Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: February 24, 2013

By Andrew Haak - February 24, 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: a significant boost in physics performance, behind the scenes with Customer Service, Gamehero’s MIDI player in ROBLOX, Behind the BLOX, an invitation to ROBLOX HQ, we respond to your questions and ideas, Ozzypig’s latest hit game Juggernaut, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Speeding up ROBLOX’s physics by optimizing collisions

ROBLOX physics guru Kevin He has changed the way our physics engine models collisions between parts to boost its speed by 2-4x. What does this mean to you, the builder and player? More simultaneous moving parts without slowdown and, arguably more importantly, more epic explosions. You can read all about the shift from modeling collisions with “springs” to “impulses” — and see some telling video evidence of its benefits — by checking out Kevin’s in-depth article.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: February 17, 2013

By Andrew Haak - February 17, 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: remembering Erik Cassel, ROBLOX’s Presidents Day Sale, new RGC 2013 announcements, a spotlight on Agent767 and his awesome world-destruction script, some ROBLOX tower defense, and other bits and pieces.

Seven-day Blog Recap

In memory of Erik Cassel

Last week, ROBLOX Co-Founder Erik Cassel passed away after a three-year battle with cancer. We released a pair of ROBLOX items in commemoration of Erik – his trademark hat and an Erik t-shirt — on Friday, and will be donating a substantial portion of the proceeds to cancer research.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: February 10, 2013

By Andrew Haak - February 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 release of ROBLOX Studio 2013 (and subsequent bug fixes), a new, voxel-based prototype for dynamic lighting, the democratization of game development (with litozinnamon), the ROBLOX modeling scene, an RGC 2013 location announcement, Checkpoint Racing by Wingman8, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

ROBLOX Studio 2013: the launch and aftermath

Last week, we announced the arrival of ROBLOX Studio 2013, the much more stable and platform-independent version of our building tool. We’ve been soliciting and reading through your feedback, and we recognize we haven’t yet perfected the Studio 2013 experience; thus, we’ve been fixing bugs as quickly as possible and even made an old version of Studio available for download for a limited time.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: February 3, 2013

By Andrew Haak - February 3, 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: inside the brain of d4rk886, creator of Base Wars: The Land, the ROBLOX Studio splash screen contest results, earning Robux by selling Game Passes and promoting gear, users tell us what compels them to build, LEGO® Hero Factory: Brain Attack, Deadzone, and other bits and pieces.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Inside the brain of d4rk886

He’s created what is probably the most popular game of all time on ROBLOX (and definitely the most popular game of 2012), but he was a bit of a mystery to us blog writers. That said, we got in touch with him to find out how he built Base Wars: The Land, what he’s planning to do with it in the future, and what other games he’s working toward releasing. Get inside the brain of d4rk886, as well as a sneak peak of his upcoming RPG, The Mystic Land.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: January 27, 2013

By Andrew Haak - January 27, 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: a ROBLOX Game Conference 2013 location survey, chat and vehicle support in ROBLOX Mobile, the development of first-person shooter Borderline, ROBLOX’s 2012 in numbers, games making big money, The Stalker, your ideas for gear and other bits and pieces.

Seven-day Blog Recap

We want to know where we should host ROBLOX Game Conference 2013!

In our unofficial announcement that ROBLOX Game Conference 2013 is official, we asked you to help us choose a location for this year’s edition of the annual meetup. We’re not ready to reveal any results just yet, but you can take a look at the comments of the blog post to get a feel for some of the more popular locations. And, if you haven’t already taken the survey, please do so today! The more responses we get, the easier it is for us to make the right decision.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: January 20, 2013

By Andrew Haak - January 20, 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: our spotlight on GollyGreg, multiplayer script debugging, top ROBLOX fan sites (and resources for starting your own), fast moving-parts rendering, an update on our splash screen contest, ROBLOX Hiking, and a few other bits and pieces.

Seven-day Blog Recap

GollyGreg and the importance of Choices

You can tell by the tone and feel of Choices that user GollyGreg has interesting thoughts floating around in his head. That was enough for us to reach out to him for a chat, which became the foundation for our latest Spotlight article. He talks about the motivation behind his game, Choices, his fascination with technology and his lengthy ROBLOX “career.” Read it in full here.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: January 13, 2013

By Alan Fackler - January 13, 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 most popular games and gear of 2012, Creative Director John Shedletsky responds to some user feedback, our splash page contest is a go, we follow up with our recent release of ROBLOX to mobile and crunch the numbers, and Graphics Engineer Simon Kozlov shows off some prototype footage of a new potential look for ROBLOX.

The Most Popular Games, Gear, and Items of 2012