News and Updates

Yesterday we fixed a couple of minor issues in the Soul Reaper and the Thirst Fangs. We’re not issuing a new version for these fixes that will auto-deliver, but if you’re affected by these issues, please get a redelivery from an update terminal to get the fixed version.

It was reported to us that the new mesh soul reaper had a very high land impact when rezzed on the ground. This was because we forgot to turn off the physics shapes of the linked non-mesh prims in the linkset. This has been corrected in the Soul Reaper 2.0 that is currently in our delivery servers.

The issue with the Thirst fangs will only affect you if you play War. In the last Thirst update, a bug was introduced in the fangs weapon script that allows the thirst fangs to be used as a combat weapon in War. This has been corrected. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Tonight we will have a brief period of maintenance starting at 3:00AM SL time, and lasting for approximately 10 minutes. Note that this only affects Bloodlines War and the Liquid Vendor System. Bloodlines Thirst, Rage, and Human systems and websites will not be affected by this maintenance. Please refrain from making purchases during this time at Bloodlines stores and from Bloodlines affiliate vendors. If you have any questions, please contact Lyle Maeterlinck.

Introducing the Soul Reaper version 2.0! This update includes one of the most common updates we get asked about: the ability to reap more than one soul at a time. For the initial release, you can reap souls in batches of up to 100 at a time, and 200 souls per day through the multi-reaps. These limits are set on the server side, and are subject to change. They might go up, they might go down in the future. We’ve also updated the design with a new mesh build with changeable textures, and more textures coming soon. Also, even though the soul reaper comes with modify permissions, we’ve included a resizing feature to make it easier to size your soul reaper to your avatar.

We’ve also made the soul reaper easier to customize. If you’re a creator who makes third-party Soul Reapers for Bloodlines players to move their scripts into, make sure you see the customization section in the new Soul Reaper instructions.

If you’re a current Soul Reaper owner, you should get an auto-update just by wearing your current Soul Reaper version. However, old versions back to version 1.4 will still work.

Don’t worry, all you humans out there. We didn’t forget about you. Introducing Series 5 mesh Cider Barrels for all your cider storage and trading needs. These Cider Barrels come with all of the new features we recently released in the Series 5 Blood Containers and Lumen Prisms, including customizable textures, sales options, enhanced hover text, and custom tags. We’ll also be adding these Barrels to the Human Affiliate vendors so you can sell them directly from Liquid Designs vendors in your own shop. Humans: please enjoy your cider responsibly, and vampires and lycans, please enjoy your humans responsibly. Thank you!

Announcing the release of Series 5 prisms, in Bone and Iron styles. They each come with all of the new features that we recently released on the series 5 tanks, including changeable textures, custom tags, sales configuration, and enhanced hover text. In addition, they have a land impact of only 3. They can also be auto-updated, so you will never have to buy a future update again. The Bone style prisms come with 9 different bone textures, including Minotaur, Cyclops, Chimera, Elk, Direwolf, Giant, Boar, and Mammoth. The Iron prisms come in 9 different metal colors. More texture sets are coming soon!

Series 5 prisms are truly the next generation of Lumen storage, and are part of the foundation of your Bloodlines Lycan gear. These prisms are also linked up with the new Liquid Designs licensing system, so they can be sold through regular vendors, and affiliate vendors. If you own a set of Rage affiliate vendors, just get a redelivery of the vendors from any update terminal located at a Bloodlines store, or the update terminal that came with your original vendors, and the new crate will include the Prism affiliate vendors, so you can start selling prisms today, and earning commission on them. We are really excited about this update, and we hope you are too!

Many of you are now aware that Linden Labs has announced that they have begun to build a new virtual world. Understandably, some of you have expressed some apprehension about this new virtual world, and there have been a lot of questions about what place Bloodlines will have in it. Will Bloodlines exist in the new virtual world, and if so, will your current Bloodlines account carry over? These are questions we cannot possibly answer yet, as we know next to nothing about the new virtual world. The Next Web claims that a beta version is expected in 2015, with a 2016 launch. We would like to point out that these launch dates are probably extremely optimistic and aggressive, and that it is next to impossible to determine how long it will actually take to build something like this. So, regardless of what the situation is with the new virtual world, it is something you will not have to worry about for at least a couple of years.

We would like to correct a few misconceptions. It has been announced in various places that the new virtual world will not be compatible with Second Life, and what has actually been said is that it will not necessarily be compatible with Second Life, meaning it might be, it might not, but they’re not making any guarantees. They are just prioritizing the strength of the new virtual world over compatibility. That means some things might not be compatible. But, Ebbe Altberg has stated, ‘A lot of what you have will be possible to move across…’.

Regarding Bloodlines compatibility, there are many possibilities. It’s possible that Bloodlines will simply stay in Second Life only for as long as it exists, it’s possible that Bloodlines will span both virtual worlds, and that we will be able to transfer Bloodlines accounts over to accounts on the new world on request, it’s possible that we will make an entirely new game on the new platform, and it’s also possible that this new virtual world will never even be released. Right now, there just isn’t enough information to know what is going to happen.

We are dedicated to making sure the Bloodlines community keeps thriving and growing. Each of you are a part of the future of Bloodlines, and you make this community what it is. It just doesn’t make sense to make assumptions about the future of Bloodlines and Second Life based on a few slivers of information, and then base your investment in the community on those assumptions. No one knows what the future of Bloodlines will be, but that has always been the case. The real future of Bloodlines and of Second Life is up to each of us. Liquid Designs has every intention of continuing to invest time and resources in Second Life. We have lots of new updates coming out soon, including mesh prisms and cider barrels, and updates to the soul reaper and spike, and much more. We hope you will join us!

A few links with more info:

• More Information on Second Life 2.0
• Linden Lab Building Second Life 2
• Lab: “We’re not giving up on Second Life”
• Statement from Firestorm Viewer

We have just released new Blood Tank and Cask Affiliate vendors. They are packaged in the same crate with the existing Thirst affiliate vendors. Just to be clear: we have not added the Tanks and Cask products to the existing affiliate vendor product sets, we have added new, separate affiliate vendors to the same crate as the existing affiliate vendors. So, in order to get the Tank and Cask affiliate vendors, you will need to get an update of the affiliate vendor crate from an update terminal. Pressing the update button on your existing vendors will not add them. Once more: this is a new set of affiliate vendors, it’s just been added to the same crate. Commission is 3%, the same as all other Bloodlines affiliate vendors, and they work the exact same way. So, if you already own the affiliate vendors, you just need to go to the update terminal and get an update. If you don’t, you can pick them up at any Bloodlines store for 1L$. We hope you enjoy these new vendors!

Over the past 14 hours or so, Bloodlines has been suffering intermittent downtime due to a networking problem at our webhost. We wanted to let you know how sorry we are for this unacceptable interruption to the system, and that we are doing everything we can to reduce the downtime as much as possible. The service interruption was caused by a hardware upgrade at the data center where the Bloodlines servers are hosted, and this hardware upgrade caused unexpected problems. So, this service interruption should be a very rare and unusual event. While the system is up and healthy for now, we are not out of the woods yet, they have told us that they are continuing to work on the problem, and that additional periods of downtime may happen before it is complete. If you made any purchases during the downtime that you did not receive, please send a notecard to Lyle Maeterlinck, and I will make sure you get your delivery as soon as possible. Thanks very much for your patience and understanding while we get through this!

Presenting Blood Containers Series 5, our best containers ever. These containers have been re-built from the ground up, both inside and out. They are jam-packed with features, and almost everything about them is customizable. Every container comes with 9 free changeable textures, and premium texture expansion packs are on the way. You can also tag your container with a bit of text to help keep track of it, and the tag will add itself to the object name, and to the hover text, which you can also change the color of, or turn off completely. These containers come with the same level of security options as previous releases, where you can open your container to the whole grid, to a list of up to 25 friends, or to a group, or you can lock it down and keep all the blood for yourself.

Series 5 also comes with the ability to accept Linden payments for blood directly through the containers, at a price per liter that you set. Blood sales are also subject to security controls, so you can set different prices for different groups or lists of friends, and keep everyone else out. You can also use your containers to sell larger amounts of blood to others who own Blood siphons. They can pay your container to siphon directly into their own container. The hover text will keep you updated on the full security and sales status of your container.

What’s more: these containers are no longer purchased from the rez-style vendors on Liquid Estate. They have been integrated into the same licensing system that we use for other no-copy items such as the drinks and apples, so they are delivered directly from our inventory servers. This means that Tank and Cask affiliate vendors are coming soon. And one more thing: these containers will be able to be updated for life, and you’ll never have to buy a new version in order to get the new features.

Stay tuned, we will be releasing Series 5 Prisms and Cider Barrels very soon!

Update: This is a clarification of the procedure you need to follow every single day if you want to make sure you get the Determined achievement. YES, you really do need to follow this procedure every day!

1. BEFORE you log in: look at your achievements on your profile on the Bloodlines website and look at your Determined count. If you already had it loaded, make sure you reload the page to make sure you see the most recent count.
2. When you log in and wear your Bloodlines HUD, make sure that you see the message in local chat “You have been checked in with the Bloodlines system.” If you don’t, detach and reattach your HUD until you do.
3. Check the website again by reloading the page with your achievement stats, and make sure your number has counted up. If not, go back to step 2 and repeat.

Original post follows:

We receive many support requests regarding the Determined achievement, and I wanted to address some concerns with this achievement. For a while, we’ve been resetting this achievement for various people who requested it who believed that they didn’t miss a day logging in and that their achievement didn’t update correctly, and we’ve been resetting it for people on the honor system. But, because of the level of competition that has emerged for this achievement, and because of the volume of these requests we’re receiving, we are no longer able to reset this achievement on request. We have thoroughly tested this achievement, and we know that it is operating correctly, and it works for the vast majority of people.

How Determined Works

When you wear your HUD, the on_rez event in a script in your HUD sends a request to the Bloodlines system letting it know that you’ve worn your HUD. When the system receives this request, it will check your determined achievement, which records the date and time of the last time you wore your HUD. If the last time you wore your HUD was yesterday, it updates the time to today, and gives you a +1 on the achievement. If the date of the last wear is before yesterday, it will reset your achievement to 1 day. For example, today is May 2. If you wear your HUD today, the system will check and see if your determined date is May 1. If so, you will get +1. If it is April 30 or before, it will be reset to 1. The date cutoffs are in Second Life (US Pacific) time. In order to keep up with the achievement, you need to log in once during each Second Life day. You will need to pay attention to this if you are in a different time zone.

Here is an example of how being in a different time zone could cause you to miss a day on this achievement. Say you’re on GMT time (currently SL +7 hours), and you log in at 6am local time on April 30th, the system would record you as having logged in at 11pm on 4/29, which would be the current SL time/date. Then, you don’t log in again until May 1st at 6pm local time, the system sees you logging in on May 1 at 11AM SL time. Even though you have logged in once during two consecutive days local time, there were 36 hours between logins, and one entire SL day (April 30, which started at 7AM on 5/1 local time, and ended at 7AM on 5/2 local time) where the system did not receive a login from you.

There are also other things that can go wrong. If you attach your HUD in a no-script area, the signal will not be sent to our system, and your achievement will not be recorded. The signal will also not be sent f you are already wearing your HUD when you log in, and you log into a no-script area. There are also conceivably problems with the login signal being sent from the sim you’re on, due to lag, or other issues. This achievement also won’t work for you if you leave your avatar logged in all the time without logging in / out.

If you are competing for this achievement:

1. Make sure you are wearing the current version of the HUD. If you don’t have the current version, you will get a message telling you that an update is available when you wear your HUD.
2. Make sure that no more than 24 hours passes between times that you wear your HUD. You can stay logged into SL all the time, but you will need to reattach your HUD every 24 hours.
3. When you log in, make sure you see the message “You have been checked in with the Bloodlines system…” in your local chat window. If you don’t see this message, you were not checked in. You will have to detach and re-wear your HUD.
4. After you log in, look at your determined achievement, and make sure it counted up to where you expect it to be, +1 since yesterday. You might also want to check it before you log in, just to be sure of where it should be. You can view your achievements by going to your Bloodlines profile on the website and clicking on the link “View Progress” next to your achievements.
   1. If your achievement did not count up, please try detaching and reattaching your HUD.
5. If you are sure you have followed all of the above, and you believe there is genuinely an error with your achievement, please send the following to Lyle Maeterlinck:
   1. Your local chat log showing the message from your HUD “You have been checked in…”, with the date and time that you got this message.
   2. You will need to send this to me on the day that it isn’t counting up, where your count shows the amount from your login from the day before, or else I won’t be able to help you.