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The Roblox Microverse

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Re: The Roblox Microverse

#71

Post by juskrey »

mempko wrote: post #66
juskrey wrote: post #4

All I can say is roblox banned in our home network: the whole user experience is targeted to make children judge each other using wrong incentives and extort money from parents. On the other hand I have no problems paying children for games with honorable practices of one time purchase or reasonable subscriptions (which usually end in a month in any case when children get bored)

My child is literally making a roblox game right now. I just showed him lua. He is 10. Roblox is a huge gateway into programming. He started on scratch, and now roblox. Next generation of programmers will have learned programming using roblox as kids. I'm impressed with their IDE.

I love lua, but roblox ide and general way how it works have made an impression of gimmick only used to bait parents into "my kid is learning programming", when in fact the system is pretty dull and feels too artificial.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#72

Post by an_opabinia »

mwcampbell wrote: post #51
an_opabinia wrote: post #10

Roblox games are really clunky to make on PCs, let alone phones. You'll never be able to make one on a phone. It's crazy clunky. A third person character running around with virtual joysticks: so clunky. Roblox has been around longer than smartphones have, it has always been a port, much like Minecraft. Which sure, kids play. Roblox is probably setting back the arrival of the metaverse, not advancing it. Whatever tha…

> Disney+, arguably the finest destination for 8 year olds Do we really want another generation addicted to consuming big-budget media? Especially now that most of that media is encumbered by DRM that makes free computing platforms much less attractive? Mind you, I'm not sure that Roblox is the answer. But it might be better, since it at least puts more focus on creating rather than consuming.

> since it at least puts more focus on creating rather than consuming.

My point is, there's no focus on creating. You're imagining Minecraft, but you don't make stuff in Roblox. You can make stuff in Roblox Studio, but there are hardly any 8 year olds doing that, because you have to write Lua, and 8 year olds categorically cannot do that. Unless they're prodigies, in which case, they will thrive doing many things, and creativity expressed in Roblox is the symptom and not the cause of their gifts.

What do kids actually do? There's a lot of "casual" role playing games, clicker games, shooter games and things that feel like Counter-Strike custom maps from the early 2000s. It feels a lot like a Steam Workshop page. Clunkiness abounds, stuff that even older children will not play.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#73

Post by jimmyvalmer »

mempko wrote: post #66
juskrey wrote: post #4

All I can say is roblox banned in our home network: the whole user experience is targeted to make children judge each other using wrong incentives and extort money from parents. On the other hand I have no problems paying children for games with honorable practices of one time purchase or reasonable subscriptions (which usually end in a month in any case when children get bored)

My child is literally making a roblox game right now. I just showed him lua. He is 10. Roblox is a huge gateway into programming. He started on scratch, and now roblox. Next generation of programmers will have learned programming using roblox as kids. I'm impressed with their IDE.

Humblebrag alert: Yes, I was blown away by what my 12yo was doing with Lua because of his Roblox obsession. As mindless and addictive as Roblox looks, there's a very important silver lining here.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#74

Post by skrebbel »

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #62
skrebbel wrote: post #45

We have Roblox (kids age 5 and 8). From the start I made a hard "no Robux" rule, which has worked out well so far. This has had a very nice and totally unintended side effect: the kids self select against games that are only fun if you pay. Eg my youngest likes the clicking simulators. Many of those are awful "pay to win" schemes but some actually have fun game dynamics (not unlike the Paperclip Simulator html game t…

I'm fairly sure you're aware that more than 9 out of 10 kids would find Robux-free Roblox immensely more appealing than whatever economic simulations your preternaturally moderate children are taken with.

Ok I'm not sure what "preternaturally" means, but yes I agree that Robux are an awful scam and Roblox would be better without them. That said I'm also not nuts and I realize that Roblox would likely not exist without them.

I'm advocating for picking all the VC-funded (and user-generated) freebies off the platform and giving nothing back. It's like using YouTube with an ad blocker.

That said, I'm not sure I parsed your comment right, so just to clarify: when I say "economic" I mean stuff like "Pizza Tycoon" where you run a restaurant and need to buy stuff with fake money to get more customers etc etc. That's not Robux money, that's 100% in-game fake money that you earn by selling pizzas. Even the better clickers have this dynamic, where you click to get some kinds of points and then you can use the points to buy/build stuff that auto-generates clicks etc. It's not unlike the economies in Starcraft (yeah I'm old) and the likes.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#75

Post by jonheller »

I used to push back had on my kids wanting to buy hats, pets, etc in Roblox. Seemed like a waste of money and I hate microtransactions.

Then I realized that this is literally the only game they play, and it's free. Compare that to me at that age, buying Nintendo games for $50 a pop, why am I hesitant to support these creators with a $2 hat?

I still limit purchases just for general personal finance lessons, but otherwise let them spend money here like they would on actual paid games.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#76

Post by TeMPOraL »

jonheller wrote: post #75

I used to push back had on my kids wanting to buy hats, pets, etc in Roblox. Seemed like a waste of money and I hate microtransactions. Then I realized that this is literally the only game they play, and it's free. Compare that to me at that age, buying Nintendo games for $50 a pop, why am I hesitant to support these creators with a $2 hat? I still limit purchases just for general personal finance lessons, but otherw…

Makes me think of collectible card games. If I hadn't spent my own pocket money as a kid on MTG, Star Trek CCG and Pokemon, there's no way in hell I would let my kid buy into an obvious scam CCGs are. But I did spend money on them and enjoyed it, so I'm not so sure now.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#77

Post by mwcampbell »

an_opabinia wrote: post #72
mwcampbell wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disney+, arguably the finest destination for 8 year olds Do we really want another generation addicted to consuming big-budget media? Especially now that most of that media is encumbered by DRM that makes free computing platforms much less attractive? Mind you, I'm not sure that Roblox is the answer. But it might be better, since it at least puts more focus on creating rather than consuming.

> since it at least puts more focus on creating rather than consuming. My point is, there's no focus on creating. You're imagining Minecraft , but you don't make stuff in Roblox. You can make stuff in Roblox Studio, but there are hardly any 8 year olds doing that, because you have to write Lua, and 8 year olds categorically cannot do that. Unless they're prodigies, in which case, they will thrive doing many things, a…

> because you have to write Lua, and 8 year olds categorically cannot do that. Unless they're prodigies

How do we know this is true? How many more 8-year-olds would program if they had been given a chance? My guess is that most are never given a chance to try.

I learned Applesoft BASIC on an Apple IIGS when I was 8. But I was lucky to be in a home with a computer that came with a disk that had an intro to programming on it. I think that's more relevant than any innate skill I had.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#78

Post by discardedrefuse »

juskrey wrote: post #11
quornxypt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on how the experience is targeted to make children judge each other? Has this been something your kid(s) experienced on the platform? Just curious.

My daughter have asked me several times if I can spend at least something because other children somehow see she is not a paying user and segregate on that basis

This is a well known occurrence on Fortnite. If you were online wearing a "default" you were mocked by your friends and sometimes targeted for griefing. And not just online, because kids are using the game as a virtual hangout space, this bullying would play out IRL too.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-defa...

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#79

Post by jimmyvalmer »

skrebbel wrote: post #74
jimmyvalmer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly sure you're aware that more than 9 out of 10 kids would find Robux-free Roblox immensely more appealing than whatever economic simulations your preternaturally moderate children are taken with.

Ok I'm not sure what "preternaturally" means, but yes I agree that Robux are an awful scam and Roblox would be better without them. That said I'm also not nuts and I realize that Roblox would likely not exist without them. I'm advocating for picking all the VC-funded (and user-generated) freebies off the platform and giving nothing back. It's like using YouTube with an ad blocker. That said, I'm not sure I parsed you…

> I'm not sure I parsed your comment right

My fault. Resummarizing, you shouldn't take your kids finding "Pizza Tycoon" competitive or even preferable to Roblox (with or without Robux power assists) as applicable to the general population.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#80

Post by skrebbel »

Kinrany wrote: post #56
djaychela wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that the games are mostly crap... I have 4 step kids who game, and 3 do on roblox a lot. Some of the games may be objectively poor, but they enjoy playing in them anyway, and some of them are spectacular. I spent quite a few hours playing with them during the original UK lockdown,which was doubly good as I don't live with them so didn't see them for 3 months. In that time we "did" many things,including "go…

Can you link some examples? It's hard to navigate Roblox without participating in the social network-ish aspects.

"Theme Park Tycoon" is a Rollercoaster Tycoon clone that's really nice. It's pretty much single-player, but you can check out other players' theme parks which is very cool.

"Islands" is mostly a Minecraft ripoff but you're building air castles (you can fall off an "island" and die). This lets the kids do all kinds of invented in-game games, such as building an obstacle course for one another, playing hide and seek etc.

"Fishing Simulator" starts out as a pretty dull pirate-themed fishing game but turns out to have a lot of depth, adventure game style. It also has amazing content for Roblox standards.

"Build A Boat For Treasure" is a lot less fancy than the above, but it has a very cool concept. You design & build your own boat, then go sit in it, and take it through a river full of obstacles. The way you build it determines how it deals with the obstacles because when you sail away you can hardly navigate it anymore. So you need to design for robustness etc, which turns out to be pretty hard.

A lot of the games are shit, but also a lot of the games look shit but have super original ideas. Eg there's a game that you're in a building and then some disaster happens (tsunami, volcano eruption, whatever) which slowly destroys the building and whoever survives the longest in the collapsing building wins. I'm really not sure if that's a ripoff of anything, it strikes me as genuinely original. It's not very deep, but it's good fun.

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