Please allow us to switch between those two behaviors.
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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 Robloxâs core is about
(Edits: emphasis added)
Then Roblox studio must be ran anywhere in the world (ofc excluding places they legally canât exist), this includes offline use (which we donât really currently have) to meet this core ideal. We already operate pretty heavily in the cloud, pushing further doesnât 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 doesnât 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 weâre 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 doesnât 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 Iâm 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?
Iâm sure these changes are good indentation and maybe children prefer the way itâs 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.
Itâs only so much time before the good will and the money dries up, no one knows when that is until itâs too late, I just hope you make take the repeated drum beats before itâs too late.
I hope to see more feedback sessions on such critical changes before any wasted resources on a possibly harmful solution
24 Likes
I fail to see why people are complaining about an optional feature as if itâs the end of the world - I myself will be going on vacation in literally 4 hours, and Iâve a lot of games that Iâd like to sync onto the cloud without having to publish them - which means this update is a godsend to me! Came right when I needed it 
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I just want to be able to move models around in studio while in my car.
I use offline files because it means I can use other tools to manage it better and my content is under my control. Itâs that effort is being placed in somewhere where it hurts core devs.
We just care about our workflows and making it the best it can be. This doesnât help here as you can see for the many replies.
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Will there ever be a feature to remove experiences though? Because 14 year old me thought it was a nice idea to create 200+ of themâŚ
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There wonât, most likely because of the same reasons accessories cannot be deleted from inventory anymore.
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This should not be made the default Ctrl+S save. I think it will annoy a lot of people for that hot key to change.
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I do notice that when I start working in a published game that I mirror to my local hard drive, I will Ctrl+S without realizing I am saving to the cloud. Previously IIRC it would prompt me to choose a location to save the first time I tried, instead now it defaults to the cloud and does not prompt me. Because this happens, I nearly forget to save the game to my local file because I previously relied on the prompt to remind me to do that. This increases the chance of me getting my local file and published game out of sync, which goes against the reason why I save to my local drive in the first place (data backup in the event of a stupid moderation accident, and convenience in some cases).
I would much prefer it if on the first time I attempted to Ctrl+S after opening a published game if it would ask me if I wanted to save to the cloud or save to a local file, and then use that decision for the rest of the Studio session for the Ctrl+S behavior, rather than defaulting to the cloud.
Also as an addendum to this:
I have a local file I use to develop a plugin in. It contains plugin source code, old versions, and test cases in the datamodel. I donât really want this in the cloud because:
- Itâs faster for me to open it from my local files because it shows up most of the time under File > Recent Files in Studio and I donât have to hunt for it in the home screen UI. I can also just open it from my filesystem because itâs usually under Quick Access in Explorer.
- There is no organization in the Studio home screen UI to differentiate between games and working files that are not playable, which makes it even harder for me to find it in the home screen UI.
- I donât want to lose my testing setup in the file / my progress on an update if something happens to my account.
Please focus on detaching functionality from the cloud rather than forcing everything into the cloud so things âjust workâ. Detaching functionality from the cloud is the most accessible and convenient thing to do from a developer point of view because of the breadth and quantity of use cases different people have for working out of local files that are divorced from the cloud, or mirrored on local and the cloud.
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I just want to confirm: None of those issues seem specific to plugins, did you just happen to use a plugin as an example here or do you think that the plugin flow specifically is degraded in some way here?
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It is just an example. Plugins are a good example of a case where I have a non-playable game intended solely for script work that I do not want to lose and that has unique setup within for testing / working. The same would apply for a local file intended as an isolated workshop for a library module, or a modular set of models, etc.
With respect to Studioâs home screen UI, I actually have three categories of places that I work in: playable games, nonplayable workshops, and scratch/garbage slots that I publish randomly to so I can test things in live games or in Team Create. It would be cool if I could create my own categories on the home screen like the tabs on the left, and organize games there as I please. Currently, all of my published places are smashed together under âGamesâ and itâs hard to find and work between them.
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Roblox moderation sucks and now, thereâs an option to tie it directly with the site? I think Iâll pass.
All I see from this is a disruption of workflow. Having a hard copy (i.e a local file) allows me to use other tools that do not suck and making this default hurts that. In addition, saving on this platform has always been a low point. Iâve experienced a great deal of issues in the past. This doesnât solve it. Saving locally did.
The whole fact that you need a constant internet connection to studio and zero support for offline functionality doesnât exist even with local play testing in place is a sore area and should be worked on over this.
I donât understand how a company can be so anti-third party in 2021. Being locked into this ecosystem with the âcloudâ is just disheartening all together. I get that Roblox wants to be the âall-in-oneâ inclusive tool but, youâre [Roblox] totally blowing it with anyone with a hair more experience than a new user.
Until there comes a time where things can be deleted so that my 12 year old self doesnât come back to haunt me is the day that weâll finally see real change.
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All I see here is microsoft oobe moment
Just how microsoft put the local accounts as a hard to notice button in the windows 10 oobe, but instead of local accounts its save to file
Jerk move roblox. Jerk move.
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I love this feature, but can you please not map âsave to cloudâ to ctrl + s automatically (let us decide whether to switch or not), I keep local backups of each version, organized specifically and I want saving locally to be the default for ease of workflow.
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Not going to lie this feature is nice but why saving it to the cloud when you can just save it in a file?
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Sounds like a bad idea. Would be somewhat good if you want to transfer the file between devices but otherwise it seems basically useless. Plus. What if someone bribes a staff member at roblox for all the code, all the building, and everything else from every single game on the platform (that has this enabled). I can see this being useful for some people but I donât trust it
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Is this some sort of late apirl fools joke? For the amount of times I see Roblox having server issues, this update is terrible and hilarious at the same time.
Not everyone can afford/wants to have all of their work go to the cloud, especially when itâs Roblox. It is much faster, and easier to just save to a local file.
What would I do if Roblox is having server issues, and now I canât upload my progress to the cloud? Do I just say âWell, I guess Iâll just lose a couple hours of work! Oh wellâŚâ?
Also from my point of view, this update just assumes every Roblox developer has fast internet speed. This is not the case, as stated in previous replies.
I have tons of other concerns, but those have already been stated in this thread.
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I still wouldnât stop saving roblox places to file with this feature, mostly because moderation can block your account and you will lose all access to your saves.
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This makes no sense, as any game on the platform, using this or not can already be fully accessed with its code and other assets by Roblox staff by default anyway.
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Pros : less storage on your device.
Instantly save so if roblox studio crashes you wonât lose your work
Cons : if you get your account deleted then all your work is gone.
Roblox could remove the file saving in the future (not bringing drama just possible)
3 Likes
I feel like this is a great update, especially for smaller developers, but just needs some formatting changes. For larger devs this may not be as helpful 
. I would suggest formatting it like this:
Instead of saving a file to the cloud using Ctrl+S, create a separate bar that says âSave to Cloudâ that you can click, which also has a different keybind(Crtl+S would still be saving it locally). It would look something like this:
photoshop btw
This way, the update is not affecting people who want to continue saving their files locally, and when/if the update does come out, people who are using roblox studio are not surprised and confused at what to do and what happens when they press Crtl+S like they have a million times before. For people that want to save their file on the cloud, Alt+S is just as easy to access and remember.
Future Updates?:
this should go in feature requests but it does pertain to this topic so I am putting it here
It would be nice for all of a users items, places, and stuff(talking about this page) to be able to be organized and deleted, similar to the Windows system with folders and files so that we can have backups, models, and decals for certain games under the same location/folder. This would also allow be very helpful for animations because if you are making 1 you have to make 5 bc of all the different actions.
1 Like