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Allow content creators to delimit an area in a scene where portable experiences are not allowed. This is a safe zone that can be used to ensure that there is no misuse from malicious portable experience creators, and no unfair advantages in competitive games.
Need
Even though we will have measures to control smart wearables, it’s not too difficult for a well-motivated creator to evade these controls and publish something that sneakily hides malicious behavior in very specific conditions.
One clear risk is for a portable experience to display a certain UI in a scene like a casino, posing as the scene and scamming the player into performing a transaction.
This curation process also doesn’t filter portable experiences that are not linked to any wearables.
Some well-intended portable experiences might also give players an unfair advantage in competitive games, like a jetpack in a platform game.
Any scene that deals with transactions, or where competition between players is important, should probably consider using this feature.
Approach
Allow creators to define an area in their scene where:
All portable experiences hide all their UI
All portable experiences are turned off
These could be two different kinds of modifier areas. Maybe only the second one is needed.
It’s possible to list out exceptions, to avoid affecting certain specific portable experiences in the area.
Turning off a portable experience may have unwanted consequences, for example the portable experience may rely on a locally-stored state for collecting coins around the world, and turning off the experience abruptly might reset that state and make the player lose their progress.
We should warn the player, so they can avoid walking into the area if they don’t want to. This is perhaps the trickiest point of this feature. There are several alternatives:
Make the area visible for those players that are currently using a portable experience. The area should be invisible for those who wouldn’t be affected. Perhaps we can use an effect similar to the green loading walls, but with another color.
Pros: Players can be warned from far away
Cons: Players need to learn the convention that this wall turns off PEs
Distance based: When the player enters the area, display a toast warning about turning off portable experiences if they walk further. If the player walks 1 meter further into the area, then turn them off.
Pros: Clearly communicated
Cons: Creators should be mindful that the outer margins of the area are not protected.
Players might run full speed into the area and not have time to stop and react.
Time based: Display a toast that portable experiences will be turned off in 3 seconds, giving the player time to walk out of the area.
Pros: Clearly communicated
Cons: Carefully crafted smart wearables might exploit those couple of seconds to do evil.
Players might not have a clear idea in what direction they need to walk away to avoid this.
At the very least we should display a toast once the portable experiences are turned off, clarifying that what occurred is intentional and not a bug.
It should not be possible to activate any new portable experiences while inside the area. If a player puts on a wearable that activates a portable experience, the player should be allowed to use the wearable, but it should not turn on the associated portable expereince. A toast should inform the player why they couldn’t put on the wearable.
Benefit
This can greatly reduce the risks of portable experiences being used for evil. It removes a lot of pressure from the curation process of smart wearables.
It also removes a lot of controversy where content creators might complain that portable experiences mess with their experiences. If they bother your scene, just block them.
Competition
Depend on players to turn off their portable experiences. For example the casino could warn players to better turn all PEs off before playing, just in case. Not all players will do this. In competitive games, this doesn’t stop players who are seeking unfair advantages.
Provide a property at a scene level (probably in scene.json, in the featureToggles list) to turn off all portable experiences in the entire scene. We’d like to have portable experiences working in as much of Decentraland as possible, it’s better if we can block just the small area where the risk exists vs the whole scene.
Non-goals
This is not about stopping portable experiences from doing malicious or unfair things anywhere. Scene creators will have tools at their disposal to prevent this in their scene, but they must act to implement these tools.
Key Dependencies and Open Questions
If we want to make the area visible to players with PEs currently on, how do we show it? Maybe the area could even have a logo or even text on it, to make its effect more obvious?
When the player leaves the area, should portable experiences be turned back on? Maybe we should go over currently equipped wearables and turn each one on? But what if the player had already turned off a portable experience before entering the area? Maybe we should keep track of the prior on/off state of each PE before entering the area
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Abstract
Allow content creators to delimit an area in a scene where portable experiences are not allowed. This is a safe zone that can be used to ensure that there is no misuse from malicious portable experience creators, and no unfair advantages in competitive games.
Need
Even though we will have measures to control smart wearables, it’s not too difficult for a well-motivated creator to evade these controls and publish something that sneakily hides malicious behavior in very specific conditions.
One clear risk is for a portable experience to display a certain UI in a scene like a casino, posing as the scene and scamming the player into performing a transaction.
This curation process also doesn’t filter portable experiences that are not linked to any wearables.
Some well-intended portable experiences might also give players an unfair advantage in competitive games, like a jetpack in a platform game.
Any scene that deals with transactions, or where competition between players is important, should probably consider using this feature.
Approach
Allow creators to define an area in their scene where:
These could be two different kinds of modifier areas. Maybe only the second one is needed.
It’s possible to list out exceptions, to avoid affecting certain specific portable experiences in the area.
Turning off a portable experience may have unwanted consequences, for example the portable experience may rely on a locally-stored state for collecting coins around the world, and turning off the experience abruptly might reset that state and make the player lose their progress.
We should warn the player, so they can avoid walking into the area if they don’t want to. This is perhaps the trickiest point of this feature. There are several alternatives:
Pros: Players can be warned from far away
Cons: Players need to learn the convention that this wall turns off PEs
Pros: Clearly communicated
Cons: Creators should be mindful that the outer margins of the area are not protected.
Players might run full speed into the area and not have time to stop and react.
Pros: Clearly communicated
Cons: Carefully crafted smart wearables might exploit those couple of seconds to do evil.
Players might not have a clear idea in what direction they need to walk away to avoid this.
At the very least we should display a toast once the portable experiences are turned off, clarifying that what occurred is intentional and not a bug.
It should not be possible to activate any new portable experiences while inside the area. If a player puts on a wearable that activates a portable experience, the player should be allowed to use the wearable, but it should not turn on the associated portable expereince. A toast should inform the player why they couldn’t put on the wearable.
Benefit
This can greatly reduce the risks of portable experiences being used for evil. It removes a lot of pressure from the curation process of smart wearables.
It also removes a lot of controversy where content creators might complain that portable experiences mess with their experiences. If they bother your scene, just block them.
Competition
featureToggles
list) to turn off all portable experiences in the entire scene. We’d like to have portable experiences working in as much of Decentraland as possible, it’s better if we can block just the small area where the risk exists vs the whole scene.Non-goals
This is not about stopping portable experiences from doing malicious or unfair things anywhere. Scene creators will have tools at their disposal to prevent this in their scene, but they must act to implement these tools.
Key Dependencies and Open Questions
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