Bring back Linked Sources

Please read the 3rd post for my updated perspective on this topic.

Old post

I personally have discovered multiple cases where LinkedSources would be extremely useful and a (much) more viable solution than packages in my games, especially since my game spans over multiple places.

Packages are good, but they just don’t get the job done like LinkedSources do. I think they’re a good addition that works well with Packages, but Packages just don’t provide as clean of a solution and cater to scripters like LinkedSources do.

Some of the use cases of LinkedSources in 2019

  • Version number storage for guis across different places
  • Updating gui elements (such as money) across different pages & different menus
  • Making future game updates easier by simplifying the way pieces of the game interact with each other
  • Organizing the game and further optimizing developer support by not requiring them to enter studio and publish every place which consists of a script (this must be done with Packages, and it is extremely tedious due to the fact that all 4 of my game’s places are very large file sizes)
  • Containing Metadata for other scripts to reference from the cloud without needing to bloat the explorer (I hate how Packages bloat the explorer, this could be solved by a components system but I’m not going to get into that)
  • Does not bloat your inventory on the website (side note, toolbox is still broken)
  • Multiple people can edit it. This is a huge one but I know Roblox plans to add that functionality to packages in the future (but why wait for a new feature when we already had it?)
  • It cannot be de compiled by synapse exploits and things of that nature. This lets developers use client-sided code that can remain obfuscated even in the event of a game leak.
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I agree with you;

I’ve been using Packages and they’re completely useless when working with other people, they cannot access my Packages and vice-versa, it is also annoying to publish changes in every game containing Packages, I’m not sure if Packages is still in Beta but regardless of that Roblox shouldn’t have removed something that was working fine and replace it with a half broken feature.

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This is an old thread, but I still believe LinkedSources were sunsetted too early. Here’s why:

It’s been months since Linked Sources were removed. Packages have been released and improved and worked on by roblox until their current state, but they still just don’t provide a worthy replacement to LinkedSources!

I have two games, both of which are multi-place universes with over 3 places. Each of those places need similar scripts to load data, add functionality, etc. EVERY SINGLE TIME I make a tiny update (For instance, today I needed to at .Texture to the end of a line) I have to open Each and Every map of my game for the package to update itself. Not to mention, it crowds up my inventory and makes it hard to find assets that actually matter to me when there are a million package instances which are completely irrelevant outside of that one game.
On the surface, opening each place might not seem so bad, but believe me, when your game is 4-6GB per map in .rbxl format and you’ve got four of them open, your computer will be SCREAMING right before you hit the publish button on all those places. It’s amazing I can still even edit this game.

Today’s adventure consisted of me changing a purchase script that appears in each map of my game except for one. I don’t use packages for it because packages are too buggy for me, but LinkedSources would have been just perfect - editing the source code and immediately beaming it to all the other scripts of the same type in the game seems like nirvana now. Too bad I didn’t know how to use LinkedSources while they were still a thing! Maybe this could be one of the many reasons why most roblox games do not utilize the multi-place universe system? :thinking:

Link to games:

https://www.roblox.com/games/4864763388/NEW-Project-Trackday

tl;dr

LinkedSources need to coexist with packages. They both have important roles but they are not interchangeable. Package permissions are really the greatest incentive to use them, but LinkedSources have the appeal of unifying script framework across multi-place universes which can support quick updating and a LOT less headaches. Take it from a developer who works in multi-place universes 100% of the time - LinkedSources are a lot better for unifying code across game places.

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