Okay, so I read a lot about Bloodlines...

That's pretty cool. But only if it advances your own RP amusement, because it's not going to have much effect on the spampire. I think of them as precisely the same as telephone spammers: yes, you can explain to them about the unfortunate consequences of their mothers' extramarital indiscretions, but you know the next name on the list is already queued for the moment they hang up.

Aren't most bite requests issued by bots now, anyway? (If not, *why* not?)

My mom's thing was to keep the telemarketer on the phone as long as possible. In fact, she wanted to see how long it took for THEM to hang up. But then, my mom was a very, very bored person who pretty much resembled a caffeinated ferret in a room full of shiny things when I was young. Now, she just hangs up on them and files a complaint with the national do not call...

Apparently she thinks a 1000 USD fine is much more costly than a few hours of paying a person to call... She's right of course

I did that too, before do-not-call, but I was lazy: I just asked the telemarketer to "hang on a sec" and put them on hold.

Is it true you get medals for insane amounts of bites per day or something?

There's something almost like a medal, but instead of getting something shiny, we get badges. Sounds very much like primary school, doesn't it? You don't get awarded for how many people you've bitten, rather, how many souls you've managed to gobble up. You get titles too, so from becoming a vampire, you go to bloodletter, to Hellion to whatever other dandified names they come up. Top title is obviously King and Queen though, and Bloodlines at one point was trying to come up with a way to stop too many Queens and Kings being created.

The easiest way is to make it so that you can only bite people who are playing the game? Or if you send X number of bite invites in a certain time frame, you're automatically docked a soul?

But given the creators only gave us an equally contemptible garlic necklace, I highly doubt they'd go to the trouble of doing either. Although, I do hope they'd prove me wrong.

That sucks. It's about as far away from roleplaying as you can get.

Not true at all. If you wear the garlic necklace and someone in Bloodlines scans you, they get a message saying, "This person has asked be be left out of Bloodlines." or something similar. Also, even if the vampire is an idiot and tries to bite you, the system will not allow it. If you wear the necklace, activate it, then remove it, you will never receive a bite request from anyone, except a complete and utter moron.

Also, the garlic necklace does not remove you from the database, otherwise you WOULD show up as a fresh victim again. I've known people who wore the necklace and then rejoined the game again later. If you deactivate the necklace, you end up in the same state as you were when you originally wore it and activated it.

Not anymore. From what I understand, they discontinued the medals some time ago.

Oh? Let's see:

and

To me, it's fair to characterize the "garlic necklace" as an opt-out of the Bloodlines spam, but it's impossible to opt-out of both the spam and the database. I should think it's obvious that this is unacceptable.

90% of Bloodlines players then?

i have been trying to think of the perfect example of the difference between the romance of the true vampires i have met with the deep explinations of thier sims..Iused to get all caught up and could listen to them explain to me about actual bloodlines and how it set thier status in thier communities..

VS

Bloodlines the vacume cleaner sales man type of vampire that hangs in info hubs eating newborns as they are born..

and the example that came to mind was this..

I was relaxing and syncronized swimming in slow motion came to mind.. The water flowing over the dancers as they danced together in perfect harmony..all smiling and content as they moved.The beautiful music guiding them..

then it happend.........
MOSH PITT MUSIC!!!! NANAN NAT!! NANNA NAT!! NAT NAAAA!!!!

BLOODLINE CANNONBALL!!!!!! WOOO HOOO!!! any of U BABES can i bit you fer mah feedin 4 ten $L!!!! An Mek U my Biotches.


sorry that just came to mind and just had to type it up

I hastily put together a post, and when I said "not true at all," I was referring to the paragraph that stated if you wore the necklace you would show up as fresh blood. That is my mistake. If you fully read my post, I think that is clear with a bit of critical thinking, but I do apologize for not being clearer about what I was disputing.

As far as the necklace being acceptable or not, I respect your opinion on that. To me, it is obviously a personal judgment, which we all have. Some have stated that the necklace is acceptable and the majority have stated that it isn't. I was not making a judgment either way, but was only clearing up some false information that was presented.

And, one thing in reading my post again, if utter and complete moron does try to bite you, you will not even know it as it won't go through to you. That's what I get for posting before my second cup of coffee!

That was my whole point. There's no opt-out really, because many people are complaining that they don't have any interest in being in the Bloodlines DATABASE. As things stand that's not an option, and it's pathetic. The garlic necklace is not the opt-out people are so fired up about having, it's not like the Do Not Call Registry where you're put in one database for the purpose of keeping you OUT of the ones you don't want to be in, but rather "OK, we'll put your in our database and flag your account as not participating, but all your infos are belong to us."

That's just plain dirty pool, and the reason why Bloodlines should be exclusively opt-in.

And how do you think the system knows you've asked to be left out of Bloodlines? Because you're part of their system, you are participating. That's what people are complaining about, they don't want to be forced to be in the database, but they are being forced to, as those who aren't there are victims waiting to be bitten, plain and simple.

I think that's a beautiful allegory of how my old clan used to be. They might've changed their name to Hellbound Souls, although the guy who originally has my virtual soul has jumped clans quite a bit.

Now there's something that bugs everyone when they come into Bloodlines. I'm always getting asked by the newbs which clans they should join. Sometimes I think it's not even worth joining one, simply because of the Drama, and the King / Queen acts like you're parents, " GO FEED LITTLE ONE..." That's a little patronising, don't you think? Plus, before I moved over to Blood Reapers, I was perfectly happy just dying once a month, while I hibernated in my coffin, lol.

Sorry, if I would wear the nasty necklace I would be taking part in BL's RP..... I will just continue to ban and AR them, thanx

"Freeze" is my favourite.

I don't rp in SL, but I 'like' Los Diablos clan. Why? They respect my desire not to play. Their main clan castle is next door to one of my land parcles. THey own most of the sim on Celestial Isles. Because they know my desire not to play, they leave me alone, simple as that. I don't even use a security orb there is no need, they just respected my request to not play in their rp. Other than that, I really don't care what they, or anyone else wants to do in SL, as long as they leave me out of it, unless *I* want to play. So if there is a clan to 'like', I do 'like' Los Diablos.

Okay... there is something I do not understand about this all.

Some commercial genius invented a game where you bite people.
1. Everyone bitten gets into a big database.
2. Everyone clicking on a garlic necklace also gets in the database, but with a red X before their name as in: do not bite.
3. People not bitten yet, are not in the database, so fresh meat.
4. Bite requests are irritating. In fact the whole concept of the game is irritating, because of the requests for bites hardly anyone is waiting for.

Now I can understand the irritation about the bite requests, but what is the fuzz about the database? I mean, every visitor counter records your name and many merchants save those records. Every product you buy gets you in a sales log that the merchant may or may not save in their database. Your avatars name is in more databases then you think. Yet no one seems to be complaining about that.

So no matter how irritating those freaking bloodline players can be, the complainers about the database are overreacting. Class suits for heavens sake... am I missing something or so some people need a reality check

the data base for buying things in sl stays in sl ..what i gather is this bloodline database the second you get bit or wear this necklace puts you in a data base out of sl onto the bloodline site or their data base on the net..

Actually people do complain about some of those other databases as well depending on what uses they are put to and who collects it. Sales vendors are opt-in systems, they do not collect your data without a positive action from you.

If after reading this thread and the others like it you don't understand what the problem is and why people want opt-in systems rather than opt-out systems that collect data then further explanations are not going to help you see why and are a waste of time. It is far more likely you understand the issue very well but just do think it is a big deal - that is your prerogative and we all have a different perspective.

Yes you are missing something, respect for the feelings of people who see this differently to you and empathy about why people might want to campaign against something for the principle of it rather than because it will end their world or who think that this part of the slippery slope for worse opt-out only (or non opt-out) systems in the future. How do I know this? - it is in the words you choose about "complainers" who might need a "reality check". Not much of an attempt to understand there Marcel.

Now class action is not something I would personally go for - I am not even a US resident/citizen and so could not anyway but if people feel strongly enough about privacy and being data mined in their SL activities then I can at least understand why they might want to force LL to implement a policy against it.

It's probably the principal more than anything. People are exercising their right not to be a part of a really s**t game.

In one post I mentioned the inability to opt-out of being in that database as being unacceptable, but yeah, in this case that external database is really the least offensive part of the whole scheme. The underlying problem is that opting out is even necessary, and what makes it worse, it's not even an option presented with the bite request.

If from the very start a denial of the bite request had registered as an opt-out forever, or if it triggered a dialog with the same result, I think the BloodLines operators and their patsy "players" wouldn't be held in such universal contempt.

That would still be an opt-out and it would still be stored in an external database, but at least it would be instantaneous--and the victim wouldn't be coerced into playing along with a vile "garlic necklace" to regain their right to *not* play along.

The problem with "opt-in" only is that it inevitably winds up with almost no-one opting in, and even people who wouldn't mind being bitten (or whichever the RP calls for) tend not to opt-in, due to either a) simple lethargy or b) that having opted-in destroys the feel of the RP for them.