Developer Roadmap Update: 2021

[peraldon (Jed)]

We have a new Creator Roadmap! Read more about it here

Hello developers and creators,

Being as transparent as possible with our community is important to us at Roblox. A new year provided us with a great opportunity to explore how we can improve the Developer Roadmap, which so many of you plan around and get excited by.

If you’ve seen the roadmap previously, you’ll see that it’s now laid out slightly differently. We have also updated our internal process so that the roadmap will be clearer and more accurate going forward.

Note that the roadmap is not a comprehensive list of features we are working on, but rather highlights some of the larger initiatives that we have high confidence in releasing within the estimated windows - which will help make the roadmap more accurate.

Going forward, we will aim to update it roughly every month, rather than every quarter, to reflect changes. Over the course of 2021, whenever there is an update, a changelog for the roadmap will be shared in this post as well and will highlight any features we have reprioritized for maximum visibility, so that you can clearly track changes.

Please keep in mind that our vision is evolving, and bugs or technical issues may cause items to be delayed or even deferred. We do this to ensure we are shipping incredible features that improve your experience developing and creating on Roblox.

Thank you for bearing with us whilst we took the time to review the Developer Roadmap and processes around it. We’re super excited for everything this year brings, and we hope that this new roadmap will allow you to share in that excitement, as well as help you plan whatever awesome experiences you’ll make this year!

Thanks again!

Changelogs

8th Feb

• Parallel Lua
  • Launch Date: TBD → Q1 2021
• Procedural Skies
  • Renamed to Procedural Skies v0
  • Launch Date: TBD → Q1 2021
• Updated Build-in Materials
  • Added to Roadmap as an upcoming feature
• Context-aware Autocomplete
  • Added to Roadmap as an upcoming feature
• Procedural Skies v1
  • Added to Roadmap as an upcoming feature

9th March

Features Changed:

• Teleport API simplification - now released
• Asset Manager - Universe Level - now released
• Heightmaps v2 - now in open beta
• Updated Build-In Materials - now in open beta
• Universe Memory Store renamed to Memory Store, pushed to Q2
• Procedural Skies v0 / v1 merged into ‘Procedural Skies’ and pushed to ‘later’

Features Added:

• Attributes - added, now released
• Increased Game Join Security - added, on track for Q1
• Outlines for Parts/Models - added, on track Q2
• Allow Renaming of Groups - added, on track for ‘later’
• Open Cloud - added, on track for ‘later’

Features Removed:

• No features removed

15th April

Features Changed:

• Automatic Translation for Games - now Rolling Out
• Script Version History - now Rolling Out
• Custom Materials (Open Beta) - now launching Q2
• Heightmaps v2 (Open Beta) - now launching Q2
• Parallel Lua (Open Beta) - now launching Q2
• Updated Build-in Materials (Open Beta) - now launching Q2
• Datastore Improvements - now in Closed Beta, and launching Q3
• Dev analytics standard dashboard - now in Closed Beta, and launching Q4
• Find (All) / Replace (All) - now in Open Beta, and launching Q2
• Increased Game Join Security - now Live
• Custom Pivot Points - now in Private Beta
• Memory Store - now launching Q3
• Allow Renaming of Groups - now launching Q3
• Open Cloud - now launching Q3

Features Added:

• 2FA with Authenticator App - launching Q2

Features Removed:

• No features removed

2nd June

• 2FA with Authenticator App - now Private Beta
• Documentation Site - now under Investigation
• Script Editor Plugins - now under Investigation

14th July

• Find (All) / Replace (All) - now released
• Custom Pivot Points - now in Open Beta
• Memory Store - now in Closed Beta

[TheSuzerain]

Glad there’s a new year full of new exciting things to come! I’m very new to the developer forum, so this is the first Roadmap I’ve seen. This is very reliable. I can’t believe I didn’t come up with this (that’s a joke)!

I’m very excited to test out these custom materials, as I’ve previously stated before.

For these past 3 years, Roblox has changed by a long-shot, and in the best way possible, too! You guys are doing a fantastic job! I really hope to see more of these roadmaps in the future and to continue developing with Roblox!

[Crazedbrick1]

Does this mean we can rotate parts from a corner instead of the center?

Please say yes.

cmon say it

[M_caw (Macaw)]

@peraldon

Over the course of 2021, whenever there is an update, a changelog for the roadmap will be shared in this post as well and will highlight any features we have reprioritized for maximum visibility, so that you can clearly track changes.

All roadmap updates over the course of 2021 will be shared in this one topic- will we have to scroll through potentially hundreds of replies to find the update? Or through edits in the topic itself? I know that this is ironic, but this is the best place to post it. Thank you!

[metatablecatmaid (metatablecat)]

how to breath intensley:

---

Ok, thoughts on every single planned update

Before I start, here’s the ones I wont cover due to it being outside my field of interest

• Custom Materials
• Proceedural Skies
• Automatic Translation for Games
• Heightmap v2
• Talent Hub

Asset Manager - Universe Level

The asset manager is a funny one, in one way, it’s an epic way of turning the Game Explorer into a Lua-based plugin, but on the other hand, the amount of technical issues it had last year has put a bad taste in my mouth with it.

I’d also like to learn more about this, but it links to a page that appears to be unrelated, might want to get to that

Script Version History

So, basically Git but in Roblox?

Parallel Lua

Ok finally we get to a feature I might actually be able to elaborate on.

Paralell Lua is something we’ve needed for a long time, finally being able to take control of multiple cores on a CPU will push what we can do with the engine so much futher.

I’ve been playing around with the beta zueg released a while back, and there’s some previously performance heavy tasks that become so much less of an overhead.

Teleport API Simplification

Ok, now onto a fun one. The Teleport API in it’s current state is a complete and utter mess. When it was added back in 2013 or 2014 was it? The feature was simply just “Teleport”. And thats what it needed to be.

As more features like Party Teleports and Reserved Servers got added, the API started to get more bloated and confusing.

For example, Teleport is the only function (assuming you set the permission) that can teleport to games outside of the universe itself. Every other function is locked to the universe it was called under.

Simplifying the API to a single function, TeleportAsync, will definitely reduce the amount of bloat in the Teleport API and make it nicer to use, a bit.

---

Again, transparency from you for your upcoming plans will always be a virture.

also real slick admins by trolling first post campers, nah idc

[11MR_BOB (1BOB)]

I have a question about the roadmap; what happened to cloud scripts? I noticed it was secretly removed from last year’s road map and now it doesn’t look to be mentioned on this year’s road map.

[loueque (paperbagger)]

More things going to be added this year, although, I hope most of the features don’t get delayed like last year, which a ton of users was mad that most of the new Engine or lighting updates that were going to happen didn’t happen, hope it isn’t the case this year.

Kudos to the people behind the roadmap and the developer hub, these little sections for each feature for “Status” and “Launching” categories for individual features.

@FilteredStudio

Script Version History

So, basically Git but in Roblox?

I wouldn’t say that, or whatever the new feature would be.

[Caladudes (Cala)]

Always good to see that visual fidelity is a facet of many of these roadmaps. However, I do hope that the performance side of all of this is not too taxing on clients and servers. I’ve made a few places using several SurfaceAppearance parts and performance is less than ideal in many cases. With the new materials and terrain coming out soon I’m anxious to see how this is all handled. Hopefully, the back-end of all of this is cleaned up if that needs to be done.

Most props use a combination of textures or SurfaceAppearance objects. Duplicating them, even if a few times, leads to performance hits and far longer load times.

Glad there’s a good spread of more technical and programming-related features that I’m sure a few of my friends will find useful. Good stuff keeping us in the loop.

[peraldon (Jed)]

All roadmap updates over the course of 2021 will be shared in this one topic- will we have to scroll through potentially hundreds of replies to find the update? Or through edits in the topic itself? I know that this is ironic, but this is the best place to post it. Thank you!

@M_caw Updates will be posted as new comments, but also catalogued in the first post so that everyone can easily access them

I have a question about the roadmap; what happened to cloud scripts? I noticed it was secretly removed from last year’s road map and now it doesn’t look to be mentioned on this year’s road map.

@11MR_BOB The ‘Upcoming Features’ is not comprehensive. Due to the updated roadmap layout, some items from 2020 may not immediately be displayed again, but this doesn’t mean we’re not still actively working on them, or even that they could be launching soon (talking generally, not specifically about Cloud Scripts). Features are more likely to appear on the roadmap once we are confident we can state a recent date, and have launch hit that date - but once again, that is not fully comprehensive either.

[StrongBigeMan9]

Based on another Announcement that was recently made, I think that may be the case:

@tnavarts

What is changing?

Coming soon, we’re going to be introducing the concept of editable “pivot points” to studio, letting you set the point around which parts and models can be manipulated using the Move and Rotate tools. We’re not quite ready to share the details of how that will work yet, but we do need to share a detail that may impact developers:

[M_caw (Macaw)]

That clarifies my question. It makes sense to hyperlink the replies; you save developers from all the scrolling. Thank you for your swift reply!

[ItzMeZeus_IGotHacked (notzeussz)]

I’m pretty sure there’s an #updates about this already.

[Crazedbrick1]

They didn’t give any details on how it would work, so I’m still confused on how it would work.

@ItzMeZeus_IGotHacked

Remember, it’s ONLY a potential update. Don’t get your hopes too high.

Smashes keyboard

[ItzMeZeus_IGotHacked (notzeussz)]

Remember, it’s ONLY a potential update. Don’t get your hopes too high.

[boomt13 (boomtees13)]

Looks well! I’m particularly excited about Script Version History, as a beginner-level programmer I often run into script updates that break and having to revert the entire update is very tedious.

Parallel Lua too, utilizing multiple CPU cores would benefit a lot of high-end games to improve performance would be a lifesaver.

although i dont know about universe memory store what is that

[12mrcool (NorthernCanuck)]

I know its not on the road map, but any plans to make Surface Appearance for normal parts too? Or is it something that is out of question, I know in that beta test version that was out for a while had it for normal parts, so I’m just wondering. Looking forward to new things in studio.

[Vlalence (Cynthia Vlalence)]

Honestly hoped that you guys at Roblox would mention the group payout approval process, as well as the locking of group’s ability to fund users.

We weren’t even notified, yet this guy knew about the restriction process days before Bloxy News.

Incoming Adjustment to 'Pending Sales' Waiting Period

This is outrageous, I just got information, that you guys are also planning on adding a functionality, where a moderator must determine if a group is edible for group payouts, otherwise you guys are going to disable payouts for that certain group. This is crazy, there is a API for it and everything, this is becoming ridiculous, this better not be true.

It turned out to be true, and so did the part of Roblox reliability towards the issue.

Incoming Adjustment to 'Pending Sales' Waiting Period

It’s on the roblox API website, if you haven’t checked already, I apologize, I had no Idea the API website, managed by roblox isn’t reliable nor moderated by real roblox administrators.

@Vlalence

Breaking down the API documentation.

{
  "canUseRecurringPayout": true,
  "canUseOneTimePayout": true
}

When users request to use the group payout feature, it will either be accepted or denied by Roblox. Inline with what you two said, moderators seemingly are already denying payments

It can be further discussed on how Roblox cost people’s career on the platform.

@DevBuckette

So I believe this update has gone live, and I can tell from recent experience with it, that this has SEVERELY screwed me over. I have had a steady income for a while now, and was able to work out the timings for my bills and rent. I will not be reaching my necessary DevEx value by the time I need to process my DevEx in order to pay for my rent and bills in time, due to this ridiculous change.

DevBuckette couldn’t pay his rent from what Roblox could offer. A cause of this change.

And here’s some more issues.

28 days.

Incoming Adjustment to 'Pending Sales' Waiting Period - #902 by RobDevz

Advice & 22 days

Incoming Adjustment to 'Pending Sales' Waiting Period - #877 by RobDevz

Further comment on billing.

Incoming Adjustment to 'Pending Sales' Waiting Period - #896 by Wiiidget

The forum these issues are discussed are hinted throughout the forum after the beginning of November 2020.

I really hope you revert the group payout restrictions and approval process. I am 100% sure that Roblox is aware that they cost people severely because of it. That’s why it should be in the road map, because it changed people’s ability to live.

[nooneisback]

Am I missing something, or is the Parallel Lua marked as beta while only being available in a custom Studio preview release. It was marked as such in the previous roadmap, but not this one.

[Mukar]

Open Beta? I still haven’t seen any option in studio to enable it