NeoBokrug Elytis

Here's a few reasons that I think we'll never be able to achieve AAA game status in SL starting with LSL: SL allows too much "freedom". Players can and do wear anything they want, including other scripted content. As long as a player wears whatever they want to a destination -- whether or not there's any competition in your games -- there will be people who "cheat" just because they can. I would say about 15-25% of the code I write for my game HUD is to detect when things aren't "normal", and turn the HUD off or suspend the player for a short time. Initially the first thing I coded for was checking if a players speed was too fast. Limiting jump height. Then it was teleports, and adding code to allow for teleports from experiences. Then it was sitting long distances. I made some big changes to this chunk of code in October, because the recent server rolls are changing how regions behave when avatars TP in or cross region bordres (a regression?) and it's been creating a lot of false positives. Last month I rolled another little patch in to try to account for these and other problems -- but it's still overly sensitive sometimes. Mostly on days where SL in general is performing bad. Which brings us to the next topic: SL as a service. If you're not fighting cheating players, you're creating redundancies for when the grid has bad weather. Ever since the introduction of the Experiences KVP system, I have been migrating away from external servers to keep track of player and game data. Making an LSL call to outside of SL has the opportunity for three points of failure. 1) The region you're on. 2) Second Life's network. 3) Your servers. Keeping it all IN SL is hard work that requires a lot of pre-planning, and LSL-KVP is not nearly as robust as a php-mysql backend. But I find that the KVP system is far more reliable than outbound HTTP calls in Second Life. Finally, and this is not LSL related -- the rendering engine for SL leaves a lot to be desired. I would like to see LL use Sansars rendering engine adapted for use in a new SL viewer. I think good or profitable games can be made in SL, I just don't think we'll ever really see anything like AAA game content. Hell, way back when, I wrote 99.5% of the code of a game that made 1.4M USD in it's first year. Like all things it will just take a lot of effort; probably more so than any AAA game title given the limits of LSL alone, and then compounded with all of SLs quirks. p.s. I am currently working on an MMO style raid boss fight. Should be live in a few weeks.

SL can do all that. For some things it's hard and requires hyper efficient LSL code with an occasional dash of external server (for npc bartering calculation), but it can be done. Come play the games in The Wastelands. I've got your quests/npcs/combat/scavenging/environmental-hazards/"seamless"-teleports. Some of our game items may be a bit dated in terms of appearance since the game is 14 years old now, but we're working on updating them. I am eager for EEP to replace my HUD overlays for various "effects" players endure. -- (Edit to add) -- Right now I have "daily" quests, but I have done rather complex (30m to 1h long) seasonal quests.

I also use experiences for contract work I do, typically involving tutorials for real world professionals.

I've been operating a game in The Wastelands for about 13 years now. In summary you run around our estate looting crates for salvage, and you can fight other people and creatures. You can use whatever you loot for other parts of the game, or to trade with other players. But it's mostly for crafting stuff. When Experiences came along I took full advantage of it. I use Temporary Experience Attachments for: Game HUDs so that I can push out updated game code without everyone having to update their inventory. HUD overlays for several special effects, for example: tripping out on certain purple and green mushrooms. Quest items and HUDs are also temporary attachments. External Attachments (limb and body) for visible Damage over Time effects, like fire, bleeding, radiation and poisoning. I use the KVP for storing persistent player data, inworld server information, information about game items, and occasionally longer quest data. I use teleports to: Move people around when they "die", teleporting them someplace safe. Teleport players to and from topside places to "underground" or "internal spaces". For example a fake cave entrance will TP you to a much larger cave system. Most impressively, I use teleports to make a homestead have 10x the area of of land by clever teleport mapping when people encountera region edge. Head to The Sand Seas and keep walking south, then south west until you're lost. I have used forced sits to have some of the bigger nastier creatures in The Wastelands carry you away for special seasonal quests. Currently, I have about three distinct daily quests that people still find entertaining. They pull from a lot of random variables and require players to pay attention. I also have special seasonal quests that I host. They all heavily lean upon all aspects of Experiences. The special seasonal ones use them a lot more. Once EEP is finalized I will be using that all the time, and replacing most if not all HUD overlay effects. Right now I am putting the finishing touches on updating one of the nastier things people might encounter. Let's just say it's going to be leveraging everything to give people an MMO quality boss fight.

That is not at all true.

That's a bit overkill. Just remember which scripts are in which links, and you're good.

That's where I use a transparent 1 triangle mesh shape, if I need a large system with a lot of scripts. But I strive to smash everything into one or two scripts where I can. We met in passing once @animats at a Linden Office hour. You had mentioned that you too were also working on a Keyframe Pathfinding solution, so you piqued my interest. I'm glad I'm not the only person that found LLs Pathfinding system lacking. As others have noted, it would be more beneficial to try to cram as much as you can into one script. Obviously things like a maze solver would probably still need their own script, that alone is rather big. However the majority of your logic flow above can probably be squished into one script. It *IS* harder to manage, but you'll benefit from a significant speedup when not needing to pass data with link messages. My only advice to save script memory is to avoid using strings and use integers where possible. If you have the same logic blocks used over and over - declare them as a function. Avoid declaring variables if you're only going to use them once in an event, instead inline the function calls. Everything DOES get ugly trying to save memory, but that's how it be. I have worked on my own non-havok pathfinding solution as well. I have managed to fit everything you mentioned above (sans maze solver) into one script, with another single auxiliary script as a very robust llDialog menu to control tons of variables for the end user. I don't use a true maze solver, and instead use a basic logic tree. So it can be done. But that IS accounting for all the parcel flag problems and much more.

I specifically said llGetUsedMemory(), which is different and more accurate than llGetFreeMemory(). Also I don't think having a new llMessageLinkedFilter is a good thing. Instead why not just limit what you send with the sending script using llGetSubString(message, 0, 100)? You can also avoid getting all 10 scripts triggered with llMessageLinked by using other prims and directing messages to specific prims, instead of LINK_SET or having all scripts in LINK_ROOT. If you're sending llGetStaticPath over a llMesageLinked, you can use llList2List() to reduce what is returned before you send it to other scripts.

Full disclosure: I own and operate The Wastelands. We're a post apocalyptic themed community and residential estate. Because some of you are looking, The Wastelands has the short form call and call-back style RP you're looking for. I think that's the best description I can give it (an old example here). Some other things to note about how we do things that some people don't like, but may be your cup of tea: Role play is not mandatory, but opt-in. As such, we allow visitors to come dressed as they are; so instead it's up to the role players to signify that they're in-character with the word "Ruin't" someplace in their group tag. If someone doesn't have the tag on, just ignore 'em (or remind 'em). If you RP, you're expected to only say or do other things people can witness, not what you're thinking or feeling. Role players can't act upon those things. So if you're angry, do something that expresses anger, like flipping a table. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. etc. You also cannot force another role players actions without prior consent from that RPer. For instance, you can't say you break someones hand because they wronged you. You can however raise a hammer up with malice and rage on your face. It is then up to the person you're addressing to resolve it. Most RP is spontaneous green-dot-gatherings, but there are usually one or two scheduled RP events per week. Those few points are what some people get hung up on. However if you like those things, let me drop a few more bullet points your way: We've been around since January 2007, so we've got almost 13 years of lore built up. We're 10 regions big, but with 20+ regions of area to explore. If you like reading, we've got a wiki to detail many aspects of the estate, with dedicated categories for role play. A visitor center RP orientation area is currently being worked on, for those who don't like reading and want to just jump in. We've also got a blog with all sorts of useful info and coverage of some of the bigger developer sponsored RP arcs. While it isn't mandatory, we also have a completely free scavenging/crafting/combat game (and mini-games) to help augment RP. It has NPCs who have their own backstories, lore, and rumors. Some of them will send you on a quest or task for game loot rewards. If you're interested there's even an inworld tutorial to cover the basics. Some objects are a bit dated in appearance (since 2007), but new features, content, and updates are constantly being added. That's about the gist of it, if you have questions or need help please feel free to ask here, or contact me or Aposiopesis Fullstop inworld for more info.

What about llGetUsedMemory() or llScriptProfiler() ?

I think it would be a fun gimmick if parts of it were free or super cheap. But I also think that cross-promotion and exploring in SL is important; so it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Especially since big events have a lot of avatars and regions become laggy. 😕 If designers really wanted to break up an outfit into "parts" for customers to combine into a final product, I've got them covered. I made a system for creators called "[DS] Item Combiner", it's on the marketplace. It was originally geared more towards crafting games development in SL, but a couple prominent creators are integrating it into fun events for their brands.

I think if you opted-in your regions and did a lot of beta testing and bug reporting for Experiences and only after everything was over, you were offered one. For me at the time, Experiences was everything I wanted. I am still a very heavy user of them to this day. Ironically I just use my Experience on just my estate. I think I heard within the last year, that LL was considering doling out more grid-scope keys, but for the life of me I can't remember who or where I heard that. I think you may be right, I know of one other grid-scope thing that was affected.

This seems to not be an issue anymore.

There's a new problem with communication with the experience KVP is accepting changes to data, but the changes do not persist. I have a grid scope key.

YES. Thank you for this wise decision.