Blessed Souls Code of Conduct

[RedViper]

Blessed Souls Code of Conduct

Hello and Welcome to the Blessed Souls Kinship.

Blessed Souls is a mature, family friendly & respectful kinship that started in April 30, 2007 by Astanasia & RedViper.

We are a Casual to Hardcore gaming kinship.

Mission Statement

Our Mission is to have a large, High Quality player base. We are not sacrificing quality for quantity here. Our aim is to be a unique family-friendly kinship.

You must be willing to help each other. Being kind and respectful to one another as well as to others not in our kin is required.

Blessed Souls does not tolerate the use of bad language (cursing).

Not following the Blessed Souls Code of Conduct & Turbine's CoC http://www.lotro.com/support/policies/eula results in gaining a bad reputation, this can result in expulsion from the kin. We all have our bad days and I give everyone a chance at correcting themselves but there is no 3 strikes rule here. Fix your actions or leave the kinship. Treat others as you would like to have them treat yourself.

Recruit, Member and Officer Expectations & Promotions

New members are considered Recruits for about 1 to 3 weeks to ensure that Blessed Souls is a kinship that meets your expectations and you meet our expectations.

Recruits are encouraged to ask any questions about their gaming experiences to our Members and Officers. Please ask an Officer if you are unclear about our “CoC” or other kinship matters.

Recruits that go inactive 60 days before getting promoted to Member may be subject to roster removal if prior notification to an Officer has not been made.

Promotions from Recruit to Member will be based on getting to know you as a person. Officers and I can promote you if we decide that you are “member material.” Member material is basically you following the kinship’s “CoC.” We ask that you fellow with an Officer during the 3 week period and register at the website (http://www.blessedsouls.com) and fill out the application. Completed application is a prerequisite for promotion.

Members are expected to treat fellow kin with the same honor and respect that we want for ourselves. Members should take the initiative to learn their class and the game to the best of their ability using the website forums and links to resources found there. Members should treat others they encounter outside of the kin with friendliness and respect as your behavior reflects on the entire kinship.

If a member decides to remove their main from the kin, they are expected to show respect to the leadership of the kinship by discussing it with an Officer beforehand. Your alts will automatically be removed from the kinship unless a specific request is made to the Officer to keep them with us.

Officers are promoted rarely but are necessary as the kinship grows based on all Officers agreeing with it and most of the members. Being Level 60 is a must. Checking the website on a daily basis is a must for updates and posts.

Officers should show leadership, initiative, fairness and the ability to handle conflicts. Although, like all members, Officers are encourage obtaining individual enjoyment and achievements, there will be many times where you will be asked to put the needs of the kinship before your own.

As an Officer you already will have to balance family, work, real life, personal game goals and kinship goals. Having alts in other kinships is not the best interest of Blessed Souls, therefore not accepted for Officers.

Because real life and its responsibilities come first there may come a time where you are unable to fulfill your kinship Officer responsibilities. A leave of absence can be granted without losing your Officer status for a limited amount of time. If the time period is going to be extended then your status will be changed to that of a Kin Advisor. If you wish to come back as an Officer when you are able to give more time to the kinship, then the Officer position will be offered to you.

Kin Advisors are past Officers in good standing that can no longer serve the kinship to its fullest. Kin Advisors maintain their Officer Post access along with Officer chat channel in Ventrilo. The officers welcome input from Kin Advisors and will take it into consideration.

Since real life is always more important than a game, we realize that at times members will have to take a leave from the game. We would appreciate you letting us know either in mail, private tell, or post in the forums of your upcoming absence. We do not want to worry. Since we like to make sure the roster is reflective of our activity, we will remove inactive members who are inactive passed 180 days unless communicated to an Officer by special request.

The key responsibility of the Leader of Blessed Souls is to have the Kinship as a whole in line with the Code of Conduct by supporting the Officers and fellow Members in union with the Code of Conduct.


Chat Channels

Please make use of the proper chat channels when chatting. Use kinship (/k) channel when you want to address the kin in general. If directed at one person you can initiate on the kinship channel but use PM (/tell) for further chatting.

Please do not use abusive, bad, demeaning, derogatory and/or immature language. This includes private groups.

This is a mature kinship, not by age but by action. All ages are invited just be mature.

Questing

If you need help with quests please be polite when asking a fellow kin or an officer. Please understand that they get bombarded with many inquires for questing. Please be patient, but don’t feel like we are ignoring you. If there is not enough kin to fill a fellowship try the LFF (/l) Channel. When Blessed Souls first started that is what we did. Now we have the privilege of fellowing with a full Kin. Please be grateful. No one is “entitled” on beck and call to respond to a request. If you can’t get a full kin only fellowship, and don’t want to fill up your group using LFF, go on to another area, work on your crafting or wait for another time. The best way to get help with quests is to post your quests that need to be done. Post the name of the quest, the area, what level and any further information on the website under questing. When on runs make sure everyone knows what they need.

Loot Rules

Rules are given by the leader of the fellowship at the start. In general in an All Kin fellowship, Need/Greed/Pass is the default option. Need on items for the current Vocation or Class only. Ask your fellowship before needing for Alts. Never need to sell. Greed on items like Beryls and recipes that you already have, not counting Single Use Recipes. Beryl Shards (not to be confused with Beryls) should be needed only on Master Crafters. In a fellowship with a mix of kinships, I recommend Roll/Pass. In areas like Urugarth, Carn Dum & The Rift, Master Looter is the option for those itchy fingers. /roll for each item.

Auction House & Trading

Please do not use the Kinship channel as a trade channel. Post items (especially expensive ones) at the website under Action House & Trading. Please make sure to post the stats on the item. Recruits who want to post items on the AH or in the Kinship house chests please give them to the Officers for placement.

Refrain from buying crafting items for leveling your craft unless you can trade evenly. There is no need to level your character’s crafting skills and waste gold before getting a horse. There are plenty of Grand Master crafters that can make you items at no cost as long as you provide the materials. I have provided you with web links in the Tips section to articles on how to make gold if need be.

Absolutely No Begging.

Ventrilo

I highly recommend if not require that you have Ventrilo installed on your computer. I have posted Ventrilo set-up and a direct link to download the software. For those of you who don’t know Ventrilo is Voice over IP (VoIP) group communications software best known for its superior sound quality and minimal use of CPU resources (so as not to interfere with operations of the computer during online gaming).

Use the Ventrilo comment area for selling items and also for Looking For Fellowship, just click “Comment” and type away. If you don’t want to talk you can always go to the AFK area in Ventrilo and/or use the mute sound or mute microphone options.

The Chat area in Ventrilo is a great place to go if you don’t have a microphone. It has text-to-speech, so it says anything you type. The text-to-speech can only be heard if you initiate the chat option. In the long run this will form a greater bond with the kin if we talk and joke around in a nice, clean environment. The same ground rules apply as in chat channels.

Please print out these ground rules for reference.

Thank you again, have fun and take care.

RedViper, Leader
Blessed Souls