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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 06:37 PM
First of all, MASSIVE TL/DR land ahead (if you read nothing else, at least read the section on games.) This is by no means an attack on Roblox itself, nor any user of group of users in the games, but instead is an analysis of the community as a whole. This is based solely on my ideas, speculations and observation, rather than that of actual fact, and some details (especially in the economy section) may be slightly wrong.

I: Summary
II: Analysis of economy
III: Toxicity of the community
IV: The game singularity

I: Summary
Anyone who plays roblox for any good length of time will easily notice that there are many problems surrounding it. The economy in roblox is fairly messed up, the community is incredibly toxic and tends to be hostile towards those who have not been a part of it for long, and despite amazing potential and lots of encouragement, the majority of games that get popular on Roblox are incredilby simple and similar games. Here I am going to be attempting to look into the problems, examine them, and suggest some ways that they can be fixed


II: Analysis of economy
The roblox economy started off fairly simple; get a few tickets a day (or was it robux? I can't remember which came first, but it's not important here) You would initially spend these tickets on Hats, T-Shirts, later on pants and shirts, etc. The problem with the economy at this stage were small, there were relatively few users, causing a very slow inflation, which was controlled by the hats and other roblox-created items that effectively took money out of the economy entirely.
But Roblox soon grew larger, and created builders club to allow them to maintain their services and keep it a largely free game (A GOOD IDEA, THIS IS A GOOD THING!) With this, they introduced several prospects, from the ability to create multiple places, to allowing only BC members to sell their goods and create shirts/pants, and let us not forget: a premium currency
This is when the problems start to arise. The advent of a premium currency itself did not create a huge problem, it was the fact that this currency was much more valuable and was also received on a daily basis at a larger amount than tickets, causing larger inflation (a problem that was magnified when TBC and OBC were introduced) however, the premium currency was isolated, there was no way for someone who did not have BC to receive it, and it's not like you could exchange this very quickly inflating currency for the more stable (but less valuable) tickets currency, right?
Well, that's when TC was introduced. Now anyone could receive this formerly premium only currency, and the sudden massive influx of robux into the market of people who did not own BC caused tickets to lose almost all value, and now hats were being sold almsot exclusively for Robux (before this, many hats were sold for tickets rather than Robux because the majority of Roblox users did not own BC.)

So there you have it, a constantly inflating supply of a high-value currency, and an almost useless low-value currency. initially, robux hats were not very expensive, but with the advent of TBC and OBC, prices on hats and other items skyrocketed, whether this is as a result of roblox encouraging people to buy BC/Robux or as a response to inflation of the economy, it's hard to say.
The only way to really fix this problem is a complete overhaul of the Roblox economy, which is unlikely if not impossible, and would lead to a massive outlash by the community. But the way to rebuild it would be simple; make two new currencys, lets just call them HV and LV for now (High Value and Low Value respectively.)
Make it so that the majority of hats, if not all, can be bought with both LV and HV curreny, maybe a discount on price on HV and slightly higher prices on LV, but not unreasonably so. Next, make it so people who do not have BC have no access to HV currency and that the two currencies can not be exchanged among each-other. and finally, make the daily HV currency gain the same as or less than that of the LV currency gain to keep the inflation relatively stable. Allow those who do not have BC able to sell goods, but only for LV currency, and have a moderately high sales tax on it, and make BC owners able to sell for HV currency as well, with little or no sales tax on goods. I believe that this would keep the roblox market much more stable than it currently is, and allow for more fairness with those who can not afford to buy builders club membership for any reason.

III: Toxicity in the community
It's no secret that Roblox's community is very hostile, toxic and all around unpleasent. This is not a problem of the ever-increasing size of the community, respected robloxians from 09 were once considered to be the bane of Roblox and destroying the entire thing, and I'm sure similar things were said about 08'ers initially. Spam, "noobs" and trolls have been around since the advent of the internet, and that is not something that any community can avoid, it's jsut generally easier for smaller communities to write off individuals as causign the mayhem. however when a community starts to get massive (as is the case with Roblox) the vocal minority of these types of people get louder, and the silent majority tend to be ignored, and since everyone doesn't know everyone else anymore, we just associate this with a large part of the community.
The problem with this assumption is that it is actually a VERY small part of the community that causes any real problems initially, but as more people become jaded and cynical by thinking that these people are the majority because they are the loudest, they eventually become a part of that side itself by becoming increasingly hostile towards those who don't know what they are doing, passing them off as trying to ruin the game, when really they just want to learn from the people with more experience.
This leads to the reputation that Roblox currently has; A place for annoying kids to come and yell at everyone because they are doing it wrong, a reputation that is in all honesty, kind of deserved. We actively drive away new users and the only way I can see to fix this is to realize that if you would just pay attention and stop driving away new users, the community would ultimately be better off than if we see them as "noobs who try to destroy roblox with their spam and bad games," which leads me to the next and final section...

IV: The game singularity
Games! They are the main reason to play Roblox. In fact, you can't "play" Roblox without them! Roblox is a unique place where any user, whether they pay $20 a month or pay nothing at all, has the potential to create absolutely amazing things if they put the effort in! And this is whre it falls apart. Roblox is in a rather unfortunate position where (and please don't take this the wrong way) the majority of it's users are young kids who have probably never taken the time to explore and learn Roblox Studio, leading to the majority of games begin simple Obys, tycoons or sword fighting games. This was still a problem back in 08, if not worse than today. It's not recent, almost all of the games I played back then were obys and tycoons.
I don't care what anyone else says, these games are NOT where Roblox's true potential lies. Jumping in roblox is clunky and imprecise, which is what most obys boil down to, Tycoons are barely games at all, more akin to cow clickers (games like farmville, Simpsons tapped out, etc) which are also, not really games, and sword fighting, or any kind of combat really, takes no skill whatsoever and boils down purely to luck thanks to a fairly lackluster combat system overall.
No, the strength of Roblox lies in adventure games like Doom Caverns, Yoricks resetting place (you can probably still find a version of it somewhere, and it is fantastic) or similar games where the emphasis is not on competition, but on exploration and grand scale maps instead of simple structures.
It's kind of sad really, the Roblox staff actively encourages the building of these epic and amazing maps, yet their actions in making roblox accessible to the general public has pushed it the opposite direction. The default way to make things is build mode instead of edit, the building tools by default do very little and are fairly poorly explained (I still have no clue what the configure tool is,) and edit mode is confusing and not very fun to look at.
If these simple problems were fixed, I think that more grand scale maps would be made with an emphasis on you as an individual rather than trying to compete against other players. I think this can at least be gotten close to by making edit mode default for building (or just flat out remove build mode) make the interface easier to understand and less of an eyesore, and provide some sort of incentive to build bigger places. Feature these great places instead of trade hangouts and sword fight tournament, and soon others will try to imitate them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I greatly appreciate it. Lets work together to make Roblox a better place for tomorrow!
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nastyVenom555 is not online. nastyVenom555
Joined: 24 Jan 2012
Total Posts: 5000
11 Oct 2013 06:38 PM
tl;dr
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 06:47 PM
Yes it's long, and I don't expect you to read all of it, but at least reading part of it and providing some constructive advice would be appreciated.
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C4Inc is not online. C4Inc
Joined: 24 Jun 2013
Total Posts: 2344
11 Oct 2013 06:50 PM
tl;dr
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mars1224 is not online. mars1224
Joined: 06 Nov 2010
Total Posts: 4947
11 Oct 2013 06:53 PM
tl;dr

maybe add a summary

out attention spans are that of a rock.
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 06:55 PM
Ahem, I did, at the beginning. The summary's only 1 paragraph, I would hardly call that TL;DR
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mars1224 is not online. mars1224
Joined: 06 Nov 2010
Total Posts: 4947
11 Oct 2013 06:57 PM
no, add a summary on what you said, not what you're going to say
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TheFoxIsMute is not online. TheFoxIsMute
Joined: 01 Oct 2013
Total Posts: 284
11 Oct 2013 06:58 PM
I read it, you summed up the community very precisely
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:05 PM
Ok, here it is. This is a DETAILED analysis, so it's hard to fit any details into a summary, but if nothing else, I would still read the full building section.


Economy:
Roblox's Economy is fairly messed up, and as a result of a myriad of things, from the introducion of a even-increasing premium currency to a system that opened the floodgates to effectivly sink the roblox economy, there is a fairly simple fix, but one people would not like: complete overhaul of the economy.

I really can't explain how the rework would work in a summary.

Community:
Because of the relatively small vocal minority, people have come to accept roblox as a whole is full of obnoxious spammers, even users of roblox who have started to emulate those behaviors, leading to an event where the silent minority is starting to become the minority.

Building:
The complexity of roblox's edit mode drives many users away, causing them to resort to making simpler games, and roblox's effort to make this more accessible to the majority of people has actually encouraged the building of games like sword fights , obys and tycoons. The best way to fix this woudl be to make edit mode a bit more explained and visually apealing, and make it the default way to make games.

Like I said, the building section is the one I would recommend reading the most, because it's the one that I personally care about most, and it makes me sad to see the opportunities roblox gives us to make amazing things wasted.
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:08 PM
Thank you Fox, for taking the time to read it. I bet it barely even hurt at all.
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MattPacific is not online. MattPacific
Joined: 03 Jul 2013
Total Posts: 2403
11 Oct 2013 07:09 PM
i read this entire thing and sighed at how you took the time to do something like this

-mp
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:12 PM
I have a lot of free time, enjoy writing a lot, and was bored. I really didn't go out of my way to do this, if I had, it would have been considerably longer.
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MattPacific is not online. MattPacific
Joined: 03 Jul 2013
Total Posts: 2403
11 Oct 2013 07:14 PM
i would've been very angry if you said

"this is all true facts why roblox sucks. heres proof:"

but you did it and if it was spare time

then it's okay

at least you're willing to say that none of this is factual but merely speculation from your own point of view

-mp
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culturedmamaluigi is not online. culturedmamaluigi
Joined: 13 Apr 2012
Total Posts: 645
11 Oct 2013 07:16 PM
support
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:18 PM
It's all analysis I have made myself from experience on roblox, I haven't consulted with anyone else on this, which is why even reading it myself, some of it seems a bit far-fetched, but as it stands, I really don't get super involved in the Roblox community, and most of my friends IRL stopped playing roblox a while ago, so I really couldn't get any other opinions on the subject. Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out, but yeah, it's not the greatest super-long forum thread I have ever written on Roblox :P
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TheVampGirl is not online. TheVampGirl
Joined: 18 Nov 2011
Total Posts: 778
11 Oct 2013 07:28 PM
[ Content Deleted ]
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TheVampGirl is not online. TheVampGirl
Joined: 18 Nov 2011
Total Posts: 778
11 Oct 2013 07:30 PM
[ Content Deleted ]
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:32 PM
I too hate writing when I am forced to :P
It's actually very relaxing when you do it of your own free will with no pressure, though.
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L0VA is not online. L0VA
Joined: 25 Jun 2013
Total Posts: 205
11 Oct 2013 07:33 PM
I've seen how rude and disrespectful forumers can be... Yet here I am, back for more.
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carss82 is not online. carss82
Joined: 30 Oct 2011
Total Posts: 26936
11 Oct 2013 07:33 PM
tl;dr
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NathanBoy01 is not online. NathanBoy01
Joined: 22 Feb 2011
Total Posts: 9479
11 Oct 2013 07:34 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNEy_y75xYI







ice ice ice
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:36 PM
@ l0va

I know the feeling. It's more annoying that actually hurtful, in my opinion
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mudkip99 is not online. mudkip99
Joined: 17 Jun 2008
Total Posts: 3362
11 Oct 2013 07:40 PM
Also I just noticed, why was this moved from ATR to RT? It is almost entirely related to roblox...
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SoEpic1337 is not online. SoEpic1337
Joined: 22 Oct 2011
Total Posts: 28506
13 Oct 2013 09:42 PM
dibs on f5 bomb

>>>>>>> put a wall between us | Follow me on Twitter! @SoEpic1337_RBLX <<<<<<<
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maxpayne5576alt is not online. maxpayne5576alt
Joined: 16 Jul 2012
Total Posts: 30693
13 Oct 2013 09:43 PM
Put your fists up and fight
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