ROBLOX has had its own virtual economy since 2007 and, last year, we introduced two new features–Game Passes and Affiliate Gear Sales–that started to close the gap between the economy and building. We promised then that we’d eventually complete the circle and implement the ability for builders to sell items in-game. Today, after a lengthy public test in ROBLOX Battle, we’ve successfully enabled in-game transactions across all games in ROBLOX.
During this year’s Hack Week, ROBLOX developers shifted gears, working tirelessly to devise and present ideas fueled more by creativity than priority. This week, we’ll be featuring some of the most innovative ideas to come out of Hack Week. Our first story is about a “Crafting” system in ROBLOX, by Software Engineer Navin Lal.
The idea of “Crafting” has been in the gaming world for a long time; DotA, Ultima, Everquest, and even Diablo have featured their own versions of the concept. It’s an undeniably interesting idea that is worth exploring in the world of ROBLOX. In order to better explain our unique take on a crafting system, let’s split the notion into two categories: materials and recipes. We’ll go over materials first.
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.
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At ROBLOX, we believe user experience is of the utmost importance. Today, ROBLOX Software Engineer, Navin Lal, tells us about how ROBLOX is building a faster, more responsive website with the help of MVC and a new pagelet architecture.
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Last week we turned on a new algorithm for the Games Page in an effort to keep the ROBLOX experience customized to the various interests of our players. We previously used the “Popular” sort function as the default way to organize games. However, we wanted to build a system that puts the best games on ROBLOX on the front page based on our users’ interests and preferences. We have now developed a way to sort by “Relevance”, and we will use this default going forward.
How will our users create bigger and better games? Navin Lal’s Hack Week project presents his vision of the future.
Universes would allow ROBLOXians to create massive game spaces by linking multiple games together. You would not only travel to and fro (thanks to the ever-handy means of teleportation), but all of your ROBLOXian character’s previous accomplishments within the “Universe” — whether it’s experience, currency, progress, events and more!— would accompany them too.
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New. Theme.
Stop reading this and go check it out!
Still here? Well, in that case we do have more to announce. We are introducing a new sort method for games called ‘Beginner Friendly’. These are games that we’ve determined are, well, beginner friendly. Hopefully this will help new players find games on ROBLOX that they will enjoy. If you’re feeling generous, why not hop into a Beginner Friendly game and show them the ropes?
Now, a couple of reminders about the new theme. First, if you prefer the old themes, you can always switch back via your Account page. Second, a new theme for OBC members is in the works so get ready.
Discuss the update here.
-njay
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