Linden Lab have issued a call to arms as they announce they are Seeking Creators for the Experience Keys Beta. Now the first thing you may be wondering is what the hell is the experience keys beta. I will try and explain and I’ll also embed a video at the end of this post where Torley explains matters too.
Experience keys are those messages that pop up when you touch scripted Second Life objects, you know those ones that ask if you want to receive an item, or if you want to allow something to take control of your avatar or attach something to you etc. These messages that keep popping up every time you log back in are important but sort of ruin the immersion in a game like experience and make things feel a little clunky. There you are charging through a dungeon chased by skeletal warriors when you have to stop and allow permission for an item to do something, by which time the skeletal warriors are upon you and cackling manically.
Now experience keys is a development that is aimed at making experiences in Second Life more fun. The idea is that you’ll go to a place and opt in to that experience. Then you won’t be bothered by those pesky messages asking about attaching huds or animating your avatar and to make this even better, if scripted correctly when you teleport out items that are related to that particular experience will be removed from you as you teleport away, this also means you should be able to outrun those skeletal warriors too.
When you return to said place you won’t need to opt in again, you’ll have already done that. Now you may thinking this could get a bit out of control and what if you don’t like what happens to you within an experience? Well the new viewer will allow you to revoke rights to that experience or even block it.
The experience keys were used to a degree in Linden Lab’s Linden Realms, there you could be auto teleported etc.
Linden Lab are currently offering limited beta places to content creators who can demonstrate an experience that is worthy of inclusion, you have to apply for a place aboard the beta test and as I said, places are limited. The blog post says :
If you’d like to participate, send an email to slexp_beta@lindenlab.com with “Experience Key Beta” as the subject along with:
- Your experience name.
- What genre does it fit in?
- Give us a brief description of your experience.
- How would your customers benefit from Experience Keys?
Please read the blog post for full details : http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Seeking-Creators-for-the-Experience-Keys-Beta/ba-p/2764864
This is an interesting development and a welcome one. However it’s one where both users and creators will need to tread carefully. Those messages we receive inworld from devices are there for a reason, don’t accept them without being sure you want to accept them. However this is all explained in the video, please watch this video if you’re interested in this because the video really does explain this all quite well. The video is useful for both content creators and potential users of said experiences because it shows the tools you have to control your experiences as well as explaining why content creators should label their experiences well.