News and Updates

We’ve made an adjustment to the way that Prestige achievements affect the main “Top Players Combined” achievement ranking. A couple of years ago, we introduced the Prestige feature that allowed all-time achievements to be started again after reaching Level 5, and each time an achievement was Prestiged, that achievement would get +1 Prestige. The purpose of this was to allow competitiveness in the achievement rankings so that it was possible for new players to rise above large historical totals from people who had been playing for longer. Previously, the rankings were ordered by the following:

1. Overall achievement progress
2. Level progress
3. Medals in the current Soul War
4. Prestige progress
5. Total Prestiges < Updated to ‘Prestige Score’, which takes into account both volume of prestiges, and evenness of distribution.
6. Total Soul War medals
7. Total achievement levels

The new ranking is the same, except ‘Total Prestiges’ has been adjusted to ‘Prestige Score’. This is calculated by multiplying Total Prestiges by a number that indicates evenness of Prestige distribution. So, if you have Prestiged all 69 achievements exactly once, then your distribution score would be 69, and your total would be 69, so your score would be 69×69=4,761. But, if you first prestiged every achievement once, and then a single achievement 69 more times, your total would be 138, but because of the unevenness, the distribution score would drop to 16, so your Prestige score would actually drop to 2,208. So, in changing Total Prestiges to Prestige Score, the ranking rewards not just volume of prestiges, but how evenly they are spread among the possible achievements.

Today we are releasing three updates to Bloodlines that we are excited to share with you!

The Eternal Shrine

This update is intended to make the stat listings and rankings more fresh and current. What this update does is move old accounts into a separate stat ranking called The Eternal Shrine. Any players that haven’t logged in by wearing their Bloodlines HUD in over a year are moved to The Eternal Shrine, where they are ranked only among other members in the Eternal Shrine. Members in the main stat listings are ranked among other players that are currently playing, or players that have logged in in the last year. If you are in the main stat listings, you may notice that your rank in various listings or your generation has gone up, this is a result of some members being moved to The Eternal Shrine. If someone is moved to the Eternal Shrine, all they need to do to get back to the main stats is log into Second Life and wear one of their Bloodlines HUDs. Find out more detail in The Eternal Shrine Guide.

The Amnesty Program

This program constitutes a second chance for many accounts that have been banned over the years. Some people that have been banned in the past for violating Bloodlines Terms of Service or Second Life Community Standards over the years have been granted amnesty. Bloodlines has been around for 15 years now, and many people come to us asking to have their accounts reopened, having realized they made mistakes and wanting to correct them. What we’ve always said is that if we give one person another chance, we have to do it for everyone. This is us giving that chance to everyone. Well, everyone that we believe is safe to offer another chance. Accounts with especially egregious violations, such as deliberate, premeditated malicious activity, or that we believe constitute a danger to the community will remain permanently banned. This does not apply to region or estate bans, this applies to bans from the Bloodlines game. The accounts that have been granted amnesty have violations that we believe are unlikely to occur again. But, as always, we will be vigilant and respond to reports of violations of our terms of service and Second Life community standards by applying our standard moderation procedures. If you are banned and want to find out if you have been granted amnesty, all you need to do is wear your Bloodlines HUD. You will be asked to agree to the Terms of Service again, and once you do, your Bloodlines account will be automatically reactivated. If you are banned and you have not been granted amnesty, and you want to appeal, please send a notecard to Lyle Maeterlinck in-world, and we will review your case. We had a huge number of cases to review, and we may have missed people who should have gotten amnesty.

The Prestige Update

This is a fun one that we have had some requests for from the community. The Prestige Update allows you to “Prestige” or “Level Up” certain all-time achievements. Which means, you can keep your current levels, but stack them in a similar way to the daily achievements. With daily achievements, you can stack the levels every day, and now with all-time achievements, you can stack the levels each time you Prestige that achievement. Prestiged achievements are indicated with a numbered laurel across the top of the achievement badge, and each subsequent level has a new look. We have updated the combined top player achievement rankings to rank prestige progress and total prestige levels above total medals and total achievements. The benefit of this is that it will allow more fair competition in the rankings, and allow newer players a chance to climb all the way to the top of the rankings by using prestiges. This update won’t affect daily achievements, The Soul War, or family achievements, only certain individual all-time achievements. Read more in The Prestige Guide.

In Second Life, you may have received a message that looks like this:

Are you tired of paying your Linden Dollars?
Well, we have an interesting solution for you!
with our SecondLive Viewer, everything is free and open.
Unlock unlimited Linden Dollars (L$) for all your virtual adventures.
Fly to unlimited heights.
Build freely on any land of your choice.
And that’s just the beginning.
Link: https://urlz.fr/(redacted)
We’re grateful to everyone who joins us in our mission to make SecondLife entirely free.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity!
Best regards.
note:
Linden Labs is currently attempting to shut down our site and blacklist the IP addresses used to host our free land.
we will not be fooled by a multinational that thinks it can do everything! Here is a direct download link in case our site goes down. https://mediafire.com/file/(redacted)

If it isn’t obvious to you, this is a phishing scam, and it is not a good idea to download the file they point to. Here are a couple of ways you can identify it as a scam. First, the URL shortener urlz.fr is used, this could forward to nearly anywhere, but it probably forwards to a domain the attacker controls. As soon as you visit it, it will know your IP address and other information about your computer. Anything you type into that website, they will get. Second, they make false claims. It isn’t possible for them to do what they are claiming they can do. The servers that track Lindens and control Second Life land are operated by Linden Labs, and they keep those resources secure. A custom viewer can’t get around this unless it is exploiting some vulnerability in the security of the Second Life servers, but that vulnerability can be patched by Linden Labs. What a viewer can do is collect your Second Life name and password and send it to an attacker who can then take over your account. For that reason, you shouldn’t use any third-party viewer that isn’t listed in the official third-party viewer directory. Also, never type your Second Life password into any site that you clicked on from a link. Type www.secondlife.com into your browser, or use a bookmark you made yourself. Someone could make a domain that is like www.secondlife.fakedomain.com. If you go to this site, you are really going to fakedomain.com, and www.secondlife is just a subdomain. If you own a domain, you can name subdomains whatever you want. Third, if they could hypothetically do what they are claiming, it would be crime. It is not wise to place any trust in online criminals or download things they link you to.

Good luck, and be careful out there!

Edit: here is someone who did some analysis on what the download actually does (spoiler: installs remote administration tools). This link is safe to click, you can see it goes to github.com.

It has come to our attention that some locations in Second Life have taken the extraordinary action of taking moderation actions against anyone simply wearing items that are part of the Bloodlines game. Here are some tips on how to play Bloodlines anywhere without being detected by these.

One of the ways these detectors work is to get the list of objects attached to your body. The two attachments required to send attack requests are the HUD and the Nexus object. By default, the HUD attaches to a HUD attachment point, and the Nexus attaches to your avatar’s body. A detector can get data on attachments to your avatar’s body attachment points, but not HUD attachment points. You can avoid these detectors by attaching your Nexus to a HUD attachment point. For convenience and organization, you can even attach it to the same attachment point that your Bloodlines HUD is attached to. It will work exactly the same way. The only downside to this is that particle effects (such as for curse, embrace, etc) will no longer work. You should not see the Nexus on your screen if you do this, it should be invisible. If the Nexus object is visible on your screen, just touch it and then select ‘Hidden’ from the menu and it will disappear. If you want to see it again, go to Settings on your HUD, then Nexus > Visible.

One other thing that can be detected by these systems is animations that your avatar is playing, and default Bloodlines animations might be targeted by these kinds of detectors. To avoid this, you can turn animations off in your HUD by going to Settings > Animation > Anim On/Off.

You may get picked up by these detectors if you’re wearing other items, such as vials, amulets, fangs, claws, wings, horns, etc. If you do, we would just recommend temp detaching these until you leave the unfriendly environment.

Happy Hunting!

Update: see this knowledgebase article for detailed instructions on how to get container replacements online.

One of the most common support requests that we get is from players that have lost their metric containers and want replacements. We have just released a convenient website feature that will allow you to replace your missing containers yourself. In order to use it, first navigate to your containers through your slbloodlines.com profile. You can do this by clicking on any container icon under the ‘Items’ section of your profile. You will see a tabbed interface that shows all of the Tanks, Casks, Barrels, Prisms, Urns, and Vessels that you own. Click on an individual container in order to view the profile for that container. On that profile, you will see a submenu on the left side of the screen. On that submenu, you will see a new option labeled ‘Replace’. Select that option and follow the on-screen instructions in order to replace your container.

When your container is replaced, if it is full, you will be delivered a full container. If it is less than full, you will be delivered an empty container, and any metrics currently in the container will be moved to a special reserve called your Replacement Reserve. You can use this reserve to refill containers directly on the website. This is a separate reserve from the metric reserve that purchased metrics go into, and refills done from the Replacement Reserve do not count for container-refilling achievements. To refill a container from your Replacement Reserve, select the container on the website you wish to refill to go to the container profile, and select ‘Refill’ on the submenu, then follow the on screen instructions in order to refill your container.

Please keep in mind the following:

1. Containers can only be replaced once every 30 days. So, when you register a new container, it must be at least 30 days old before you will be able to have it replaced.
2. If you hand a container to someone or sell it, it will still appear under your account until that person rezzes the container. So, you will not have the container in your inventory, because you transferred it, but it will still appear on your profile, because our system can’t know that they have it until they rez it. Before requesting a replacement, please make sure you didn’t hand it to someone and then forgot about it, and if someone hands you a container, make sure to rez it as soon as possible so it transfers to your account.

Based on feedback from the community, we have decided to reverse the update we made in 2020 that made it so metrics could not be obtained from fresh victims. Originally, the reasoning for this is because we noticed that some people were using the ability to gain metrics from fresh victims as an exploit to obtain unlimited free metrics. They were just creating thousands of throwaway alt accounts, and only using them for the first free metrics. They were able to do this because Second Life allows the creation of unlimited anonymous alt accounts. The update in 2020 made it so that metrics were only transferred to an attacker from fresh victims once they joined. So, the metrics were transferred at the same time that the soul was transferred.

As of today, we have reversed this update. Everyone should now be gaining metrics on the first attack of a fresh victim. There is no limit to the number of fresh victims you may obtain metrics from in a given day. We ask that everyone please cooperate with the spirit of this: it is to incentivize hunting of real Second Life accounts.

Please do not create fresh alt accounts to attack just to get free metrics!

We will be keeping an eye on this to make sure that it is not being exploited. If we observe any large-scale operations creating alt accounts in order to farm free metrics from them, any associated Bloodlines accounts with those operations will be banned. Thanks for your cooperation.

We are going to be retiring support for old containers on 4/3/2022. The containers being retired were sold prior to our series 5 update in 2014. These containers can be replaced with the latest versions using the Container Trade-In Machine, even after the 4/3 retirement date. What this means is that these old containers will stop working on 4/3. If you have a container purchased prior to June 2014 that you have not traded in yet using the Container Trade-In machine, we recommend that you obtain a trade-in machine and update it. You can obtain the Trade-In Machine for free in any Bloodlines main store, from the vendor to the left of the main HUD vendor. For example, the machine can be obtained at Bloodlines Midland here.

This will affect the following container versions:

1. Blood Tank Versions 1.0 – 4.0
2. Blood Cask Versions 1.0 – 4.0
3. Iron Prism Versions 1.0 – 4.0
4. Bone Prism Versions 1.0 – 4.0
5. Cider Barrel Version 1.0

This should not affect any container purchased after June 2014. This does not affect Urns or Vessels. If you are in doubt about the version of your container, you can always try the Trade-In Machine on it, and it will check the container for you and let you know if it is eligible for trade-in. If your container does not have a ‘Select’ button on the menu, then the Trade-In Machine will not work. You will need to hand your containers to LiquidDesigns Resident *in a folder with your name on it*, and have your containers manually traded out.

More information on the Trade-In machines can be found here.

Announcing Achievement Wave 5, which will be arriving on January 1! This wave features over 50 beautiful new badges you can earn, level up, and show off on your Bloodlines profile! This achievement wave includes the following achievements:

Adherent / Sacrificer: Altar sacrifices for blood, lumens, humanity, cider, ether, and ichor

Indemnifier / Guarantor: Mandrake potion usage for all races

Soul Conservator: Collect and fill soul trophies (existing collections will count)

Connoisseur / Epicure: Drinking Vital Blood, Moonshine, Ether, and Ichor bottles, and Cider Cans

Relentless: A new achievement where you can check in with Determined wells each hour, with no reset for missing one

Curator: Collect rare container textures (existing collections will count)

Ravenous: Unique all-time attacks of all 5 types: bite, claw, sap, exalt, and corrupt

Aficionado / Trafficker: Filling metric containers at refill stations

Soul Trader / Trafficker: Unique soul trades

As usual, all of these achievements start counting at release (midnight New Year’s Eve), unless otherwise specified above.

All of these achievements will also count in the monthly Soul War except for the following: Conservator (Soul Trophy collecting), Curator (Texture Collecting), Ravenous (All-time unique attacks), and Relentless. Soul Trader will count in the Soul War, but will not count towards Soul War Medals.

Regarding Soul Rarity, Ravenous and Soul Trader / Trafficker will be added to the category of achievements where a max of 4 points is possible, along with the Frenzy and Berserk achievements.

Also, an update to Legends War

We know that it has been difficult lately to discover new regions in Second Life, because most regions have already been discovered. Being unable to get this achievement makes it difficult to get the Completist texture at the end of the month. So, we are removing the Discoverer Achievement from Legends War effective January 1.

We are making a minor update to the Determined achievement based on feedback that we’ve received from the Bloodlines community. As it stands, if you stop pursuing this achievement and miss a day, but never check in again, your count will be maintained in the rankings. We are updating this achievement so that if a day is missed, counts are reset at midnight SL time instead of on a new checkin where more than a day has passed. This means that any players no longer pursuing this achievement that have counts greater than 1 day will be reset to 0 days in the rankings. It also means that if you miss a day, your count will be reset at the midnight following that day, and not on a later day when you check in after the missed day. Any level badges achieved will be maintained, just like always. We think that this suggestion from the community makes the rankings more fair because they will only reflect the players currently pursuing the achievement.

UPDATE: There will be no scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, 3/30. Maintenance has been rescheduled for Friday, April 2, 1:00-1:30 AM SL time.

The Bloodlines system will be down for approximately 30 minutes on Tuesday, March 30 from approximately 1-1:30 AM SL Time (Pacific). We hope that the maintenance that needs to be completed will go much faster than this. We will have the Bloodlines system up again as quickly as possible. Please refrain from making purchases from vendors, and interacting with all Bloodlines items during this brief maintenance window. We will be announcing in the official in-world groups when the maintenance begins and ends. Thanks for your understanding.