May and June 2019 Recap: What you may have missed from the Developer Community

Updates Community & Events
#1

Hey developers,

Previously, we released monthly recaps containing links to everything a developer may have missed. The past two months have been incredibly busy for the Developer Relations team. Being that we were so busy, we didn’t get a chance to publish a monthly recap in May, so here it is, coupled with June!

Job Listings

Roblox is hiring! We’re looking for members of our developer community to fill these roles:

  • Lua UI Engineer, you can apply for this opportunity here.

Live-Ops

We want to thank all of the developers who participated in our live-ops events. Their events ranged from pinata parties to terrifying Yetis, and we appreciated the developers who worked with us on events for their games.

Interested in applying to have your game featured for a live-ops event? You can read all about it here: Roblox 2019 Events Update

Developer Spotlights

In the past two months, we put the spotlight on many developers and their Roblox development stories. Learn about some of your peers here:

Updates and Changes

A lot of changes have been made to the platform in the past two months - check out what new features and updates you may have missed:

Release Notes

Check out our release notes as well for any changes to our API you may not be aware of:

RDC 2019 Announcements

And of course, with RDC right around the corner it’s important to stay up-to-date with all of the latest information:

Thanks,
Developer Relations

59 Likes
#2

Wait I thought the recaps got cancelled.

2 Likes
#3

Nope! As we said in the post, it’s just been super busy for DevRel these past few months. :slight_smile:

9 Likes
#4

Thanks for taking the time to do this! It’s great being able to see all the recent announcements in one place. I was worried that these were canceled after we didn’t get one last month.

2 Likes
#5

I am glad to see that It is not cancelled. Yay! :clap: :grin:

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#6

I haven’t checked the devforums actively this month due to vacation and work, so this is a very nice summary for me to look over. :slightly_smiling_face:

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#7

Awesome! Thanks for posting this, great to see what all has gone on.

1 Like
#8

You guys are really busy for the past few months. I hope what is new for July.

1 Like
#9

Thank you for making another one of these posts! It really helps developers catch up with the latest news.

PS: There’s dosen’t appear to be any banner for this recap. Is that intentional?

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#10

Thanks for the recap! It’s pretty nice to see they’re back.

2 Likes
#11

I am so happy to finally see recaps back! That means I can go back to posting my giant retrospectives on the months. I should’ve suspected that DevRel was busy and didn’t have the time, but more than anything I am thankful that they weren’t dropped. These posts are always a great read.

LiveOps

LiveOps were one of the more majorly contested updates within the community that caused a great upset, mainly due to the removal of seasonal events. I was personally very vocal about the way that Roblox changed events in favour of LiveOps and will be reiterating my complaint in depth.

Events were a very special part of the community where everyone could get involved and win free prizes. Every now and again, staff would develop a game based around the theme of the year. Those were so original, fun and worth every moment (I was once a completionist with events).

As time went on, events started losing their place. Development of events was pushed off to other developers, events started getting loaded with sponsors instead of being isolated Roblox treats and they got less fun - both the ones developed by staff and the ones developed by the developer community.

Events finally came to an end with Egg Hunt 2019 which, I will not sugar coat, I was heavily disappointed with. I don’t think whatever that was could be called an Egg Hunt, plus the place itself was merely just a lobby to other games and hosted minimal content in itself. I saw what potential it could’ve had with all the new technology we’re given, but it just didn’t live up.

LiveOps unfortunately do not bring back the special feel that events once had for all of us, developers and members of the community alike. Developers have already been hosting their own events for the longest of time. To me, I only see LiveOps as a free promotion page with not much effort behind the concept. Events won’t ever feel as special again, unless we’re given the tools to revive that community enjoyment of events and winning prizes to keep - hats, gear, clothing, so on.

Developer Spotlights

I haven’t been keeping up with Developer Spotlights for the last two months, but I’d love to offer my congratulations towards those who received spotlights. It’s always a nice treat to see a developer honing their craft and making good use of it for projects far and wide.

Updates and Changes

This year has been very heavy on great updates. I am definitely looking forward to the fulfillment of the roadmap, because there are a lot of good features planned and on the way. I will be highlighting some of my more favourite updates for this section:

  • Future is Bright: To think that we’ve got a better lighting engine to work with, is just amazing. Games and showcases have been seeing a major improvement in graphics and scenery. Lighting is a very important aesthetic aspect of games that helps to set a mood and bring out the goodness in a build or theme you wish to convey. Can’t wait until everything is polished.

  • Range Fog: Let’s face it. A lot of us found rectangular fog to be disgusting and would often replace it with our own implements, involving moving a sphere with the character. Circular fog is far more realistic and helpful to set the ambient, like the different Lighting technologies made available. Something I really want to see is horror games using this new fog… I can just imagine how much they can increase on the scare factor with it.

  • RespawnTime: I don’t have much to say about this update, other than that I’m grateful for the ability to delay respawns without relying on the old manual loading technique. Unfortunately, there’s no way to localise RespawnTime, so I haven’t used this feature much and have to rely on the aforementioned manual respawn technique. :frowning:

  • In response to Developer’s Feedback on Developer Exchange: I never said anything meaningful in the post I made, I was just happy that Roblox provided a formal response to a community movement and wanted to get that out. Thinking about it now, there’s a lot I would like to say despite me being not very well known nor involved in any way that would justify a detailed or relatable response on this thread.

    • I don’t think that the response was adequate enough. The response boiled down to giving vague figures on where funds were being distributed and that a monetisation expert would be hired. The truth is that a monetisation expert is far from what we need and I doubt they would understand Roblox as much as our top developers do.

    • We’re still left in a bind where the Developer Exchange system is inadequate and financial security is still a large concern. The response did not actually address the initial outcry for why the thread was made. Developer Exchange still has a long way to go with improvements before it’s of any good to rely on.

    • We’re going to need more transparency if we ever hope to suggest improvements to the system and gain the knowledge on what goes on with distribution. Staff may hold the final word but I believe us, the developer community, still have a large voice as both providers and clients. We deserve a lot more than a monetisation expert we don’t need.

  • Packages Phase 2: I was absolutely waiting for the moment that packages were released and I was not disappointed at all by their release. Packages are a powerful feature for creating game assets and reusing them as much as you want, anywhere. It completely destroys the terrible workflow of needing to copy things over when you update them even down to a single line. I can see myself using packages for a majority of my games within the future.

Release Notes

I wanted to include a section for Release Notes, but right now I’m feeling a little too tired to go through them and point out what I like. Case in point: go read them. Check out CloneTrooper1019’s API Changes posts if you want some quick information about what’s new with the API.

It’s a very busy time, but more than anything I’m glad to see these posts making a comeback. Thank you for all your work, Developer Relations. You guys are the real heroes (the engineers are too, don’t worry over there).

Here’s to more great months of development. :tada:

14 Likes
#12

This was an awesome recap. Are you guys going to continue doing spotlights on the forum, or are you moving all of those to the medium site?

1 Like
#14

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