Would it be possible to allow some trusted volunteers to update the gears, similarly like some users are able to create UGC items and sell them? If staff moderation time would be an issue, some of the top contributors on this site could moderate the fixed gears.
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Absolutely no one suffers from this update except players playing games that, for the fourth time by now, allow arbitrary unmodified gear to be used in their games for whatever reason, which is not a whole lot and not a significant number to justify making a huge commotion about gear scripts breaking.
I’ve stated everything I’ve needed to in several posts now and the OP has made it clear what engineering’s stance on gear and LoadLibrary are. I’m not going to bother discussing this further since it seems, again, that my points at just sinking through and this conversation is derailing the thread.
Gears are akin to hats, just with functionality in them. You can literally treat them the same way.
This isn’t a shortcut and it’s causing no problems. Actively trying to make it a problem isn’t going to go anywhere either. Gear hasn’t been updated for literally a few years and only now because LoadLibrary is going suddenly it’s a supposedly huge problem.
I’ve said my piece. I rest my case. I won’t parrot myself unnecessarily. 
P.S. That GitHub repository isn’t being maintained. The last commit was 2 years ago. Make sure to check dates.
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People are making a “huge commotion” about it because they don’t want their items to be broken. A gear that says it does something in the description and then doesn’t work in-game because of these updates is literally false advertising and in some ways could even be considered a scam since it requires real money. You clearly acknowledge that people don’t want this update and the fact that you don’t even consider making a change for the better good frustrates me.
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Last commit was almost 2.5 years ago FYI, I wouldn’t expect it to get merged.
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Honestly, I think the only way to fix this is by modifying the line LoadLibrary() (of a gear that uses LoadLibrary) by getting the asset via Catalog and put it in the ReplicatedStorage then change that line to :Clone() that asset from the ReplicatedStorage.
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Is it possible to rewire the LoadLibrary function to use require behind the scenes? Theoretically that would allow you to dump whatever it’s doing now, and these libraries could be required from the Roblox account instead. Doing this would mean existing code in games, tools, and other systems wouldn’t need to break at all.
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We’ve considered this but this doesn’t work from the client side. Require by asset id doesn’t work, so the script must be in the game. We can’t just put these scripts into every game, that inflates download size. So we’d need to make the function fetch the script on demand using a special client-server lazy loading mechanism that doesn’t exist. This mechanism would be possible to implement, but of course there’s two extra issues with that:
- This would mean that LoadLibrary will yield (for the duration of the initial client->server request, which can take a second or more for players with suboptimal connections). It does not yield right now and hasn’t yielded for many many years. This alone may break scripts for various reasons.
- This would mean that exploiters can trivially, through officially supported means, inject RbxStamper even though it isn’t supposed to be used in-game.
So we’d be replacing one insecure fragile mechanism with another - not a great tradeoff.
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tbh, i agree with both sides here.
The game does need to move forward but i do find it a bit silly for the catalog to keep selling broken gears. It is technically false adverting since you’re still selling gear for a lot even when you fully know well that the majority of them are broken.
Honestly, they need to quit selling any broken gear once this update comes out. Thousands of players still do buy gear today so it would be quite wrong to not put broken items offsale. ( Especially newer players who still think all gear is functional. )
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If they did, it would still kinda be unfair for the people who know about the gears and still want to use them. Also let’s not lie, if they did the whole catalog would be offsale before anyone knew it.
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When you buy gear, you do not buy it because its a “aesthetic for your character” because it isn’t. Its called gear, not aesthetic gear, gear. When you open the gear it promotes that you can add this to your game and earn robuxs! Also telling you that you can use this in some games, when you buy this in a game you expect it to work, if it doesn’t you feel like you where scammed but no its just because roblox didn’t want to fix it.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say.
The gamepass is the same thing as the gear, coming from a normal 200-250 player point on weekdays and 200-300 player count on weekends, what I ment is you see the speed coil gear and gamepass, if you wanted a cheaper speed coil but only fgr that game and not all games that allow it for 250 robuxs,
Well the copy could break at anytime adding to the fact, if it’s so easy as forking it and it never breaks, then there’s no point to remove it, or it could be auto-forked when the function is used.
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Sigh.
I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about what I’m saying. If what I say is going to sink through because you’re unwilling to accept changes or developer-driven assets, I don’t know what to say to you anymore. It’d be better to let it go and stop replying knowing that Roblox doesn’t have any intention to go back unless any major part of the platform actually breaks and not a scarcely used feature.
@Humanagon and @moo1210, the both of you are appealing to emotion and nostalgia rather than making any actual argument as to why gear should be updated or LoadLibrary should not be removed. LoadLibrary is globally affecting platform development and you want it kept because one thing will affected that hasn’t had any additions for a year, let alone been updated for even longer.
According to the catalog, the last updated gear was Skeletal Scythe in 2018. For further perspective of the matter, BC Skateboard was last updated in 2010. Skateboard platforms were deprecated for longer and it’s incompatible with FE. It is very clear, with empirical evidence, that engineering resources are being better placed into other features that are actually used widely by the greater part of the platform, not a small amount of people.
There also seems to be a lot of ignorance towards what I’m posting. There’s a reason your posts haven’t been responded to but a later post was. Formulate better complaints and address actual problems, not niche use cases. Roblox doesn’t necessarily acknowledge niche uses without significant reason. This is the same with Feature Requests.
It has been stated several times now that only a small portion of games arbitrarily allow gear and not even for an actual cause. Games that incorporate gear tend to make modifications to the base item and sell it as a game pass rather than make the actual catalog item available. There is no significant cause to keep gear updated nor to continue supporting deprecated items.
@moo1210, in your case, you linked Pinewood Builders Compute Core’s store page. This is another example of a niche use case. PBCC doesn’t arbitrarily allow gear in their game, only select gear is permitted which is by extension of the Add Gear configuration feature. These gear don’t use LoadLibrary so they won’t even break; I doubt you checked the source code for this. Good try but in vain.
Developer-maintained gear is just as prone to breaking as Roblox-maintained gear; the only difference is that Roblox-maintained gear breaks site wide for games that still use the Add Gear feature or arbitrarily allow gear into their game, whereas developer-maintained gear only breaks for their specific game and typically receives much more instantaneous maintenance than Roblox gear.
In the case that Roblox gear breaks, developers are easily able to fix and make such gears compatible in their games or release them out via Community Resources. I mean, that’s a pretty good idea in itself - feel free to start a “Gear Project” Community Resource or something where you post fixes to gear and developers can use those to sell as game passes in their games or whatever.
Gear is aesthetic for your character. It just has scripts that allow it to perform certain actions in games. Some hats have this as well (special effects scripts, e.g. Rbadam’s Smokestack Top Hat) and yet they are still aesthetic all the same. Any item from the catalog is a customisation aesthetic for your character and always will be.
If you guys continue to ignore information like this, fail to understand the platform’s updating dynamic, retain lack of understanding on terminology and allow that to affect your responses or appeal to your own emotions rather than addressing real arguments and concerns about features, then good luck to you honestly when the platform continues to evolve and outdates features that haven’t seen support for many years.
Roblox is a developer-driven environment for the most part. It is up to game developers to keep up with platform updates and ensure that their features are staying in touch with current platform standards. Gear is something that has long since expired and is not actively used in games anymore, save for very few games. These games are just as easily capable of salvaging existing gear, creating their own versions of gear or better - something that games already actively do (see: Monster Islands - if you own some gear via the website, you can use it in-game but it’s rescripted to fit game systems: for example, owning Bloxy Cola gives you an enhancement tool to add to your loadout that boosts EXP gain).
This complaint has overstayed its welcome and is continuing to derail the thread. You’re free to respond to my post but don’t expect a reply back. I won’t be entertaining ignorance or complaints that don’t properly justify why overall platform development should be sacrificed for an unmaintained feature.
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As of right now, there’s only 20 pages of gears…not even counting the ones that arent broken.
So i doubt they’d care if a few dozen broken gears were removed tbh…it really wouldn’t affect the catalog in any way…
I mean, i understand if newer people see that they look cool and all…but…there’s literality no information that tells people if the gear they want still works or not.
If the descriptions on any broken gear offered a warning or advisement that the gear currently shown is broken, i’d be cool with that.
But there’s nothing like that released officially, not a blog post or a simple announcement in messages, selling malfunctioning gears officially on the catalog is sorta like a game selling a gamepass that doesn’t work.
It just comes across as scummy…
I know at least half the people on this post dont care about this problem i’m pointing out right now…but let’s face it.
When this update finally comes out and finally breaks every gear on the platform, there’s gonna be a large amount of complaints.
But…who know what’ll happen, they probably already plan on making all gear cheaper or offsale since they’ll all break after this. All we can do is wait and see what happens i suppose.
( It’s probably best to not talk about gears anymore until after the update happens imo. )
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This is somewhat of a misinformed comment. LoadLibrary isn’t used in every piece of gear on the site. All gear breaking on the platform because of LoadLibrary’s removal is too generalised and inaccurate a statement to make. Only those that use LoadLibrary will cease to function and that isn’t a huge amount. They can easily be fixed by developers as well.
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Oh, the quote above sorta makes it seem that way with the “any gear at all” part and all.
It would be nice for the majority of gears to continue in some way though, welp…all that’s left is to see what this update brings everyone.
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What I was trying to say in my comment was that if they keep removing gear with these gear breaking updates, sooner or later it will happen to all of them. They need to fix their gear or not release these updates.
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My argument is that its yet another update that breaks gear, it doesn’t get any simpler than that. People still use gear, people have asked to stop breaking them countless times, and they have been ignored each time.
The last gear updated was not updated in 2018 and I know that for a fact because Dagger Of Shattered Dimensions (71037101) was updated in 2019 (I was literally there the day it was updated) and it comes several gears after skeletal scythe when you look it up on the catalog with the recently updated filter. I even know who is the one updating them. @TakeoHonorable updated Dagger, Chaos Master’s Wing Slasher, Scroll of Sevenless, Medusa Head, Bear Mine Gun, and many more gears all in 2019. His name is even in the classic sword script.
This is a pointless argument. Gear was never intended to be for your avatar, in fact in most cases TODAY (11/15/2019) when you equip gear in your avatar it actually breaks the r15 animation you have on. If gear was intended for your avatar then it would just be stuck to your hand and not do anything, there’s a reason why some games don’t allow it.
Also I should add that the whole reason that the gear community is getting so small is because you people keep releasing these updates that destroy gear, not the other way around. Even if I am being ignorant toward your argument (which I don’t believe to be true), you continue to do the same.
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I can be a broken record all day, which I have been for the past two days. That isn’t a proper argument nor a significant one that is causation for gear to be updated and your posts haven’t been replied to for a reason. You are making a generalised and uninformed comment (see: LoadLibrary’s removal doesn’t break all gear), appealing to emotion rather than making a good case.
Gear is literally meant for your avatar. Anything in the catalog is intended for your avatar. Gear can be brought into games to allow you to use their effects if games allow it while hats function universally if no overrides are applied. I don’t know what you mean by “gear is not for your avatar”, this is silly. Anything that you can actively equip from the Avatar menu, is avatar material.
The gear community has always been a niche part of the Roblox community. Games are moving forward with creating their own versions of gear or developing their own systems, which means that they aren’t allowing gear usage in their game. You can still use gear in a small number of games that sell it via the Add Gear option; less so arbitrarily allowed gear.
I completely hear your argument and I’m not being ignorant to it at all, my points are directly pushed at your complaint. You’re upset that some gear will stop working because of the removal of a platform actively blocking platform development. On the other hand, you seem dismissive of both my and engineer information because they are anything but “I agree, LoadLibrary’s removal is a problem, let’s not”. I have yet to see you provide anything useful or substantial to the conversation to make staff take any alternative considerations.
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No empirical evidence or statistics to show that arbitrarily allowed gear is still being used in games with large player bases, such as “gear fighting”.
- Epic Minigames is the only major game I can think of that still majorly uses Roblox gear wrt gear fighting minigame, but all gear used in EM has been modified to fit game systems.
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A lack of acknowledgement towards the fact that you would rather platform development be sacrificed, a danger remain and potentially a security-risking alternative (see: request to update LoadLibrary which YOU HEARTED and the engineer’s response saying this is too dangerous to consider which I assume you dismissed).
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Appealing to emotion rather than bringing up an actual argument, which on Roblox is never a good way to push a request for something to happen. Ever.
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Lack of acknowledgement towards better alternatives to your problems or recognising any information that’s been brought up. Don’t expect me to parrot word-for-word.
There are better ways to complain or request alternative ways for this to be handled and maybe you’ll get a staff response. Take PeZsmistic’s reply for example. Rather than opening with a complaint against the update and a subsequent rant, she asked if there was a way to update LoadLibrary so it would be able to be used. This got a staff response. Arguing and complaining pointlessly without suggesting anything helpful is what doesn’t get responses and is ignored. That’s on you, no one else.
The only thing I will concede towards is that some gear has been updated recently, though it will do you well to take note that the supposed person responsible for this is not staff and does this on their own time. If you are so passionate about gear, instead of whining on the threads bring a strong argument to the table and/or get into contact with them. We have a thread here on the DevForum for reporting catalog errors and one of its core points is to touch down with support for functionality issues.
You’re a little blinded by your passion for gear that you’re being dismissive of everything else. Calm down, read things over and try this again. Again; there are better ways to go about making a request or a complaint that isn’t ranting.
Ok I understand.
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I’m not going to repeat everything I said over again because then you will just do the same. The fact that you are still responding to me shows that you know what I’m saying is true, why else would you care? You keep making the same false claims because there’s no reason for why you shouldn’t put in just a few hours to make sure the gear doesn’t break.
I hearted that comment because it was a solution to having both the update and not break the gear but you almost immediately deflected it because it was “fragile”. Hell you could even make it so that when loadlibrary is called it automatically makes the module script in-game so that it doesn’t break gears that aren’t going to be updated.
I think it’s clear at this point that you don’t want to listen and are just going to make this change anyway, so I don’t see a reason to continue this argument. I’m just going to move to another site when this update is made public anyway.
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Gear is not a crucial part of the platform, sure there are a few people who still use it in their gear fighting games, but that isn’t a major genre on Roblox. It is also especially easy for developers to take those gears, and update them to their needs, it isn’t like developers rely on the base gears in their games. LoadLibrary is an outdated system that has a lot of flaws, it is much better that the engineers remove it so that they can focus on other aspects of the platform.
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Not sure what kind of stance that is, me replying means there’s truth to your words, but alright then. You’re free to perceive this as you wish. I understand that anything not in support of gear is inherently a bad post at this point and that I’m supposedly making false claims despite providing citations.
Not going to bother responding to the rest. I’m not zeuxcg and I’m not an engineer. Those two paragraphs aren’t relevant to me and have already received response from the thread creator.
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