Grab your virtual snowboard and tobaggen and suit up for cold weather, because the ROBLOX Winter Games has officially begun. Beginning today and heading through February 10th, ROBLOX players will be able to compete in five different events, including snowboarding, snowball fights, racing, and even a tank battle. Each event has a leaderboard, badges, and a set of hats to earn for completing said badges. Furthermore, players will receive medals for placing in each event.
So what’s special about this? Every event featured in the Winter Games, including the ski lodge lobby, was developed by a select group of developers under 18 years old. It is incredible to see what people are capable of with ROBLOX.
ROBLOX’s virtual convention has already come and gone, but the images will remain with us forever. Virtual BLOXcon took place on Saturday the 21st, a four hour block which involved everything from Q&A sessions to streaming game content, hall of fame awards for the best creations, and more. If you managed to catch the event, more power to you. If you didn’t, well there’s always next year.
We love us some ROBLOX here at MMO Fallout, there is no doubt about that. The creator of everyone’s favorite building game since Lego has enjoyed an astounding amount of success on the PC with releases either already here or on their way to more portable systems. Yesterday the group released their user data for the first half of 2013, and the statistics are geared to impress.
ROBLOX enjoyed 13.4 billion pageviews and 339 million hours of site and gameplay engagement in 2013 so far. The website is #1 on a variety of kid’s game categories. June was the most popular month of the year, and and total engagement is 230% higher than 2012.
“Thanks to our vibrant building and sharing community, ROBLOX continues to grow at an amazing rate,” said David Baszucki, CEO of ROBLOX. “We think of ourselves as the best digital‘toy’ around, and we are excited about the creativity, energy, and passion for success the ROBLOX platform continues to inspire in our builders.”
The popularity of ROBLOX just keeps getting bigger every year.
When I first discussed ROBLOX, I referred to it as a virtual toy box, as if someone took a box full of Lego bricks and made them sentient and programmable. It isn’t an MMORPG along the lines of World of Warcraft, but it can be if the right person is doing the building. It isn’t specifically designed to be a first person shooter, but that hasn’t stopped its players from turning it into one. Just about anything you can think of to build, someone has probably already done it, and yet the community still comes up with new stuff to do. You can play paintball, survive Slenderman, take charge of a fishing ship, fight back a zombie outbreak, or enjoy a fun obstacle course.
Usually when I write about ROBLOX I get responses pointing to the fact that there are a lot of outside properties on display in ROBLOX creations, to which I have to say I’m not surprised. ROBLOX is a game that brings to life the child-like wonder and imagination of its players, so it only stands to reason that in the same way that kids play out their favorite video games or television shows, that the creations in ROBLOX will also draw heavily from areas like Minecraft, Naruto, Spongebob Squarepants, DragonballZ, Skyrim, etc.
ROBLOX has seen a massive push over the past year or so to optimize the engine and allow for a smoother experience for creators and players. Improvements allow for objects to interact with each other in a much more realistic fashion, without the kind of performance drain seen in previous builds of the engine. This has allowed for more optimized and realistic explosion effects, for objects to collide and interact with each other in the way you would expect them to, and more.
The most recent engine update brought in dynamic lighting, allowing players to add in some ambiance to their creations. It sounds like a minor change, but as you can see in the screenshot below, the effect is very noticeable. The update is still technically a work in progress, with more additions coming to better optimize the system and beef up its visual effects.
It is important to note that dynamic lighting is an optional addition, and must be programmed into the world by its creator, so only a small (but growing fast) number of creations are using it at this point and builders are still getting used to how the system works. Still, the recent changes to ROBLOX are all the proof that we need that the game still has a very long life ahead of it, with plenty of new toys on the horizon for its builders to play with.
I will also be working on a series of ROBLOX videos looking at various creations, starting with the first that should come out this week (I apologize for the lack of specificity, but my “real job” schedule has me working over fifty hours a week). You can check out ROBLOX for free over at the main website.
The ROBLOX team never fails to amaze me with their continued updates to the game engine, making player creations look better and function on a whole new level with each iteration. It is incredible how much better an image looks with a little ambient lighting and shadows. The above creation is Cold Fusion by Spacek531.
MMOrning Shots is a daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”
I’m not sure why I find ROBLOX’s many “survive the disaster” servers so endearing, but I do. Today’s creation comes to us from stickmasterluke and has, if nothing else, reintroduced my old fear of lightning. Or maybe it’s just because, as a child, I was trapped in a building for a short thirty seconds while lightning tore it apart from the outside. Yea, that must be it.
MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”
It is never easy to say goodbye to a friend or co-worker. Erik Cassel was the co-founder of ROBLOX, along with David Baszucki. Unfortunately, Erik passed away on February 11th, following a battle with cancer. To show their support and to remember Erik, players attended a memorial held within ROBLOX the following day on February 12th. In order to honor his memory, ROBLOX will be selling special hats and shirts, with proceeds from the sales going toward cancer research.
In honor of ROBLOX co-founder Erik Cassel, we’re featuring some special clothing items until February 25. Longtime users know that Erik could often be found in ROBLOX wearing the “Well Worn Hat” – this hat meant a lot to Erik, and now that he’s passed, it means a lot to us. We’ve re-named it Erik Cassel’s Hat, and we’re now offering it for 20 Robux. We’ve also made new commemorative “Erik” t-shirts, which are only a single ticket. We hope you’ll wear them in remembrance of Erik. Based on the sales of these items, ROBLOX will make a substantial donation to cancer research. Thank you to the entire ROBLOX community all for your respect and support.
We here at MMO Fallout send our thoughts and wishes to Erik Cassel’s family, friends, and coworkers, and hope the best for them in these difficult times.
Roblox is already the number one entertainment site for kids, with over 9.8 million creations and over one billion page views and 29 million hours of game played every month. So how does Roblox become more popular? It’s simple, stupid. Release on the iOS!
Roblox is now available for the iOS. The app brings with it access to a smaller version of Roblox, including access to in-app purchases, character customization, manage their social network, and interact with their games. While builder’s club members will have access to all ROBLOX games on the iOS devices, while non-builders will only have access to a rotating selection of games that are known to be compatible with the device. You’ll need a newer iOS device to play, however. The list of supported devices includes the iPad 2 or newer, iPhone 4 or newer, and iPod Touch 5 or newer. All other iOS devices can access non-game features.
It’s been a while since we last heard from ROBLOX, but today’s news should come as a pleasant surprise to ex-Lego Universe players. In a press release, ROBLOX has announced a partnership with LEGO to bring the Hero Factory brand to the popular kid’s MMO. Players take the role of Stringer or Volix, two characters from Hero Factory, and compete in teams in a competitive scavenger mode. While searching for the hidden items, players are able to sabotage the other team by destroying the very items they seek.
Winning a game of Hero Factory will nab a few pieces of equipment from their chosen characters. ROBLOX is one of MMO Fallout’s featured family friendly MMOs and can be played free of charge through your browser.
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