A few weeks ago, ROBLOX launched a promotion to raise awareness of its impending mobile app release: at random times throughout each day, we put an extremely limited virtual ROBLOX Tablet on sale in the Catalog. Users who own one of these rare tablets when ROBLOX Mobile officially debuts will receive brand new iPad 3s from ROBLOX.

Since we released the tablets, we’ve been monitoring trade activity to see which users purchased them. We were curious to see how many users would simply keep them (to win an iPad), and how many would leverage them to trade for other rare items. Though not every user who got a ROBLOX Tablet chose to flip it, some did–and for some valuable virtual items.

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A few weeks back, we asked our Content Team what video games they’d been spending their time playing. From platformers to RPGs, their answers were as varied as the types of games you’d find here on ROBLOX. This time, we decided to ask the Web Team what games they play after work and over the weekend, and the answers were pretty surprising. Check it out. 

Toby Teel – Web Team Lead

Wing Commander Saga is a free game that is actually a fan remake of a series from the late 80s. Basically you have dog fights in space with disgruntled aliens. It’s always great to see games that keep the spirit of their predecessors alive while adding new and unique features, and that’s exactly what this fan-made game does. It’s a single player campaign with a story arch that is epic and deep. And little touches, like the realistic and often hilarious banter between pilots keeps me super entertained.

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ROBLOX already features a robust trading system where Builders Club members can exchange goods and barter for limited items and weapons, but actual Robux have never fit into the equation. Starting today, we’re enhancing the system by allowing you to add Robux to trades. This new feature will allow users to make more equitable trades, while simultaneously setting the ground work for some upcoming innovations. 

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Plug-ins are useful tools for building and creating games in ROBLOX Studio. They’re tailor-built to make easy work of specific tasks, and members of our Content Team have created several to help expedite their work in day-to-day work. Talented users have also come up with some creative and helpful plug-ins to better their building experience. We’re working on migrating plug-ins into our Catalog so that users can download them directly from our website. For now, here are a few user-created plug-ins, as well as some plug-ins our very own Content Team has built. Enjoy.

Tara Byars: Visual Artist

I use the Anaminus Command Utility plug-in. It features tools for precision building and is really helpful for rotating objects. One of the most useful features is the ability to move objects on a granular scale, all the way to the decimal (i.e., a tenth of a stud). It’s really helpful if you want super precise control of an object in Studio. You can also use the plug-in to put bricks inside each other, meaning you can create more complicated shapes with ease.

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LuaLearners is one of the biggest scripting oriented groups on ROBLOX, with well over 4,500 members. The group was created as a resource for users to ask questions, give feedback, and communicate about all things scripting. The leader of the group is user Coolbob44, and we got a chance to talk with him about the popular community and their website, LuaLearners.org, which he created from scratch. 

When you’re on the homepage of LuaLearners.org, you’re struck with the immediate sense that everything is in a state of flux. The Public Wall,  where users can have discussions and share feedback right on the homepage, changes every couple of seconds. You can literally watch users work through problems, share images, and congratulate one another on scripting achievements. In the last seven minutes (at the time of this writing) one user shared a custom video player he had just created. Another user linked to a forum thread he had just started, and asked for people’s thoughts on his proposal for a Book Appointment button on ROBLOX. Other users are congratulating a contest winner. Unmitigated, healthy interaction. It’s really neat.

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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: our visit to a Bay Area school, updates to the ROBLOX UI, user Ajedi32 and the ROBLOX Wikia, a preview of upcoming Apocalypse Rising updates, Giftsplosion, another must-see place in Block Town, the stories behind your usernames and more.

Seven-day Blog Recap

ROBLOX visits Bay Area student-gamers

A couple weeks ago, ROBLOX Founder and CEO David Baszucki, Senior Software Developer Robert Morgan and Studio Engineering Director Tim Brown headed to a Bay Area school to meet with students and game enthusiasts. The trio answered questions and took a little time to find out how members of the community build with ROBLOX. You can read a full report of the mini-event in our blog post.

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If you’re a gamer on ROBLOX, chances are you’ve heard of a little title called Apocalypse Rising. It’s been played nearly four million times and is one of the top games on ROBLOX, and for good reason. Emulating a formula created by the ever-popular ArmA mod Day Z, Apocalypse Rising throws you into a desolate world filled with zombies. Supplies and ammo are extremely limited, and the only chance you have against the undead is to band together and fight them off. We spoke previously with co-creator Gusmanak about what it took to create a game of such huge scale. Recently, we caught up with scripter/coder ZolarKeth about some of the exciting changes for the near-future.

The Map and Inventory System

Users ZolarKeth and Gusmanak have created one of the largest maps ever in ROBLOX–it’s made of 22,000 parts and is 8,000 x 8,000 studs. At standard walking speed, it takes more than eight minutes to walk across the entire thing, and they’re planning to make it even bigger.

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