Briguy's ROBLOX

I’m super pumped for Roblox in 2012. You should be excited too. Why aren’t you excited? GET EXCITED! THERE’S SO MUCH STUFF! IT’S MIND BLOWING. YOU SHOULD BE SO EXCITED YOU CAN PUNCH THROUGH A WALLwait.

Roblox is seriously growing as a company. I’m always blown away when I see videos like this that shows the size of the dev team. It’s really big (and the moderator team is about the same size, so if you double what you see in those videos, you get Roblox as a whole.) With that kind of manpower, Roblox has some serious push to move forward and make some really exciting stuff.

I mean, let’s look at last year. I ran through and I found all the major updates I could. In 2011 Roblox was updated with:

• Collision noises
• Ambient Shadows (which I’ve personally never really noticed…)
• Group Advertising/Primary Groups/Allies and Enemies
• In-Game Video Capture
• BC Loyalty
• Data Persistence
• Roblox now launches from Firefox/Chrome (a big, BIG improvement for me)
• Roblox App for iPhone (which doesn’t do much)
• Parties
• Place Teleportation
• Terrain Generation
• Plugins
• Mega Places
• Place Fog
• and Roblox Studio for Mac (mostly worked on during 2011, released first week of 2012)

What’s the grayed out stuff you ask? Those are updates that affects the site more than it does the game itself.

But wow! All that in one year! Not to mention Roblox held a Rally this year where hundreds attended, and the spread of Roblox cards to almost every store out there in the USA (sorry Europe) Don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking – “But Briguy, how could they possibly top this?” and I will show you Hack Week.

During the holidays, the devs spent one whole week making a hack of their choice that could further Roblox or do something really awesome. I didn’t have to be pretty, and you probably had to break a lot of stuff to do it – hence the Hack. But some really amazing stuff came out of this ONE week, such as data persistence across multiple places, Roblox on the iPad, Ropes, and Buoyancy. In one week. Wow.

Roblox is definitely starting to move forward and make a game that can seriously wow and impress, and it needs to in order to compete. It’s changes like this which really excite me. There’s one other change I’m also looking forward to with both excitement and fear: Age-Up. And I’ll explain why… next week.

–Briguy

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First, I will start linking to this disclaimer every time I put up an opinion post

The trading world, as of right now, is some seedy under ground black market for getting goods between two people. There’s no system for trading in place, so person A has to buy first then person B has to go next. But then any person can back out at any point, leaving one person with no items and the other with two – it’s bad.

It’s always been higher on the list of things to be developed. The trading system comes up as a topic every once in a while, but nothing really gets farther than basic code from Telamon. Will the system work okay?

Well first, I don’t know the exact specifics of the system. But what I believe is:

• It’s a live trading system. Both players have to be online to trade.
• The system will be augmented by our current forum. People can post trades then organize by themselves when to meet online.
• BC only, because only BC people can sell hats so I’d be weird to let them trade but not sell.

Seems simple enough. Some ideas of mine:

• PLEASE MAKE MY INVENTORY EASIER TO USE AND SORT THROUGH. It’s a serious pain the way it is with having to start from the first page of hats to find each hat, and going page to page isn’t very fluid.
• I’d love to see trading places, so there should be both an on-site trading interface and an in-game trading interface. Combine this with Mega places, and you could get a trading world that’s as populated as the stock market trading floor. Wow.
• Currency should be allowed in trades too, but there has to be a hat too. Currency should only augment the trades and help tie up loose ends so both parties are happy.
• No one-way trades/giveaways to help cut down on scamming and account hijacking. Both parties must be giving up at least one hat. There are ways around this if you’re really determined to clean out an account, but it would slow you down a bit.

–Briguy

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First, I will start linking to this disclaimer every time I put up an opinion post.

Ahem.

The users of Roblox have put themselves in a very strange spot. The users shun those who use models that are public and free to use, claiming “lack of creativity or skill.” Yet, no one can get better unless they do just that, learn from the models, and continue to make mistakes and learn from them until they gain the skills to create a original place. This is the Free Model Dilemma.

I very highly doubt someone is going to join Roblox and instantly know not only the programming language, but all the terms, phrases, and the “unwritten rules” of the site. Some coding genius might come around and code a perfect chess AI, but no one will ever play it because it’s boring. Impressive? Yes. Useful? No. You need to be around to know that “paintball” games will do better than “chess” games, or things of that sort. Even if you have the preemptive knowledge that Roblox is a children’s game, you can still fail utterly because no one wants to play your game themed on everything kids love. Roblox and their users are fickle. I still haven’t figured it out.

So then, what’s a user to do? Let’s assume the user is pretty “average” meaning they’re about 10-15, can’t code, and has no prior knowledge of Roblox. So they play a few games. They realize “Hey, I can make this place too and get lots of users to play it!” So what do they do? Open up the toolbox, and search for “terrain” or “paintball guns” and things they need to build the place. They make their place as they see it should be, and try to get players.

This is where users enter the loop the community has created for itself. More often than not, the user gets shunned for his or her “lack of creativity” and “laziness” when in fact, it was the best they can do. Then they go back distraught, and continue to just play and not build their games, or they build their games knowing no one will come and that “it is trash” when it’s really still their creation and their place.

However, if every user does this, it fuels the stereotype that new users can’t build. They can’t build because the community trashes and insults even the slightest attempt at it unless it’s made 100% from scratch. Plus, places are never 100 from scratch. Even experienced users reuse scripts from older places or just take a specific one they need from free models. I rarely see this ratted out.

And why do I rarely see this ratted out? How do users get out of this loop? By maturing. It may seem “most good builders are older because they’re smart enough to figure it out and get popular from expert places” but in reality it is “most good builders seems older because they’re mature enough to learn from their mistakes and keep on trying.”

–Briguy

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Okay so I tripped.

Wait until tomorrow!

–Briguy

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