Behind the Fang Episode 5 - The Source Interviews Lord Lazar and Lord Mach

Behind the Fang (Episode 5) 9 May 2015

• Welcome to Behind the Fang. The Progeny vampire podcast. The podcast by, for, and about the members of the vampire community in SecondLife. This is the voice of The Source, Lachiel. Today I have the pleasure to speak to Infernals Lazar and Machiavilli. Let's get started. Alright, welcome to the podcast. Today I have the pleasure to speak with the Infernals Lazar and Machiavilli. Welcome gentlemen.
• Lazar and Machiavilli chime in "Thank you our Source"
• The Source: "I have been looking forward to having this conversation with you guys for quite some time. As I recall we have done this once before when I first started the podcast but the audio quality turned out terrible."
• Machiavilli: "That wasn't with Lazar, that was actually with somebody else."
• The Source: "Ooohh"
• Lazar: "Yes, I was driving that day, so I couldn't stop and make the call."
• The Source: "Ahh, I recall. The last time I did an episode was rather a quick chat with myself. This time I want to get back to my normal format. However, I would like to do something special this time in the synthesis of mythology section. I have some important issues that I have been thinking about that I would like to talk with you guys about. First let's start off with the interview questions. Lazar why don't you tell us how did you get involved in Progeny "
• Lazar: "I was seduced into Progeny. I had a friend that I was dating and at first I didn't want any part of it, being an ex bloodlines player. I had no desire to join another vampire system but she talked me into it and I started to enjoy it. At first it was just because she was doing it, then I got into the political side and I started watching what was going on there and haven't looked back since. "
• The Source: "Mach, why don't you tell us how you got involved in Progeny."
• Machiavilli: "It was talked about openly with a couple friends and it sounded interesting. I have a disillusion with bloodlines because in my opinion it's more of a pyramid scheme. It doesn't fit the tradition vampire scheme. Vampires should not be able to turn a lycan or a human is not suppose to turn a vampire or any immortal species. It became interesting."
• The Source: "Yes, I have to agree with you. In my original design I wanted to stick with what was in traditional vampire novels, books, movies and stories. Lazar, what was your most memorable thing to happen to you while you were in Progeny?"
• Lazar: "My most favorite thing to happen to me in Progeny was probably when I was in trouble and I had my lips sewn shut."
• The Source: "ahh I remember that."
• Lazar: "I enjoyed that little bit of Role-Play."
• The Source: "Actually about that topic. I can remember exactly when that happened. There was a lot of controversy about you at that time that came to my attention. Your willingness to accept the Role-Play base punishment for what you did cemented in my mind the type of player you were. No matter what your reputation, you were in it for the benefit of the system. I really appreciated that. I think that is how you and I became friends."
• Lazar: "Correct. We had a long discussion about it and I heard your idea about what you wanted to do with the punishment. I thought it was a great idea and wanted to go for it. We did and it turned out really well."
• The Source: "Alright and Mach what would you say was your favorite moment in Progeny."
• Machiavilli: "When I came back from going through chemo for a while and I was asked back by Diabolical Lord Oberon. I came back under Demmi and my line came back from having the 3rd Rogue house. That turned out to be an interesting Role-Play scenario because it was very interesting. I got into arguments with a few people, Lazar and others. I could do it because it was in Role-Play. It was a unique experience entirely, from being a house leader in a clan to being a rogue house leader."
• The Source: "Very cool. You guys have both had long and interesting careers in the Progeny community. Mach, you left for a while and then came back, is that correct?"
• Machiavilli: "Yes sir."
• The Source: "Was this for health reasons or did you just get tired of the system?"
• Machiavilli: "No. Actually it had a lot to do with what I was going through in real life with leukemia and having to go through radiation and chemotherapy and then also having the drama. There was a lot of drama going on and it got to the point where I couldn't even think straight."
• The Source: "Yes, I can certainly understand that. We all in Progeny wish you well with your health. We know what you have been through and we are happy to still have you with us. Looking forward to you finishing up your treatments and getting stabilized. Why don't you both tell us a little bit about your roles in Progeny currently, you clans, houses, bloodlines, your roles on the Diabolic Councils, things like that. Lazar why don't you go first."
• Lazar: "Okay. My role is multi-facetted. I'm a clan leader (Sovereign), so I supervise everyone that is under me. I have 5 houses currently that sit under the clan. I am also the Lead Devil's Advocate. That is an interesting role that you created after a discussion we had about when people get in trouble and they need a way to have a voice in their defense."
• The Source: "Actually the original idea was yours, I just gave it a name."
• Lazar: "Okay. Then also I am an Infernal to Diabolic Lhinovanion. I really enjoy that role, mainly because we have become really good friends, since I have known him. Anytime he needs anything done I do whatever I can to facilitate that."
• The Source: "Lhino and Tasha are both outstanding. I am so pleased to have met them. They have been such a huge help to me and they came along right at a time that I needed somebody to be there. So those guys are awesome and you guys have been hooked up with the right ones, I will give you that. Mach, why don't you tell us a little bit about your roles in Progeny. Then we can move on to mythology synthesis."
• Machiavilli: "I actually don't have as many roles as Lazar as I am not a clan leader yet."
• The Source: "Yet."
• Machiavilli: "I am a house leader within Ravens Claw clan but I am on the bloodline of Societas Draconistrarum under Nestis. I became part of the Marshals office because I have seen a lot of the people cheat. It's not really cheating but it is putting an unfair advantage. I have always been about the sportsmanship and that is why when I heard about the Marshals from Zach, who's idea it was, I thought it would be an interesting way to help the community. Also knowing Diabolical Moy for as long as I have known him, since he was a regular vampire in RC. I have always been fighting with him on the same side and everything else. I enjoy being his Infernal because it is almost like a brotherly relationship even though he is in Spain and I am in the US. I am glad that he is back."
• The Source: "Yes I am very glad that he is back. We have missed having a Spanish Diabolic around. Moy has really proven himself, his loyalty to the system, and his devotion to the community over and over again. I wasn't really sure what was going on with him. I knew he was ill but I hadn't really heard from him in a long time, So I have been asking about him through the last several weeks just to try to get an update on whether or not he was coming back. Then suddenly he reappears, quite thrilled. Not to cut this conversation part of it short but I actually have 3 topics that I want to discuss in the mythology synthesis section. I would normally talk about the development of the system, the development of the community, or shared history that sort of thing. Today I want to talk about something's that I would normally speak to the Diabolics and/or the Arch vampires about but I want to share these ideas with the system in general through the podcast. You too are pretty close advisors in my circle of friends, so I think you might be sounded for these ideas. I have already spoken to the Diabolics about most of this and to some extent the Arch vampires so it is not like I am jumping over anyone's head or leaving anybody out and none of this is set in stone. I do want to share with the community the kind of conversations that we have behind the scenes. This section might be a little longer than normal so we might not get to some of the other sections that I normally do, such as fireside chat, crystal ball, and whispers of the dark. So let's get started here. The first section that I want to talk about is subsistence. Have you guys run into any issues with younger vampires having odd subsistence as compared to older vampires."
• Machiavilli: "I have in some ways because I have noticed that some people that have been sired after me, especially more recently, are having lower subsistence than I even started with as a gen 4. When I first started I was at 0.40 and where I am at now, even with my break, I am at 0.29. Some of them are even starting off at 0.31 subsistence levels."
• The Source: "Lazar?"
• Lazar: "I haven't noticed any difference, I mean the fledglings come in they have a greater subsistence than I do being as an older Vampire but that is the only thing I have noticed."
• The Source: "Well recently, in the last several months I have fielded a lot of complaints and issues about younger vampires in some cases having much lower subsistence rating than much older vampires. Now, the subsistence system was originally designed to sort of emulate the vampire Lestat concept, that an older vampire that embraces a new vampire creates a stronger vampire. I created the subsistence system to give a portion of the sire's subsistence bonus that they acquired through age to their Progeny. So if you are an older, lower generation vampire and you create a new fledgling they start off with some portion of the subsistence that you have acquired. In the beginning of the system it worked great but now it is causing horrible skews and the subsistence ranking of quite a few, especially when older, lower generation vampires keep embracing new vampires. So I came up with an idea of how to deal with this. The best solution that I have come up with is to simply level the playing field, do away with the current subsistence framework that causes vampires to lose a tiny amount of subsistence every night that they are undead and instead base it on the age groups. So that fledglings all have the same subsistence, old all have the same subsistence, ancient all have the same subsistence, and leviathans all have the same subsistence. Does that make sense?"
• Lazar: "Yes that makes sense."
• Machiavilli: "Yes that makes sense."
• The Source: "So do you think that would be fair? Do you think I will run into any kind of backlash? Some people might actually go up in subsistence others may go down."
• Lazar: "I don't think you will run into any issues. It seems like it is a logical step, as you are coming in as a fledgling, in my mind at least, you would need to feed more than let's say myself, who is ancient."
• The Source: "Right. So I agree. I think this is the best solution. Now there are some complications, I will then need to deal with subsistence temporary bonuses and penalties, such as, if you use a Vampire Restoration Draught instead of actually permanently changing your subsistence I might need to create a bigger effect but only make it last for a specific amount of time, like say a week or a month."
• Machiavilli: "With that you could actually do it even easier than that. Have it downgraded over time, the longer they are alive. You could actually use the subsistence framework that you have."
• The Source: "Yeah the current formula. That makes sense. So if you take a negative hit due to the Draught or something then that will be decremented over time by the current formula but base subsistence will be built on the age group. That is actually a pretty good idea and would integrate existing framework and cause no additional coding to be done. Great. Okay, that is pretty much it on that particular topic. That is, I think that the subsistence needs to be fixed. It seems like you guys are in agreement with me on that. The next concept is a rather serious one and probably needs much more discussion. What do you guys feel about masquerade breaches?"
• Lazar: "That is the worst thing you can do. Absolutely, because it causes so much drama, especially when it's to a non-Progeny player, a human walking around out there. They have no idea that we are feeding off of them and the HUD is not really doing anything anyway, our feeding is based off the HUD, so it doesn't effect that human player out in the SL community. Once they become aware of the fact that someone has been feeding off of they, they feel violated. That's natural but it causes so much drama it is definitely a detriment to the entire system."
• Machiavilli: "Another way you can look at it is it can increase the Role-Play factor, that if a masquerade breach had occurred and can be proven...Lazar wasn't it your masquerade breach at bloodlines that caused your mouth to be sewn shut ?"
• Lazar: It wasn't at bloodlines. It was during an attack. It was an accidental breach. I was trying to IM another attacker that was coming in to make a kill and I hit local instead of their IM. So, I called off the attack and called my Diabolic right then and there and said I screwed up and told her exactly what happened. When I spoke to the Source I explained everything that happened to him and told him I was willing to be slain and face whatever punishment needed to be given. I do think that it is that much of an egregious act, even on an accidental basis something has to happen to you."
• The Source: "I agree. We came up with a pretty amicable solution at the time. Now, I can't do anything about every type of masquerade breach, at least not yet. The one that vexes me the most is when a Progeny vampire outs another vampire to a non-player. "Hey you got bitten by so and so" or "You are dead. You were killed by a Progeny player." Like you said, that makes them feel violated and gives the system a bad name. So I have come up with an idea and I want to run this by you guys. The idea is I will go restore 20% of all shades that are out there and bring them back to life randomly. Then I will randomly slay 20% of all humans and then anytime that you meet a new human or a new avatar that has not been scanned by the system previously there will be a chance that this avatar will instance as a shade, dead. So there will be no way to really judge whether any given avatar was killed by a vampire or killed by just the system in general."
• Machiavilli: "That is unique."
• Lazar: "You are hoping that will alleviate some jerk telling a human that they have been violated?"
• The Source: "To some extent, yes. You wouldn't be able to tell who did it. Unless of course you knew for sure, you scanned them and they were a quick then so and so walked up and bit them and you scanned them again and they are dead, but that doesn't happen very often. I think, at the very least when James Smith comes to me and says "Hey I am not in your system but I have been killed by one of your vampires" I can say "well maybe not. You are a non-player and when the system scanned you it may have just instanced you as dead" So there is no way to tell, even for me if you were killed by a player or if you are just dead in the system randomly."
• Machiavilli: "There is another option."
• The Source: "Yes?"
• Machiavilli: "It is on a few of the other gaming systems that are killed or be killed systems. It is randomly built in that you can only drain them to a certain point and they automatically regenerate. Maybe we should not have shades or quicks., that way no one could really know anyway."
• The Source: "Well, I think a fundamental part of the system is the quick and the dead thing. I like that and I don't want to change it. I don't think it would really matter to them or it might even matter more if they are constantly able to be a food source. A question I got today was "Hey, is there any way that I can prevent myself from being fed upon by Progeny vampires?" If the person told you that you are already dead then you can't be fed on by Progeny vampires anymore, you are done. There is nothing more, you don't need to opt out because you are already opted out. Will that stop someone from coming up to you an talking to you? No, that is what the block button is for."
• Lazar: "I see exactly what you are doing with that."
• Machiavilli: "I think it would be cool, because you can also say with the random chance that you scan someone and they are not scanned in the system and you bite them, all of a sudden they are shaded and you are like wait a second. It leaves more of an air of mystery too."
• The Source: "Well, I mean whenever they are first encountered by the system, which would be when you scan them or when you bite them, if you are the kind of person that bites first ask questions later, that is when they are instanced and that is when they would either be alive or dead. Which would give more risk to biting people without scanning them as you could potentially get some dead man's blood that way. There is a slight problem to this, which is that I do want the system to continue to be free and if people randomly start out as dead, they would need a revival to join the system at some point. So what I could probably do is create some sort of one time, free restoration kiosk that they can come to, touch it, and be restored. Each human could only be restored one time for free."
• Lazar: "That would just work off their UUID, right?"
• The Source: "Yes. Well, everything works off the UUID. I don't track anything about avatars that are not in the system. The UUID is actually used as a key to encode the information. So, unless I have that UUID I can't even look up their status. If someone were to send me a Skype message and say "Hey, blablabla..." If I don't have the UUID I can't tell anything about the particular avatar, even if they give me their username or what have you. Okay so what do you guys think about the idea in general?"
• Lazar: "I like it."
• Machiavilli: "I really like it too. I think it leaves a more air of mystery."
• Lazar: "I think it gives the system, as far as dealing with the public, it gives us an out."
• The Source: "Yep."
• Lazar: "You are now telling Jane Doe that maybe you weren't fed off of maybe it was just a random selection, like a lottery draw, your number just happened to come up and that is why you are dead. It doesn't actually mean that you were actually killed by someone."
• The Source: "Exactly."
• Lazar: "The computer generated it. I think that beautiful."
• The Source: "There is really no way to tell one way or the other unless you join the system."
• Lazar: "Right, that is great. I mean it is still not going to stop the problem of Progeny players outing other Progeny players just to be an a-hole. Or Progeny players going and telling their friends "Yeah, Mach flew over to our land today and killed you." That is the stuff that drives me crazy, that they do. That type of violation, I think is the most serious violations. Those types when they happen should be slain."
• The Source: "Yes I agree. If we can prove that somebody outed another somebody to a non-player that is generally a permanent ban from the system. The last element that I want to talk about that is really important and I really would like some feedback from you guys on this in the way of ideas, is undusting and dusting. Currently I have a suspended system that dusts vampires that is deep slain level 2, meaning they have been slain, come back to a coma, gone back to slain, gone back to a coma 2 times. This removes them from the system but backs up all their information and re-sires anyone under them up to whomever their sire was, it is called an orphan re-sire. It seals the blood chain. It just removes them from the system and it basically makes the system go faster. It takes potency weight off of people but I ran into an issue where people say "Hey, me and so and so wanted to preserve my father for historical reasons. I didn't want him gone I wanted to preserve them." So I need to talk about how to accomplish that and more importantly I need to talk about how do we undust somebody. Somebody has been dusted. They have been gone for 2 years but now they want to come back into the system and they want to keep their age and any potency they have acquired and things like that. The easy solution is I simply resurrect them and they start over but that should be the free version. What should be the cost involved either in L$, blood, potency , or all of the above for a restoration of your account being re-sired to a new sire?"
• Lazar: "How much of an issue is it on the backend?"
• The Source: "Well, to simply resurrect them and let them start over requires nothing on my part at the moment, other than maybe making a kiosk. That would be very easy to do. To do a restoration will require some coding but I can pretty much reuse the re-sire code as it exists. I may just need to make some minor changes to that. Either way it is not that major of a programming task but it does need to be automated because it's a massively complex system and to simply restore somebody through manual C queries, there is just too much risk of damaging data. I don't want to do that."
• Machiavilli: "Well there is a way of doing it. I was thinking of it while Laz was speaking about it. For a dusted vampire you could use the revival altar, adding another extra element to it. I don't know how much weight that would be on coding, but the donor vampire would have to sacrifice some of their blood to re-animate that vampire."
• The Source: "That is a good idea. Let's talk about that from a RP perspective because that is really both of your value to me in this conversation. You Role-Play, you both spend time in active Role-Plays in the system. How would you see it? Here we have a vampire that is disintegrated into dust. You have an urn full of their dust and you want to restore them to a full vampire, bonding them to a new sire. How do you see that happening?"
• Lazar: "Well I just saw that in Dracula. The latest movie that I just watched."
• Machiavilli: "Dracula Untold?"
• Lazar: "Yes. They just had that. He sliced his wrist and then drained the blood into the ashes and that started to revive him and bring him back."
• Machiavilli: "Or you could even got back to another movie, Underworld, how they revive the hibernating vampire. They were really dead, in a corpus state, but they actually had to give them blood to revive them."
• Lazar: "Ooh putting them into the floor. I actually wanted to build that as an embracing room."
• The Source: "How about this for an idea because I once saw an older vampire movie too. Dracula's ashes were poured into an open sarcophagus. They hung the human upside down by a meat hook , slit his throat and let the blood drain into the coffin and that restored Dracula into his corporeal form. Maybe we could set something up to where a dusted vampire requires so much in the way of L$ or potency to restore by say a one given sire. I am just thinking out loud here. Let's say I am a vampire and I am older than you and you are dusted vampire, or I am older that you were when you were before you became dusted. I want to restore you, it may have a very high potency cost for me to restore you because we are nearly the same age and I am trying to pull you back from dust. If I pull together 4 or 5 of my friends and each of them pour in 3 or 4 liters of blood it will reduce the potency cost by percentages based on how many people participate in the ritual."
• Lazar: "I think that would be pretty cool. You are on the same concept that we were speaking about, the blood. It definitely needs blood to come back."
• The Source: "Yeah I think that at minimum it should require 1 point of potency and 4 liters of blood from the new sire because there has to be a re-bonding and a reagent to make that bond stick. The same as in a re-sire situation. Adding more people to the ritual to reduce the cost by adding more blood and more participation, I really like that idea. But make it optional."
• Machiavilli: "You can even almost add it in the Role-Play, they are dusted and then all of a sudden the blood combining of a regular vampire re-corporatizes their body."
• Lazar: "Let's say we are using the revival altar, how hard would it be to script it so that the dusted vampire lays down on it then the vampires that are bringing them back to life, each person would touch it and then the machine would calculate how much blood to take from each person"
• The Source: "It would require a re-working but I think that the revival altars need to be re-worked anyway. There are still some bug that causes it to periodically lock up and I have no idea what is causing that aside from the fact that it's a web call that doesn't get a response and then it sits waiting for that response indefinitely. So I need to re-work those anyway. It might be a good idea to go ahead and throw that into the revival altar. It does seem like it belongs there and it shouldn't be that difficult to add that feature. We are running up on half an hour here, so I think I am going to bring this conversation to a close. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to speak with me tonight. Especially on these important topics."
• Lazar. "It was my pleasure."
• Machiavilli: "My pleasure too."
• The Source: "Lazar and Mach I really appreciate you both being here. This has been fun and I will have you guys back on the show in the very near future because there is a lot more that I would like to speak with you guys about. But I really wanted to get an episode out tonight because it has been so long since I have done a regular episode. Alright gentlemen, everyone have a great night."