(I’m unsure where to post requests related to the app itself, so here this post shall live)
Especially now with the advent of Roblox VR and the Universal App, I would like to be met with something more welcoming and interesting than a simplistic UI whenever I log into Roblox. We are no longer bound by the restrictions of the website, and there is much we can do to exploit this.
As Roblox moves back towards including social spaces as part of its core, I would like the ability to select an experience or private server to be my ‘home’, which I automatically join when I log into the app. This is common across almost all similar ‘spatial social’ platforms both present (e.g. VRChat) and past (e.g. Habbo). A home provides an immediately engaging experience to hang out in and interact with. If supported by extra UI, it can also serve as a safety measure by being a safe known space to quickly jump back to without breaking immersion.
Here are some examples to demonstrate the idea and show how homes can enhance the social and app experience on Roblox, reduce friction and even improve Roblox’s safety story:
-
The default user experience remains unchanged; existing users don’t have a home by default, and users who choose a home can later choose to remove it. In this case, you boot into the default app UI as you do today. Perhaps Roblox may later provide default home worlds, but this is not necessary for the feature to work.
-
Now, I set my favourite hangout experience to be my home. Whenever I log in, I’m immediately connected to a public server where I can start hanging out with other players. This has reduced the friction of finding and opening this place, and gives me something to do immediately when I open the app.
-
Homes shouldn’t have to be public, so they can accommodate more types of user. If I have access to a private server for an experience, I can specifically select that private server to be my home destination ahead of time. Now, instead of joining a public server when I log in, I can now join a more private, controlled and quiet server which may be more comfortable for me.
-
If I want to find another place to join or hang out in, I am still immediately within reach of the Roblox UI at all times. I can open Roblox’s UI and navigate to a different experience at will. This will improve substantially in the future when/if Roblox makes it easy to find new experiences without leaving your current one.
-
Homes become a natural ‘lobby’ or ‘assembly point’ for users. If I have just opened Roblox, and I am waiting for my friends to come online, I can invite them to my home. This gives me something to do, allows me to immediately interact with my friends as they come online, and once the entire group is present, we have a space where we can talk about where we want to go. Later on, when we’re done with an experience, we may want to follow a friend to their home to continue hanging out.
-
Homes act as a form of personalisation and self expression. Even if I am not interested in the social aspect of homes at all, homes still serve as an interactive and unique backdrop for navigating Roblox’s UI. If I would like to see something interesting and unique to me when I open the app, I can open Roblox Studio and build a scene that I like. Then, I can set it as my private home, and it naturally becomes an immersive backdrop for the app.
-
If supported by extra UI, homes can become a natural safe space for users. If I am in an experience which I find disturbing, or if I am in an unsavoury social situation, Roblox could provide a button to jump straight back home. Especially if the home world is a private server, this acts as a quick escape hatch to jump back to a known space, which is especially important as Roblox moves to more immersive mediums such as VR where harassment and discomfort feel more intimate.