Going to bring this back. Like the dude above me, I lost money and now, I am not happy.
Intro
Roblox has been down. Developers have been frustrated. Both entities [Developers & Roblox] have lost significant money. Difference is that Roblox can recover. A small development studio can’t. There’s absolutely no reason that Studio shouldn’t be able to work offline.
Examples
a). Developer logs in to the application. Authentication details are established. Therefore any request you made from the application to the webapi is authenticated. Constant internet connection is not needed.
b). You create an instance on studio (part, script, etc). These instances are naturally static. Therefore, a(n) constant internet connection is not needed.
c). Creating a local server. You’re creating it on your local machine. What connection other than localhost do I really need when I have no need for datastores, friends, users, catalog items, avatar loads? Constant internet connection is not needed.
Body
As a developer, I do not need access to production level technologies (datastores, user API, friends API, etc) unless I explicitly declare it. It makes absolutely no sense that production-level services are used in a development environment by default. It completely breaks the purpose and standards that development testing abides by.
Scenario
When I’m testing a web app, I am not testing it in production. My in-dev web app would never be on my main domain. Instead, it’ll be on localhost. I would have an actual process to deploy a release candidate or stable release. I wouldn’t default directly to a development branch.
Questions
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Why does it default here?
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Why is it so important that my avatar be loaded in perfectly during an studio development play test?
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What is being sent from my machine to Roblox that needs a constant internet connection?
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Automatic saves aren’t happening. Those are local.
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I can’t see real time changes through play because, it’s a manual button.
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I’m not constantly checking the asset store, so there’s no need to keep it fresh near instantly
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Are you collecting data from me that I don’t know about for business intelligence purposes?
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Are you pinging the site an absurd number of times?
Body 2
A lot of what can be accomplished doesn’t need studio to have a constant internet connection. If you’re [Roblox] using it for real-time metrics, assurance for the asset store, friends, users, clothing or related, it should be able to be untethered from Studio and the option to do so should be provided to developers. The basic principle of testing a singular game without fluff should’ve been provided years ago. Relying on Roblox to just work is not in my best interest and left me completely vulnerable to situations such as this. Like the dude above me, I am a college student. I have limited time. Friday and Saturday were supposed to be days that I could work on this. Instead, I was greeted with a problem that I know nothing about, no timeline whatsoever on when it’ll be fixed and studio (the only thing I need), is essentially functionless.
Stop Maximum Reliance to the Cloud
This is why you don’t rely on the cloud completely. Because when it goes down, everyone is at a loss. Even after this was made clear through the numerous times of how unreliable the cloud has been and how hard it is to get internet is some areas, Roblox has still failed to recognize that integrating the cloud completely screws developers. Not only that but, not everyone has internet or stable connection every waking moment. I am on a college campus and my internet goes out quite a bit. Because of this fixation of the cloud, I have struggled to be able to develop my own game. Not because I lack tools but, because I didn’t have internet for services I don’t need.
Impact
I am aware that Engineers and whatnot are working hard on fixing this issue that has cause the site to go down and I am grateful that someone out there gave up their weekend to fix this. However, the sad and often cold reality of this is that they’re getting paid. Developers are not. At this point in time, a lot of developers have lost significant money during Halloween weekend. On top of that, developer’s have lost the means to even remotely finish our updates before Roblox comes back.
Plead
To the product manager, engineer or person who decided that this was not a good idea, please reconsider. If this point in time (Roblox has been down for two days before Halloween) isn’t a good scenario as to why Studio needs to be offline compatible after a lot of developers and yourselves [Roblox] have lost quite a bit of money and development time, nothing is.
Edit: Blows my mind how this whole thread has been ignored despite every post have legitimate concerns and overall feedback.