News and Updates

UPDATE: 6/29/2012: A few of you expressed some concerns about privacy on your profiles, so we have given you an additional option for how to display your attack lists. Through your profile editor, you can set it so that it displays the old way, with attacks listed by the date of the first attack, or the new way, with names sized according to the number of attacks from or on that person.

ORIGINAL POST:

We’re excited to announce new Bloodlines profiles on the Thirst, Rage, and Human websites! Now, you can upload a profile photo, say something about yourself, and choose a font for your name to display in! Also, if you’re a clan leader, you can edit your clan profile with a group photo, and a clan emblem. If you upload a clan emblem, it will display on all of your clan member’s profiles, and link back to the clan.

To edit your profile or clan profile, just log into the website, and then mouse over your name in the upper right corner of the site to get the dropdown menu. In the dropdown menu are links to your profile, clan profile, and to your editor pages where you can edit your profile. More exciting updates are coming soon

We’d like to give you a heads up on a new feature on the Bloodlines website: web profiles! Very soon, you will be able to customize your Bloodlines web profile with a profile photo, about text, and you can even choose from a selected number of very cool fonts for your name! Also, clan leaders will be able to write about their clan on the website, and upload a group photo and clan emblem for their clan. Clan emblems will show on the profiles of all clan members, and the group photo will show on the new clan profile. We thought you might want to get your profile photos ready, so here are a few guidelines:

Profile photos are square, and will be resized to 180 x 180 pixels.

Clan emlems are square, and will be resized to 100 x 100 pixels.

Clan group photos have a 2:1 aspect ratio (width:height), and will be resized to 400 x 200 pixels.

We are also working on a new feature for the website called “Haunts”, where you will be able to register your Bloodlines bar, club, castle, roleplay area, or hangout on the Bloodlines website. You’ll be able to promote your location and your events there. Then, residents will be able to view a list of events going on at Bloodlines Haunts at any given time, and teleport right from the website. So, get your Vampire Castle, Blood Room, Lycan Bar, or Human Hangout ready for visitors! Stay tuned for more details on this!

Some people have been expressing concerns regarding privacy when logging into the slbloodlines.com website. There have been some unfounded rumors going around, such as that the new Bloodlines HUD “logs your IP”, which is false. It may be possible for some items within Second Life to get access to your IP address using shared media, depending on what viewer you’re using, but no Bloodlines item currently uses shared media features within SL. For more information on shared media and what you can do to protect your privacy, see this linden blog post on shared media. The website does collect hardware and software information when you log in for the purpose of maintaining sessions between the server and your client (browser), but this is not different than any website that you can log into. Keep in mind that you are not required to log into the website in order to play Bloodlines. The reason we created the website logins is to deliver cool new features like profile photos, customized profiles, clan profiles, and a richer way to interact with each other on the website. In order to provide these features, we need to put authentication in place, so that only you can edit your own profile. You have the option of logging into the website if you want access to these upcoming features, but it is by no means required.

Some have also expressed concerns about privacy when changing their password in-world. Also, some people have been trying to log into slbloodlines.com with their Second Life password. Do not try to log into slbloodlines.com with your Second Life password, it won’t work. We don’t know what your Second Life password is, and can’t authenticate you with it. Your password for slbloodlines.com is a different password that you create with your HUD by going to Settings > Account > Register. Right now, when you change your password, you do it over chat on a randomly selected channel. It is technically possible for someone to hear this password if they have a channel scanner. So, we advise you to only change your password when you are out of chat range of other avatars. We will be issuing another update soon that will make an attempt to make this process more secure. Please do not make your password for slbloodlines.com the same as your second life password; use a unique password. We don’t store passwords in plain text, we only store passwords as encrypted hashes, so not even we can see the password you have chosen, and if an attacker were to gain access to our database, they would not have the passwords you have chosen either.

We take your security and privacy seriously, and we take measures to keep your information as secure as possible. If you have any questions about privacy or security, please see our privacy policy, or feel free to contact Lyle Maeterlinck in-world with questions.

Tonight, we’re excited to announce the following updated Bloodlines HUDs: Thirst 3.5, the Rage 1.3, and the Human 1.1. You should be auto-delivered your update when you log in. If not, you can get the updates from any update terminal at Liquid Estate (Liquid Designs, Liquid East, Liquid South, Liquid Badlands, or Liquid Frontier). There are several notable new features on the HUDs:

1. You can register an account so you can log into slbloodlines.com by going to settings > account > register. You can also change or reset your password using this menu. There isn’t a great deal you can do by logging in at the moment, but this update will allow us to bring lots of cool new features to the Bloodlines website.
2. Charisma sending has been removed from the HUDs. We’re sorry about the inconvenience on this, but it was just being too badly abused by people logging in hundreds of alts or bots in order to game the stats. Now, you can send Charisma by logging into the website, and pushing the +1 Charisma button on your friends profiles. This won’t give us the ability to absolutely stop people abusing the system with alts, but we will be able to implement controls to make it more difficult to game this stat.
3. Glamour and Terror: this is a fun new power that you can use with your human minions. If you Glamour (with the thirst), or Terror (with the Rage) your minions, you will be able to bite or claw them without receiving further confirmation for one hour. If you agree to be Glamoured or Terrored, you can break this at any time by going to Settings > (clan or group) > Resist Liege. This will also be broken if you unliege from your liege.
4. You will probably also notice some minor updates to the website: now the groups and group rosters are listed on separate pages, and the groups page has a search function now. For a sneak peek at the types of updates coming to slbloodlines.com, check out The Fortune Hunt.

We hope you like these updates, more exciting updates coming soon!

UPDATE 4/1/12:

Just an update: we are planning HUD updates for tonight. This is not an April Fool’s joke. More updates to come…

UPDATE 3/30/12, 5 PM:

We’ve reviewed everyone’s feedback on the impending HUD updates, and as a result, we’ve got a new proposal. All the updates below are going to be put into place, except for the ability to Glamour someone before they are a part of the game. We agree that this will probably cause too much confusion. So, Glamour will only work on your own direct human minions, and it will only last for an hour, unless broken by your human before that limit. Also, it will not cost blood or lumens in order to use. So, we’re not going to implement the option of Glamouring someone before they have joined in order to prevent them from using the Wormwood. To be clear, your human minions will have to agree to be Glamoured, and will be able to break the Glamour if they wish. For now, this will just be a fun new power that you will be able to use when role-playing with your humans if you wish.

PREVIOUSLY:

Later this week, we’re going to be updating the Thirst, Rage, and Human HUDs with a few new features and fixes. All HUDs are going to be getting the ability to register and manage accounts for logging into the Bloodlines website. If you already own a Blood or Lumen scanner, you already have an account, and the account you can manage with your HUD will be the same as the account you can manage on your scanner. This is so that everyone can have an account to log in. In the near future, we’re going to be building some new features into the website that you can use only when logged in, such as customizing your Bloodlines web profile, and this HUD update will allow us to launch those new features.

As part of this update, we’re going to be moving Charisma voting to the website. So, instead of the button on the HUD, you’ll be able to log into the website, and on everyone’s profile will be a button to send them a charisma point for the day.

We’re also going to be adding a new power: Glamour for vampires, and Terror for lycans. Of course, hybrids will be able to use either one. Glamour / Terror has different effects, depending on the status of the victim (who will have to agree to Glamour / Terror request for it to work). If you Glamour or Terror a new player who has not yet worn a HUD, it will prevent them from drinking the Wormwood potion in order to free their soul from limbo. That means that their soul will always go to you first if you bite them and then they join. Using a Glamour will cost a vampire 1L of vital blood, and a Terror will cost a lycan 10 lumens. Only humans and new players can be Glamoured / Terrored.  If you Glamour or Terror a human who has already joined, you will be able to bite them without asking, until they break the Glamour or Terror, which can be done with your HUD.

Let us know what you think of these updates, or if you have any thoughts for changes you think we should get into the HUDs for this release.

Happy hunting!

UPDATE 3/27/2012: After reading all of the feedback that we received, we’ve decided not to go ahead with this update. The description of this update caused a lot of confusion, and we don’t want to make any updates that cause anyone to worry about their stats. We only want to make updates that people are generally excited about, and some people thought that this was fair, but no one was really excited about it. Thanks to everyone who let us know their thoughts!

UPDATE: No one likes the idea of souls from “dormant” minions no longer totaling upwards, so scratch that. Also, many people don’t like the idea of having to be involved in a bite every 30 days, so now the proposal has changed to: just log in once every 30 days and wear one of your HUDs, and you’ll stay listed in the stats. If you don’t log in for 30 days, you’ll go “dormant”. If you log in after being dormant, you will come back from being dormant, and will be back in the stats. To clarify, this will not affect souls or other stats, it would just remove dormant players from rankings.

ORIGINAL POST: We’ve heard from some of you about the issue with players ranked in the stats on slbloodlines.com no longer actively participating in the Bloodlines community, or perhaps not having logged in for a long time, and we agree that players ranked in the live stats on the website should be current, active players of Bloodlines. We have a simple approach that we believe would accomplish this, but before we put it in place, we’d like to hear what you think.

Here’s our idea: make sure that anyone listed in the stats (generation, royalty, wealth) has been involved in a vampire bite or lycan attack in the last 30 days. So, if a vampire goes 30 days without biting anyone, or being bitten, they would automatically become dormant. Dormant vampires would not appear on the public stats, and would be moved to a separate list. A dormant vampire could come back and be re-listed on the stats simply by biting or being bitten.

Another idea we’d like to propose is the idea of the souls of dormant vampires no longer adding to the total souls of their liege, similar to humans. So, feel free to comment on this post, or contact Lyle Maeterlinck or Mars Bracken in-world with your thoughts on this potential change. We’ll be taking feedback on this until Monday, March 26. After that, we’ll let everyone know what we decide to do with this.

UPDATE: all systems should be up again. If you experience any further issues, please contact Lyle Maeterlinck or Mars Bracken, and we will get it addressed for you. Thanks for your patience with this while we responded to this service interruption.

PREVIOUSLY: There has been a network outage that has affected communication between Second Life servers and our servers. Our web host is currently working to resolve the issue, and we are working on a work-around to get traffic working again between the servers. We will have the system up and running again as soon as possible, thanks for your patience. Stay tuned to this blog post for updates.

Today we made some long-awaited updates to the Bloodlines War website: allowing everyone the ability to vote on dominion bases, and a new Lethality stat.

First, we’ll talk about the lethality update. Lethality is still calculated in the same way, that is, kills, one-hit kills, and body count still increase it, and deaths decrease it, but now there is more than one lethality being calculated: all-time lethality, and recent lethality. The rankings on the home page will reflect recent lethality, but all-time lethality will still be listed on the stats page.

Next, Dominion base voting. When you log into the website, you will see a new form on Dominion profiles that lets you “upvote” or “downvote” any particular Dominion base, by +1 or -1. Each person can vote on each base only once, and you can leave a note on the profile. The note is only visible to you (and to us), and is just a spot where you can write a note about why you voted it up or down, in case you want it for later reference. You can change your vote at any time, or you can change your vote to 0 if you want to effectively remove it. The rating of a base determines whether it is visible on the strongholds list. All bases will still be on the strongholds list, regardless of what their rating is, but bases with a rating below a certain viewing threshold relative to other rated bases will be hidden on the list. You can view hidden bases by clicking on them in the list. There are also links at the top of the list that will let you collapse or expand all rows.

There are a lot of “tricks” that people have used in order to make their bases difficult to take, and whether a given base is fair is a subjective matter. We want to continue to allow people to make creative and interesting bases without too much restriction. However, we want to make sure that bases are not made to be effectively impossible, or unfairly difficult. Now, the community of war players can downvote bases that they believe to be unfair, and upvote bases that they believe to be fair, fun, or interesting. So, if you’re running a war base that you want to make into a stronghold, it’s best to make sure that it is fair and that you treat people fairly who show up to play at your base.

As a reminder, all bases in the public stats must be publicly accessible. This means that a brand-new noob who has nothing except the Bloodlines War HUD must be able to reach your pylons without any special attachments or viewers. If you have a flight ejector, all pylons must be in range of the standard Second Life jump on the official viewer, even if you are giving out the attachment for free at your base. You’re free to give out whatever attachment you want, but you cannot set up your pylons so they are inaccessible without it. Generally, if Lyle Maeterlinck shows up to your base and can’t figure out how to get to your pylons within a reasonable amount of time, your base will be marked as a private base until it has been made accessible. If you have a hidden teleporter, there should be a big, obvious sign that says there is a hidden teleporter, and give a clue for how to find it.

Feel free to comment on this post with any thoughts you have about this update.

Last night the Bloodlines servers were down from about 2AM SL time to 3AM SL time. This was going to be “regularly scheduled maintenance”, but there was a miscommunication with our web host about when it was supposed to happen, and that ‘s why you weren’t warned about it ahead of time. We so sorry for not being able to alert you ahead of time, and for any inconvenience that this downtime caused. The server was intentionally taken down in order to upgrade it.

The good news is that Bloodlines has been migrated to better hardware with better scaling capability, so we should see much faster performance, and far fewer service interruptions in the future, if any. If you have any questions about this, or if you notice any problems with your products or stats, please let Lyle Maeterlinck know in-world. Thanks everyone for your patience with us on this!

UPDATE: Everyone’s blood values should be correct at this point, if they aren’t, please let Lyle Maeterlinck know, and we will fix it.

UPDATE 1:02 pm: Everyone who has a status other than human should have a correct vital blood value. The only blood transfers we are unable to rebuild are from blood being sent through blood bonds. If you sent blood through a blood bond since yesterday morning, it may be rolled back and sent back to the original sender. If you believe your vital blood is not correct, please let Lyle Maeterlinck know.

UPDATE: There are still some issues with vital blood values being wrong. If your vital blood is wrong, please be patient, and it should be corrected shortly. In the meantime, you can continue playing the game normally. We assure you that your vital blood will be corrected.

Last night there was a database error where for a few hours, everyone’s blood was showing an incorrect value. We believe that the issue has been repaired. If you believe that your vital blood is not correct or if you have any other problems with your stats, please contact Lyle Maeterlinck in-world, and let him know what you believe your blood should be. As a result of this, the curse was canceled last night. We’re sorry for any inconvenience that this caused.