Roblox Weekly: August 27–September 2, 2023
Refreshed experience controls menu, open-sourced documentation, aerodynamics in Studio, and much more!
Welcome to Roblox Weekly, a newsletter series covering the latest and greatest news, announcements, and events that happen on the Roblox platform. Let’s recap everything that happened for the week of August 27–September 2, 2023…
Refreshed Experience Controls Menu
This week, Roblox introduced a brand new look for the in-experience controls menu at the top right of the screen. With the constant addition of new features, moving them all to a single menu at the top right makes the user experience more intuitive.
Here’s a breakdown of what features this new menu includes:
Collapsable Menu Features:
- Safety Icon: Triggers Abuse Report shortcut
- Camera and Microphone: Toggle camera/mic (On/Off); drag headshot for picture-in-picture view modes. This also removes the microphone and camera icons from above your avatar’s head.
MRU (Most Recently Used) Slots:
- These slots are populated by the most recently used options from the 9-Dot menu
9-Dot Menu:
- Text Chat, Leaderboard, Emotes, Backpack
- In the future, creators will be able to utilize this space to build and provide access to experience-specific features (e.g. an overlay Map UI for your game).
This feature is currently in beta, meaning that during this period, the new UI will only be visible in Studio. These updates are for mobile and desktop devices. Console and VR devices will come at a later date.
Updated Verification Badge Eligibility Criteria
Starting this week, Roblox is expanding the eligibility criteria for how the Verified Badge is issued. Some of the notable changes to the eligibility criteria include:
- Brands must have 100K+ followers on a major social media platform.
- Experiences must have 1M+ hours of playtime in the last 90 days.
- Creators of avatar items must generate 2M+ Robux in revenue in the last 90 days with at least 200K items sold.
Open-Source Creator Documentation
The Roblox Creator Documentation is now available in open-source on GitHub! Starting this week, you can submit GitHub pull requests to tweak confusing wordings, correct inaccuracies, fix typos, or even add whole new pages. Permissive licensing means you can incorporate writing and code samples into your own projects. You can learn more on how to contribute here.
1 Week Until RDC 2023
The time is almost here; the 2023 Roblox Developers Conference (RDC) is just a week away! RDC is an invite-only hybrid (in-person and online) event that brings together the most innovative creators from the global Roblox community so they can build connections, learn, and share ideas. Set your reminders for 2 days full of product announcements and learning opportunities September 8–9.
In other news, Bloxy News will be attending RDC in-person for the first time this year! Stay tuned for exclusive photos and information directly from the event! Follow my social media to see all the action.
Aerodynamics in Studio
Aerodynamics is now available in Roblox Studio as a beta feature. Creators can now bring realistic aerodynamic forces like lift and drag into their creations, taking Roblox experiences to new heights (literally!). Building upon the success of the Wind beta, this release enables creators to add Aerodynamic forces to all parts in your experiences, including avatars.
Transfer Experience Ownership [Limited Testing Program]
Roblox is testing the ability to transfer ownership of an Experience that is currently owned by your own personal Roblox account to a Group that you also own. At this time, it is only available for a limited number of creators with a R$60,000 fee to initiate. In the future, all Creators will be able to easily transfer ownership of many asset types on the platform for no cost, and Roblox will be taking iterative steps between now and then to get there, but it is important to unlock this capability for Creators who really need it today to help their businesses and studios thrive. You can learn more information plus how to request a transfer on the Forum.
MaxDistance Property for SurfaceGuis
Roblox recently enabled a new MaxDistance property for SurfaceGuis in Studio, which lets creators limit the distance that SurfaceGuis will render at. Previously, SurfaceGuis would always render no matter how far away they were. All previously created SurfaceGuis will have a MaxDistance of 0. This means that the limit is turned off, the same as before. Newly added SurfaceGuis in Studio will default to 1000 studs.
Renaming of Descriptors for Experience Guidelines
Roblox recently renamed the following descriptor options for Experience Guidelines:
- For the intensity of Violence, the “Intense” option has been renamed to “Strong”. Note that this option is only available to you if you are a verified 17+ user who is eligible for 17+ creations.
- For the frequency of Violence, the “Frequent” option has been renamed to “Repeated”, and the “Infrequent” option has been renamed to “Occasional” respectively.
There is no action required from you at this time. Please note that this is only a wording change and does not change the definition or moderation of the Violence descriptor.
Error Reporting and Cache Opt-Out for Data Stores
Creators can now view Data Store error messages in real-time to debug issues. Additionally, you can opt-out of using the cache in GetAsync to fetch the latest data immediately.
Error Reporting
Data Store errors that occur in your experiences are now reported on the Error Report Dashboard. For each error, a debugging message will be published to the Dashboard in the following format: “DataStoreService: < Error Name >: < Error Message >. API: < API Name >. Data Store: < Data Store name >.”
GetAsync Cache Opt-Out
When you use Data Stores, values that you retrieve with GetAsync are stored in the local cache for 4 seconds. By default, GetAsync requests for keys stored in the cache will return the cached value instead of continuing to the backend. Most of the time, this is useful, because GetAsync requests that return a cached value respond faster and do not count towards your server or throughput limits.
However, since GetAsync caches the data for 4 seconds, this can cause issues if you’re trying to keep data perfectly in sync between multiple servers. Previously, you were unable to opt-out of using this cache, meaning that you had no way to get the most up-to-date value except for waiting 4 seconds for the cache to expire. Now, you can opt out by specifying a new DataStoreGetOptions parameter.
local DataStoreService = game:GetService("DataStoreService")
local experienceStore = DataStoreService:GetDataStore("PlayerExperience")
// Create a DataStoreGetOptions instance to specify your desired cache behavior
local DataStoreGetOptions getOptions = Instance.new("DataStoreGetOptions")
getOptions.UseCache = false
local success, currentExperience = pcall(function()
// Specify your options as a parameter on GetAsync
return experienceStore:GetAsync("User_1234", getOptions)
end)
if success then
print(currentExperience)
endLuau Native Code Generation Preview
Native code generation support is now available in beta for Luau. Instead of the usual process where scripts are compiled from source to bytecode for the bytecode to be interpreted, Roblox augments the compilation step to take some of the functions in the scripts and compile them further into native code, which makes the code run faster.
--!native comment must be put on top of your script to mark it as native.Dominus Azurelight Update
Last week, I reported that 2 new Dominus hats were released — the Dominus Desperationis and the Dominus Azurelight. At the time of writing that article, it was unknown how users could get their hands on these hats. Thankfully, this week we got an update on one of the hats.
The Dominus Azurelight (right) has been revealed to be a Make-A-Wish item for a user by the name of TheM1ndGamer, who recently won his battle with cancer! His battle began in December 2017. After being approached by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he knew that he wanted something he’s been desiring ever since he joined Roblox — a Dominus. This wish was special; he wanted this item to be given to him after he was out of the hospital and feeling better, hence why it was given so late.
To help support children like TheM1ndGamer, consider donating to his fundraiser and help him reach the goal of $10,000. Additionally, You can learn more about TheM1ndGamer’s story on his YouTube channel.
Happy 17th Birthday, Roblox!
On September 1st, 2006, Roblox released out of beta to the public. This past Friday, Roblox officially celebrated their 17th year of being released!
Bloxy News Turns 6
In other birthday news, this past Sunday, the Bloxy News account turned 6 years old. Today, we’ve grown into the largest Roblox news source trusted by over 1 million combined followers. THANK YOU for your continued support each and every day!
In celebration of Bloxy News turning 6, I’ve released the first ever Bloxy News avatar items, available now on the Roblox Marketplace!
🧢 Purchase the Cap (R$50)
📌 Purchase the Pin (R$20)
A special thank you to lucaduke for modeling and texturing these accessories.
And that’s a wrap! Thanks for tuning in to this week’s Roblox Weekly. Come back here next week to see what Roblox will be up to next. To keep up to date with the latest and greatest Roblox news, follow Bloxy News on social media.
