Roblox is a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) virtual playground and workshop designed for children aged 6 and over. Players have the option of building games with plastic building blocks.
History and development
Roblox was created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in Silicon Valley, California and is based in Redwood City, California.[6] The name is a portmanteau of the words "Robots" and "Blocks".[7] In mid-2007, Roblox considered the concept of a Megablocks-style character to avoid infringements on any copyrights held by Lego Group and allow for more complex clothing such as hairpieces to blend with the character.[8] This was however rejected later for the minifigure design which was already in use. In mid-2008, Roblox added a feature to allow non-registered users to enter places with restricted functionality.[9] Roblox has raised $2.3 million in funding after an equity issue.[10] On 21 January 2010, Roblox donated $5472 to relief efforts for the Haitian Earthquake, allowing players to buy one of two virtual items: the Red Hat for Haiti, which contributed 65 cents for every person who bought it, or the Blue Hat for Haiti that contributed 10 cents for every person who bought it.[11] Roblox has recently been featured on Click, the BBC’s flagship technology programme.[12] Roblox has also been shown in a survey of users and parents to have a positive effect on academic performance in children aged 10 to 16.[13]
Character Customization
Players customize their characters with items in the Catalog. The Catalog contains Roblox and user created items such as clothing, images, models, gear, sets, heads, and faces.
Bodies
On May 14, 2010 bodies were introduced to Roblox members with subscriptions only, in packages. Packages have arms, legs, and torsos in them. Bodies and packages are made only by Roblox staff.[14]
Clothing with textures could be bought and worn from the Roblox catalog.
Models
Players can add their creations to the Roblox catalog, where the model can be commented on, taken (if it is public domain) and favourited by other players. Dependent on what the model contains, the model's thumbnail differs.
Games
Users have a choice of over 8,000,000 (eight million) possible games to play (based on number of users, as of 17 May 2010), varying in design from what the creators of places have wanted to create. Types of places vary by the feature where the creator of the place can choose a genre for their place. Users also have the choice to use public domain items created by Roblox users, or they can build their own.
Places
Players in Roblox have the ability to construct up to 100 places, depending on membership type, using an unlimited supply of virtual building blocks. Bricks can then be interacted with through Lua scripting. Competitive places are the most common gamemodes in Roblox.
Scripting
When a player is building their place, they have the option to script via Lua. Using this they can do many things, such as creating a button.
GUIs
GUIs can be used while creating a builder's place. Before they were released to public, only Roblox administrators could create GUIs. Using GUIs, scripters can add Lua to them, to create anything from a control panel to a game.
Roblox Studio
Roblox Studio editing Ultimate Paintball.
Roblox Studio is a program very similar to Microsoft Visual Studio, used to build and test places.[15] Users use this program in order to do things such as scripting and advanced building.
Economy
Roblox has its own virtual economy. Players earn and trade money currencies, called Robux and Tickets. Users are awarded Tickets when other users visit their virtual places, and when they log in, once a day. Users can provide their creations to other members for a price or for free.
RoblEX
On November 21, 2008 the RoblEX was introduced to Robloxians.[16] Tickets and Robux can be exchanged for one another on the RoblEX. Robux are generally worth more than tickets. Some people take advantage of the RoblEX and make money off of it from trading schemes.
Upgrades
Members paying for a Builders Club subscription receive an additional daily allowance of Robux every day automatically. They also can buy certain items in the catalog for BC members only. Within the BC only category, there are also TBC and OBC categories. Builders Club is a paid service that costs from $5.95/month. Turbo Builders Club is $11.95/month with added benefits. The 'Outrageous Builders Club' is $19.95 a month. There is also a feature in which users can buy Robux. Paying members get better deals when buying Robux than non-paying users do.