Announcing the New Roblox Creator Roadmap (Part 1 of 4)

Roblox · May 9, 2023, 5:08pm

Hi Creators,

For those of you who don’t know us, we are Dan, Roblox’s Chief Technology Officer, and Manuel, Roblox’s Chief Product Officer.

Roblox would not be where it is without all of you, our talented, diverse, global creator community. We are building this platform hand-in-hand with you all, and to reflect this we have been working on a new resource within Creator Hub - the Creator Roadmap.

The Roadmap is a place for us to share the things we are working on with you and get your thoughts. We hear you; you want increased input and visibility into our strategy for the future of creation on Roblox. This is one way we are bringing it to you.

In this four-part series, we will share products we’re building specifically for creators and solutions we are investigating to address the pain points you’ve shared. Today, we are happy to share the first installment of the Roadmap, which focuses on content creation. While we aimed to make this list as exhaustive as possible on what we’re building to enhance the creation experience, it is not absolutely everything. There are other technologies and tools we’re building for users that are not covered and other requests you’ve made that we’re working to identify solutions for, such as asset privacy, audio APIs, and external source control. In many instances, what may seem like a simple problem may have deeper, long-term implications. At Roblox, we have a value to “take the long view,” and a solution that is in line with our long-term plan and building the overall best Roblox experience for everyone isn’t trivial. We want to get this right. Look out for the subsequent three installments every week on the Forum from Nick and Tian, Roblox’s Engineering and Product Leadership for Creators.

We want to hear your thoughts on the initiatives that we’re investing in, opportunities or trends you’re seeing, and any excitement or concern that you have with the direction of the platform. We will continue to update the Roadmap throughout the year, and our teams will monitor and engage with your feedback. After the initial rollout of the Roadmap is complete, we will be hosting an “Ask Me Anything” question and answer session here on the forum to discuss your most pressing questions.

It’s important to note that development is complicated, and we may shift our strategies or direction from time to time. As such, the Creator Roadmap should be viewed as a snapshot in time, rather than a concrete promise to deliver exactly as it outlines. We’ll be sure to keep you updated via the Roadmap every step of the way.

We believe the future of Roblox needs to be co-created by the community it serves — creators — and this Roadmap is for you. We’ll see you soon at the AMAs! Stay tuned for more information and how to register.

Thanks for creating with us,
Dan & Manuel

system · May 9, 2023, 5:18pm

This topic was automatically opened after 10 minutes.

JammerTheFurry · May 9, 2023, 5:22pm

I was interested in the latest in the roadmap - everyone will be able to publish accessories and limiteds. It seems to me that the marketplace will be crowded because of this.

colbert2677 · May 9, 2023, 5:27pm

This is a way better roadmap than all the previous years. It’s expansive, easy on the eyes (sans the lack of white theme) and really details some plans ahead for the future of Roblox. This really helps see what’s in store for Roblox and I will always support the platform’s endeavours to improve as long as they are in lockstep with the community and we don’t have continued repeat incidences of shafted feedback or forcing a vision rather than holding true to the motto of Powering Imagination.

Much love for the improved communication. I’m still a person of seeing action so I hope that each team’s actions can demonstrate that future announcements on developer news are more than just words, PR and damage control; I want to see actual commitment to improved technology, developer resources and showing that feedback has ample weight in helping convey our needs and wants for the betterment of our experiences and communities.

Usering · May 9, 2023, 5:31pm

Thank you for the increased transparency, I’m excited to see the return of the developer roadmap!

MrChickenRocket · May 9, 2023, 5:33pm

First up, excellent work - this kind of communication is amazing and we’re all having a party over on discord talking about what’s coming

I hope that this is is the start of a beautiful new trend and this roadmap stays updated frequently - I especially hope that more small-ticket items can make their way onto this list, so we know if we need to keep pestering you about QOL things like “Colors for surface appearances”

I would like to know what’s on the roadmap for other systems, like the physics engine, the UI system, humanoids, streaming, visibility management, etc etc. We know there is work coming for these, but we’d love to see what’s in progress, and what the maybes are, too.

Keep up the great coms!

KaranBlox · May 9, 2023, 5:41pm

Whats that? lol I cant wait see everyone create Dominus.

Abcreator · May 9, 2023, 5:42pm

While this is certainly a step up from the no-roadmap we previously had (or the incredibly old vague ones) and I do very-well appreciate this added communication that was previously absent, it still doesn’t fully satisfy me due to the following line:

I understand not everything can be listed (if it were you’d likely be diving into unconfirmed updates
or have a list that is incredibly long) however generally, (even from the times of the old roadmap) the updates that most hurt developers are updates that aren’t even listed on a road-map until the point that they are publicly announced. At that point, it’s already too late to change the direction of the update (either that, or our cries as developers were ignored, the latter of which I wouldn’t like to believe).

I think the major issue is that details are never fine-stated (even if on the roadmap), obviously your announcements do have to use the major “buzz-words” and I very well understand that your descriptions of features need to look good from a PR-perspective (and therefore be short to read at a glance) however there is usually a major lack of detail on the negatives of an update (such as audio privacy, advertisement standards, or even silent-updates to the community standards, etc). It’s rarely mentioned how some games / developers may be affected by the change and if so, any solutions if applicable, there obviously isn’t time to go into specific use-cases to catch everyone’s different scenario however I do feel that the current absence of detail creates uncertainty in the developer community over updates.

That may seem like a grasp off-topic (since it’s more about about announcements rather than a roadmap) however to pull this all-together, on the new roadmap we see the following:

This is incredibly vague, will any further-protections be implemented before this release? Will I have to worry about my prized Roblox accessory that has a high-RAP / sentimental value being re-uploaded with minor-differences? I understand if this can’t be stated yet (or hasn’t yet been finalised) however this uncertainty just makes it more scary than relieving to see that this feature is coming.

Sonostrano20 · May 9, 2023, 5:43pm

I’m surprised that there are no better plans for the cloud side, such as group management, since they announced that they was working on it.

AbstractAlex · May 9, 2023, 5:49pm

Really excited to see this get built out and have a permanent home!!

If you give me external script editors I will give you infinite games. No more friction

kingerman88 · May 9, 2023, 5:51pm

No news on public marketplace audio?
It has been one of the major updates I’ve been waiting to be re-introduced

skywise84 · May 9, 2023, 5:53pm

This is part 1 of a 4 part roadmap. Cloud work as relates to groups will be covered in part 3.

TheRealANDRO · May 9, 2023, 5:55pm

I’m all for the increased transparency with the community, and this roadmap is cleaner than ever before!

Can’t wait to see the details for these! Audio APIs and asset privacy had problems for a long time.

Though I have a question, which protections are there going to be for the “Community-led Marketplace”? Will anyone be able to create very similar items to very valuable accessories easily and potentially scam other users? What about copyright? Recently many UGC creators have been pushing out copyrighted or very similar items to the limited items. If marketplace creation becomes available to all users, will there be an increase for items such as these?

kavi_conner · May 9, 2023, 5:55pm

I am looking forward to many updates!

It’s also nice that Roblox is adding things to help Developers grow a community!

I have also see people talk about making it so anyone can upload to the UGC catalog, but I also see the term “creator” which I feel it’s very open. What I can at least can say that it isn’t going to be an everyday random Robloxian. (From what I know)

Thanks Roblox!

Ryxku · May 9, 2023, 6:03pm

Glad to see the Roblox Creator Roadmap page which aims to announce the next news.
BUT I am very very worried about what you announced about the accessories marketplace.
I would like to be very clear with you, this is a dangerous idea.
You should not release it to the public, because there are too many bugs and problems to solve now. It will destroy the value of accessories coming from Roblox board.
I am in the UGC program and I can tell you that there are communication problems with the dev relationship, for my part I have two accessories out of 20 that I uploaded that have bugs.
One is forgotten since 2 weeks, the other is completely corrupted (looks like approved but is unstable, you can be scammed and not getting the item. it doesnt always show up in game).
There is nobody to help me to solve. Roblox Support doesn’t help with anything related to UGC.
This is not normal, many UGC Creators have to reupload several times a same item because moderators forgot to approve.
Also, imagine the malicious people who will abuse the Marketplace to upload copyrighted and NSFW accessories.
Because yes, you can hide NSFW by dividing an accessory in several parts. This is already the case for many clothes. Please don’t release it to the public, it will take several more years at this rate to solve our problems.

Noble_Draconian · May 9, 2023, 6:04pm

This is essentially my sentiment. It’s great that Roblox is acknowledging the communication problems and I thank them for that, but I’ll really start to cheer when I see the effects from this, not the words.

Definitely going to participate in this! While this roadmap is a start, there are still a lot of unaddressed issues that I think should be brought up that Roblox has not acknowledged in any way, e.g. plugin / UGC marketshares. Hopefully it leads to productive conversations!

wondelig · May 9, 2023, 6:21pm

UGC going public is going to be absolute chaos. Everyone being given the power to upload to the marketplace will result in nothing else but constant rule breaking and overall bad quality items. There are going to be blatant stolen assets, NSFW & copyrighted items, fake dominus as well as other rare Roblox limiteds/items being put on the catalog. While I respect the transparency, I don’t see this as being any good at all and UGC going public solves no problems, it makes more problems. There is no benefit.

Other than that, the other changes seem really good, especially global wind and the full release of code assist.

Rekotora3349 · May 9, 2023, 6:31pm

Question about Faster Play-testing, shouldn’t it depend on the computer? Because Roblox experiences load at like 3.07 seconds and I have a pretty decent internet and computer.

Hyrule_YT · May 9, 2023, 6:41pm

Will this be available to everyone?

TypeDummy · May 9, 2023, 6:45pm

This is a horrible idea; even with an ID-verified threshold, users will be uploading dominuses, and Valkyrie helms left and right; we will even see Youtube Tutorials popup with bypasses to upload such items. Even with the understanding the item will get deleted, this is not a good idea at all; we’ve seen what happened with the ID-verified threshold back with the VC release, and the catalog/limited economy will be destroyed entirely.

We really need some more information of how this will work and what the plan is.