Separate Scripting Help and Building Help

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

Recently, SH was merged with BH on the official forums. This was a bad call.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that thinks this, but a help forum for Building and Scripting should be SEPARATE. There is no reason building AND scripting should be in the same sub-section. This only decreases the likeliness that a person will receive help that is appropriate to the situation.

This is very disappointing and I do not believe this change was for the better.

These two communities are better off split simply because of their categorical differences.

Edit: I personally will no longer be participating in helping others with their scripting problems. There is simply too much effort that I have to go through just to help somebody and receive nothing in return. When SH was a thing, it was easy to find scripting topics that I was interested in. Now I have to look at the whole page just to find 1 or 2 threads that are actually about scripting.

No thanks.

3 Likes
#2

I agree. I think the ideal setup would be to have a section for general game help, and within that section would be the subforums Scripting Helpers, Building Helpers, and ROBLOX Studio.

#3

I think I disagree.

When designing a game building and scripting need to, in the end, come together to make your game run smoothly. Especially with more complex builds, complex scripts, and complex game projects the line between building and scripting may become blurred. Let’s say I’ve built a large physical object and then scripted it to behave in a certain way, but it doesn’t behave correctly. Is my problem a building or a scripting problem? Maybe I’ve designed my creation incorrectly and the physics just won’t work, or maybe my script could be made more efficient. With the forums separated, I don’t know where to post, and run the risk of receiving a negative reaction from forumers if I take the 50/50 chance and end up in the wrong place.

With the combination you can post in one central location knowing you will be able to find both building and scripting answers, and you may be able to post more broadly about your issue.

#4

Sadly, that’s the way it was before. No clue why they thought it would be a good idea to combine them.

#5

[quote] I think I disagree.

When designing a game building and scripting need to, in the end, come together to make your game run smoothly. Especially with more complex builds, complex scripts, and complex game projects the line between building and scripting may become blurred. Let’s say I’ve built a large physical object and then scripted it to behave in a certain way, but it doesn’t behave correctly. Is my problem a building or a scripting problem? Maybe I’ve designed my creation incorrectly and the physics just won’t work, or maybe my script could be made more efficient. With the forums separated, I don’t know where to post, and run the risk of receiving a negative reaction from forumers if I take the 50/50 chance and end up in the wrong place.

With the combination you can post in one central location knowing you will be able to find both building and scripting answers, and you may be able to post more broadly about your issue. [/quote]

I need to leave in 6 minutes so pardon my quick response.

While both building and scripting are required to create a good game, they are two completely different concepts. Splitting the help forums for these topics is required, I think, for clarity. There are experts in scripting, and there are experts in building. There will be tons of questions about both.

Due to the sheer volume of help requests, many threads will simply be lost. Additionally, I as a scripter but not a builder, for example, will not want to look at building requests. I don’t know how to do any kind of building. So why would I have to look at a forum filled with building requests?

In any case, I don’t see how an execution problem could possibly be a building problem. You’re using a script to drive your project. The project does not produce expected results. Thus, the script is what’s wrong. Not the building.

Having two separate sections, one for scripting help and the other for building help, will allow people to seek help in a community that has a particular expertise, let alone faster responses as a direct effect from the community having an expertise with the category.

TL;DR: Having two different sub-forums for scripting and building will allow for faster replies for people requesting help, and it will also allow the helpers to find help requests that they specialize in much faster.

#6

I agree with AgentFirefox.

Without Scripting Helpers, I would have probably quit trying to learn how to script on ROBLOX and probably quit ROBLOX.

All the budding developers who want to learn how to script have nowhere to go except Game Design. And Game Design is another mega forum, similar to OT and RT… Every developer help subforum should not have been merged into one big forum

#7

[quote]
TL;DR: Having two different sub-forums for scripting and building will allow for faster replies for people requesting help, and it will also allow the helpers to find help requests that they specialize in much faster. [/quote]

Not every scripter is a builder and not every builder is a scripter. There’s a good chance that the majority of the helpful scripters won’t know the answer to a building question, nor a builder know the answer to a scripting question. They should have their own respective forums.

#8

[quote] I think I disagree.

When designing a game building and scripting need to, in the end, come together to make your game run smoothly. Especially with more complex builds, complex scripts, and complex game projects the line between building and scripting may become blurred. Let’s say I’ve built a large physical object and then scripted it to behave in a certain way, but it doesn’t behave correctly. Is my problem a building or a scripting problem? Maybe I’ve designed my creation incorrectly and the physics just won’t work, or maybe my script could be made more efficient. With the forums separated, I don’t know where to post, and run the risk of receiving a negative reaction from forumers if I take the 50/50 chance and end up in the wrong place.

With the combination you can post in one central location knowing you will be able to find both building and scripting answers, and you may be able to post more broadly about your issue. [/quote]

I think it’d be better for them to end up in the wrong place, rather than to scare away all the people answering the questions. If it’s in the wrong forum, people are more than happy to tell them it’s in the wrong forum, and that they should post it in the other forum where they can get the help they need.

Personally, I was considering leaving the Scripting Helpers tab open to help people while I’m coding, but I don’t have the time to sift through the forums for a coding problem when I’m coding myself.

While this change will make it easier on the people asking the questions, it makes it a lot harder on the people sacrificing their time to help other people.

#9

Oh boy – this has already gone into effect. I didn’t know that.

KFTp0Iq.png833×765 41.2 KB

Look what thou hath wrought – Scripters, the advanced scripters clubhouse, has now become the new SH instead of this new general game help forum.

btw, add a poll to this thread AFF.

#10

[quote]
btw, add a poll to this thread AFF. [/quote]

I can’t seem to do this. There is no poll icon, even while creating a new thread …

Edit: Also, take a look at the “correct” forum to post the questions in.

#11

There does appear to be a split of users looking for scripting helpers and going to either Scripters or Game Design. Though scripters still states it’s not for help topics and Game Design doesn’t specifically mention scripting help.

#12

Game Design Forum Rules

[quote]First off, you should read The Rules for All Forums. http://www.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=80620879

This forum is for discussing designing games on ROBLOX. You should talk about your game ideas, what makes for a good game, and your personal design process. We want to see good discussions about designing games on ROBLOX.

Rules:

  • This is not a help forum. Please see Building Helpers or Scripting Helpers for help.

-This is not a place to hire people to work on your games.

-Your post subject should be about what is inside your post. Do not put your whole message in the subject of the post.

  • Do not promote your games here, i.e. posting links to your game just to get people to visit is not allowed.

Sorcus is King of this forum. He may lock your posts or ban you if he doesn’t like what you’re doing here.[/quote]

Now, I understand this post is outdated, but GD was clearly not intended to be a help forum. So why should it be a help forum now? Especially a combined SH and BH forum??

#13

The solution is simple – rename Scripters to Scripting. That’s where all script-related discussion should go.

#14

Then the regulars of Scripters will be all mad because their superiority complex will be nulled.

#15

[quote] I think I disagree.

When designing a game building and scripting need to, in the end, come together to make your game run smoothly. Especially with more complex builds, complex scripts, and complex game projects the line between building and scripting may become blurred. Let’s say I’ve built a large physical object and then scripted it to behave in a certain way, but it doesn’t behave correctly. Is my problem a building or a scripting problem? Maybe I’ve designed my creation incorrectly and the physics just won’t work, or maybe my script could be made more efficient. With the forums separated, I don’t know where to post, and run the risk of receiving a negative reaction from forumers if I take the 50/50 chance and end up in the wrong place.

With the combination you can post in one central location knowing you will be able to find both building and scripting answers, and you may be able to post more broadly about your issue. [/quote] My problem with this is the fact that now instead of what was the desired effect of combining the two for a helpers sub-forum for questions it’s caused a good portion to overflow into the Scripter’s forum where help questions are not the point.

#16

Speaking of forum changes, are Roblox Talk & Off-Topic merged yet? They’re both the same thing, essentially.

#17

I agree wholeheartedly. The forums should be separate for everyone’s sake. If you have an issue that may be helped on either forum then post on both with the first line ‘This may not be the right forum but I’m not sure’…

I was a BIG helper on BH with a lot of others and I use to help out as many people as I could there. I don’t think I can spend that much time trying to sort out posts now or going back and forth to page 2,3,4 and 5 to see if I can help there.

It kind of amuses me (sarcasm implied) that you added more sub forums on RBXDev to make things easier to find and joined forums on ROBLOX completely mashing things together.

I can barely script so I only ventured to SH when I needed help with that and it was easy.

Now with questions getting pushed off the front page in minutes on all the joined forums instead of spending an hour or more plainly visible I believe the whole idea is going to piss people off because they won’t get their question answered.

#18

This is ridiculous.

89d2297cefd4551c0b7b14d76b1be08e.png798×839 96.2 KB

This is a screencap of Game Design front page. Out of the shown 19 topics, only 2 of the topics are 100% scripting related. If SH had its own section, the whole page would be filled with recent help requests related to scripting. Many other requests are being pushed down past the front page or sent to a different section entirely (looks like Scripters forum).

I am very disappointed with the admins on this one. This is clearly not working out, and they won’t even say anything (other than Gordon, who only initially replied). I understand you may be busy, but this is a very important issue that needs to be resolved very quickly.

Nobody knows where the hell to get help. And posting in the right section won’t get you an answer.

Imagine you start scripting or building, and you want to learn some techniques or need some help. First of all, you have no clue where to post because there is no specific category to post in (this is a giant middle finger from the current forum boards). Secondly, if you do manage to post in the right section, your post will be instantly pushed to page 2 and not be seen. Which requires you to spam your thread just to be seen. That’s another giant middle finger. One for both hands. Why would I want to try to learn how to make a game when I can’t even receive help getting started? If I didn’t have SH back in 2008 when I joined, I wouldn’t have played Roblox at all.

Now we look at the helpers’ side.

Taking the above screenshot, I, as a scripting helper, know that at least 2 of the 19 shown topics is for scripting help. Some other topics, like CFraming or the topic titled “.” may be a scripting request. I don’t have the time to open up the thread just to find out I don’t have the knowledge to help. I also don’t have the time to look through 2-3 pages and FILTER THE THREADS just to find a topic I’m knowledgeable about. As stated in the edit of my OP, this is the reason why I am no longer helping people on the official forums.

But the official forums is ultimately the place where people SHOULD be receiving help.

Yes, this is a rant. I am very unhappy about the way Roblox is handling this whole ordeal.

#19

I’m wondering if the people who decided this was a good idea spent any time on the forums?

I know a bunch about building, so many nights I would spend an hour or more helping out up to 30 people on page 1 and 2 of the Building Helpers forum.

Most of these people came to that forum with building specific questions, and the Building Helpers would help them. If their question was related to scripting, we would send them to the correct forum without too many issues.

Even the 9 out of 10 people who posted with titles like ‘Help me’ or ‘What the heck’ could be helped because we knew they were there for building related questions. Now? Many friends of mine have stated they won’t be hanging around helping there because it just doesn’t work, for either side!

Sounds like the Scripting Helpers feel the same way.

Admit you made a mistake. Change it back so we can all go back to helping the people who need it the most. The ones who are willing to ask questions and learn!

It’s the trouble with our North American school systems. Too many kids crammed into a classroom with 1 teacher who can’t answer everyone’s questions and can’t spend the time individually with each person who needs help. This is the way you are headed if all your best helpers spend less time on the forums helping your students.

#20

I really REALLY hope they go back to the way it was. It’s just so dang confusing! I used to go in Scripting Helpers when I was bored all the time just to help people, now I get a Headache sorting through the different forums. When I first started scripting I was terrible, SH really helped me a lot with my broken code. If I didn’t know how to Script as well as I do now I don’t know how I would learn with the new Forums. It almost makes me sad :frowning: to think about the people that need help scripting but can’t get it anymore.