Okay, here's what's going on in my head right now:
We've had a lot of people recently start as Squires, and are earning their way to being Knights. We also have a few people who have started as Knights and, per the current rules, simply have to work steadily towards filling their prerequisites and they get all the benefits of being a fully initiated Knight - the only hang-up being that they have to wait until they meet their prerequisites to get their Knighting Quest.
Now, I've been running Syliras for about a year now and I have yet to run a knighting quest. Dimi's officially broken ahead of the pack, with Markus in a close second. I love watching them work so hard to get their character built and have them rewarded with becoming a Knight. But it makes me wonder if that shouldn't be part of the process for anyone who wants to be a Knight. Just from a management position, as a DS I can't keep track of every single Knight player and how they're progressing in their skills and whether or not I need to encourage them to meet their prerequisites - if they're not super excited to have their modded Knighting Quest, there's no incentive for them to work towards those skills instead of just RPing whatever they'd like while still collecting wages, having access to weapons and armor and horses and free housing, and power in-character.
So my question is, does the player base/other staff think it's fair to restrict starting characters to squires instead of knights? I think it's reasonable, since it still allows people to begin the game as Squires and makes it possible for them to become Knights as quickly as they're able to put in the work, and they still get the use of weapons/armor/housing, but the advantages of power and money are withheld until they earn them IC. But I don't want to upset everyone, so I'll let you guys weigh in!
As a note, this would NOT be retroactive - anyone who already has a Knight without eh prereqs would not have to change their characters.