Second Life's Auto-Loading HUDs: Important Step for Growing and Expanding SL's Market

I took a quick look at "Project LR", Linden Lab's new game area built with tools which will soon be available for all SL developers. (So says Linden CEO Rod Humble, who tells New World Notes, "After we get the experience scaling and solid then we will pass on the tools and creators will hopefully enjoy making stuff far better than we ever could.") The best tool in LR, in my opinion, is the auto-loading heads-up display, which installs on the user's viewer when entering the game area. This will eliminate the incredibly arduous process of installing custom HUDs, part of what makes playing (and running) an SL-based game such a user-unfriendly experience. A game experience that's much more seamless from the user's point of view would be a big win for SL developers, and will probably help grow the overall userbase.

That said, if you do try playing in Project LR, you'll also see still much more that needs to be done:

The overall experience has significant lag, and slow responsiveness. Clicking the right mouse button still brings up the traditional SL viewer menu, which would likely confuse new users who are just trying to play the game. And note to Linden: Do you know there's a pop-up menu instructing people to collect crystals which first displays in the one area of the game where there are crystals that you can't actually collect?

That said, this is a strong step in the right direction. Or as ex-Linden developer Qarl Fizz put it: "While these improvements are nice, what's more important here is that Linden Lab is creating a process whereby they will 'eat their own dogfood' and develop (even rudimentary) content in SL. This will give them direct experience at the in-world creation process, and will give them direct insight into what needs to be fixed/developed (and more importantly: why.)"

Comments

[Nyoko Salome]

seems to me from the description that they are simply building a new 'auto HUD experience' on top of current architecture... worthwhile for them to try if they hadn't much, but anxious to see them dive a lil deeper into HUD/dialogbox scripting; ways to add onto the scripting hooks (and maybe even things like expanding available dialogbox buttons) that should be 'easy' and not change or malfunction older HUD designs...

;0 the fact the dialogbox routine still needs loaded bottom-to-top is most non-intuitive and requires a medium amount of scriptin' skillz to restack. stuff like that, so needs overhauled...

[Ferd Frederix]

This can solve a lot of the issues with DCS system, the too limited health system in SL, and the teleport issues all at once.

I think this will be an important step forward.

A few years ago I made a beautiful game and HUD that would block your view and teleport you to various places as you went on a quest, then drop you at the correct spot. For example, as you walked thru a portal, you would be sent to the start. If you 'died', you ended up in a jail cell suspended in space and had to figure out how to get out. It ended with the destruction of an 1,100 prim castle, and the teleport to the game end where a celebratory video played and fireworks went off.

But it never caught on, as almost no one would attach the HUD! New residents have a very difficult time attaching a single inventory item. I have seen it take 2 hours to get a new resident to wear their first item.

Give us the tools, please!

[Obsidian Stormwind]

There are a few upgrades I was able to notice. One of them was the ability to teleport upon touching things and not having to "sit" on objects to be moved around. Will improve teleporters a whole lot once it's available for the rest of the grid.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I'd like to build graphic interface elements that are more tightly integrated with the viewer UI, for better responsiveness and efficiency, but I'll take auto-HUDs as an intermediate stopgap.

[elizabeth (16)]

the LR HUD seems to be only for display purposes. if you not wear it then can still collect the crystals and cash them out

[Kim]

Besides the auto-loading HUD (and the teleporting), what's new here?

[Ziki Questi]

It's a very different experience, and really creates the feel of a "game" in ways that I haven't experienced in Second Life before. (And I've done my fair share of roleplaying, etc.—this is different.) Unlike Hamlet, though, I didn't experience any lag at all, and didn't even notice when I went over a sim crossing.

If you go, make sure you're using a mesh enabled viewer. I wrote a little about my own experience here, very positive - http://zikiquesti.blogspot.com/

[Dizzy Banjo]

I've tried LR a few times now and it does seem very interesting.

I totally agree with Qarl that Linden Lab actually attempting to use the world to create engaging experiences themselves is key to learning more about strategic direction for development.

To me it seems to throw up a few immediate points :

1. These features could allow SL creators to make simple to understand experiences. As Hamlet notes with his Pie menu comment, the more powerful these tools are - eg. the ability to hide elements of the "real" SL UI and to customise what the user does see, the more effective those experiences could be.

2. However those experiences will effectively create their own UI and interaction methods. Would it really help users understanding of SL in the long run if there are a wide range of different HUDs and user interfaces within the same world? Could this cause problems as well as benefits?

3. These value of these tools is contingent on deeper architectural performance issues being improved dramatically. If a new user experiences a UI and visuals which more closely resemble a mainstream professional game, they will automatically expect performance to be on a par with it too. SL is way off in this area, primarily because it tries to do something much harder - stream the entire world in realtime. Games ( even MMO's ) don't try to do this because they don't need to.

Crazy Proposal : Alongside these UI tools, could there be an option to run the server / client relationship in a different mode. A way to "turn off" world streaming and switch to preload. For example, only allow a user to enter a region when the entire region is pre-cached on their machine locally, and only update minimal predefined interactive elements from the server. It would mean a "loading" screen while entering a game region, but could be much smoother due to minimal updating of the world during play?

[Vivienne Daguerre]

One feature that I would like to see is the ability of a HUD to attach an object in the HUD's inventory to the avatar without having to move it to the avatar inventory and without asking permission, or if need be, asking permission only once and having that permission remembered forever afterward.

This could help one to arm oneself with a weapon contained in the HUD in a game scenario, or carry food or other object to similate serving. I could see it as being very useful for NPCs, to hold an object that can be clicked on by the player to get something.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Dizzy, YES! I've been nattering about instantiated zones and pre-caching for ages, but I never felt like the lab knew what the hell I was talking about.

Now I think maybe they might.

[Adeon Writer]

I hope this has good ways to aviod grieving. You can do some craaaazy LSL stuff by force-running a script on another AV.

[shockwave yareach]

Having a "Hud required" as an additional field in About Land would be a great improvement for those of us who build games. Enter a parcel with X game in it, and the hud UUID defined in the parcel settings gets worn automatically by the user.

The trouble now is automatically removing it when you leave. Some code in the HUD to sense it's not on $parcel anymore can do that, but every hud build will need to incorporate that code.

Still, a nice improvement. I look forward to seeing what else is coming down the pipe.

[Ciaran Laval]

"And note to Linden: Do you know there's a pop-up menu instructing people to collect crystals which first displays in the one area of the game where there are crystals that you can't actually collect?"

The only good thing about that was that it left a few of us discussing what we were supposed to do, it was a tad confusing to say the least to be told to collect crystals in a room where crystals were on display.

[Nexii Malthus]

Haha, yeah, I fell into the same confusion of trying to collect crystals when crystals were on display in the workshop.

[pepys ponnier]

Just installed this. For me it was full of fail, very laggy as of 7:25CST. Did not play with it very much but the lay out seems to be nice.

I've had to go back to 3.1.x until they get it right. Why bother? It should work well if they're going to offer it.

[Marcus Alexander Link]

@Vivienne Daguerre
wrote:
"...I would like to see is the ability of a HUD to attach an object in the HUD's inventory ..."

You already can achieve that using
llAllowInventoryDrop & llGiveInventory,

if you ment 'the ability to add an object to the HUDs inventory.

--
Fim Fischer

[Marcus Alexander Link]

*LOL* Note to myself: Read the complete posting before answering :~)

--
Fim

[Lani Global]

Second Life’s Linden Realms / LR game appears to be a direct copy of my very popular Crystal Quest copyrighted game that has been running throughout most of 2011 in the Lani region of OSGrid, OpenSim virtual world.

They even copied the same color crystals in my game: Red, Green, Blue, Gold, Silver etc.
They copied the same gaming objectives I use: to collect the crystals and make it back without getting damaged by my traps and monsters.

The game concept and reduction to practice in the sim, is my original invention.
In mid-2011, I added more advanced RolePlay Game and HUD by working together with other talented creators*. This enabled gifts with each Crystal attainment goals, and many other features that Linden Realms hasn’t even developed yet.

While I support the possible addition of more LSL script gaming commands and features, I believe that Linden Labs (Linden Realms LR Game) should give credit where it is due, and/or get licenses from the creators. They should also ask creators of the various advanced RolePlay Games within SecondLife and OpenSim what kinds of features they would like to see. An inworld sim database system and processor available using LSL scripting would be #1 on my list, because it would alleviate much of the outside world http processing used now.

Lani Global
LANI GLOBAL SYSTEMS ™
HyperGrid – OSGrid – OpenSim – SL
Lani region of OSGrid

[Psion]

Lani, while I understand your concerns, I'm not sure you're describing very original elements. Collecting colored crystals while avoiding traps and monsters has a tradition going back at least as far as the first Mario game.

[Ferd Frederix]

@Lani, I sympathize with your concerns about them copying your concept. It's possible, but unlikely that they copied you. Mainly because the viewer the Lindens must use will crash when you go to OsGrid :-)

I don't know how closely the two concepts match, but even if they were almost identical, it would be hard to prove.

Colors cannot be copyrighted. Collecting crystals, monster chases, all that cannot be copyrighted, because copyright only controls the expression of an idea, and not the idea itself. A patent would cover it. The code you wrote, the textures you use, yes, those were copyrighted the moment you created them. But gameplay? I don't see how.