Creativity and sharing are two qualities that fuel ROBLOX, and it’s in that spirit we created Crossfire, a series where we chat with ROBLOX game developers about their game design choices. For this outing, we interviewed loleris and CloneTrooper1019, creators of Darkness, and The Stalker, respectively. These are two seasoned ROBLOX veterans who have both participated in separate Crossfires in the past, but their two games, which are among the most popular games at the moment, are competing too closely to ignore.
ROBLOX: Thanks for doing this guys. So, on a surface level, both of your games are really similar. What would you say is the biggest difference between your games?
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Lightning Fast Loads: Streaming Is Enabled!
Last month, we talked with ROBLOX Engineer Yunpeng Zhu about prototyping and testing our new streaming parts system in our test environment. After gathering a ton of useful feedback we’re proud to announce that this new feature has been implemented on ROBLOX, and you can enable it in any one of your places or games starting today. This means other players will be able to enter your game at lighting-fast speeds, and will allow players with older hardware to run large games more smoothly. To start, we thought we’d walk you through how to implement this exciting new feature in ROBLOX Studio. We also got the chance to talk to a pair of builders about their experiences with part streaming and how it’s changed their mentalities.
Enabling streaming parts in Studio
To begin, open your place in Studio. Select your Workspace from the Explorer panel (View > Explorer), and you’ll notice a brand new checkbox in the Properties (View > Properties) called “StreamingEnabled”. For most games, enabling this feature is as easy as checking that box. If you have a game that depends heavily on LocalScripts, you might need to make some adjustments to those scripts in order to make them work properly. You can find out how to do this, as well as a ton of other useful information and tips, at the ROBLOX Wiki. We’ve also given you the tools you need to immediately test part streaming in your game to ensure that everything is working properly before you upload it back to ROBLOX.
Continue reading Group Dynamic: Samurai, Light Fights, Naval Warfare and More!
The world of groups within ROBLOX is ever-expanding. I’ve always known groups as a large part of the ROBLOX experience, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went until I started investigating them in the first entry of this series. Suffice to say, the investigation continues! There isn’t a strict theme for this edition of Group Dynamic; instead, I tried to keep away from the military and competition-based theme of the first article and participate in other types of events and activities. I trained with the Serenity Samurai. Piloted massive pirate ships through cannon fire with the RBRN. Got into some Light Fights with the Klam Knights. Talked with a key member of the X-101st about ranks. All of this is ahead in this edition of Group Dynamic!
Continue reading Spotlight: Starmarine614′s Theme Park Success Story
We interviewed starmarine614 back in July, shortly after the introduction of Paid Access. We chatted with him because ROBLOX Point, which was still in beta at the time, was the first game to find significant success using the feature. We told him then to contact us when he was finished building his project, so I wasn’t surprised to get a message from him on ROBLOX a few days ago that read: “It’s finished, and it’s picture-ready.”
Calling ROBLOX Point “picture-ready” is a bit of an understatement, though not incorrect by any means. It’s beautiful. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a sprawling amusement park that features some of the most advanced roller coasters we’ve experienced on our platform. Like any good theme park, there are enough rides and attractions in ROBLOX Point to make a day of exploration an exciting prospect–though the rides are the primary selling point.
Continue reading Crossfire: Stickmasterluke and Alexnewtron Talk RO-Dodgeball
Creativity and sharing are two qualities that fuel ROBLOX, and it’s in that spirit that we created Crossfire, a series where we chat with ROBLOX game developers about their game design choices. For this outing, we interviewed alexnewtron and stickmasterluke, creators of ROBLOX Dodgeball, and ROBLOX Battle’s Dodgeball mode, respectively. This marks the first time we’ve chosen a ROBLOX developer to enter into a Crossfire with another user–and the conversation was totally worth it. Check it out.ROBLOX: Welcome to Crossfire guys, and thanks for participating! Our first question is simple: why dodgeball?
stickmasterluke: When we were revamping ROBLOX Battle, dodgeball was the first idea that came to mind when we were trying to come up with new game modes. It’s quick, it’s fun. It’s almost like a mini-game that just focuses on straight-up combat. There are no places to go, or areas to explore. You fight as hard and fast as you can, then it’s over.
Continue reading Sounds Bringing ROBLOX Games to Life
The sounds feature has been out for two weeks today, and already many of our intrepid game developers have started experimenting with the feature–in some cases, they are actually building entire games around custom sounds (though we’ll touch on these particular games when they’ve had a bit more time in development)! We dug through the Games list to find some of the best uses of ROBLOX sounds yet.
Building Virtual BLOXcon, from Schedule to Stage
Fresh off our BLOXcon “world tour,” we’re taking our annual fan convention online for the first time with the Virtual BLOXcon! The event takes place this Saturday at ROBLOX.com/bloxcon, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. We’re hard at work putting the finishing touches on our schedule and setup, so we thought today would be a good time to show you a tentative schedule for the day and share a few photos.
Welcome to our makeshift Virtual BLOXcon staging area! We picked the largest area of our lobby, and set up shop. You can tell Andrew is thinking, because he’s touching his beard (it gives him sound advice).
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