We have been hearing a bit more about the Advanced Experience Tools Project (AETP). Some have found the region in ADITI where Advanced Experience Tools (AET) test code is running. Friday in the Third Party Viewer (TPV) Developer’s Meeting Oz Linden told us that within about the next month an Experience Tools Beta will be opening up. He also expects it to last several weeks. So, these tools are close to release now.

Server Scripting 2014-25

We were talking about these tools back in 2011 when they were called Linden Realms Advanced Creator Tools. Tiggs Linden was talking to us at the LSL Scripting UG (disbanded now) in early 2012 about what was coming. See: #SL Linden Realm Tools. The Linden Realms (See: Linden Realm Tools – 2011)was a Linden Lab project to reveal to staff the problems in developing games and places in Second Life™.

The first roll out of these tools was in May 2012. See: Greifer Monday. That was a disaster. Since then AET has been in development.

The viewer update for the feature is one the Lab is encouraging TPV Dev’s to quickly integrate as it is expected to be a popular feature.

Troy Linden gave us an overview of what Advanced Experience Tools (AET – official name?) will be like at the Third Party Viewer Developer’s US meeting 6/20.

The problem the feature tackles is to eliminate excessive requests for permissions. The Second Life system will change to allow a designer to create a profile for their ‘experience’. Based on information in the profile one can decide to allow; all permissions requests for that ‘experience’ to be answered YES or set to a case by case query (I think pretty much like what we have now) or have all requests answered NO (blocked) for the ‘experience’.

It seems there is also to be a way to change your decision during your participation or non-participation in the experience at any time. So, if you granted a Blank YES, you can ‘Forget’ (which is what they call it) that choice and shift to an ‘ask me’ or ‘block’ choice. (The AET excludes DEBIT permissions. Debit permissions will remain separate.)

Each ‘experience’ will have a profile. The profile will explain what the ‘experience’ is and what it does. In the profile is to be a place for a link. I assume the link is to a web page or a call to pull data from the SL system to explain more about the nature of the ‘experience.’ Once one decides they are interested in the experience and trust it, they can decide on which of the three types of permission to grant.

Additionally, Troy tells us ‘experiences’ will get a unique ‘key’. The key is required for the experience to operate. Because the experience has a key the Lindens can disable the ‘experience’s and its parts by disabling the key. During the beta testing keys will NOT be generally available. The Lab will accept applications for keys. Based on the planned experience (a good testing candidate?) they expect to release a dozen or two keys. There is no fixed limit. Nor have they said how to apply for an application. I can imagine what would could do now. But, what the Linden actually want, they have not said.

There will be wiki pages when the Beta Process is officially announce. Those usually have an explanation of the application process.

How the keys will be issued is in the decision making process. Currently the thinking is one may have to be a Premium member to get a key. Or the Lab may sell a key. The purpose of attaching a cost is to reduce griefing. By adding a cost, payment information is needed. With that information it is easier to ban a specific RL individual and prevent sequential sign up, abuse, ban, repeat. This should reduce, if not eliminate, the likelihood of people creating throw-away experiences to grief people.

In the initial release of an RC AET we had Greifer Monday. This was a teleport grief. You touched something and poof you were teleporting. Also see: Griefer Monday Postmortem. The lessons learned in that case have the Lindens moving forward cautiously.

The ‘key’ or ‘experience’ will be owned by a single avatar. The ‘key/ experience’ can be associated with a group. Groups will get two new ‘roles’; Admin and Contributor. Only those with Admin or Contributor rights can add content to an ‘experience’. Currently the AET Admin must also be the owner of the group.

The LSL script editor will have a new feature that allows the script to be associated with an experience. Also the estate and parcel management panels will get new options. Groups get the new roles.

Dolphin and Troy explain that initially AET will run on specific properties (region or parcel) where the ‘experience’ is white-listed. The plan for the future is to allow grid wide ‘experiences’, meaning they would NOT have to be explicitly white-listed. Property owners will have the ability to disable specific ‘experiences’.

Experience owners can temporarily disable their experiences across the entire grid. So, if an update goes wrong they can stop it.