Game Update Notifications

Can we please remove this

If the user is following games and has this set off then they won’t get notifications. On top of this, why would this option need to exist if they can choose to follow/unfollow the game updates.

Someone accepts my friend request is already locked to true so why is game updates not.

Preview also has a bug

image

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I’m sure that only applies to the notifications; not the messages you see on the home page, such as group statuses and such.

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https://blog.roblox.com/2016/12/notifications-stream-available-now-on-roblox/

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Sorry, I forgot an important word in my post.

Edited it. Lol

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d i s c # # #

The potential changelog feature makes me more excited, but for now this will do. I am happy to see that Roblox is expanding the tools us developers can use to market or enhance our games.

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So happy to see this finally happening! Such a huge step forward for Roblox.

Two major limiting concerns with the implementation so far:

Once-a-week limit

This is the biggest limitation for me, as it completely destroys a very important use case for game notifications: alerting players of emergency shutdowns/maintenances. Now, a developer will be unable to alert their players of a critical failure during the time in which said failure is most likely to happen (after an update)

The reason given for this limit is to prevent spam, but once a week is incredibly excessive. Even once a day is a bit much. We can trust developers to police themselves, especially if the UNFOLLOW button is displayed right on the notification. If developers send out too many alerts, it is incredibly easy for users to unfollow a spamming developer. This limitation seems like a massive overreach for a problem that won’t really exist on a large scale.

60 Characters is not enough

Even Twitter back in the day had a 144 character limit. 60 Characters is not enough to convey any information. I get that you don’t want us posting entire change logs, but we should be allowed to at least give a super brief interview of the features in the update.

For example, here’s what developers can do with:

60 Characters:
NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items

140 Characters:
NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build?

A limit closer to 140 will allow developers to get more creative with their notifications and be more effective at retaining player interest

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I like this update but I think it should be once a day, rather than once a week. I work fast and I release updates a lot more than most people. Just something to consider.

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OP mentions that this is already planned to be reduced – once per week is just for testing.


Also addressed by FAQ. Notification stream has a fixed size for entries, and > 60 characters would be cut off. This could be resolved by redesigning the UI for the notification stream, but it’s not meant to be reading-heavy. Neither are game update notifications. At the RDC lightning preview presentation, the presenter cautioned that every developer on the platform is going to be using notifications – not just you. Little kids aren’t going to read paragraphs of text for game update notifications. Here is the equivalent of 5 games’ notifications stitched together

With 144 characters:

NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build?``NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build? NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build? NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build? NEW HEIGHTS update! Build your base higher than ever with new platforms and dynamically-adjustable hydraulic items. What will you build?

With 60 characters:

NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items

60 characters is plenty. You should limit your update messages so that they have minimal fluff e.g.

NEW HEIGHTS! Make higher bases + adjustable hydraulics!

Has all the keywords as the 144 character message but gets to the point in 55 characters.

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This is super useful! Thank you.

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Wow. This is great :slightly_smiling_face:

Will there be a way of seeing a list of all the games you have followed, their latest updates and with options to unfollow them? Probably something similiar to YouTube’s channel list?

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if you follow a game, will you receive their latest notification in your stream?

(Example: the game update was posted on Monday, and you followed on the game on Wednesday, would you still get a notification for Mondays game update?)

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Was going to write a feature request for this but after thinking about it, it doesn’t make sense to show an update for the week if the player may be new to the game and doesn’t know what the updates about.

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I agree with wravager. It doesn’t make sense to have retroactive notifications like that.

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Are links to the devforums supported etc? It would be great to list an update and provide further explanation with all the patch notes considering the 60 character limit.

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How would this work? Each game notification is under a “game” not a place. Users must also follow those new “games” in order to actually get those notifications.

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You should read up on this feature before posting potential abuses.

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Ah, I assumed it meant followers of the dev but my bad.

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The 60 characters limit on the notification stream is not even sufficient for its current uses. I often get notifications cut in half because of the limit.

Twitter, usually treated as a website where people share status updates, originally picked 140 characters because it used SMS (which limits messages to 160 characters) and it was/is a perfect fit for status updates from companies, personalities and friends, forcing them to pack important information into one message and discarding useless bloat.

However, the average tweet size in 2012 was around 70 characters (not counting handles). It bursts the notification stream limit.

Take the following tweet:

Even if compressed to just "Jailbreak just got taken down. We're working to get this fixed quickly.", it would still take up 71 characters, while keeping its original intention.

NEW HEIGHTS Update! Introducing platforms & hydraulic items
is bland, does not tell much about the update and would probably not attract players to the game. If we have a bigger list of changes, how are we going to write them? I do not see users following games which release updates like New features added, check description for changes.


Even if the limit was increased, though, I would probably not want updates from games I follow drowned in message notifications or friend requests. There can be a special tab for game updates in the stream. Lastly, notifications can be made collapsible too if screen space is really important. There are plenty of options here, and I just do not think limiting updates to 60 characters fits it.
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Glad this feature is being worked on! Although I must ask, are there any plans to eventually release game update notifications on console too?

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