As a developer who for very long time existed as cloud first but recently moving forwards the local first approach, I understand the intentions but I cannot in good faith accept this change without at least making my opinion on this matter.
If at Roblox’s core is about
(Edits: emphasis added)
Then Roblox studio must be ran anywhere in the world (ofc excluding places they legally can’t exist), this includes offline use (which we don’t really currently have) to meet this core ideal. We already operate pretty heavily in the cloud, pushing further doesn’t make sense at this stage.
Not all markets are going to have solid internet enough to allow for this kind of action, theses are markets Roblox are missing out on by pushing this far towards the cloud and not allowing both methods in a way doesn’t create dark patterns (or similar).
If Roblox wants us to use the Cloud, they need to give us the trust that if we do use it, so we’re not going to be pulled under the rug by error. This is about policy and action. Quoting Roblox at their SEC filing:
Some quotes from Roblox's SEC filing
Our business depends on a strong brand and if events occur that damage our reputation and brand, we may be unable to maintain and grow the number of developers, creators, and users on our platform.
We depend on our developers to create digital content that our users find compelling, and our business will suffer if we are unable to entertain our users, improve the experience of our users, or properly incentivize our developers and creators to develop content
Our business is highly competitive and subject to rapid changes. We face significant competition to attract and retain our users, developers, and creators that we anticipate will continue to intensify. Should we fail to attract and retain users, developers, and creators, our business and results of operations may suffer.
Roblox is fully aware of how important Roblox developers are but yet doesn’t actually deal with the core developer crowd that makes Roblox a very high percent of their income in a way which pushes them on platform.
The beat of the drum for Rojo at RDC 2020 and here on the forums should had been a clear message. Rojo represents the third largest feature request on this forum and the largest request at RDC 2020. Developers want to operate both in studio and outside of it using both third party tooling and first party, this includes offline Roblox files.
Why should I use the cloud if I’m one error from losing my entire income? Why should I rely on a spotty ISP rather than a local file? Why reinvent the wheel so often? Why waste time waiting for a file to upload rather than just update a local file? How do I integrate professional development workflows?
I’m sure these changes are good indentation and maybe children prefer the way it’s being done here but these deeply hurt your core developers and ignore the repeated drum beats we as developers give. You can see this in the many many replies here to far, some from your lead devs.
It’s only so much time before the good will and the money dries up, no one knows when that is until it’s too late, I just hope you make take the repeated drum beats before it’s too late.
I hope to see more feedback sessions on such critical changes before any wasted resources on a possibly harmful solution