Tired of vampire bites? Read this!

I received this notice today from the Free Style group:


Bloodlines is offering a free, copy/transfer garlic necklace for anyone who does not want to be offered vampire bites. Just wear the necklace, click on it, and you will be given the option to be deleted from the Bloodlines system forever.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Liquid%20South/224/44/0


(for the purists - the question is in the title).

It's a bit difficult to find but I have a copy if anyone wants one and doesn't have time or the desire to visit a bloodlines sim full of bloodsuckers. Just IM me inworld and I'll be happy to send you one.

I also have that nifty dagger Cheri made for people who want to send a nice vampire kill to those who don't bother to read profiles, or talk before sending out bites.

I did post about it in the vampire thread as well, but I'll just keep playing the "AR BloodLines" game instead on every offer.

Opt-out is a nice gesture but always the wrong way to go. They're working on a werewolf game and then we can go opt out of that one next, and so on and on.

They're making money marketing something that's solely intended to harass other residents when they're clearly not interested in punishing any of their players for their behaviour which will just continue as it always has, now preying solely on those who don't know any better.

Exactly.

Although LL seems to have always been reluctant to punish the makers of these things themselves, since of course they can't for the most part be held responsible to what people do with their product, I get bittten I ignore the biter and send two AR's one against the biter and one against the creator, if nothing else it makes me feel better or even if no official action is taken a Linden could (it's rare but it has happened) pull them aside for a little chat.

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Yeah, that.

Who knows if they receive enough AR's LL might even be forced to ad some restrictive code to the system stuffing things up for other systems. Maybe ban RP?
I it the user of such a HUD initiating the bite then AR the user, not the system,
Next people will be ARing weapon makers everytime they get shot at, or vehicle makers everytime they get run over.

This doesn't compare to weapons in any way since in those cases the creator has zero control over what happens after the purchase since the weapon stands on its own.

In this case Bloodlines is 100% dependant on an external server so they have every possible means at their disposal to either punish or outright ban players. Ironically enough they threaten to do just those two things to people who cause trouble on their sims.

Secondly, the game is specifically designed to be a pyramid scheme that not only encourages but even rewards its players for harassing everyone else. The comparison to Tiny Empires is made often enough: it's a pyramid scheme as well but it's only possible to interact with other players. Bloodlines deliberately doesn't include that limitation and since there is no punishment of any kind of mass-spamming other residents the behaviour is rewarded and silently encouraged by the creators.

When a creator has full and absolute control over their creation at any given time *and* fails to take any measure whatsoever to punish how its playerbase acts then they are responsible for letting the harassment continue. They're entirely capable of putting a stop to it tomorrow if they wanted to, but they don't.

If you want to compare it to anything then compare it to the "pay to tp" scheme we had a long while back which resulted in unwanted tp requests, or rewarding people for advertising your business which results in people tp'ing over and spamming everyone. It's plain to anyone that abuse is guaranteed to happen and if you just refuse to deal with any abuse caused by people you're overseeing then yes, you are just as responsible.

cute idea, but I think I like the buffy bot (mentioned elswhere) better (auto ban/eject/AR of of bite requests) .... though I think it'd be funnier to have the bot on damage enabled land (it's home) and stab them all with 'mr. pointy'.... instead of ejecting them =)

I´m sorry, but I don´t see why I should have to take the time/trouble to go get something/wear something to stop other people doing something to me that I don´t really want them to do in the first place.

I just tell them they've got rubber teeth and it didn't hurt.

Be it a pyramid system or whatever, the user has absolute control over the item, they are the one that clicks you, not the creator, why let them off and not the creator. Your ussue is with the person on the otherside of their avatar, we can't just start AR'ing creators everytime people use their creations in an abusive manner.

That.

not gonna take side with the creator of bloodlin but...

They offer a possible solution and you guys spit in their faces?

"Welcome to SL. Where the only reaction is a complete and utter overreaction. Every. Single. Time."

Agreed, although a note or two to the creator wouldn't hurt, the real culprit is the person misusing the hud.

Why would anyone have to wear another scripted item. why do Residents have to Opt out when they never OPT'd in . It's no different than receiving unsolicited group invites and spam.

And when you run a club . They come in disturbing all your guest in which falls in lines of disruputed events and disturbing ther peace. Pretty annoying if you ask me.

The creator has absolute control in this case, not the user. If they take their servers offline all Bloodlines products are utterly worthless and non-functional.

You're missing the "and fail to enforce any kind of guidelines on their players".

If you buy a mystitool and decided to use it as a griefing tool there is nothing the creator can do about that. If a Bloodlines player harasses other residents it's trivial for them to either hurt their stats or ban them from their game altogether, something they have no problem threatening on their own sims.

The only decent solution would be for Bloodlines players to only be able to interact with other Bloodlines players. A less perfect but still decent solution would be for them to actually ban, or otherwise punish, people who run around harassing everyone which would be very trivial for them to do (Yes on the request means they get blood, No means they'd loose blood).

This solution does nothing to stop the actual problem and is purposefully intended that way so that they can feign a "good effort" attempt while meanwhile still encouraging their players to spam everyone they come across because that tactic is ultimately rewarding rather then detrimental.

Meanwhile spampires will still prey on clueless newbies, in stores, etc the same as always.

They don't encourage them to do it, they actually discourage it via updates and in their own sim where hey yes, as you've noticed, they have signs up telling people not to do it.

The users have absolute control, they have the choice not to click people or not to even wear the HUD.
Every creator has the same options to hook servers up to their products, we could therefore AR Hipptech for any abuse using their vendors etc.

"Bad spampires! You're not supposed to harass people like that! We're not at all happy that you're spamming people like that and are getting ahead in the game like we're currently allowing you to do with absolutely no consequences of any kind. So be nice and don't spam people or else you'll gain rank and we'll make more money which are both bad, bad things! *wink wink*"



Again: they could stop the behaviour tomorrow if they wanted to. The fact that they're not putting a stop to it means they wholeheartedly approve of the tactic. The more spampires spam, the more people get exposed to the game and a small percentage of those will end up buying it.

Here's a thought: Abuse Report Linden Lab for actually creating the scripting engine in the first place as full responsibility for all scripting abuses - by your logic - fall on the Lab!

See now, the Bloodlines people are *really* missing out on a chance for more money here. What they should be doing is selling a 'potential victim' HUD, which those that want to be prey can buy (and Bloodlines vamps can only bite people wearing that HUD). Then, once bitten by a vampire, the victim has three days to buy an infusion of vampire blood to turn them fully, and *then* they have to buy the full Bloodlines HUD for full vampire status.

Everyone's happy. People that don't want to get bitten don't have to get bitten, and the Bloodlines people make more money anyway, from selling the victim HUD and the vampire blood transfusion as well as the main HUD. If the spampires want to just fly around and collect more blood by just clicking and sending bite offers instead of actually roleplaying the approach and bite, then make 'em work for it, looking for people wearing victim HUDs, instead of bugging clueless newbies.

Reading what people actually write instead of merely reading a few random words always helps.

LL acts on ARs it deems to be actionable so even though you can disagree on what they actually consider to be abuse or not they do have a system in place and actually do deal with disruptive behaviour on their platform. Even if their system is far from perfect they can at least claim a "honest effort".

Bloodlines on the other hand has no such thing which is the subtle difference in my point that you clearly missed.

No Kitty, I missed no such thing. You however apparently missed both my sarcasm, and my point.

The point you have missed is this: No matter who owns, creates, or has enabled a system (including the scripting engine itself) it is the users who abuse the system that are to blame.

That's all there is to it.

so, if you'd like to hold a system's creator responsible ... You had better be willing to hold the people who enabled the creation of the system responsible as well.