Developing - Expert developers advice from all around the world

Introduction

Hello Developers [especially the new ones],

I have been creating different kinds of posts that were revolving around questions, that are frequently asked by new developers that start off their career on Roblox, to not only gain myself an idea of how to sort specific problems, but to end up summarizing all of them in a topic in the #resources:community-tutorials category, so that you get an idea of the following:

  • Issues that you can encounter as a developer and their solutions
  • Useful plugins that are used by developers around the world
  • Opinions and viewpoints on certain moves or steps from other developers
  • How to price your work if you start taking commissions
  • What games are popular and engaging currently

And much more!

That was it from me for now, so I hope this helps new and existing developers on the platform!

Sincerely,
CrashFacts

Last edited: 2021-06-11T22:00:00Z

Table of contents
1 What is something developers can recommend new developers?
2 Catching attention and interest on your creations
3 Staying motivated while creating
4 Recommended plugins to help you create
5 Self-Scripted or Open-Source Moderation system?
6 Commissions - What does the price depend on?
7 The Toolbox - The danger of malicious models and how to prevent them
8 Staying innovative within a team - How to create safe and productive working atmosphere
9 Roblox Studio - Lost work and its recovery
10 Motivational Quotes from developers around the world
11 Should your game be paid access? - Advantages & Disadvantages of paid access games
12 [WIP] Coping with low self esteem on your work
13 Finding out which development position is the right one for yourself
14 Conclusion

1. | What is something developers can recommend new developers?

Post: What is something you can recommend to new developers? - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Every developer has started differently, so each developer has taken different methods and paths to achieve their exclusively individual goals, so hereā€™s some advice that developers around the world have given you throughout your journey as a developer:

Advice
  • Come prepared - Donā€™t jump into projects immediately and give yourself time to receive feedback on showcases or models that you make, so that you can improve your skill(s). Take it slow.

  • Have fun while you learn and work on things that are slightly above your skill level, so that you can improve more and more over time. Do not attempt to make something overly difficult as your first creation.

  • Put some belief and faith in your work, even if something doesnā€™t go the way you want it to go. Never give up on a project that you have started working on, when something doesnā€™t go right.

  • Try and find a different solution for a problem that you might encounter when developing. Thereā€™s always a solution to everything, so try solving it yourself, getting help and advice on DevForums or friends, or watch a tutorial on YouTube for example, thereā€™s plenty of them! Just make sure you use the right source and not any malicious one.

  • Donā€™t let yourself down by saying ā€œI canā€™t do this and thatā€, thereā€™s no thing such as ā€œI cannot do thisā€ or ā€œI will never be a great developerā€. Thereā€™s a ā€œI donā€™t wantā€ and ā€œI donā€™t needā€ instead. So donā€™t let those words drag you down and make you lose motivation.

  • Use the Developer Forum, and not only that, but other social media to gain feedback and help on your work. Publish your work on Twitter for example, and show the world what you can do with your time and skill.

  • Try and get inspired by images from google or images you have seen on the internet if you do not know how to start off, or what to build. Start off with simple showcases, so that you can look back to them and see how much you have improved over time.

  • Advice to beginner scripter: To not fall victim to premature optimization. It seems like a small and petty thing to worry about, but itā€™s anything but that.

  • Use useful and trustworthy plugins provided by some of the Top-Developers on Roblox.

  • Donā€™t use a lot of free models, and if you do; Make sure they are not malicious or dangerous for your game.

  • Check out the Roblox API for Developer Resources DevHub | Roblox

  • Donā€™t waste your time on performance or good practices when youā€™re just starting to program or build on Roblox. Itā€™s unnecessary for a beginner.

  • Keep your first projects organized and write your ideas down.

  • And when getting inspired by other Roblox games, do not copy other games. Try to be original with your builds.

2. | Catching attention and interest on your creations

Post: Catching peoples interest on your work and gaining attention - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

To keep it quick and simple, it is important that you show off your work on social media like Twitter, Developer Forums, YouTube, Discord servers and more! Get involved in forum discussions and talk to other fellow developers about the things youā€™re good at or interested in.

3. | Staying motivated while creating

Post: Gaining motivation while creating - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

In this part of the topic, I will be telling you why new developers can lose motivation quickly, and what keeps you on track while developing.

Why do developers lose motivation?

  • Because they start drifting apart from their game(s) and begin to doubt if their game would ever be enjoyed or viewed by players.

  • Theyā€™re busy with their personal life outside of Roblox - School, college, work [etc], which results in laziness

  • They have little to no attention and want other people to see their work so bad, that they give up, knowing that thereā€™s ā€œbetterā€ developers than them, or at least thatā€™s what they think.

And what helps developers getting up on their feet again, to remain motivated and happy?

  • View the work from others and get inspired. It has to be something where you can say ā€œWoah, I wanna create that too!ā€ or ā€œI wanna be like that developer as well!ā€ - Set yourself a goal to achieve, and more towards it by keeping yourself on track.

  • Work with some of your friends that share a common interest or work together with other fellow developers around the world!

  • Start off by creating something original and simple, not something front-page game like, because thatā€™s what causes demotivation, knowing that some of those games took years to make.

4. | Recommended plugins to help you create

Post: What plugins can you recommend to new members in the Developer Community? - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Plugins are very useful tools that are created by some great developers, which are mostly free to use for everybody.

Here are some of the plugins, that developers on Roblox recommend on using:

A list of usable plugins

Developer Tools - A four-in-one plugin that makes it easy for you to manage the development of your game. It has lists, part and script counters, and so much more!

Auto Anchor - Auto Anchor is basically what it says. When itā€™s enabled it will automatically anchor the part when imported. Itā€™s something new developers often forget to do. Best of all, these two plugins are made by a trusted creator,

AutoScale Lite - Helps you to create a proportionate gui for various devices

Archimedes Two (v2.4) - Helps you to make curves, suitable for building

Studio Levels - A plugin to keep developers motivated. The plugin allows you to gain experience points for using Roblox Studio and working up.

Anime Girl Messages - For the puns and anime fans among us, thereā€™s this plugin which gives you a motivational quote after a certain amount of time.

Mesh Editor - Great for custom meshes

DataEditor - Letā€™s your edit your datastore easily.

[v1.3.3] Roblox Fast Donation Button Creation - Letā€™s your create fast donation GUIā€™s incase you wanna raise funds for your game.

qCmdUtl - Streamlined building - A plugin designed to streamline building and creation in Roblox Studio.

Brushtool 2.1 - A plugin for brushing multiple clones of the same part or model onto the map.

CSG Curve Cutter - This is a tool to help you cut out shapes with CSG. You can get flat 2D shapes, as shown in the plugin image, or cut out rough 3D shapes using different orthographic views. Good for quick low detail models.

Stravant - Model Reflect - Reflect Models over a chosen plane.

Stravant - ResizeAlign Fixed - A plugin that aligns faces of parts via resizing, so that you donā€™t have to manually resize the parts to get them aligned.

Stravant - MaterialFlip - ā€œFlipā€ the direction of matierals on parts. When using a material with an obvious direction such as Wood Planks it can be annoying when the ā€œdirectionā€ of the material ends up wrong on your parts.

Building Tools by F3X (Plugin) - A set of wonderfully simple and powerful building tools, designed and built by the F3X team.

Load Character Lite - Lets you load a specific character inside of your game in R6 or R15.

Developer Health - Roblox - Really nice plugin to stay motivated and remember to stay hydrated while working!

5. | Self-Scripted or Open-Source Moderation system?

Post: Would you script your own admin, or use an already-existing one? - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

In this section of the topic, Iā€™d like to tell you whether you should script your own or use an already existing admin system. After that, the choice will be yours!

Existing Admin panels and commands have everything set up for you, mostly have customizable modules and are mostly easy to use. Common admin scripts include:

Cmdr
HD Admin
Adonis
Khols
Basic Admin Essentials 2.0
Kronos
BAE
V-Handle

The advantage of scripting an admin yourself is that you know whatā€™s going on in your game, and that you can customize it however you want. Itā€™s original and will have its own unique style.

6. | Commissions - What does the price depend on?

Post: Commissions - Pricing? - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Whether you are an artist, a builder, a scripter or a developer who specializes on something else such as translating or drawing, everyone is eligible to open their own commissions, as soon as they have some examples of their work and a reasonable price for them, but sometimes developers donā€™t know how to price their work, or what to base the price of, so hereā€™s some great advice from the Roblox Developer Community:

  • You can price your work by time & size, complexity and detail.

  • You can price by hourly rates:

Post by @ecryto

7. | The Toolbox - The danger of malicious models and how to prevent them

Post: The Toolbox - Malicious models - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

The Toolbox is a function Roblox studio offers, for players around the world to create and share assets with others, so that new developers use them in their own games.

Unfortunately, the Toolbox is infested with malicious models that contain bad scripts, that may break your game, yet some Roblox Developers were ready to share some of their best advice with the world!

Here are some ways to prevent viruses from breaking your game:

  • You should try not using as much free models, to prevent incidents like this in the first place. And if you do, check the free models for malicious scripts, before working with them. Make sure the model youā€™re using is made by a trusted source.

To check your scripts, please follow the following steps from this post:

  • Use official models which were previously approved by Roblox Employees, which carry the following symbol:

image

  • Use Models that you find on DevForums in the #resources category

Viruses are able to do the following things to your game:

  • Set fire to every part, model, and instance into your game via a script.
  • Sell you scams, models, and more.
  • Virtually just break your game in general
  • Adds lag and FPS drops intensely.
  • Gives administration permissions to the person who owns the virus.
  • Crash peoples games
  • Teleports people into the virusā€™s creators game for personal gain.
  • And more

Information off @DerryOriginā€™s post

8. | Staying innovative within a team - How to create safe and productive working atmosphere

Post: What creates a safe and productive working atmosphere in a project/studio - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

This section is all about working in a team.

After a while of learning as a new developer, you would wanna create something, and that with a team sometimes, so you need to know exactly what the key to a great team is.

A team has to be safe and uncomfortable, meaning they should be able to speak out their opinions and share their thoughts of certain things.

Here is the opinion and imagination of what a great team looks like by one of Robloxā€™s Top-Developers today:

A team should generally be fun to work with, adequate and productive. It should be organized and everybody should know what their task is, so nobody is left with no work.

9. | Roblox Studio - Lost work and its recovery

Post: Roblox Studio - Losing work and recovering it - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Imagine yourself, you are working on something for a very long time now, and suddenly Studio crashes due to an unexpected error, or because your wifi cuts off. half of your work is now gone, because the last autosave was a while ago. What do you do?

Donā€™t worry, it does happen to every developer at least once, whether theyā€™re aware of it or not.

If you want to make sure Studio picks up everything without you having to manually save it, the best thing is to turn team create on, so that it automatically saves every change of the game.

If you donā€™t have team create enabled, you can check your most recent autosave in the autosaves folder under File > Advanced > Open Autosaves and click that.

It is also very recommended to use the auto save feature, or save your game once in a while, so that no work is lost.

10. | Motivational Quotes from developers around the world

Post: Receiving Motivation from Developers around the world - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Gaining motivation in the beginning is difficult, but let me tell you all this; It pays off really well when you get started!

I have collected some advice and inspirational/motivational quotes from developers across the world to help you and your career as a Roblox Developer. Please always remember the following:

Quotes

11. | Should your game be paid access? - Advantages & Disadvantages of paid access games

Post: Paid access or not - Thoughts, advantages/disadvantages - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

As you probably know, place owners and group developers have the ability to put a paid access restriction on it, meaning that if you would like to play the game, you will have to pay for it. Mainly, developers do this while their game is still in Alpha/Beta testing.

Here are some advantages & disadvantages regarding paid-access games, listed from some of our Roblox developers today;

Advantages:

  • You earn more revenue
  • It makes your game seem professional and promising
  • You can use paid-access for testing, which means you will automatically have a team of game-testers, depending on the amount of players who bought the game.
  • You can use it to hype up the other players for when it fully releases, not only that but you can use twitter and things like that to give some sneak peeks of the game and generate more hype. [Reply by @AstralBlu_e]
  • Little to no scam bots

Disadvantages:

  • It brings a smaller playerbase to your game due to it being paid access
  • Possibly a bigger dislike ratio, if the game was bought, yet disliked (It has to be worth the price!!)
  • No premium payouts

Personally, games should really be paid-access if they are worth playing OR if theyā€™re currently being alpha/beta tested, because that just increases the playerbasesā€™ hype. There are mixed opinions on paid-access games; Some find it annoying and bothering, some find it benefiting and great.

12. | [WIP] Coping with low self esteem on your work

This section is currently being worked on. Find out more in the post below

Post: How to cope with low self-esteem on your work? - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

A lot of small developers are lacking respect and have a low self esteem on their own creations and work. In this section of this thread, Iā€™d like to pick up some advice and words from developers around the world which are hopefully going to help you out in future development.

As this topic is a very difficult one too, I have picked some of the best replies from a #development-discussion post and made the best out of it.

To understand this topic, you would have to know the definition of self esteem first, which is simply just how you feel about what youā€™re creating.

If you arenā€™t happy with your work, then thereā€™s always a way to improve it by getting inspired by already existing work by looking at some images on the web, walking around some showcases that are similar to your project, browsing Twitter & DevForumā€™s for resources and so on.

And as one of the contributors to this topic said in their post;

A lot of people lack self esteem because they look at others work as well, which means they simply shouldnā€™t. You should compare your current builds with your old builds, to see how much you have improved. You should be glad for where you are currently as a developer, because some people donā€™t even know where to start.

Take @Fennecpawā€™s advice from the following post;

One last way to cope with low self esteem was mentioned by @LastApollo in post 25, which states the following;

Iā€™m taking a moment to thank everybody who contributed to this topic, as it was very difficult to answer. :heart:

13. | Finding out which development position is the right one for you

Post: How did you find out what development position is for you? [GFX, Building, etc] - Development Discussion - DevForum | Roblox

Sometimes people donā€™t really know what they would like to be, whether you have interest in scripting, building, graphic design or something else.

There can be multiple answers to what you could be & how to find out about whatā€™s right for you.

Maybe you wanna have multiple positions that come in handy while developing.
Or perhaps you just want 1-2 professions that you enjoy doing.

Whatā€™s important to remember, is that you canā€™t be or do something that just isnā€™t your thing, because motivation will decrease faster and you will gain no enjoyment out of the things you do.

So when picking in between building, scripting or other jobs regarding developing, pick wisely and listen to your heart. Pick something that keeps you motivated.

14. | Conclusion

Dear Developers,

Iā€™d like to wish all of you a great experience on Roblox, whether you are one of the smaller developers, or the bigger ones. Donā€™t let demotivation get to you, because you know you can do better than telling you that youā€™ll never be as successful as those other Developers. Every single creation on Roblox is unique and should be appreciated for the time and effort put into it. Every creation should be appreciated for its originality and creativity.

We, the Roblox Developer Community believe in you!

And with that being said, I really hope this will help beginner developers, and not only beginners, but others as well!

Stay creative, stay innovative!

Did this article help you?
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138 Likes

the ā€œdevelopers are way better than me lineā€ hit way too close to home, whenever Iā€™m demotivated I am just kicked around by bad thoughts circling my career like as if im a single developer trying to make a freemode game against someone like rockstar, but then I realise its roblox and im chill again

4 Likes

Hello!

Thank you @ValkyrieHuskyy for this, It helps alot. Since Iā€™m a relatively new developer!

Regards, Truthful_Shadow :grinning:

5 Likes

I had a very interesting read on most of the sources linked here.

I would suggest that you link something that teaches newer developers how to make their projects more organized(i.e.: Using Trello)

Anyways, good job :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Hello @Truthful_Shadow,

Iā€™m glad I can help! I have been researching for days, to ask developers around the world for their opinion on questions that many new developers have.

I love to help people and share my knowledge with them, and so do some of the top developers around the world!

Here on DevForums, we have always got your back, whether it is to help you out with a question, or give you feedback on your work!

Hello @fantasticsuit28,

Yeah, Itā€™s really a common problem when being a new developer, yet thereā€™s so many ways to get around that, and Iā€™m glad Iā€™m able to help realize developers that there are ways to fight demotivation.

Fight against it and donā€™t let your dreams be dreams.

Keep on creating!

Hello @GooberEsther,

Thanks for the feedback! I will be adding more and more sections based on research and update the post constantly, as soon as I make new #development-discussion posts or expand my knowledge by listening to other developers opinions and thoughts on certain questions.

Thanks for reading!

3 Likes

HI

Thank you for spending your time on this @ValkyrieHuskyy since iā€™m a new scripter it really reminded me that someday I can be like those really experienced scripters!
Thank you once again.

3 Likes

Hi there,

You are very welcome. I always had belief in small Developers, and I made this post based on daily research on the forums, so that I can answer some of the most frequently asked questions new developers want answers or advice on.

Goodluck with your career as a scripter!

2 Likes

Haha, glad to see other developers use Anime Girl Messages.

Definitely a good read that would help the newer developers out, even found some new Plugins from this. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Hey Developers!

Itā€™s great that I was able to help some of you, since that is what I planned on doing.

Coming up next in this post, Iā€™m gonna be taking some inspirational/motivational quotes from some of our developers today, and post them in Section 10 of the post itself.

Stay tuned!

2 Likes

Very often new developers donā€™t have someone that could be, motivate or create games with them!

3 Likes

Not only thatā€¦

Developers have different kinds of problems, they may not have the right motive, the right inspiration or motivation to take advantage of, the right people around them, or maybe Itā€™s just not the right time.

Iā€™m the type of person who builds for themselves, and who improves for themselves. I do strive for people to see my work one day and get inspired by my builds as well, but I mostly would like to help people too.

It was always a dream of me to attend RDC, and last year I just didnā€™t have the motivation nor mood to develop anything, not even a small showcase, because I was going through a lot in life, that I had to take care of myself first.

This year, I feel ready, motivated and inspired and plan on attending this year, especially because of the pandemic, since I live all the way in Germany, which means I wouldnā€™t be attend in-person.

To achieve something, you need a set goal and determination, and without a goalā€¦ You canā€™t strive for something you dream about and wish for.

4 Likes

Hey developers,

Iā€™m gonna be adding another section onto this post, which will concern the following topics:

  • Should your game be paid access, and why?
  • Disadvantages and advantages of paid access games
  • Developers opinions on paid access games

Stay tuned for more!

5 Likes

About the toolbox, use toolblox.glitch.me instead.

Topic is well thought out and thank you for adding my plugin to the list :+1:

Will definitely be a big use to new developers

2 Likes

Truly a motivating and interesting read.

Iā€™d recommend this to any developer out there feeling as I and many others do. This really gave me a bigger purpose to work harder. For me especially, I struggle with mathematics in Roblox, which often limits my choices to my creations, meaning that I have to look around and learn and sometimes even realize that I may not be able to accomplish this. Then all I had to do was think that other developers were in the same position before, and that there are many open-sourced resources to help other developers out which Iā€™ve recently began using. Genuinely.

I appreciate you making this post, and to all the other devs, have fun and keep developing!

2 Likes

Thank you so much for the nice comments!

I have posted this across numerous servers in appropriate channels and have recommended mutuals to read the post as well to spread it, since I really wanted to help developers, especially the new ones, to find themselves in this community and keep themselves motivated and most importantly innovated.

Iā€™m glad it helped!

3 Likes

Heyo everybody!

Updated the post again and added the topic " Should your game be paid access? - Advantages & Disadvantages of paid access games" to it. I hope it helps you decide on whether you want to put your games to be paid-access or not.

Cheers,
Crash

This may fit into the motivation category, but can you add a section talking about coping with low self esteem on your work? I personally struggle with that. :upside_down_face:

2 Likes

I need that as well lol :sweat_smile: Please do what he said.

2 Likes

Wait. Do you start to get premium payouts once paid access is removed from a game?

1 Like