About using experiences inworld.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

I'm posting this here rather than in one of the creation forums because I want the opinions of more than just creators. Regular SL residents just like you. (ok I know the forum regulars are a little better informed than most, but you're what I got so work with me here, ok?)

I'm currently in the process of completing a major build. Several hundred individual meshes on multiple levels. Right now the plan is to have the stairwells contain "walkthough experience teleporters" where you wander down a stairwell and are teleported to a copy of that stairwell that connects to the place you're going, rather than the place you were coming from.

BUT -- I'm aware that there's a population of users that fear accepting experience perms. Part of that is that it gets the "orange danger dialog" like it could access your lindenbucks (pro-tip, it can't) but another part is that I can think of several ways granting experience perms could be abused. I have no intention of crossing that line, but how to make users aware of it? And will they believe me if I try?

I can have the scripts hand the user a NC detailing exactly what the experience will do with its perms if they are granted - but the user will probably have denied the experience before they read the NC, if they are the in the fearful population.

Folks that know how experiences work, or that may have used them in your daily SL, please offer advice. Folks that automatically deny any requests for experience perms, tell me why and what I can do to mitigate that and give you confidence that my experience isn't going to mess with you unless you explicitly consent to that.

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

I'm aware that there's a population of users that fear accepting experience perms. Part of that is that it gets the "orange danger dialog" like it could access your lindenbucks (pro-tip, it can't) but another part is that I can think of several ways granting experience perms could be abused. I have no intention of crossing that line, but how to make users aware of it? And will they believe me if I try?

My advice is do NOT send experience permission requests upon arrival at the landing point.

Either give them a notecard then or set up a info kiosk nearby that when clicked, offers a notecard that explains your service and the usage of the experience tied to it.

My observations over the years tells me the stigma of experiences has been greatly reduced since its offering over 8 years ago.

I base this on my own experience based application in regards to level of granting versus denial of experience perms when my guests are presented with their first perms request. Granted, there could be still be some determination by the user if the application is worth experience participation.

IDK what viewer you're using, but I don't get an orange dialog with experience permissions requests on LL's nor FS' viewer.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Lucia Nightfire

[Rolig Loon]

There will always be a few people who have irrational fears. So long as it's not a major hangup for a lot of people who visit your area, I wouldn't worry much. You can write the teleporter scripts to allow two options.  If the person has already accepted the Experience, use llTeleportAgent to move them from place to place. If the person has not accepted it, tell them to click on a nice floating object that seats them and uses a standard sit TP to move them.  It's their choice.  You could even use an innocuous trigger prim on the approach to the portal that detects whether a person is in the Experience and only makes the nice floating object visible for those who aren't.

ETA:  The "nice floating object" might actually be a door that is only visible to someone who approaches and is not in the Experience.  Click it and it opens, seats you, and whisks you off to the destination.  It's what a lot of sit TP units do now anyway. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

[Seicher Rae]

Hey there, you wanted average SL users, less informed than the regular posters? Look no further! me!

This is one of the stupid things in SL I never researched. Half the time I feel like you need a Masters or PhD in SL to do things, and I'd rather just walk around, take photos, listen to music, etc. than read stupidly long, boring explanations of things that would make my life infinitely more enjoyable and easier if I would just read. However, I don't. Unless I have a good reason to. Or you can explain it to me simply, while my mind wanders elsewhere, to like... shoe shopping or something. 

I have always been wary of accepting Experiences because of this. My fault, I know. And I know it is my fault. I don't care.

I think I've done like... two? in my whole life? One was for a big, well known, furniture store so I decided to trust that they knew what they were doing. Plus I couldn't have shopped without it. I'm not sure what the 2nd was.

So, for me? If you wanted me going through your awesome build? I like what @Lucia Nightfire said above. In some ways foist a short explanation on them first. A note card. An obvious thing that says "you need to click here for info first!" at the landing. I dunno. Some way to ease me into it. "Look, idiot, you're gonna get a request for an experience. Accept it. You'll be ok. This only lets you travel around and enjoy the sim. It won't bite. It won't eat your Lindens. It might even give you a cookie at the end..." (give them a cookie at the end)  Then I'll look around anxiously, chew on my bottom lip and then say "ok" and I'm off to get the promised cookie. Treat us like a scared kitten. Talk softly and offer food.

[Gabriele Graves]

To provide a counter-point, if go to a place and it enforces an Experience, I'm out of there.  If it isn't necessary to visit the region then that's fine as I will opt-out and explore to what ever degree is possible without it.  So I would recommend Rolig's solution though I find her characterisation of not wanting to participate in Experiences as being an irrational fear offensive tbh.

To give a data point, AVSitter provides an alternate to using the Experience which I use to no great detriment and am glad they didn't go "all in" and ruin things for people who don't want it.
 

[Lindal Kidd]

While the possibility for the misuse of Experiences exists, I am unaware of any instance in which Experiences have been used for griefing or to the detriment of any resident in other ways.

I'm quite willing to accept Experiences, especially since I know where to go in my viewer to un-accept them if that ever becomes necessary.

Now, having said that, I am a little put off by stores that want me to accept an Experience to shop there. It just seems like an unnecessary annoyance, when there are so very many fine stores where I can just go and shop without any complications.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

37 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

To provide a counter-point, if go to a place and it enforces an Experience, I'm out of there.  If it isn't necessary to visit the region then that's fine as I will opt-out and explore to what ever degree is possible without it.  So I would recommend Rolig's solution though I find her characterisation of not wanting to participate in Experiences as being an irrational fear offensive tbh.

To give a data point, AVSitter provides an alternate to using the Experience which I use to no great detriment and am glad they didn't go "all in" and ruin things for people who don't want it.
 

Would you mind telling me more about why you deliberately choose not to participate in experiences? I do use something similar to AVSitter in other contexts (my own scripts as I tend to write them rather than buy them) and I get what you're saying about it but no, it doesn't provide a true alternate to the way I want this place to work. Not wiling to enforce it, but if you were to visit my place there would be places you couldn't go without the experience or being invited to tp by somebody who had and was already there. Which would actually be MORE of a risk than accepting the experience itself, its deliberately coded to seek explicit consent before doing more than teleporting, a "friend offering you a tp" might take you somewhere where the locations scripts assume you have consented by being there, since all the "official" ways into that area have sought your consent..

[Da5id Weatherwax]

1 hour ago, Seicher Rae said:

Hey there, you wanted average SL users, less informed than the regular posters? Look no further! me!

This is one of the stupid things in SL I never researched. Half the time I feel like you need a Masters or PhD in SL to do things, and I'd rather just walk around, take photos, listen to music, etc. than read stupidly long, boring explanations of things that would make my life infinitely more enjoyable and easier if I would just read. However, I don't. Unless I have a good reason to. Or you can explain it to me simply, while my mind wanders elsewhere, to like... shoe shopping or something. 

I have always been wary of accepting Experiences because of this. My fault, I know. And I know it is my fault. I don't care.

I think I've done like... two? in my whole life? One was for a big, well known, furniture store so I decided to trust that they knew what they were doing. Plus I couldn't have shopped without it. I'm not sure what the 2nd was.

So, for me? If you wanted me going through your awesome build? I like what @Lucia Nightfire said above. In some ways foist a short explanation on them first. A note card. An obvious thing that says "you need to click here for info first!" at the landing. I dunno. Some way to ease me into it. "Look, idiot, you're gonna get a request for an experience. Accept it. You'll be ok. This only lets you travel around and enjoy the sim. It won't bite. It won't eat your Lindens. It might even give you a cookie at the end..." (give them a cookie at the end)  Then I'll look around anxiously, chew on my bottom lip and then say "ok" and I'm off to get the promised cookie. Treat us like a scared kitten. Talk softly and offer food.

I'm already writing that NC - not to be given at the LP because there isn't one, (llTeleportAgent doesn't override the LP ) but handed out the first time a teleporter detects that somebody isn't in it.

Would appreciate your opinion:

Quote

Builds in my space use an Experience.

I know a lot of users are scared of these but you need not be.

99% of the experience scripts exist ONLY to teleport you between parts of the build. Like you cant dig a ground-level basement on mainland so when you walk down the cellar stairs you'll hit an experience teleporter that will take you to the skybox where the "cellar" has actually been built.

The other 1%? You'll never encounter those unless you go through any hidden or locked doors or cam-tp yourself into the spaces behind them.

If you follow the "official routes" into those spaces, it will only be with your informed consent that any additional experience perms will be utilized.

 

[MoiraKathleen]

I've gotten more familiar with the idea of experiences, so I am likely to accept it, if it is from a store or venue that I have some familiarity with, or at a location where I feel comfortable with what I know about the owner. 

A sign indicating that an experience is suggested or needed for auto TP's, or a sign stating click to receive a NC about the experience is helpful - I do like to have some information about why accepting the experience is a good idea. 

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

floating object that seats them and uses a standard sit TP to move them.

FWIW when experience TPs aren't an option, my go-to is handing out SLURLS in a llRegionSayTo. It might be a few more clicks for the end-user, but seems more convenient if you have more than one possible destination.

[Seicher Rae]

48 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Builds in my space use an Experience.

I know a lot of users are scared of these but you need not be.

99% of the experience scripts exist ONLY to teleport you between parts of the build. Like you cant dig a ground-level basement on mainland so when you walk down the cellar stairs you'll hit an experience teleporter that will take you to the skybox where the "cellar" has actually been built.

The other 1%? You'll never encounter those unless you go through any hidden or locked doors or cam-tp yourself into the spaces behind them.

If you follow the "official routes" into those spaces, it will only be with your informed consent that any additional experience perms will be utilized.

 

mmhmm... reads.... mmhmm... needs more cookie... mm....wait wut? 1% if I do something I could do? What does that 1% do? Will it muss my hair? Seriously, what is that 1% because Murphy is my Law and I'll get that 1% and so... yeah need more info.

[Rowan Amore]

Just to add, since Lindal brought it up, Experiences are accessed through the viewer under Avatar IIRC.  It brings up the Experiences floater where you can block any experiences you've previously allowed...

https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/floater_experiences

Edited August 20, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Da5id Weatherwax]

14 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

mmhmm... reads.... mmhmm... needs more cookie... mm....wait wut? 1% if I do something I could do? What does that 1% do? Will it muss my hair? Seriously, what is that 1% because Murphy is my Law and I'll get that 1% and so... yeah need more info.

Lass, you, of all people would KNOW what that 1% represents. Do I need to actually say specifically "If you bypass the lock on the door and sneak into my dungeon you will have a RLV relay glued to your ass and whatever happens after that is on you" ? I dont want to scare the folks who WONT go past that door, or probably couldnt find it unless they knew it was there to be found.

 

 

ETA: I do live on Zindra - out in the boonies but still A rated

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Da5id Weatherwax

[Da5id Weatherwax]

19 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Lass, you, of all people would KNOW what that 1% represents. Do I need to actually say specifically "If you bypass the lock on the door and sneak into my dungeon you will have a RLV relay glued to your ass and whatever happens after that is on you" ? I dont want to scare the folks who WONT go past that door, or probably couldnt find it unless they knew it was there to be found.

 

 

ETA: I do live on Zindra - out in the boonies but still A rated

 

I should point out that it isn't a simple lock. To open that door in my absence you would need to find the switch (not that hard) AND know the combination (you don't) - And if you were walking in with me I would have told you what awaited in there and wouldn't open the door unless you agreed.

[Seicher Rae]

8 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Lass, you, of all people would KNOW what that 1% represents. Do I need to actually say specifically "If you bypass the lock on the door and sneak into my dungeon you will have a RLV relay glued to your ass and whatever happens after that is on you" ? I dont want to scare the folks who WONT go past that door, or probably couldnt find it unless they knew it was there to be found.

 

 

ETA: I do live on Zindra - out in the boonies but still A rated

 

Honestly? I'm a RLV noob. I wear a collar but use only about 1% of it. My owner uses .01%. We don't use SL for our dynamic stuff. Mainly my experiences with RLV is to wander around innocently (true!) and forget I have it on, and I get trapped by tentacles or something! I'll pretend to be offended for a few minutes while I enjoy  then have to log out, go to preferences on the log in screen, stop the RLV, log in, etc.  So, hm, I see my dilemma and I see yours.

How about something like just switching the last two paragraphs (and I added a comma after Like in the 3rd para cuz I'm obnoxious like that):

Builds in my space use an Experience.

I know a lot of users are scared of these but you need not be.

99% of the experience scripts exist ONLY to teleport you between parts of the build. Like, you cant dig a ground-level basement on mainland so when you walk down the cellar stairs you'll hit an experience teleporter that will take you to the skybox where the "cellar" has actually been built.

If you follow the "official routes" into those spaces, it will only be with your informed consent that any additional experience perms will be utilized.

If you don't follow the official routes, you may find the other 1% of the experience scripts. If you go through any hidden or locked doors or cam-tp yourself into the spaces behind them, well, there will be things you may not expect, but now you've been told.

You could goof around that last line a bit, and heck, I'd laugh if I read "have a RLV relay glued to your ass." Also, depending on how you word it, you'd get more people to do it. "Oh ho! Tell me not to do something will ya?" Ummmm, that could also be me.

You're still short on cookies.

 

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Would you mind telling me more about why you deliberately choose not to participate in experiences?

Sure.  It's because it is a blind, blanket grant to everything the Experience system can do.  It doesn't matter what a notecard or sign says nothing makes that binding and no assurances will ever change that.

When outside of an Experience I can be sure that nothing can randomly and without warning repeatedly TP me to unknown locations or sit me.  I know what to expect.
However,  Experience scripts can grab you anywhere and anytime, sit you, teleport you, etc. with no explicit interaction initiated, sit or whatever and keep doing it over and over (in the later case even if I choose to stand) and therefore a person has potentially no clue whether it will happen at any random point.  That's just too much for me.

It doesn't matter how awesome someone thinks their Experience is, how easier it makes things and/or what wonderful effects they can achieve, I just don't want it on those terms.
I am sure that you have the best intentions Da5id but even with the best intentions what one person thinks is fun, another may find highly annoying and there are many in SL who don't have the best intentions.
Every Experience owner says something to the effect of "I wouldn't be able to do what I want without the Experience" and "you can trust me and have nothing to fear" but how is that in any way reassuring because even the worst person can give the same platitudes.  Even bringing up the fear aspect misses the point.  It isn't about fear for me.

Accepting an Experience is not an informed choice about how it will be used and I do not wish to consent to them on those terms as they are not agreeable to me.  So I choose to opt-out every time.  I don't come to SL to blindly allow others to control my avatar to that degree in a blanket fashion while I am on their land, if anyone requires that for my visit then I prefer not to visit.

I have come to terms with the fact there are a growing number of places that are in effect closed to me.  I just treat them as if I was banned.
I just wish there was an option in the viewer that would refuse me access to land with Experiences on them.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Da5id Weatherwax]

1 minute ago, Seicher Rae said:

You're still short on cookies.

 

I make a mean choco chip  or macadamia/cranberry/white chocolate.

Sadly, those only go to folks in RL, digitising them just fails to cut it somehow.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

2 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Sure.  It's because it is a blind, blanket grant to everything the Experience system can do.  It doesn't matter what a notecard or sign says nothing makes that binding and no assurances will ever change that.

When outside of an Experience I can be sure that nothing can randomly and without warning repeatedly TP me to unknown locations or sit me.  I know what to expect.
However,  Experience scripts can grab you anywhere and anytime, sit you, teleport you, etc. with no explicit interaction initiated, sit or whatever and keep doing it over and over (in the later case even if I choose to stand) and therefore a person has potentially no clue whether it will happen at any random point.  That's just too much for me.

It doesn't matter how awesome someone thinks their Experience is, how easier it makes things and/or what wonderful effects they can achieve, I just don't want it on those terms.
I am sure that you have the best intentions Da5id but even with the best intentions what one person thinks is fun, another may find highly annoying and there are many in SL who don't have the best intentions.
Every Experience owner says something to the effect of "I wouldn't be able to do what I want with the Experience" and "you can trust me and have nothing to fear" but how is that in any way reassuring because even the worst person can give the same platitudes.  Even bringing up the fear aspect misses the point.  It isn't about fear for me.

Accepting an Experience is not an informed choice about how it will be used and I do not wish to consent to them on those terms as they are not agreeable to me.  So I choose to opt-out every time.  I don't come to SL others to blindly allow others to control my avatar to that degree in a blanket fashion while I am on their land, if anyone requires that for my visit then I prefer not to visit.

I have come to terms with the fact there are a growing number of places that are in effect closed to me.  I just treat them as if I was banned.
I just wish there was an option in the viewer that would refuse me access to land with Experiences on them.

Thank you.

I get that.

As a scripter I obviously feel a little miffed about that but I know where you're coming from. We, collectively, want to use all the features of LSL to make our places as immersive and seamless as possible. It is a "trust thing" - I know I'm being true to the TOS and am being trustworthy but do you? Before you've accepted the experience and had that demonstrated to you? I don't have a choice. All I can do is put it out there and to trust YOU that if it does anything you don't like you can exit the experience at any time and hopefully tell me why so I can fix it.

[animats]

3 hours ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Right now the plan is to have the stairwells contain "walkthough experience teleporters" where you wander down a stairwell and are teleported to a copy of that stairwell that connects to the place you're going, rather than the place you were coming from.

If you're not leaving the region, though, why not just use an elevator, or some other form of sittable transportation?

 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

1 minute ago, animats said:

If you're not leaving the region, though, why not just use an elevator, or some other form of sittable transportation?

 

Why code a fully functional escalator as I know you have?

you walk up/down the stairs you arrive at your destination, even if it is a couple of thousand meters up or down from where you started.

It's the same philosophy.

[Gabriele Graves]

4 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Thank you.

I get that.

As a scripter I obviously feel a little miffed about that but I know where you're coming from. We, collectively, want to use all the features of LSL to make our places as immersive and seamless as possible. It is a "trust thing" - I know I'm being true to the TOS and am being trustworthy but do you? Before you've accepted the experience and had that demonstrated to you? I don't have a choice. All I can do is put it out there and to trust YOU that if it does anything you don't like you can exit the experience at any time and hopefully tell me why so I can fix it.

I dislike intensely that LL put you and others like you in this quandry.  It feels that it should have been possible for them to do better for us all.

[Seicher Rae]

11 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

I make a mean choco chip  or macadamia/cranberry/white chocolate.

Sadly, those only go to folks in RL, digitising them just fails to cut it somehow.

/me drools daintily

macadamia/cranberry/white chocolate is like my all-time favorite! seriously. They are like the cookie I would say, innocently, "Oh gawd, I'd do anything for one of those cookies!" It's kinda like the RLV and tentacle thing.  Can't you just moosh a few through the usb ports into my PM? pls pls pls? (I hear some guys like begging.) pls pleeeeeease PLeeeease!!!!

eh hem. I think you're really close on your notecard, btw. (pls pls pls) I so want a cookie now just thinking of those.

[Quistess Alpha]

21 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Experience scripts can grab you anywhere and anytime, sit you, teleport you, etc. with no explicit interaction initiated, sit or whatever and keep doing it over and over (in the later case even if I choose to stand) and therefore a person has potentially no clue whether it will happen at any random point.

To be fair, all experiences (except for some exceptions that are too uncommon to mention) are limited to specific regions. Even AVsitter's experience stuff won't work if it's not enabled in the land settings of whatever parcel you happen to be on. Things also aren't magic, once you leave a region, scripts in that region can't really see you, let alone force teleport you back.

Experiences shouldn't sit you back down if you stand, they can just turn off your stand up button. if an experience repeatedly trys a force teleport, that seems like an ARable offense.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

Just now, Quistess Alpha said:

To be fair, all experiences (except for some exceptions that are too uncommon to mention) are limited to specific regions. Even AVsitter's experience stuff won't work if it's not enabled in the land settings of whatever parcel you happen to be on. Things also aren't magic, once you leave a region, scripts in that region can't really see you, let alone force teleport you back.

Experiences shouldn't sit you back down if you stand, they can just turn off your stand up button. if an experience repeatedly trys a force teleport, that seems like an ARable offense.

In fairness I should point out that an experience CAN attach an RLV relay and THAT can force-resit you even across relogs unless you relog with the RLV function disabled (no, the official viewer doesn't have it but almost all TPVs do)

[Gabriele Graves]

4 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

To be fair, all experiences (except for some exceptions that are too uncommon to mention) are limited to specific regions. Even AVsitter's experience stuff won't work if it's not enabled in the land settings of whatever parcel you happen to be on. Things also aren't magic, once you leave a region, scripts in that region can't really see you, let alone force teleport you back.

Yes, when I said that, it was in the context of whilst I am on that region.  I am familiar with how Experiences work. I am a scripter and have played with them with my own scripts and I so do know what they can and cannot do.  I am well aware that they aren't magic.

I never said they can teleport you back to a region you have left.  I think you may have misinterpreted what I meant.

4 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

Experiences shouldn't sit you back down if you stand, they can just turn off your stand up button. if an experience repeatedly trys a force teleport, that seems like an ARable offense.

I am doubtful that AR's for Experiences doing this would be effective and it would be difficult to prove they would be.