We are making some changes to how you manage places within your game. Specifically, we are not allowing Devs to remove the start place of a game. Please follow the instructions below if you are affected:
To update the contents of the start place:
Open the place you want to publish as the start place in Studio
File > Publish to Roblox As…
Select the start place
To add a new place to a game:
Open the game in Studio
In the Game Explorer, right-click on Places and select “Add New Place”
Why are these changes being made?
We’re always working to make your development experience smoother. One of the issues we’ve consistently noticed is that there is a lot of confusion between places and games. Games are essentially projects, which can contain one or more levels (places). Much of the confusion stems from settings being incorrectly tied to places, and not to games. To start remedying this, we need to make the following changes:
Removing the ability to switch the start place in a game. You will still be able to update the contents of the start place using File > Publish to Roblox As… from Studio.
Creating a start place for every game which doesn’t have one.
Making these changes will enable us to start migrating place settings to games. This means you will spend less time hunting for settings and more time developing.
Some settings will remain on places forever because that’s where they belong, e.g. maximum player count.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this update.
If you’re going to create a start place for each one of these games, all you’re gonna be doing is creating places that won’t ever be used. Please tell me that I’m misunderstanding what is phrased in the original post. I’d rather you delete games that have no places (start places or otherwise) than just add a bunch of pointless places to cluster up my place page.
Also, if the idea here is to start removing the place page entirely from the develop area, that’s fine, but the game’s page will need to be updated to allow for easier access to secondary places than just:
Are there any changes planned for being able to move places between games? That behavior is really confusing. Because places can be moved out of games and between them, they seem like their own separate entity that can live without a game – not a sub-level which depends on a game.
It would be nice if places were locked to their games so it’s more clear what they’re meant to be used as. If someone wants to copy a place to another game, they can publish to an empty place in the target game, similarly to if they wanted to move a start place.
I’d prefer that we have the option to move them to another game. What if you want one game that is for making test places for your full game, and once you’re done making the test place, you could just transfer it to the full game rather than copying and pasting it.
However, I agree that it shouldn’t be allowed to live in a sub-space where it has no home. It should be docked to a game at all times.
I have a staging game where I create test places before moving them to the main game
I create a place, and publish it to the main game
I want to update the place, but not on the main game in case I break something
I have to create another place in the staging game, and then publish over the place in the main game when it’s bug-free
Places aren’t something you make once and then never touch again – they require constant iteration. Moving the place out of the test game prevents you from editing it further unless you want to break the actual game or create another place in the test game. Publishing over places is a much more convenient workflow.
I have a racing game that has a Menu Page as the start
I have a separate game where I prepare places with track & car setups as to keep unfinished tracks from finished tracks.
These places are literally just a race track & a race car. Nothing else. They’re just use for practice. 1 player servers for drivers to test the track all by themselves.
I finish the track up, and move it to the main game.
No new place is created, cluttering up my place page
I recognize that the track is finished, rather than unfinished, therefore not cluttering up my unfinished tracks game
I script into the Full Game Menu that this one place is the place to teleport for practice with x car at y track.
My personal workflow is about using Games as sort of “folders” for Games that require tons of places. (My game will feature somewhere in the range of 150-200 places that can all be teleported to from the main menu.)
While this is good as a band-aid, I think the big issue here is how everything is implemented.
Like you said, ‘much of the confusion stems from settings being incorrectly tied to places, and not to games’. I think this also can be said for not only settings, but just the way everything is designed.
The develop create page separates games and places like they are completely different, unrelated assets. This is part of the confusion – ‘Why do we have games AND places? Aren’t they the same thing?’
The only place where the game-place relationship is treated at all well visually is the game explorer tab, but that’s just a visual interface and not actually how the system is designed.
I think games should instead be treated like folders with settings. Just imagine turning the places tab in the create page to something similar to this explorer screenshot: Imagine the settings module to be a button next to ‘Your Game’, and the same for Place 1 and Place 2
Not only would this properly describe the relationship between places and games, it would organise places better, and make it faster to find older work (if you have lots of multi-place games).
Maybe even some changes to how the create page is structured would be in order, as it was made when content was a bit simpler and there weren’t (visually) duplicate assets like games and places.
You haven’t told us what’s next after this change, so I might just be suggesting something you guys already have an idea of.
Either way, I appreciate that you guys are seeing issues and fixing them.
Great job
Hi. Good change. More steps need to be made.
I will be short, please address the following.
Develop page issues:
You cannot search for games.
Games tab and Places tab are identical in purpose, this confuses players. The tabs should be combined.
Games tab does not easily allow users to access individual places of the game (they have to enter studio, or they have to press the title-hyperlink and then move down one tab, and then select the game, then enter studio.)
I feel like most of the confusion between places and games is due to the names “Place” and “Game”. Many developers are not told what the difference is off the bat, causing those developers to end up being confused when trying to deal with adding new places to a Game. Places are often referred to as Games by the public, because the public most likely doesn’t even know that there’s a difference. Therefore, when people decide to begin development on their first games and they see the separate “Places” and “Games” tab on the Create tab, they become confused. The entire Game system is extremely confusing in general, though, adding even more confusion to the entire system.
Although this is a step in the right direction, I don’t believe it’s a good long-term solution.
It would be great if new places could be added to games from the website instead of needing to open the game in studio to do it. All of my games with no start place were caused by me creating them to add their start place to a different game.
Also, why would you create new start places for games with no start places when you could just delete the game? If the game has no start place it obviously wont be needed in the future, and if it is, it can just be remade with a new start place. I feel like cluttering the Places page of developers who have a ton of empty games is not a good solution.
