Raph Koster’s much-anticipated 2008 release of the gaming platform Metaplace promises modules and stylesheets. For people without the time, inclination or skill, they’ll be able to set up games using supplied stylesheets and modules and customize them a bit to match their own branding or personal preference.

In rounding up my hopes for the New Year, I posted yesterday on my wish that Linden would take a stakeholder-focused approach to service, marketing and development (which would be supplemented nicely by opening up the archicture of Second Life much like a gaming platform would provide coding toolkits to developers).

One such approach is the “wizard” approach to content development. We’re currently prototyping a wizard for in world events. For groups that aren’t experienced in Second Life, the ability to quickly configure, manage and execute an in-world event should be as automated as you’d expect from a technology platform. While the growing role of service firms help fill the gap between need and execution, there’s an increasing need for organized content libraries, and step-by-step “wizards”.

A few small-scale examples demonstrate what I mean. The first is a small but intriguing example of how LSL code libraries can be aggregated. Nice thought process by 3greeneggs and I’d love to see further development on this.

The second example is the work by Terraformers Inc. (WildWizardWare) which allows you to rez an object in world that you then “sculpt” (shape and texture) using a PHP Web page. If only building a house was that easy! (And why isn’t it? And when will it be?) Rock Wizard and Water Wizard are available on SLE (products for which I fully paid, thanks, so it’s not a paid endorsement ).

Two early examples of the future “wizard way” of developing virtual worlds.