Hi,
Don't worry, that's fine, It's important you state when you don't understand something, no matter your level of expertize.
-- So, basically, you got it right, the xml file follow a standard I set up for the occasion of this example, this is one way to do it, but you can find any other mean of storage or data to express your sequence, it doesn't have to be xml.
However, I strongly feel xml is one of the best way to describe a sequence, because it's very close to Plain english, which makes it easy to read, debug and edit, and xml is a standard and well known description and organizational structure, so it fits the needs, and with a little experience, xml is a wonderful structure that can grow and evolve to fit your needs as your project evolves and gets more and more complex. ALL of my complex project use xml for various descriptions and structural data. It's for me an essential tool for development.
-- What do you mean a lot of "checking", can you precise?
-- you are missing the point of the sequence expressed in XML if you think "this can be done with a two Fsm states": the reason is that a Fsm is NOT something you can change at runtime, Xml IS something that can evolve, change, be edited by the user or developer outside Unity/PlayMaker, so in that regards, the example, while simple, is very clear as to what it offers: you do not hardcode the sequence in PlayMaker, instead you describe it in an xml file and it's played back within a small framework written in PlayMaker.
So, to be clear, this sequence example can now accept ANY xml file that follow the same standard, this is very powerful because you can download/get this sequence from various places ( server, user computer, etc).
The original request for this sequence example is actually a PlayMaker member that is working on a high end simulation system and uses PlayMaker to allow engineers to define sequences. His problem was that PlayMaker is not suited for heavy modifications on how a FSM performs, and so this example was there to show an alternative that works with PlayMaker as is, meaning that PlayMaker is not the EDITOR of the sequence, it's the PLAYER.
Does the difference between EDITOR and PLAYER make sense here? that's the reason of this example, xml is the editor environment to express your sequence, PlayMaker plays it back. IF you require a new feature in your sequence, you implement it in PlayMaker by definining new properties in your xml that you will understand and process as expected, essentially adding new features to the sequencer.
Am I clear enough? Maybe the problem is that you are trying to find what to do with a system that you don't necessarly need in the first place? do you have a use case in particular that you are trying to achieve in PlayMaker?
Bye,
Jean