Pushing ROBLOX Place Data Faster Than Ever Before

By Yunpeng Zhu - March 14, 2013

Have you noticed that you’ve been jumping into ROBLOX games quicker? That’s because our networking team has been hard at work exploring ways to make our network more stable, secure, and most importantly, fast. After a ton of experimenting, we’re pleased to report that our network is the fastest it’s ever been–our data is faster and its footprint is smaller, and we’re continuing to make tweaks and enhancements. We tapped ROBLOX Software Engineer Yunpeng Zhu to tell us how we got there.

ROBLOX has sped up dramatically thanks to a couple of changes we’ve made in our networking infrastructure. A few of these changes were very simple, while some of them became extremely complex–it’s difficult to gauge how much faster ROBLOX is running because it’s not entirely dependent on networking, but the hardware users are playing on.

Six Awesome ROBLOX Places You’ve Never Seen Before

By Andrew Haak - March 13, 2013

Every time I page through the creations of ROBLOX users, I find something I have to photograph, add to my favorites or somehow etch into memory. It speaks not only to the volume of content, but the quality. There are incredible builders, level designers and artists in the ROBLOX community, and this blog post exists to make sure their unbelievably detailed and thoughtful work gets its just deserve. These, my friends, are must-see virtual worlds. And you can bring all of them to life by making a personal visit today.

Centralis City by E981

The only thing missing in Centralis City is a sky full of flying cars. This is the future.

Spotlight: Nexx Launches Crowd-Sourced ROBLOXReviews.com

By Alan Fackler - March 12, 2013

Long time ROBLOX user Nexx recently launched ROBLOXReviews.com, a website that compiles and sorts user-based reviews of ROBLOX games. Riffing off of ROBLOXHQ.com, a legacy ROBLOX game reviews site that is no longer running, ROBLOX Reviews features compiled lists of reviews from a wide range of users–each “reviewer” can earn “respect” points by submitting reviews that users find helpful.

The front page of ROBLOX Reviews is a compilation of popular games on ROBLOX–scrolling over each of the titles gives you the option to read user-submitted reviews about the game, or play the game itself (which transports you back to ROBLOX.com). The algorithm that generates what games populate the front page of ROBLOX Reviews is much different than ours–Nexx’s is based off of what people think is good, while ours is based off of what people are playing in that specific instance.

ROBLOX: Helping Cultivate the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

By Andrew Haak - March 11, 2013

In late February, Code.org published a video, in which several tech-industry luminaries – from Bill Gates and Gabe Newell to Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey – extol the values of being able to write code. While the video has an underlying goal of increasing the prevalence of programming classes in schools (Code.org claims that nine out of 10 schools do not offer them), it conveys a bigger message: anyone can learn to code and anyone can position themselves to be a successful engineer. And they can start today – even if their school doesn’t have a formal computer science program.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: March 10th, 2013

By Andrew Haak - March 10, 2013

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: the announcement of BLOXcon, a recap of the first Behind the BLOX at ROBLOX HQ, St. Patty’s gear bundled with prepaid ROBLOX cards, a new series where the ROBLOX team responds to comments on blog stories, ROBLOX’s expansion, Washington D.C. rebuilt in ROBLOX, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Introducing BLOXcon

In 2011, it was the ROBLOX Rally. Last year, it was the ROBLOX Game Conference. This year, we’re taking our show on the road and bringing with us a new name: BLOXcon. BLOXcon will focus not just on games, but building – the core of ROBLOX – and we felt the old name didn’t do the new direction justice. We’ll be hosting BLOXcons in Chicago, London and New York City this summer. To learn more about the event and upcoming ticket sales, see Friday’s official announcement!

Our Content Team Critiques Your Works in Progress

By Alan Fackler - March 9, 2013

About a week ago, we asked users to submit their best and most creative places via the ROBLOX Game Design forum. We told them that the top picks of the litter would receive critiques by our very own ROBLOX developers, and we’re here to do just that. We chose four of our favorite submissions, and shipped them off to our dev team for feedback. Here’s what they had to say:

Luke Weber, ROBLOX Content Team, on Ice Castle, an open-world environment by Gerrett99

BLOXcon Is the New RGC 2013

By Brad Justus - March 8, 2013

If you’ve been around ROBLOX for a while, you might know a thing or two about our annual fan convention. First, it was the ROBLOX Rally. Then it was the ROBLOX Game Conference. For 2013, we’ve decided to debut a new name: BLOXcon! This year, we’re focusing not just on games, but building – the core of ROBLOX – and we felt the old name didn’t do the new direction justice.