Roblox Developers’ Journal

We put out a new release on August 19, 2008. We’ve been meaning to post about the awesome new features but we got super busy!

Many users have already discovered some of these features. WonkaKid over at Roblox News made a post about it! So let’s explain what came out in this release.

1. Place Version History

If you want to reset your place to an earlier version you can do it with this feature! To use the feature do these steps.

First click the Configure This place link on your place. The link will show up under the description of any place you own.

Then all you need to do is select a previous version of the place. That’s pretty cool.

2.  Walk Speed

We made the walking speed of Robloxians changeable. It is a property of the Humanoid class, and its default is 16. If you set it to a negative speed, it reverses people’s controls. Note: if you set it to a very high speed, you will start walking through walls.

3. Sparkle Colors

We also allowed sparkles to change color. To change them edit the Color property in the Sparkles in Roblox Studio (in the Explorer pane). Some colors may not work as well as others.

4. Team Chat

When you’re in a place that has teams on the leaderboard you can chat directly to your team. To do this type % after the /.

Example:

/%lets go to their base
/%green team rules!!!1

5. Other Stuff

Hmm let’s see. There’s a new places display on the main page. A new installer. Some new awesome moderation features (that you’ll never see). A lot of lag reduction and behind the scenes stuff. We really have been working hard!

What happened to music and meshes?

We took them out. Sad to say but we had to take them out of ROBLOX for several reasons. One is that we don’t yet have moderation set up for it. Also they were making place files way too huge.

Check out this movie by PRG. It shows off some of the features!

If you’d like to talk about these features some more then go join the discussion on our forum.

-Clockwork & ReeseMcBlox

There is a technical issue that is affecting a small number of users. Did Internet Explorer stop working on your computer?

Please read this message from our technical support and testing. They are here to help!

Tech support note – ROBLOX installer interoperability with Windows Vista / Some users security settings.

Symptom:  Internet Explorer doesn’t launch. You click to start Internet Explorer and nothing happens.

Users Affected: Some Windows Vista users with UAC Controls turned off.  We estimate this affects less than 1% of ROBLOX users.

Solution: Send email to setup@roblox.com and we will determine if your machine is affected and provide help fixing it.

You should also probably include the following info in your email: Username and what type of Windows you have. (To make sure it’s Vista)

-ReeseMcBlox

Announcing are the Video Mini-contest winners!

How were they chosen? ReeseMcBlox looked at the top viewed videos as of midnight Aug 11, 2008 and then removed anyone who didn’t qualify. Ten Videos were decided as the winners. Check them out in this play list!

Winners of the Black Iron Ring of Olympia for Video Mini-contest: yozy, cobrastrike4, maax1996, piecrust, arisshah, twisteddemo, bmoreboy, canary4life, gaomon94, sheeppie, MarioMario54321

The Building Contest winners and prizes are not finalized yet. We’re very busy working to deliver all the prizes. There were so many winners! Please be patient - it could take all night.

The requirements of the Building Contest were changed to make it so more people would win. The new arrangement is like this.

*you had an Olympics2008 place on your account when we ran the database search earlier today.

Please wait until tomorrow to see if you get the hat you think you should.

Chat more about this contest on our Forums!

-ReeseMcBlox

The building contest is well underway. There are tons of places being built. It’s great! Check out the most recent entries.

We wanted to remind everyone about the rules for the event so there’s no confusion. The instructions for entry are here.

Additional rules:

The entry place has to be something that you could see at the Olympics in the real world. Please check out the official site if you don’t know what the Olympics is supposed to look like. 

Olympics2008 Obstacle courses are not allowed. Your place has to look like a real sporting event or sports place, not a computer level.

You can work in teams but only the owner of the place gets the prize, no one else. Same for video teams, only the poster of the video gets the prize.

You may have more than 1 sport in your place but 1 is enough. You don’t need 2. But if you have 2 or more it’s ok.

At midnight (Pacific Time) August 11 the contest ends and we will run a database search to find the winners. We will check the winning places to make sure they are Olympics related. We will not announce the winners of any prize until Tuesday August 12 at 5pm Pacific time. This is a new change. We need another day to make sure we get the tallies right.

Don’t forget about the movie mini-contest. There are some cool things going on there too. Check out the latest entries in the movie category.

Remember to post about your place entries and your YouTube video entries in the Creations Gallery. It’s ok to ask people to come to your place there.

Also be sure to be a good sport and visit other people’s places. This is a time to celebrate the creativity and productions of your fellow Robloxians! The best way to make friends and help the community is to give a little time to others.

-ReeseMcBlox

We’re having a building contest. Yay!

The theme for this contest is the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. We want you to build a ROBLOX place to host one of the games. Then once everything is in place there will be plenty of locations for people to play Olympics games of your own.

How To Enter

1. Make a new place with the title “Olympics2008 ________________” with whatever you want to call the place on the blank line.
Examples:
Olympics2008 Laoshan Velodrome
Olympics2008 I’m gonna win place
Olympics2008 Archery shooting range

2. Your place must be on your main account and still there at the time the contest ends Monday August 11 at 5pm Pacific. The prizes will only go to your main account.

3. The place must be Olympic Games related. It must be about one of the Olympic sports, or be one of the locations for the Beijing 2008 games.

On the Official Beijing Olympics site there is a list of the sports, and a list of the locations the games are being held. Go check out the games and locations to get ideas for what you’d like your entry to be. Also it might be fun to include the Official Mascots of the games into your place somehow.

Video Contest Mini-Event

In addition to the building contest, we’re having a small video contest. To enter post your video to YouTube with the following tags: ROBLOX Olympics Beijing. Remember to put your username and a link to ROBLOX website. The video can be any length but must be about ROBLOX, the Beijing 2008 Olympics, and comply with the ROBLOX Community Guidelines. The 5 players with the most views on August 11, 2008 will win 300 Tix each and a Black Ring Hat.

How To Win

Prize Winners will be chosen in the following way. At midnight (Pacific Time) at the end of the contest we will run a database search to find the Visits count and Favorites count for entries. Our searches will know how many visits and favorites came after the start of the contest. 

We realize that one person may win more than one category. That is allowed. To prevent popularity loading we will not announce the winners of any prize until Monday August 11 at 5pm Pacific time.

*The Mystery requirement will not be revealed until the end of the contest. Don’t ask!

We may possibly give out more prizes than this, for different requirements. We reserve the right to add ways to win to the contest.

Example: Stadium by olyimpicman. 

Rules

Only one entry per player. A player with Builder’s Club may make up to 10 entries but will not receive multiples of the same hat.

Advertising your place on the forums is only allowed in the Creations Gallery. Posts in other forums will be locked or deleted.

Renaming a place that already has a lot of visits is OK. Our database search will factor out all your previous visits and favorites.

Your place must still be on your account at the time the contest ends. All the prizes will be delivered within 1 week of the contest ending.

We can’t wait to see what sorts of sports places, arenas, and fun locations you guys can make for this contest. The contest starts now so get to building!

-ReeseMcBlox