News and 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.

Recently, we proposed a set of rules for Bloodlines War Dominion bases that would apply to any bases that wished to be a part of the public stats on the website. The purpose of this was to attempt to make the stats meaningful by making sure that all of the ranked bases were playing by a minimum basic set of standards. We released a poll that asked players for feedback on these rules. The rules included guidelines for using land controls (bans) for protecting a base. We had suggested a system where players would be able to mark bases as not complying with the final global rules, and then could be inspected by base inspectors that would manage which bases can be in the public stats.

The problem at the root of this effort is the conflict between the flexibility and control that Second Life offers, and the desire to have many bases meaningfully compete with each other in a global ranking. We have come to the conclusion that the level of restriction we would have to put in place in order to put ranked bases on equal footing would be too limiting of the freedom you currently have with setting up bases, and that we would not be able to adequately enforce these restrictions anyway. Also, we would not be able to investigate and resolve disputes over local bans. This means that you could defend your base using individual bans (as many people have done), and there really isn’t anything we can do about it.

What this means is that we will not be able to have a truly meaningful global ranking that compares Dominion bases to each other. So, there will be some changes with the stats displayed on war.slbloodlines.com. The global Strongholds ranking has been removed, and instead, durations that the bases were held by various armies has been moved to the individual Dominion pages. Bases will no longer be competing against each other for how long they can be held by a specific army, but instead, two armies can compete against each other to capture the same base and see how long each of them can hold it for. The system will effectively consider all bases to be privately held and managed by local rules. To put it another way, each base will have its own individual stats that you can compete for. The Strongholds list has been replaced by the ‘Battlezones’ list, representing the most popular bases. Bases that are set up to be impossible to take probably won’t be near the top of this list. As the system currently stands, it provides incentives to make your base as difficult to take as possible. We believe the new system will give armies incentives to work together to set up bases and local rules that are fair and fun to play.

If someone bans you from their land, we can do nothing to intervene, and we suggest you contact them to work it out, or just go somewhere else. There can be no such thing as an “unfair banning”, as a land owner can ban you from their land for any reason, or for no reason at all.

An additional change that some of you have noticed is that we are now throttling pylon captures to one per second. For a long time, certain people have set up bases to “game” the system to get as many pylon capture points as possible, by putting all of their pylons in a row on alternating channels, and running up and down the row, in some cases capturing five or more pylons per second.

We have seen enormous creativity and ingenuity devoted to designing interesting Dominion bases, and we are grateful to everyone who has genuinely supported the system with their efforts, and we hope you will support this effort to keep the game fun, and the stats meaningful. Thanks for everyone’s input and comments that help us continue to improve Liquid games. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share.

Office hours are on for this Friday:

• Where: the Bloodlines store on Liquid Frontier (click to teleport)
  
• When: Friday, July 29, from 2:30-3:30PM SL time (Pacific)

Last time, our entire office hours were spent on questions about Bloodlines War. So, we may need to have a separate office hours scheduled just for War, or do alternate weeks for War. Either way, we think we would like to devote this week’s hours to non-War issues. Let us know what you think. We hope to see you all there!

Today we released the following updates:

• War HUD 1.9
• Psionic Blast 1.5
• Handgun 1.1
• Sword 1.1
• Flamethrower 1.1

All weapons were updated to prevent multiple attachments in Second Life viewer 2. The Handgun and the HUD were updated for greater reliability on hits, and to fix the issue with targets getting transferred from other targeted weapons. In 24 hours, we will disable the current versions of all of these items, and it will be required for you to have an update. Provided you have a valid purchase record for the item, the update will be automatically delivered to you when you wear the item.

One new feature in the War HUD is the ability for army commanders to transfer their armies to other soldiers within their army. This can be done by going to Settings > Army > New Commander. The new commander must be a registered, active Bloodlines War player, and must currently be in your army. This is useful for transferring your army to a new owner, while keeping the same army stats.

We’re also excited to announce that the War HUD now has support for the Liquid Designs Accounts feature, which allows you to register an account to log into the War website at http://war.slbloodlines.com. We’ll be announcing more about what this will allow you to do in the near future. For now, you can create your account by going to Settings > Account > Register on your Bloodlines War HUD. If you already own the Bloodlines Blood or Lumen Scan, you already have an account, and you can use the same credentials to log into the War website.

For now, the only authenticated feature on the War website is a poll regarding new standardized rules for all Dominion Bases. Read the proposed rules here. At the bottom of the rules, you can log in and take a poll to state your opinion on the rules. These rules are not currently in effect, and won’t go into effect until after the end of the poll. Please keep in mind that these rules are only for public bases, or bases listed in the stats on the website. You can have a private base that isn’t listed, and have whatever local rules you want. The intention of these rules is to make the stats more meaningful by making sure that all ranked bases are following a minimum set of standards. We look forward to hearing your comments on these proposed rules.

Very soon, we will be announcing more about the accounts feature on war.slbloodlines.com, but we hope to allow players to have more customized profiles and to use the website to connect to other players. Thanks for playing Bloodlines War!

UPDATE 5:30am SL time: I expect bases should be back up again by 5:40am SL time.

UPDATE: The maintenance routines are taking longer than expected to run. Bases will be back up as soon as possible.

Tomorrow morning at 5:00 am SL time (GMT-8), we will be performing some maintenance on the Bloodlines: War system in order to increase the stability and reliability of the system. The website will remain up and your HUDs and weapons will still work, but Dominion bases will be down for approximately 15 minutes. They will be deactivated and locked when the maintenance begins, and approximately 15 minutes later, they will automatically reset. This applies only to version 2.0 Dominions. If you have a Dominion base that is older than version 2.0, please hand it to Lyle Maeterlinck in a folder with your name on it and we’ll send you back a 2.0 right away. Please feel free to comment or contact Lyle Maeterlinck in-world with any questions or concerns.

Some of you have come to us letting us know that you changed the commander of your war army, and as a result, you lost the base capture points that your army had earned. Right now, armies are linked to each individual commander, so that when a new commander takes over an existing army, the base capture points restart at zero, even if the army has the same name. In the next version of the War HUD, we will include a function to transfer your army to a new person, so that the base points will carry over.

In the mean time, we have had several requests to restore base points to armies that have switched commanders, with the membership of the army staying otherwise the same. So, if you have done this at any time in the past and lost your existing base points, I will restore your previous base capture points to your current army. Just leave a comment on this post with the army name, the previous commander, and the new commander, or send a notecard to Lyle Maeterlinck in-world, and I’ll restore your points. Thanks for your patience, and for playing war!

Tonight we have released the much-anticipated new War weapons: the handgun, the sword, and the flamethrower! We’re really excited about this release, and we think these weapons are a ton of fun to play with. We’re also releasing some custom-built structures and items to help you build your battlezone: The Medieval Fortress and The Apocalypse Fortress are two structures custom-designed for Bloodlines War battles, plus we’re releasing our signature Hedge Maze from the ground level of Liquid Designs, so you can set up your own hedge maze base with the Dominion, or just use it to battle your friends! Plus, we have a handful of other old and new accessories featured in the Bloodlines War store that you can use to decorate your battlefield. Check out the Bloodlines War store at Liquid Badlands now!

As we mentioned in our post last week, we’re also releasing new versions of the mines and health serums, so that they are no-transfer. There are still some people out there using exploits to crack permissions on items, and then selling them. So, we have to continue with our updates to make all of our items no-transfer. We hope you were able to use up your current mines and serums over the last week, but if you weren’t, please refer to our post from last week on how to trade them in.

We’d also like to explain some adjustments we’ve made to the damage done by the various war weapons. On most weapons, we’ve scaled all of the damage down a bit, so that fights should start lasting a bit longer. Here’s what you need to know about the adjustments we’ve made:

1. The bare fist now only does 3 damage instead of 5.
2. The claw (Rage) and fang (Thirst) attacks now have the possibility of getting you a one-hit kill, depending on how high your Vital Blood (for the fangs), or Lumens (for the claws) currently are. The higher your vampire or lycan energy is, the more likely it will be that you’ll be able to slash an artery, but you’ve still got to have a bit of luck. If you don’t get a one-hit kill, then damage is based on your distance, and also how lucky you are.
3. The Psionic Blast works the same way as before, but you might find that it does a little less damage than it used to.
4. The  Handgun also has a chance of getting a lethal wound, based on your body count. The higher your body count, the greater the chance you’ll have of getting a head shot, but you’ll still need a bit of luck. If you don’t get a head shot, the damage done is based on some luck and on how far away you were when you fired.
5. The Sword has a chance of getting a lethal wound based on your current health. The higher your current health, the harder you’ll be able to swing when trying to chop an enemy in half. If you don’t score a lethal wound, the damage done is based on luck and how far away you were when you swung.
6. It’s not possible to get a one-hit kill with the flamethrower. The closer you are, the more damage you’ll do.

Thanks to everyone for their support, and we hope you all have a great time playing War!

We’re pleased to announce a release date for the new Bloodlines: War weapons. The Handgun, The Sword, and The Flamethrower will be released one week from today, on Tuesday, August 17th! The Handgun has a ‘silenced’ mode so that you can have a gunfight anywhere in Second Life without rezzing bullets and creating collisions with other residents. You can also use this silenced mode in areas where you don’t have permission to rez objects. Both the bullets and the sword contain blood effects when they make contact with other Bloodlines War players.

We will also be updating the Health Serum and the Mine so that they are no-transfer. We regret having to do this, but there are a small group of residents who have permissions-cracked versions of our transferable items, and sell them at below cost. As a result, we have to update all of our transferable items to be no-transfer, and we will not be releasing any more transferable items. So, you have one week to use up all of your current health serums and mines (a great excuse to create a nice big minefield), because after 8/17/10, they will no longer work. If you still have any mines or health serums left over after this date, you can trade them in for the new versions. If you see residents selling any health serums or mines for very low prices, please don’t buy them, they are counterfeit. We are only able to trade in mines and health serums if you originally purchased them directly from us, and not from a reseller. We can’t guarantee any item that’s purchased from a reseller. You must seek a guarantee from the avatar you’re buying from.

If you need to trade in your items, please observe the following procedure:

1. Items must be placed in a folder, and NAME THE FOLDER WITH YOUR NAME ONLY. To do this, go to your inventory, and select New > Folder. Right-click on the folder and select ‘Rename’, then type your avatar name. Drag and drop your items into this folder.
2. Please don’t name the folder with any text other than your avatar name. Including additional or different text will delay your trade-in.
3. Include a note card with a copy of your transaction history for the purchase. You can get this by logging into your account on Secondlife.com, then going to Account > Transaction history, and copying and pasting the transaction information into the notecard. Drag the note card into the folder with your name on it.
4. Pass the folder to Noire Luminos, but please do not start sending in mines or health serums until after they are deactivated on 8/17/10.

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we worked on the new War Weapons, and for your patience with the item trade-ins. We have more exciting Bloodlines additions that will be released in the coming weeks, so check this blog often for updates.

The Bloodlines War HUD has been updated to 1.7. This is not a mandatory update, so the 1.6 HUD will work with the 1.7 HUD, but it should fix any lockup problems in 1.6.

Please note, we have updated all Bloodlines War stats following an update to our attack and kill tables. All kills that had previously been recorded after the victim was already dead (due to the multiple-weapon attach cheat, or due to lag) were removed, and all statistics, including lethality, kills, deaths, body count, and one-hit kills were rebuilt for all players.  We’ve also repaired the issue with kills of this type being recorded.