News and Updates

The Bloodlines War Catalogue Vendors for reselling War products have been released, and are available at the Bloodlines War Store for 1 Linden. Enjoy!

We have just released version 1.6 of the Bloodlines War Heads-Up Display.  You should be auto-delivered the update when you wear your version 1.5 HUD. If you don’t receive the update, you can go to the update kiosk in the Bloodlines War Store. If you are still unable to receive the update, please send a notecard to Noire Luminos, and she will make sure you get it.

This update includes some speed improvements, prevention of multiple-weapon attach cheats, and better lockup prevention. If you have any technical issues with the HUD, please send a notecard to Lyle Maeterlinck in-world.

Thanks to everyone for your patience while we continue to smooth the kinks out of this system. We hope you have fun bringing the fight to every corner of SL.

Today we’re releasing the updates listed below. Due to the high volume of updates, please be patient! The servers are cranking them out as quickly as possible, but it may take 24 hours for yours to arrive.

Thirst 3.2 :

1. Liege method updated so you can choose a nearby liege, or type a name.
2. Updated invisibility animation.
3. Bite animations can be turned off. This is to bypass some vampire bite detectors out there that work by detecting your animations. So, for these places, just turn animations off, and hunt in stealth mode.
4. The multiple-fang cheat for Bloodlines War has been fixed.

Rage 1.1:

1. The same updates as the Thirst (liege method updated, stealth hunting mode, multiple claw cheat for war fixed).
2. Howl fixed so others can hear it.
3. Claws now stay invisible after detach, reattach.

War HUD 1.5:

1. Now with regeneration! If your health is less than 100, your health will regenerate 10 points every 10 minutes. You must be logged in and wearing your HUD to regenerate.
2. Security, performance, and weapon compatibility updates.

Psionic Blast 1.4:

1. HUD compatibility updates.

War Mines 1.1:

1. HUD compatibility updates.
2. Now with Sure-Kill! If you trigger the mine, you will be killed, even if you escape the blast radius before it detonates.

All of these updates are mandatory, so if you experience any issues with your items today, please make sure that you have the most recent versions of all items. For all items except for the Mines, your updates should be auto-delivered to you when you wear your existing version.

Because of these updates, we have to disable existing Bloodlines War Mines 1.0 (because they won’t work). However, if you put your mines into a folder with your name on it, and pass them to Lyle Maeterlinck, we will replace your mines with the new versions (plus a few extra for your trouble).

We’d like to announce the release of our new system: Bloodlines War. The Bloodlines War products have been out for a couple of weeks, as somewhat of a “soft-launch” to allow us to work out any major problems before we advertised it. The Bloodlines War system is a straightforward, easy-to-use combat system that works anywhere in Second Life. It allows you to use your Thirst Fangs and Rage Claws as weapons in combat with other Bloodlines players. However, you don’t have to be a member of The Thirst or The Rage in order to play. The War system includes a bare-fisted attack, and is set up to work with a future line of weapons. Check out the products page to see the full line of war items.

If you’re a current Bloodlines player, fighting in Bloodlines War will not affect your current Thirst or Rage stats. The War stats are an entirely separate set of stats where you can gain kills, a body count, and increase your level, xp, and lethality ratings. However, your vital blood level will increase the strength of your fang attack, and your lumen level will increase the strength of your claw attack.

If you have any questions or comments about the system, please send them to Lyle Maeterlinck in-world. We hope you like this new system as much as we do!

We are pleased to announce the long-awaited arrival of the Bloodlines lycan system, The Rage. We know it’s long overdue, but we couldn’t rush it out, we wanted to make it as richly featured as The Thirst, and we agonized over the details. We’ve configured it so that The Thirst and The Rage can stand alone, or can seamlessly integrate, depending on how you want to use it. Vampires and Lycans can exchange attacks, and can mix together in clans and packs. Or, you can become both enraged and embraced to achieve the status of Hybrid, moving back and forth between both worlds. For all the details, please see the Vampire / Lycan interaction section of our new Game Guide.

We’ve been through a lot of testing, but it’s a complicated system and we can’t guarantee you won’t run into any errors. If you run into a problem, just send a notecard to Lyle Maeterlinck with a description of the problem, and we promise we’ll get it corrected right away.

Over the last year and two months, thousands of you have endured a relentless Vampire Curse to form the true vampire armies of Second Life. You have taken part in an adventure that encompasses both real and invented stories, and every one of your characters have left their mark on the story of Bloodlines forever.

Now arise the Lycan armies. I’m sure you’re with us when we say that we can’t wait to see what happens next.

Also, there is another big development just over the horizon, so stay tuned…

Thanks to everyone for your support!

Mars Bracken and Lyle Maeterlinck

Liquid Designs

You’ve probably noticed that we’ve made some updates to this website. We’ve removed the FAQ, and we’ll soon be updating the ‘about’ page to a comprehensive guide to the Bloodlines game, and including the information that was previously contained in the FAQ. We know it’s long overdue, and we promise as soon as it’s complete it will be posted.  Also, the ‘clans’ page has been changed to ‘groups’ so it can encompass Vampire clans, and the upcoming Lycan packs. You might have also noticed that we’ve changed the way that stats are displayed on the groups page, we’re now providing some extra information about clans. Before, the clan listing only showed the total number of historical members of the clan. Now, it shows both the currently active members and the total historical members. “Active” members is the total of humans and vampires. If someone has a status of destroyed, or has deactivated their profile using the garlic necklace, they are not counted in the active total. At the top of each clan roster, you can now see the number of vampires, humans, destroyed players, and total historical members in the clan. This is only a change in the data displayed on the website, and is not a “rule change” in the game. It also has nothing to do with souls or soul counts. The reason this display change was made was to make the listing meaningful and to reflect the active player membership in the clans, rather than a historical total.

We plan on making more extensive updates to the website over the next few days, and releasing many new exciting products. Stay tuned to this blog for status updates, and thanks for playing Bloodlines!

Today we’re happy to announce “The Blood Shot”. The shot is a glass of blood containing .25 Liters of fresh vital blood. The Blood Shot can be sipped slowly or ‘shot’ all at once. They’re transferrable, which makes them great for a social gathering, club, or gift to a thirsty clan member close to destruction. 

As with our other blood containers like the Tanks and Bottles, for security reasons the Blood Shot has to be rezzed on our own sims prior to sale, so unfortunately we can’t put them in the catalogue vendors at this time. They are currently available at the Sanguinus Keep sim here, as well as at The Haunt vampire bar on the dock in the Bloodlines East RP area.

Below is a procedure you can use to help make sure you don’t buy a tank or cask that doesn’t work or has been deliberately removed from the system by us when an account is terminated.

1. Check to see if the avatar you’re buying from has an active Bloodlines account. Type their name into the search box on www.slbloodlines.com, and if you can’t find their page, don’t buy from them, regardless of what excuses they give you.

2. See if the container in question appears on their Blood Cellar page. (Make sure that if you’re buying a full 20 L cask, that you see at least one full 20 L cask on their blood cellar page. If there isn’t one, don’t buy it.) You can get to their Blood Cellar page by clicking on the blood container icon on their profile.

3. Check the creator of the object – including the linked prims! This isn’t foolproof, because scammers have found ways to repurpose Mars Bracken prims to link as the root, but have the seller rez the container in front of you. Right-click on it and select ‘edit’. Your build tools window should open. Look on the “General” tab, and make sure the creator is Mars Bracken on all the prims (or Voluntas Blackburn or Lyle Maeterlinck, other BL creators) and that the owner is the name of the avatar you’re buying from. Again this one isn’t 100% foolproof, but often times you can spot a fake this way.

4. In the build window, go to the ‘Content’ tab, and make sure that the container contains a script called ‘Bloodlines Blood Container’ for pre-version 5 containers, and for new containers, look for scripts named “_1_container_api_[version]” and “_2_container_operate_[version]”.

5. Have the seller set the container to open access and fill/drink mode. Once they’ve done this, when you click on the container, you should get a menu with ‘Fill’ and ‘Drink’ buttons.

6. Fill the container with 0.1 L of blood. (If the tank is full, then drink 0.1 L). Make sure that the blood comes off of your vital blood and goes into the container. The best way to check this is by looking on your own Bloodlines profile, and on the Blood Cellar page of the avatar selling the tank. Make sure that your vital blood dropped by 0.1 L, and that the amount in the tank went up by 0.1 L (or vice versa if you drank instead of filled). If this worked, the tank is good.

7. Now, if you’re ready to buy the container, DO NOT pay the avatar directly and have them hand it to you. Don’t take your eyes off of the container that you just checked. Have the seller set it for sale at the agreed price, and then right-click it and select ‘buy’. You will now be the owner of the container.

General tips:

1. If they’re selling it in the Bloodlines store, NEVER buy from them. Selling blood in the store is prohibited. Please report them to us.
2. If you see anything funny happen after you check the container, check it again.
3. Don’t let them rush you. You’re the one that stands to lose if this deal goes bad. Take your time, and if you’re not certain it’s good, don’t buy it. If they’re in a hurry, ask to meet at a better time for them.
4. Don’t let them talk you into any other custom procedure, no matter what explanation they give you. In fact, if they try to talk you into anything else or convince you of anything, it’s a good sign that they’re scamming you.
5. If they say they work for Bloodlines, or that they’re friends with the creators, or that Bloodlines or the Lindens certified their tanks, they are lying to you.

If they give you any trouble or you get a bad feeling about them or anything else, trust your gut and don’t buy it.

If you do end up buying a tank that doesn’t work, I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to replace it for you. Here is the action you can take:

1. File an abuse report on the person for Fraud > $L. We’re not sure that they will be able to help you, but it’s worth a shot.
2. Send us their name so we can possibly take action against them, including but not limited to: banning them from our land, draining and deregistration of additional blood containers and termination and destruction of Bloodlines account(s).

We want to support the blood trade, but we take theft and fraud very seriously, and we pursue blood thieves and frauds to the extent that we are able.

Today we’ve released version 2.9 of The Thirst and 2.7 of the Spike. This is a mandatory update, but the current versions of the Thirst and the Spike will continue to work for 72 hours following the product release. After Saturday evening, 3/7/09, you will need to get the update. When you attach your Bloodlines HUD or Spike, it should be auto-delivered to you. If it’s not, try getting your update from the update kiosks in the main Bloodlines stores on Liquid Designs or Liquid East.

The Spike update is just to coincide with some of the server-side updates that we made to The Thirst. The changes to the Thirst include:

1. Setting your liege is now done through a local sensor and selection from a menu, instead of typing in the avatar name. This means it’s a lot easier to set your liege or to request freedom, but in order to set your liege, you have to do it in person.
2. With this version, avatars younger than 14 days old cannot be attacked. This is to cut down on vampire attacks on new avatars in welcome areas. New avatars can only join the game if they buy the HUD first.
3. Tampering controls have been added to keep the bite from being disguised as something else, like a hug. You can still modify your fangs to fit your avatar, including resizing them and moving the prims around, but please don’t rename them or add prims to the link set, these actions will set off the tamper controls.

If you discover any technical issues with the updates, please let Lyle Maeterlinck know immediately. Happy Hunting!

UPDATE: The Thirst 2.8 and the Spike 2.6 have been deactivated. Your animations still may work, but they will no longer interact with the Bloodlines server.  To continue playing, please update to Thirst 2.9 and Spike 2.7. If you have any trouble getting your update, send a notecard to Noire Luminos.

There is a bug in SL at the moment that may be affecting your HUD and Bloodlines items. We want to make you aware of it, as well as ask for your help in filing messages on the SL JIRA, in hopes that it may get fixed sooner rather than later.

The SL bug is one that affects the owner data on prims; in some regions, the sim is unable to report who owns what prims properly. This has a negative effect on many things, including our HUDs; if your HUD cannot tell that you are the owner, or can’t tell that your friend owns their HUD, then you may have issues with scanning, drinking blood from casks/tanks, using potions, etc.

This is NOT affecting all regions, so if you are having issues, definitely try your items in another region to see if they resolve. 

If you’d like to do your part to help get this issue fixed – you can vote on the JIRA issue associated with this bug. Voting only takes a moment, and if sufficient votes rack up the Lindens tend to give the issue higher fix priority.

The JIRA issue can be found here.

Once the JIRA page loads, on the left side, near the top, it should say: “If you were logged in you would be able to see more operations.”

If you click the “logged in” portion  of that statement, it will prompt you to log into the SL JIRA. Once you do, you’ll then see (on the left side again):

” Voting: You have not voted for this issue. Vote for it if you wish it to be fixed”

Click on “Vote for it” and you’ll add your voice to those that wish to see this issue fixed in the near future!