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

That's.. sort of true, but I wouldn't quite put it that way.

The problem with comparing a sim to an AOL chatroom is that a) the sim costs somebody US$295 per month, and b) the sim has to be built, and will determine the visual environment for the RP. a) means that most RP sims are based on themes that have the ability to grow to encompass many people (who may then become paying customers) which typically means fairly vanilla takes on established themes, such as vampires or Star Wars. b) means that someone has to build it and the build will then affect the RP, and I've heard complaints several times that only the builder of the sim then truly has any freedom because they can change the environment to fit what they want to play, while others have to stick with what's provided.

These are problems. I honestly cannot believe Gabriel's claim that all of the Bloodlines players would play more serious vampire RP if only it had been better marketed - Bloodlines might be profit driven but there is clearly demand for it. And the problem with the "RP that you can do anywhere" that you describe is that tends to come down to just doing what everyone else is doing, while wearing a particular av, which palls kind of quickly. And _on top_ of this, if I've talked to people about RPing generally, they've advised me to try and "inject my RP" into regular conversations, because if you wait for permission it will never come - and if someone doesn't realise that the definition of RP in that advise doesn't include Bloodlines, then it seems reasonable.

Where I disagree with you is that if I visit a gothic cathedral build on the mainland, I wouldn't mind in particular if a group of players were playing Bloodlines in one corner while some gangsters were shooting at each other in the other and two ninjas were swordfighting on the balcony, as long as none of them involve me if I don't want to be. (Ok, I might break down in laughter, but not in-world.) In fact, honestly, if I was asked to propose a way to fix Bloodlines it would be to require that you can only people who are members of a particular group - which shouldn't be difficult, if Bloodlines is using a web host, which it apparantly is (the webhost can include a reflector which reads the user's profile from the GSA directory - they'd only need to be a member of the group, not to have it active). But what matters is surely the interaction of the people, not the location of the interaction?

There's two now?

Those that do RP tend to do so in IM and leave the rest of us out of it. Nothing like trying to RP a bite scene in a mall and getting rated for quality to put a stop to that nonsense.

And yes, I tend to be something of a loner by nature. I'm quite content to create content without ever hearing a word, but I run a business, so that doesn't always happen. Not that I mind, because most good souls are kind enough to wait until I'm finished cursing a prim into place before I respond.

Bite invites and such are just annoying and unwanted spam as far as I'm concerned. And calling that RP.. well, it's an insult to RP, if you ask me.

And that would be expected, because that is the purpose of those rooms. SL does not have that sole purpose, however, and people who believe everyone in SL is a potential willing vampire victim for this game are extremely annoying to everyone who is in SL for something else altogether.

Yes, the first guy got lonely and created an alt to talk to!

Works for me. I think the whole thing with location is kind of a tangent, really. It would be one form of "opting in" that seems acceptable (to me anyway), although apparently the "opt-in / opt-out" semantics there isn't as clear-cut as it seems to me.

As always, Yumi, there's more in your post than I can really get my head around--which is my shortcoming, I admit. But it seems as if we're both interested in richer and more diverse opportunities for RP in SL. And however limited SL's tools may be for social interaction and group formation, they're what we got. And they're surely at least as good as those of IRC, which facilitated plenty of social and RP interaction in its day (and perhaps still, for all I know).

But I have to say that the Bloodlines HUD doesn't use those tools, instead creating its own seriously flawed medium. So seriously flawed, in fact, that it interferes with social interaction in SL and diminishes RP. And its most serious flaw is that as designed it can only succeed (as a product) by degrading the experience of people who don't want to engage with it. While a tiny minority of the people contacted through the HUD are interested in it, it survives solely by virtue of being irrelevant or offensive to the vast majority of people exposed to it. It is spam, pure and simple.

And so it should be blacklisted. Problem solved. Scripter: try again, just try not to be such a douche next time. (Won't happen, but it should.)

Oh, and the "garlic necklace." Personally I find vampirism hilarious in books, movies, RP... it all just seems absurd and comic to me, a particularly wacky step on some conceptual continuum between transubstantiation and cannibalism. But indeed it's considered sacrilegious to some. Certainly many would be deeply repulsed by outright cannibalism; should we all have to wear some anti-cannibal talisman--the hat of the Great White Hunter, maybe--in order to keep the restless natives at bay?

The point: Cannibalism might be "broadly offensive"--unacceptable to the vast majority; perhaps Gor is similar. Vampire RP is offensive to some minority. To enable more diverse RP--yes, even that which most would find offensive--it's important that it not intrude on those it would offend, or we'll be left with only the universally acceptable RP: white bread humanoid Hello Kitty. In contrast, Bloodlines is maximally invasive, by design.

OMG, that's so beautiful ... *sob*

I never claimed this at all. This is at least the second time you have said I claimed something which I did not. You need to read more carefully and stop changing the things I did say for your slanted version of them.

looking at the bloodlines hud from a technical point ignoring the stalkerish behavior it should be compared to other metered RP system rather then pure text based roleplay.
Most if not all other meter systems only work when interacting with weapons and other huds of that system, you can shoot at newbies with a DCS2 based weapon (just to name one meter system) but you won't get any XP for it, this is the technical flaw of the bloodlines system it rewards attacking those not wearing the hud making it prone to abuse.

In other words nearly all meter systems are opt-in while bloodlines is opt-out by means of the nechlace.

I have no problem getting my head around what she says. The issue is, there isn't really an issue. Look, people have been role playing in the West since at least the 1800s. Some sat in parlors, some went to old ruins, but they had few tools and mostly their own imagination (OK, sure, some used some mind altering drugs or drinks, but most didn't). And they did it successfully.

Now SL allows you to set up pretty damn much what you want to as the scenery, complete with castles or Dodge City or a crack den. There are multiple ways to communicate the back story. You can look pretty much how you wish. There are two separate ways to communicate personally and at least one more as a group. People have designed weapons/healing systems that can be customized by location and type of weapon. And people are RPing in so many ways successfully that it has to be a close second to porn in SL volume, now that gambling is more or less removed. Yet she goes on and on about how limited SL is for RP. Bull. Try doing it with a deck of cards and a GM and only meeting on Fridays.

SL requires, like almost everything else that involves humans, a little bit of human intervention and participation. Sorry, sometimes that seems to be what she appears to want to overcome. Which flat misses the point of RP. All just my exasperated opinion and only worth what it is worth...

I do. (Although it's not on Fridays!) And in many ways it's a lot less limited than SL - largely for two reasons: first, there's no hard borderline between things that are drawn/built and things that are not; and second, it's much easier to create NPCs, which in turn makes it much easier for all the PCs to get to be awesome.



It's not that on its own that I want to overcome, it's the awkward conflation SL creates between that, money/work, and location. It's not a problem that you have to find people to RP with. It _is_ a problem when you have to be paying US$295/month before you can even start trying to find them - and then, you might not, and you won't get a refund.

Gabriele, here's what you said in reply to my point that "the number of people using Bloodlines shows that there is demand for that kind of RP":



Now, if it was purely marketing, then anything could market that way, surely? If it isn't purely marketing then, well, that must mean that there is demand for the kind of "role-play" (or whatever you want to call that other activity) that Bloodlines represents. I'm sure that for some people, one instance of actually getting to bite someone - and having it make a visible, notable difference to yourself and to the other person, and one that can't just be forgotten because it isn't socially convenient for it to apply at some point - is worth four hours of sitting around in the goth bar wearing prim fangs and talking about darkness. That doesn't mean I think Bloodlines is a good thing, only that it is apparantly "onto something".



You are right that it is spam, but I'm not so sure about your argument that it's all about "those who don't want to engage". What you seem to be saying is that, in a bizarro world where every single resident of SL was happy to be bitten over and over again by a Bloodlines vamp, Bloodlines wouldn't work because it wouldn't be offending anyone. Is that what you mean?

Yeah, it's onto something. It's onto the fact that there are plenty of selfish muppets who don't give a flying rats ass about self awareness, or manners, or social interaction, and are happy to spam newbies all day to get more points than anyone else and become a pseudo-badass, and who think everyone apart from themselves is just a disposable extra in their retarded fairyland adventure.

Bloodlines is perfect for them. It's made for them. A roleplay-optional parasite HUD.

I said that but it does not mean what you claimed it did. That is your interpretation of it, not mine.
Also I just chose not to pick you up on the point that bloodlines is not a type of rp at all as this has been said many times and you still believe it is. So the only part of you post that I was responding to really was that (paraphrased) "the number of people using Bloodlines shows that there is demand for it."

Sure there is demand for it, all viral pyramid marketing schemes tend to be able to draw in people to participate. Why? Because a fool and their money are easily parted and the (often false) lures work far better than selling a product with tangible benefits. The lures in this case is the promise of rising through the ranks which as time goes by and more and more people join becomes more and more difficult to do until the average new player is no longer able to rise very far and is very easy prey for any significantly advanced player.
Anything else that goes on around the Bloodlines concept could be done without the product completely.

Bloodlines thrives on selling snake oil and sand to arabs in effect.

My words were not even in comparison with any roleplay, let alone any other type of roleplay.
They were in comparison to general marketing techniques vs viral pyramid ones.

It would be hard to gauge the popularity of other roleplaying games because they are not as intrusive, as obviously in your face and therefore more noticeable.

I would say that just CCS and DCS2 roleplaying sims I have seen have had many times the number of Bloodlines players through their doors at one time or another. That does not even work into the equation the ones I have not been to. That is just my opinion though.

No, but re-reading what I wrote, I think I can see that interpretation. What I meant was that the perfectly predictable collateral damage of annoying the huge majority who don't want to engage is part and parcel of the way the thing works, just as blanketing millions of uninterested recipients with a spam email is exactly what it takes to get a few suckers to buy-in. Sorry for the confusion.

OMG BloodLiners are now trying to get to use mortals in Facebook "i am also a vampire and i love it if anyone here is interested in becoming a vamp on sl my clan is brilliant such kind people and we have our own land and club and you can rent apartments there and u get them half price if u r in the clan!!! if u are interested in being a vamp and joining our family all u need is L$600 lindens that is for the hud but if u dont hv the money there is no worrys we can find a way to pay for it but contributions to the hud r welcome but having nothing is ok 2 that is it so if u r interested plz" AHHHH they are everywhere and mind you this is on a forum talking about SL not a selling place

That would involve defining role-play (which is notoriously hard to do). I believe that Bloodlines can count as role-play, as playing the role of a vampire. They aren't playing the role of an irritating spammer, though, they just _are_ that.



You don't make money or anything by being high ranked, as far as I know. So if they even care about the rank they are beginning to role-play.

You seem to think I want to debate this with you, I don't. The points of view you present are not even worth debating and there is no point in debating with you. I was just setting the record straight as regards what I actually said vs. what you claimed I said.
Please only quote the words I actually say in future instead of your own words attributed to me. Thank you.

Sure there is - I might get to role-play at some point..

omg....why the hell didn't I think of that? I spent two hundred and fifty lins getting my soul back. I hope you don't mind I'm going to copy this and pass it to every newbie I meet.

Please add to it to READ everything that is in the blue pop-up before clicking accept. Please?

All the pop up says is that they want to bite you and you will get fangs but don't have to wear them, right? It says nothing about being on a database or losing your pixel puppet's "soul." That last notion may disturb some people greatly, even in this context.

Check out 'The Hunger' if you're into that. You get the fun of the playing, but without the 'irrating everyone around you'. You can 'bite' bystanders twice and nothing happens to the person you are biting. On the third time it sends an animation request.
Also, on a side not, it doesn't do anything to anyone elses avatar. Which is nice.

I've got some friends that play. They typically bite twice on one person adn then move on to someone else, thus playing their game and not effect anyone around them.