Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: Virtual BLOXcon this September, the creation of Apocalypse Rising’s v5.0 update, a spotlight on UlrichStern25′s impressive pirate ships, impending contest deadlines, a ROBLOX build of Minas Tirith, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Virtual BLOXcon is coming this September

Only a small fraction of ROBLOXia’s current population will actually get to attend the sold-out BLOXcon in person this summer. As much as we’d like to show up in every town and throw a live BLOXcon for you and your friends, we haven’t yet mastered the technology or hired the couple thousand minions we’d need to make that possible. We will, however, be making our way into your home on September 21st, 2013, the date of our virtual BLOXcon. For a general idea of what we’re planning to offer and why you should attend, check out our announcement from last week. Stay tuned for more concrete details in the coming weeks.

The creation of Apocalypse Rising’s highly successful v5.0 update

Hot on the heels of the release of Apocalypse Rising v5.0, we asked the game’s lead designer, Gusmanak, to pen an article covering the development of the game-changing update. In his submission, he covers not only what’s new for v5.0 and how it was implemented, but, at a higher level, his recommended approach for developing a game and keeping it exciting over an extended period of time. If you’re an Apocalypse Rising player — and, really, who isn’t? — you’ll be interested in learning about the choices that lead to terrain, dynamic lighting and 19 new utilities in the game. If you’re an up-and-coming game designer, you’ll take away a useful perspective on what Gusmanak argues is the right way to tackle development and iteration.

A spotlight on UlrichStern25′s self-made pirate ship collection

It’s often the case that builders pick something with which they’re fascinated and make that their ROBLOX specialty. UlrichStern25 would be one such builder — during the course of his ROBLOX career, he has become one of the most prolific ship creators. In addition to working on an open-world ship-battle game, he’s constructed many of the ships seen in the Pirates of the Caribbean series with incredible detail. To learn more about what he’s created and what drives him, take a look at our latest Spotlight feature.

There’s a ton of stuff to do on ROBLOX this weekend

First of all, our ROBLOX International Film Festival and BLOXcon Poster Contest will be closing to new submissions soon — June 3rd at 11:59 p.m. PT, to be exact. We’re coming down to the wire so, if you’re planning to submit, it’s time to get cracking! You can find the resources and links you need to make a last-minute entry by checking out this update from Friday.

Also, with summer break approaching for a large segment of the ROBLOX community, we put together an overview of some other things you can do to keep yourself busy and your mind active.

You should see this ROBLOX place

If you’ve read or watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you might remember an epic battle scene involving hordes upon hordes of orcs attacking the city of Minas Tirith. Jonathangolf recreated that city in ROBLOX, complete with multiple tiers and the surrounding mountains into which it is built. It’s a feat of building not only for its accuracy, but also its grandeur — if you enlarge the above screenshot. you’ll see a tiny speck in the middle of the second tier. That’s my avatar.

Visit Minas Tirith // Middle-Earth // Gondor today!

This is a work in progress I encountered based on a tip from machokickface. Liking the style of this one — the city being nestled in the mountains is a nice touch. Let’s hope dogon sees it through to completion.

Bits

Here are some interesting tidbits we’ve come across in the last week:

Community member and web developer Nexx launched a new ROBLOX game development competition, which you can find at BLOXdev.tk. The competition will let ROBLOX builders choose a theme, then create a game within that theme in a limited period of time. Sounds like a great summer-break challenge. Kudos to Nexx for getting the project off the ground; we’ll be keeping a close eye on how it goes and the results!
MMO Fallout published an article about our recent tech upgrades and the impact they have on the play experience. Check out their thoughts here.
Zelios modeled a cool crash-test-dummy idea for a body package.
This week’s new gear release was bug-themed: Fang Of Anansi, Wasp Wings, Beehive, and Poisonous Butterfly available now!
We posted a game review of the classic place, Imagination, where you and friends can place and paint a blank canvas in a beautiful environment. See it on our YouTube channel or, conveniently, right here: