Responding to User Feedback, V6

By John Shedletsky - July 28, 2012

Ever since we made the request for your ROBLOX “Top Three,” we’ve been combing through the feedback and responding to your most insightful comments and pertinent questions. This week, John Shedletsky, ROBLOX’s Creative Director and Content Lead, elaborates on a variety of topics, including making money off your ROBLOX creations, dynamic “loading” of levels and content, Linux support, multiplayer ROBLOX Studio and more. For previous entries in this series, click here.

Monetize

centraltrains: In-game purchases. I would like to be able to sell a VIP pass to my game in-game through the official system! Maybe charge users to use this, but it would be like teleport for buying.

Robust Joints and Motors: Keys to Better Vehicles in ROBLOX

By Kevin He - July 27, 2012

At ROBLOX Game Conference 2012, Kevin He dissected the steps he’s taken to refine ROBLOX’s water physics, hinges and motors so that vehicles – especially boats – perform more realistically. In this blog post, we’re recapping the key parts of the development process. You might be surprised at how much work goes into physically simulating real-world machines in a life-like fashion.

ROBLOX’s water, released in June, gives you the ability to create a boat that floats based on actual physical properties, rather than lines of Lua code. While the release of water marked a big step forward for ROBLOX, it has its limits; for example, if you want to create a propeller-powered boat, the propellers have to be on the side of the boat, as though they’re mimicking wheels on a car.

Gusmanak Returns to ROBLOX With Apocalypse Rising

By Alan Fackler - July 25, 2012

17-year-old Gus Dubetz, or Gusmanak, started using ROBLOX in 2008, due primarily to a life-long fascination with physics. By 2010, Dubetz decided to take a short break to focus on clay and wood sculpting.

It wasn’t until two years later, shortly after the release of Day Z, a hugely popular add-on to ArmA 2, that Dubetz, with long-time friend and scripter Ethan Witt (aka ZolarKeth) asked, “what if we went back?”

Spotlight: Three Teens Use ROBLOX to Ignite Careers

By Alan Fackler - July 23, 2012

ROBLOX is many things to many people. To some, ROBLOX is a simple and dynamic service that provides hours of gaming entertainment. To those willing to invest a bit more time, ROBLOX is a tool for creative expression. And to a select few, ROBLOX has become a jump off point to careers in programming, gaming, and even literature. Our “Spotlight” segment features author/programmer Brandon LaRouche, and programmers Alex Binello and Seth Tyler.

After receiving an iPod Touch for Christmas in 2009, Brandon LaRouche, known in ROBLOX as CowBear16, was eager to find a ROBLOX application in the app store.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: July 22, 2012

By Andrew Haak - July 22, 2012

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: graphics rendering, the first ROBLOX Hackathon, new groups features and more.

The Future of Groups in ROBLOX

By Navin Lal - July 21, 2012

ROBLOX introduced groups in 2009, and, today, there are over 600,000 users in groups. While our community already uses them to organize, communicate, and battle, there are improvements we’d like to make and features we’d like to implement. At RGC 2012, Software Engineer Navin Lal premiered some of our ideas.

Groups are one of the features on ROBLOX that continue to garner interest and support from our users. Today, I’ll be outlining some of the plans we have for ROBLOX groups. We are, indeed, actively working on many of these features, while others are just ideas, so please feel free to leave any feedback in the comments section. We do not yet have any definitive release dates for the changes outlined in this article.

RGC 2012: Observations from the First-ever ROBLOX Hackathon

By Andrew Haak - July 20, 2012

ROBLOX Game Conference 2012 had music, lights, crowds and noise – distractions at every turn. It was the type of environment where you don’t get work done. Yet, in the gated-off space behind the black Hackathon sign, ROBLOX users intently churned out code and built complex structures – with the pressure of limited time, no less – like the rest of the conference didn’t exist.

Now that’s composure.