regular basis. Not one hour ago he attacked a vendor in the Red Dragon Inn and broadcasted his situation over shout and further indicated that, rather than log out and stop the attack, he'd decided he wanted to kill the vendor. In spite of being asked to stop and his actions being called "retarded"-by me- he continued his attack and was eventually killed by the Angel. And then he threatened to kill me and then kill me again when he got out of prison for criticizing and calling his actions retarded. The other day he joined a group of adventurers, who's names I will not mention, in my party on a trip to Dracula's castle where his inane actions resulted in several deaths and a massive loss of experience on the parts of my friends. Not only did he get them killed by spawning massive mobs with his high-level summons and dragging them to my friends' positions but he left them lying dead on the floor and left the party.

Now, I don't know what you or anyone else had in mind when you created the Templars, but i'm pretty sure this wasn't it. Greed, corruption, thievery, murder; none of these things seem like conduct befitting a Templar to me. I know you're busy with your exams but i'd like to see something done about this kind of stuff. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable to me and many others. I'd like to suggest that this kid in particular be dealt with and a change to the module be made. A change whereby any time a Templar commits a crime they are automatically excommunicated and their account banned from joining the Templars.

I'm not normally a "taddle tale" but this is a pretty extreme situation and I strongly feel that something needs to be done before the whole Templar institution goes straight to Hell- in a manner of speaking.

-t.

I do agree with the main body of your post Deftone, but want to pull up a couple of points, Announcing that your are buying / selling / trading any items, legendary or otherwise I think is a perfectly acceptable situation in general, You get more gold than the stores will give you, and someone gets that vital last set piece they have been drooling for for weeks. The situation is a win - win. I do agree that if you are not interested in the trade / sale, then the entire transaction taking place on shout is very aggravating.

Also, I do like to believe the best of people, which does seem a little naive i know, but the raiding party is D14 COULD just be chalked up to bad playing, and we can't really blame bad players for their lack of skill, remember some of the really high level characters you see have only got where they are by handouts, help and team ups with better players. Please don't forget that some of these players ARE children, and as adults, we should be prepared to excuse childish behaviour, as long as they learn from past mistakes.

The rest of the actions you describe, I agree, are inexcusable and should result in immediate excommunication from the guild. I seem to remember a fairly brutal punishment for transgressors in the Old Order on DX2 which left the character as full on Chaotic Evil, busted back down to level 40 and bereft of their entire inventory. Old Order Knights did not fall very often.

As Sarah has said in the journal of every player, players on KT are encouraged to role play, many see this clause as carte blanche to have characters that act like complete tools and PVP wherever possible. It should also work the other way and if you are playing as a Holy Knight of the Church, you should role play the part with your actions.

Are you certain he's a member of the Knight Templars? If so, the scripts that deal with disruptive knights are apparently not working. As far as I'm concerned, I will manually delete any Knight Templar (guild member) who acts like that. So be warned, and please let me know if you are sure he's a knight.

I think a player should pretty much be able to act any way they want but then should pay the piper. By that I mean if they are commiting acts like stealing, pking ... and are a Knight they should get thrown out of the guild and maybe have all their gear removed as punishment. However remember there are cases where an occassional violation occurs by accident fr example I've killed several mobs and had loot bags drop and open them and loot them quickly only to find out my fingers were too fast and one of the bags was soemthing left behind and I "stole" loot left behind by accident.

How about a counsel of knights that meets via e-mail or forum noitce to vote on a members bad behavior and kicking them out of the knights?

Maybe we could have an active counsel that meets once a week or soemthing. I know it's tough to get folks all around the world to show up but maybe some form of this would work.

We really need to get the bad apples out of the knights guild. He should be able to try and kill NPC and others etc. but we need to put a reward or some type of penelty on him and adapt our work to all types of players. We are probably dealing with a 8 year old kid.

Can I suggest then, in order to bring evidence against a Knight, if you see un-kinghtly conduct, then take a screenshot and post it somewhere here.

Sarah, the old brooch of detection in DX2 stated if a player was a member of the Old Order, can the rod of detection be tweaked to do something similar? (after your exams, of course. Good luck btw...)
Or maybe something a little more noticeable, like all knights being issued and equipped a cloak that cannot be unequipped or dyed and be a specific style to the knights.

A council of knights is a pretty good idea, but as you say local timezones would restrict real time debate, but maybe if the transgression(s) were posted here, then all "council members" could have a week or so to cast their vote or make known their opinion.
But then the problem is, who would be on this council? would they be voted into office? or would every character who is a knight get a vote?

Also, as mentioned this character may not have been a Knight. I know that Aaron does have several alternate characters, so the one that is getting sent to prison for stealing may very well be an evil rogue and role-playing perfectly in character. This is where the screen shot and tag to show they are a knight would come in useful.

Now, I really have to get back to work, my boss is starting to give me funny looks....

I agree it would be nice to know who is a knight, things like having a special look to your cape would help. Would it be possible for anyone joining the Knights guild to have something added to their name like a special title or color.

Sir blab blab blab ...
Duke ....
Knight...

or some other appropreiate title that everyone can see when they look at the char?

I will work on some additions this weekend. If nothing else, I need to test the knight scripts with willing subjects.

The scripts are designed so that you can get away with minor mistakes, such as picking up a loot bag you don't own. By giving knights some leeway, it's also possible for them to work the system to avoid being banned from the guild. I could possibly keep track of the total number of transgressions and ban them even if they don't ever trigger the instant ban by murdering someone.

I also created the repent option at the priest so that a fallen knight can recover once from any failure, even murders. However, fallen knights should immediately lose all knight items/abilities/bonuses.

or u could fine them 2 million gold or something for each time the prist repents them or maybe a system of fines.

Pking - 5 million
stealing 1 million each offense.
other ???

I like the idea of something easily identifiable to denote either a knight or a sinner.

Was thinking maybe a yellow ioun stone appearance for a knight and a red ioun stone appearance (or maybe a fear effect aura) for a sinner. It would only need to be the appearance/aura ...no special buffs/debuffs would need to apply

I'd like to volunteer my knight as a willing test subject Sarah, but due to timezone differences we don't seem to cross paths very often. However, if you see me online and need something testing, let me know.

Also, I likes the ioun stone idea, sorta like a halo.... very holy.

I'd suggest a third colour for a regular criminal, but can you imagine all the noob shouts the first time they pick up a dropped loot bag? "Whats this glowing thing on my head and how do i lose it??"

Sarah my knight is available for testing as well. I'm in the EST zone aztech63 or aztech64 accounts if you see me log in. I don't play a ton but I'm often on if I get time around 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM EST and sometimes Sundays during the day. This Monday I'm out of work so I may be on during the day.

I'm 100% positive that the character in question was a knight as he had done Multiple Hell-runs just before using the templar-Hell connection. He was complaining about getting the same two legendary items over and over again(I think it was the King's helm and the Ring of Inferno).

In the interest of progress i'll volunteer to create a knight purely for testing. I'm on Atlantic time, but I play really weird hours. I'm usually on anywhere from 2pm - 7pm and usually play until between 2-5 am Atlantic. But that's just for the next couple of weeks. All you need to do is say the word and I should be able to whip together a knight lvl 40 within 24-36 hours.

-t.

I like the idea of the Knights having a symbol or such to show that they are a Knight, and I also think that they should have another symbol to represent that they are a fallen/wanted Knight. On the other hand I do not think that normal characters should have colors to show if they are wanted or not, if that was the case then my rogue would constantly be a certain color, even if we wasn't caught in the act of thievery.

Good points, Asylum. I don't plan on making it any easier for people to identify and hunt down thieves than it already is. I like the idea of name changes if that's possible, but then I'd also have to make sure other players who are not knights don't use the same prefixes of Lord or Lady. I'll think about it more...