The Richmond Times-Dispatch, the newspaper of Richmond, Virginia has a blogger covering Second Life. I ran into him at the Hunter's Haven. It seems that he was researching the negative backlash that The Thirst: Bloodlines game was causing in SL. He asked me my opinion on the matter, and I was more than happy to give it while we shopped at one of my favorite spots on the grid, Fairlight Industries. Here's the article!
I don't have a problem with most Bloodlines players or the Bloodlines game. I like creative stuff in SL, I like role-playing, I like to see communities grow up around user-created content. What I do have a problem with is what proper bloodliners call leeches or mosquitoes. These are, according to the Bloodlines website:
players that for one reason or another are not RPing bites, but rather sending random, unsolicited bite requests to everyone they meet. As a result, citizens in Second Life report annoyance or anger at being constantly offered bite request menus, or accidentally accepting a request and being added to a bite list against their will, etc.
I don't know about everyone else but bite request spam makes me CRAZY. I don't get it all the time but I get it enough, enough to where I've spend most of my time in SL dressed in slayer gear, armed and loaded for bear (or for vampires, I guess.) I can't completely blame this on Bloodlines. I've spent many long hours slaying vampires and other creatures of the night with friends and family playing Hunter: The Reckoning and it's many sequels on the Xbox and the Playstation. Hell, I'm a Buffy and Anita Blake fan. So I guess Bloodlines just gave me an excuse for doing what I've always enjoyed. But still, I don't need the grief.
What causes me the most concern are newbies that blindly accept bite requests, not realizing the consequences of what that means. I help them whenever I can at the Haven. I've met several that were really upset at being bitten. Some of them even thought that Bloodlines was being run by the Lindens themselves. I've spoken with Mars Bracken, the owner of Liquid Designs (the group behind Bloodlines and owner of their sims,) about providing FAQs for the newbies and the newly bitten at the Haven, and he said he'd bring it up at his next creative meeting.
I know that being bitten doesn't really affect your SL experience unless you decide you want to play Bloodlines yourself. But dammit, I don't want to be bitten. I don't want some undead bastard using my soul to rise up in the vampire ranks or solidify her hold on the members of her clan. It's mine, so back the hell off.
Deep breath. Skye, go to your happy place.
Things are looking up. For those that don't know, Liquid Designs has created a little sanctuary called the Hunter's Haven. Here you can find The Garlic Necklace, an item that will flag your Second Life account as someone that doesn't want to be vampire food; basically, once you wear it, click on it, and activate the protection it provides, you will no longer get bite requests. You can then take off the necklace and put it away and still benefit from the protection. You can even inactivate the protection if you ever change your mind, and want to join the ranks of the bloodsuckers.
Hanging out at the Haven, I've met just as many great vampire players that are wonderful role-players, for every leech I have met (or, as one of my fellow slayers likes to call them, biters, since that's all they really seem to be able to do,) I'm probably going to start hanging out at the vampire sims just to gain a little role-playing experience. Why? According to Mars, a Monster Hunter/Slayer game from Liquid Designs is in the works.
Watch out, bloodsuckers. Skye's on the hunt. ^.~
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