Monday, September 30, 2013

Gear Review: Super Tone Cape

Hello! Pbjms here. Usually, every Saturday or Sunday I write a "Gear Overview" post. Sadly, this Gear Friday only had one gear that came out. And it is a gear cape. It is actually one of few gears to be scripted by a regular user: Luckymaxer.

Super Tone Cape
"It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPER TONE! Use this sweet cape to fly and shoot lasers from your eyes - just like the real Tone."

Mesh: 9/10
There really isn't anything special to the mesh. It's a cape. Exactly how you'd picture a cape to look. A long piece of fabric that sticks out of the back of you. There really is nothing I can say about it, as it is just.. a cape. The designers could have made it a bit more exciting by adding like straps or something to hold onto your neck, so it doesn't look like a cape stuck to your back.

Texture: 9/10
The texture is the same as above, but with a giant T. It's a cape texture, red with shadows. In the middle is a Superman-like symbol with a giant T inside of it (for Tone). The use of shadows really gives it a folded feel, as makes it look quite nice, although there are quite too many shadows.
.
Price: 8/10
As usual, the price ruins most items. It is priced at 1,250 Robux, which is way too much for what it gives you (read Ability). It is nonlimited, and isn't timed, and I'm pretty sure there's already a few gears that give the same ability for a cheaper price.

Ability: 8/10
As I said above, the ability isn't great. You have the ability to free-fly around the map and shoot lasers from your eyes. Seems awesome, right? Why the 8/10, you may ask? Well, each laser only does about 25% damage. Which is about four hits for a kill, and because of the fact that the enemy would have to stay unmoving, and the fact that the reload time is too long, it is pretty useless. There are also other gears like this with an enhanced ability, but are cheaper. (Cough Cough, R-Orb).


Overall: 8.5/10

Overall, this cape really isn't that good. It's mesh is alright, it's texture is a bit overshadowed, the price is too expensive, and it's ability is too weak. Luckymaxer scripted this, but I believe the admins changed it to make it weaker, as I remember him showing me a demo of it blowing up tons of CPUs at once. Anyway, it's really not the best gear, and deserved a few other gears along with it (Gear Friday).

Anyway, that's a wrap. I hope I'll be reviewing some Halloween Gears next week, or maybe even some gifts.


~~pbjms~~




Sunday, September 29, 2013

.@Shedletky's Nuke the Whales Retexture Contest: Featured entries

With the Nuke the Whales retexture contest coming to a close tomorrow (You can still enter!!), we are going to show you some of the featured entries that were submitted.



Captain Nuke D' Whale: by rebellion666
This entry is rather clever. Everyone wants to where their prize of the kill, and now you can with this stylish captain's hat adorned with fish scales.

Nuke The Whale 2.0
Nuke The Whales 2.0 by Jakeup10
A toy whale stylized as ones you see in Nuke The Whales. Now you can nurture/nuke your own deep-sea friend/foe.

Shedletsky's Kryptonite
Shedletsky's Kryptonite by Sporeman15
This one is oddly amusing and confusing.
I mean, those whales, we all nuke them, but what if they could nuke us? I'm very sure they would do it in this fashion.
"Nuke the Whales"? More like "The Whale Nukes".


Chairman of the Whale Nuking Foundation

Chairman of the Whale Nuking Foundation by DarkGenex
What if we could see into the past, and witness this great foundation and business being formed, an alliance between men and other men in war mode against the great powers of evil that are, the whales. I'm very sure the chairman would be a bomb with a mustache.


Whale Nukebreather
Whale Nukebreather by Twintowers4u92
Well, of course we need some sort of protection from all that nuclear radiation that we use on those horrible whales.
This does all the protecting we need when hunting; saving lives on a day to day basis.


Whale Nuker
Whale Nuker by DarkGenex 
One of many entries by DarkGenex, and one of the only gear retextures entered. This rugged red, white and blue nuke launcher is a great ally when taking down whales continuously. Savin' yo' country... AMURICA!!!!

Shedletsky's Whaling Hat
Shedletsky's Whaling Hat by Sporeman15
Another great entry from spore. The hat name speaks for itself on this one.

The Nuked Whale
Nuked Whale by Phantomazing
If I wasn't a crazed whale Nuker, I might of taken pity on them, and this time it looks like someone did. Not all whales go to heaven though. (They're evil after all)

Still got an entry to submit? Send it to paulibarragei@gmail.com.
Make sure you enter it before midnight tomorrow to be in with the chance to win 5000 r$ from the great whale Nuker himself; Shedletsky

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Introducing LeetMcLeety

LeetMcLeetyYo Robloxians! I'm LeetMcLeety, the new staffer! Imagine that you're a normal human and then one morning, you wake up and have the power to fly. That's exactly how excited I am to be apart of this team and spread the news. It's an honor and a privilege to be apart of such a talented team of Robloxians.

 I myself have a few minor talents that somehow got me on the team, but compared to these veterans, I feel like Guest 3940. But hey, I better stop flattering everyone before I get kicked off, so let me tell you a little bit about myself. On ROBLOX, I'm known as LeetMcLeety, so please just call me Leet. I'm a writer and public speaker at heart. My dream job is to work as either: a scientist (biology, paleontology, or physics), a speaker for a scientific institute/organization, or a journalist for a scientific institute/organization. Now, I'm a little random, and as a hobby you'd think I'd do scientific experiments but no, I'm also a graphic designer and 3D game/video maker.

I'm currently working with a friend on a 3d game that we just released a demo for. Anyway, I probably need to get back on topic and show you around my ROBLOX profile so to speak. I joined ROBLOX in 2008 with the account amicus, left ROBLOX in 2009, came back in the clan era during 2010 and joined what I call, "The Roaring 20's of Clans." Stayed in C&G till I got a little bored of clans and went to ATR, had some fun there, and then moved back into clans and am now here at Roblox News. During that quick scan of my Roblox timeline, I used the accounts Jakesoccer09 (when I C&Ged), and Jacobiesoccer09 (when I ATRed), and now I use LeetMcLeety. I'm now into clans, game designing, clothing companies, and now news groups. So yeah, it’s a little crazy around here. Anyway, I'm sorry for wasting your time by writing this big-giant-probably-too-long-waste-of-space-blog-post, but hey, like I always say…I can't stop talking. 

Adios Amigos
-LeetMcLeety

Friday, September 27, 2013

RN Swordfighting Tournament 2013

Welcome to the RN's 2013 Swordfighting Tournament!
Sponsored by TheGamer101

     This year, I'll be hosting two different tournaments, and details are as follows:

          Single Elimination
           -Will be played like a normal tournament, consisting of 1v1 duels building up to the finals. If you win your duel, you advance to the next round. Each round has a different map.
           -Want to make a map for the next round? Make it 140x90, make it a model PM me the link to it, and I will have a look at it and determine whether or not I will implement it.
           -To enter, PM me, DDude9091, that you would like to enter the Single Elimination competition. You MUST specify which one you are entering.

          Team Elimination
           -Will be played like a normal tournament, consisting of 2v2 duels building up to the finals. If you and your teammate win your duel, you advance to the next round. Each round has a different map.
           -Want to make a map for the next round? Make it 170x120, make it a model, PM me the link to it, and I will have a look at it and determine whether or not I will implement it.
           -To enter, PM me that you would like to enter the Team Elimination competition, and who your partner is. You MUST specify which one you are entering.

     Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the prize money (because I'm sure that it's all you guys care about). For Single Elimination, there will be a prize of 500 Robux. For the Team Elimination, each winner will receive 500 Robux. There is currently no prize for NBC players, due to the fact that it is pretty impossible to pay them. They can still participate, though. A prize may be devised at a later stage.

     I think that just about sums it up. Questions? Map submissions? PM me, I'll get right to them. There is currently no set date for the tournament itself, but you have to enter by the end of the month. An Q&A post will be created to answer common questions I receive before the end of the entering period.


Thanks for reading,


All There is to Know for Halloween 2013


(Note: I doubt a pumpkin like above will come out, it's just a recolor I made for this post.)

     Hello readers, chubbs21 here! Today I will be writing some educated predictions on how this years Halloween will be! I will cover the Gifts, Items, and Super Secret Halloween Event.

Gifts:
     For the past two years ROBLOX has made 13 gifts for Halloween, starting in early October. The last gift is usually the "Big Gift" costing 31,000R$. In 2011, the big gift was Dominus Messor, and in 2012 it was Dominus Vespertilio. Who knows what it will be this year! For this year, I predict the usual with these gifts: a few affordable gifts, BC/TBC/OBC only gifts, and the big gift. We may be seeing a Domino Crown this year!

Items:
     Like any holiday, ROBLOX makes some unique halloween items! Last year they started to make them in late September so we can expect to see some soon! These may include hats of all kinds of Halloween Themes, cool spooky gear, and even some packages! Like usual lots of items from previous Halloweens will go back sale or even limited!

Super Secret Halloween Event:
     In 2009 and 2011 there were Halloween events for users to play in. In 2009 there was a Treasure Hunt and a Paintball Fight event where you could win actual prizes! In 2011, there was only a Paintball event but with more prizes. In Virtual BLOXCon 2013, chiefjustice announced a Halloween event likely to come out very soon. Their goal is to beat the whopping 20,000 users playing at once record they had with the 2013 Egg Hunt. Although it is unknown, the event might be a treasure hunt! The map is said to be the largest map they have built yet. The game will include cute little characters which are actually Mods and Admins in their Halloween Costumes! Here is a picture of them:




     That's about all we know about Halloween so far so stay tuned throughout the month of October for updates on all these things! Thanks for reading!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Price Floors: Combating Copying?

The latest update from the developers at Roblox is quite interesting. We've seen Roblox tinker with the economy before (Ie: Instituting game passes, allowing users to sell gear, trading currency/items etc.) That being said, ROBLOX has been very lenient in the past about what their users can and cannot do in terms of manipulating the economy. The latest update takes away some of that freedom by instituting a 'price floor' with the sales of clothing. This is an unwise update, as it will cause more harm than good. This update will promote pumping more Robux into the economy via users purchasing Robux, decrease visibility of clothing, and promote copying even further.

One of the principals of economics is inflation (Prices going up because there's more currency in the economy.) The clear and concise reason of Roblox implementing this update is because they want to increase revenue from users purchasing Robux. When a government (Take Roblox, for example) pumps currency into an economy, the value of that currency drops (This is known as inflation.) Inflation results in higher prices for goods, and the value of that currency dropping. This happened in Zimbabwe, when the government tried to pump money into the failing economy in an effort to fix it. The result was disastrous, the value of their currency dropped rapidly, and more money was pumped into the economy to try and fix it. This resulted in a viscous cycle, which is why Zimbabwe abandoned their national currency, and uses the currency from other countries. If the floor was set relative to the growth rate of Roblox, then there wouldn't be an issue.
One hundred billion dollars worth of Zimbabwe's currency is enough to buy three eggs.

The concept of how fast goods sell is based on something called price and demand (It's why the gas prices fluctuate randomly.) The higher the demand for an item, the higher the price. Less demand equals lower prices to try and drive demand. When gas isn't in demand, the price goes down. When gas is in demand, the price shoots up. Another factor (In my humble opinion) is visibility. If lots of people drive Ford's, the visibility of Ford's products increases, which results in more potential sales. If a lot of people are wearing a shirt in Roblox, they may say, "Hey, I like that shirt - I'm going to go in your inventory and buy it from whoever made it." With higher prices, it takes longer for users to purchase items, and users will likely hesitate and consider if the item is truly worth 25 days worth of login bonuses. This will decrease visibility for that item, and hinder sales overall (Which outweighs the benefits of increased profits.)

Copying is an issue that has plagued Roblox for a long time now (Copying of places, clothing, and models). The update is increasing the minimum that items have to be sold at - copiers that previously sold items cheap to make their items the obvious choice vs. the original creator selling it at a higher price have their potential revenue multiplied by a massive percentage. This will encourage copiers to steal clothing and sell at the new minimum, which increases their profits overall.

Some say that this update will bring higher quality items to the catalog, that it will discourage copying, or it will increase revenue.
I agree there, people will obviously be more conscious with their money. However, I believe those higher quality items are going to be copied and sold at the minimum price.
I disagree there, I believe copying will be increased due to the higher quality clothing being appealing to players (And the new price minimum being raised up.)
I partially agree, I think that the concept of supply and demand is going to come into play and reduce sales to the point of where creators are making less money vs. what they were previously making.

Roblox has an interesting idea about setting price floors to assist with the economy. However, there are far too many things that have to be set in place/corrected before price flooring can be implemented. It has potential, but for now, it's a bad idea that needs to be removed from the site until the other supporting factors are put into place.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

ROBLOX Consumables: What are They?

Consumables

After most of you read my latest post that sums up the future Halloween Event announced during Virtual BLOXcon, I'm guessing one question popped into your heads (well tons of questions but I'm only focusing on one:, what are consumables? Well, I am going to share my thoughts on what they are in this post.

During Virtual BLOXcon, David gave information that they were working on a new item type of catalog item: 'Consumables'. They are hopefully going to be used in the upcoming Halloween Event midway into October. Now, when you first hear "Consumables," you think "Oh okay, they're going to be items that I eat... like cookies."

After doing some thinking, I summed up that, sadly, Consumables will not be cookies. My old idea for consumables was pretty much any food item that you eat, but sadly, those are already in the Gear category. So, to REALLY think of what consumables are, I had to dig deep into my brain to come up with an answer. And I found one.

So with some thought, I realized something. Consumables will technically be items you "Consume," as in, use a limited number of times.
Image
As you can see, using my inspect element skills, I made a page of what I believe consumables will look like. Notice, "Price: Use 5 Times 1 Tix." So, the limit on this item is 5, as in, you will be able to use this item 5 times, and then you will have to re-buy it.

Of course, this is just a plain old guess, as there is no confirmation as to what Consumables really are. Stay tuned on the ROBLOX Blog, and this Blog, as they will both talk about the Halloween Event and Consumables!


~pbjms~

And yes. I was eating a cookie while writing this.

The "Price Floor" Update: An Economist's Point of View

Hey, IBarrageI here.

With this new Price Floor update on Roblox, it's forced me to actually use my A-Level in economics to good use. Of course that's not a bad thing. (I think)

In this post I'll be looking at the benefits and drawbacks to this update, in a detailed and economic way. This means I'll be using a lot of words and confusing diagrams (All of which I'll be explaining as we go along). Sit sit back relax, and let me do all of the work.

First off, I'll say this right now. This is not all bad, despite the negative comments. The point of a price floor (Which is more commonly known as a minimum price) is to stop the demand of, lets say a high quality shirt, going down without as many competitors trying to under cut prices. Because, as a consumer, you are more attracted to lower prices it even doesn't matter if you're rich or not, because lower prices in a common consumer market, lower prices get more sales.

With low prices leading to more sales, this means that players who price their clothing according to quality, lose sales due to an amazingly high amount of cheaper competitors. The price floor acts as an equalizer.

The adding of a "Price floor" is actually something that is used in real life as a form of government intervention, an in our case, the government is ROBLOX.

Benefits

Despite the complaints, there are many benefits to this. But many of which are limited.

The Builders Club Incentive

Ok, this update is an incentive to purchase Builders Club. That fact is proven in the blog post about this update.
Although this might seem like a drawback at first, once I explain.

It may sound like an scheme set up by an evil corporation, but it is essentially a way to push users to experience the benefits of Builders Club. And believe me, there are plenty of benefits. This fact alone is one whole benefit.

The Leap into Graphic Design

Once again, this is a benefit about incentives. The increase of prices makes users want to make their own clothing. And for this, I shall explain with the power of diagrams.

The above diagram is one that shows how the market works under the price floor.
At the top of the diagram shows a gap, this is "excess demand", which essentially means, that there are people who want the clothing, but can't afford it or just don't want to purchase it for that price.

This excess demand is what makes people try to fill their own demand, this means more graphic designers.
This incentive to create is what will make players understand the true sense of inepenance. The added idea that there is no-one to undercut their prices is an added incentive to create their own content. Though, this of which requires builders club. Which will move me onto the drawbacks.

Drawbacks


There are quite a lot of drawbacks to this update many of which are already apparent.

Needing Builders club

Before, I mentioned that the incentive to buy builders club was a benefit. This time it's a drawback.

As everyone knows, Roblox is a free to play game (to an extent), and character customization is something any user can do. I'm sure many of you remember the first time you bought your first shirt. And probably buying a Visor or the free Red Roblox Cap, and getting a shirt to match. With this update, new users will be unable to experience much of the character customization due to the prices of everything being out of their reach. A big downer indeed.

Sales dropping

This one is annoying to the ones who actually make a large amount of R$ and Tix from clothing, e.g. Kestral

Here's the diagram from earlier:
"Q1" represents the market average sales. With the price floor in place, quantity sold decreases to Q2. This decrease is what causes the problems. It's alright selling at this price, but if your main market is aimed at new players, then sales will be completely diminished.

Meaning an income for a player who markets like this, has completely dried up.

Entrepreneur? What's that?


This is a big problem for me to a sense.

A long while ago, Roblox posted this to their blog. Although that post was directed at place building, it was the same for clothing. "If people like it, they'll come back for more".

The entrepreneurial side of clothing was about thinking "What price will get me the most profit?", "How could I increase my prices without losing sales?", "How could I be the next big clothing brand?". These are all questions that players are faced with when selling their clothing. This was what the post was making reference to.

Though, with the price floor, the entrepreneurial side of clothing has now diminished and has been dumbed down. As now it feels like now all clothing is now at a completely set price. No need to do anything, just put it up for sale, leave it and hope for the best. This is what upsets me the most.

All of these drawback do appear to outweigh the benefits in the fact that  it all goes against the idea of ROBLOX being a free game.

The price floor itself is rather redundant in the fact the intervention it is supposed to do, has turned itself into a marketing tool for Roblox.

Although the price floor is a good idea, a lower value should of been chosen 5 - 10 R$ would of been more reasonable, but the sheer fact that one builder club member can't even afford 1 piece of clothing with only their daily R$ seems too outrageous.

Thanks for reading.
IBarrageI

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

ROBLOX Changes: Minimum Prices

Hello, I have written this because there have been numerous complaints, forums and comments on the clothing itself about the new 'Minimum Prices' on clothing. I support getting rid of this new update and will be talking about it here.


NBC's Problem:

People with no Builders Club could only narrowly afford to buy some people's ridiculous prices as it was, the new changes make that even more ridiculous. 10 Robux is roughly 110 tix  which means 11 days worth of saving, if the t-shirt is Robux only. If the t-shirt is tix only then you have to save 12 days worth. If the t-shirt is both, you have to decide if you will use tix (which you get every day) or Robux (which sometimes costs more tix sometimes less - 100 tix can be 10 Robux but so can 110 tix). Plus shirts are 25 robux (270 tix) or 300 tix and ditto with Pants. That's between 27 days and 30 days saving for a Shirt and then another 27/30 days for Pants.

Uniform Problem:

Same as the above problem except if you don't buy the uniform you may end up being exiled, especially when there is suddenly a new uniform. To make matters worse, for most groups you must buy a Shirt and Pants for 300 tix each Not much else to say in this point of view except that you always see those few in group training's, they look new so could barely afford clothing anyway but they always say this when asked why they aren't wearing the uniform = "I can't buy the uniform, it's too much". To this, most High Ranks in groups go on to say, "Buy it for tomorrow", most likely if they don't have enough today they won't have enough tomorrow because of the increased prices.

Reasoning behind it:

Quote from their blog post on it all, 'Talented artists aren't making a ton of clothing because they can’t make money doing it.' 
If people want to make money they will sell their clothing at the price they choose, many people sell clothing for cheap for the buys not for the money, anyway. They say they have 3 main reasons behind it all, I will go through them all.
1. Raise the quality of items in the catalog.
Insane. People who can make good clothing, do because they like making clothing and normally they sell the clothing anyway, it won't raise the standards because if people make bad quality items it's not because they don't want to waste their time for no money but because that's the highest quality they can make clothing. Kestrel and Tiger prove this, expensive items but for great quality, people with bad quality items sell stuff for reasonable prices usually and if they don't then people don't buy their clothing.
2. Reward makers and sellers of clothing.
It doesn't reward them in the slightest, they have control over what prices they put the clothing, if it is good quality people buy it whatever the price (Unless it is insanely stupid). NBCs make good clothing too, but now not only can they not sell anything but they can't buy anything too.
3. To incentivize non-paying users to buy ROBUX.
Greedy, I want to work for Roblox when I get older, but not for the money but because they are all kind and they have good working days. If they want people to buy BC they make good reasons, all this will do is make people angry at Roblox and make them choose against BC and choose to Protest and hold Petitions.

Things to do:

I agree, it is extremely bad, but some of the complaints are getting offensive - so please tone down those. Every 5 people wanting it, it seems there are roughly 1000 hating it. Not exaggerating, just look on the forums.

If they want to do a major change, it should be how much tix NBCs get a day, or if they should get 160 per week (Example). Just not this. This means the end of most businesses whether they may groups or people.

This isn't in my opinion, it's everybody's.

ROBLOX Gear Suggestions!

Lots of people always post that they have ideas for new gears on ROBLOX Forums. With Newtrat talking about Bacon Daggers, I thought I should join in on the action. They never get noticed on the Forums, so I decided every few days I would make an article featuring some gears ideas people have concocted. Sometimes I will ask people to make the gear so you can see what it would look like.

Some of the gears I thought of include:

  • Rotten Egg Bomb
  • French Toast Bow + Butter Arrows
  • Throwing Eggs
  • Yogurt Pot Cannon
  • Slippy Bacon


Below are the descriptions of my suggestions. If anyone can make a model of any of them, I'd be happy to support the best looking one in an attempt to get them published.

Rotten Egg Bomb:

What would it look like?
 A small bag, similar to the ROBLOX Grab Bag gear, but instead the text would read 'Rotten Eggs'. It would be a mouldy green colour.


What would it do? You would throw it on the ground like the bombs you see in Roblox Battle, up above your head and flung in the direction you are facing. It would then land and explode, causing 20 rotten eggs to fly out in all directions, hitting and sticking against anything nearby. If it hit someone else, their health would slowly decrease, -2HP every 5 seconds for 25 seconds (-10HP). That is PER piece that hits, so two pieces would cause -20HP. It takes 30 seconds to reload.

How much would it cost? 75R$ because it has the potential damage if enough pieces hit but not too expensive because it takes a long time to reload and you have to


French Toast Bow + Butter Arrows:

What would it look like?
It would be like a triangle shaped bow, except there would be no string for the arrows to be fired. Like a food version of the Trilaser Bow it would be a piece of French toast and on your back would be a bucket with melted butter.



What would it do? Each time you reloaded, you would scoop up butter from the bucket on your back, you would then place it on the French toast bow and the butter would shoot of in the direction your are facing 5 seconds after you placed the butter. It would splatter on the person's body and would take 15 health from them. After 12 scoops you would get a new bucket from nowhere and put that on your back in replacement. The reload time would be 8 seconds.

How much would it cost? 135R$ because it has a fast reload time, so a user would be shooting almost continuously and causing 15 health points of damage to their opponent with each direct hit.


Throwing Eggs:

What would it look like?
A circle version of the Ninja Star. It would be white with a yellow dot in the middle for the yolk. Basically, eggs that you throw.

What would it do? You would hold it up like you hold a Ninja Star, and you have 3 hits one after the other, so you click once and 3 eggs come flying out your hand. Then to reload you would take more eggs out of thin air and hold your arm up again, ready to throw. Each direct hit would take 8 health from you, so if all 3 eggs hit you would lose 24 health. The reload time would be 10 seconds.

How much would it cost? 45R$ because it wouldn't be very strong and the reload time would be quite slow, but it would still deal out deadly damage after a number of throws.


Yogurt Pot Cannon:

What would it look like?
 a cannon similar to the Hand Cannon, except instead of firing cannon balls, it would fire pots filled with delicious Yogurt. If this was published there could be different types such as: Strawberry Yogurt and Honey Yogurt in which case the cannon itself would be different colors, but for now the cannon would be a pale cream color.

What would it would do?  A circle yogurt pot would come flying out in the direction you clicked and would land upside down on the ground. If it hit someone else it would land on their head and the yogurt would seep down their body. Every direct hit, you would lose 40 health. The reloading time would be 20 seconds.

How much would it cost? 300R$ because it would do lots of damage but would take a while to reload.


Slippy Bacon:

What would it look like?
A piece of bacon, in four strips similar to the Banana Peel, but all greasy and fatty.

What it would do? It would be thrown in the direction you are facing and anyone who walked across it would slip over causing them to lose 20 health. It would stay for only the one slip and would then disappear. The person who slipped would be stunned for 5 seconds as well as losing the 20 health. They don't lose their gears while stunned though, even if they equip them. The reloading time would be 5 seconds.

How much would it cost? 80R$ because it does a reasonable amount of damage and reloads quickly, also they get stunned so you could try and kill them.

These are all my original ideas, but in my next 'Ideas for Gears' article I hope to be writing about other people's ideas. If these ever did get published I would be extremely happy!

-Bennyhill44









Saturday, September 21, 2013

Virtual Bloxcon Reveal: Halloween Event 2013

Instead of reviewing the recent gears made this Friday, I decided to inform you guys and gals about something much more exciting. During Virtual Bloxcon, an announcement was made. There is going to be a Halloween Event later this year. Based on the information given, I am going to piece together a post to show all of you readers what you should expected for the game.
Eerie Pumpkin Head
Overall Idea:
When the event was announced in detail, it was said that the event will hopefully beat the Egg Hunt earlier this year, getting much more players. It is said to be one of the largest maps ever made. The whole idea of the game is still unknown, but I can tell you that it will be amazing.

Consumables:
With the announcement of the Halloween Event, a new type of item was announced. Things called "consumables." From a glance at the name, I would suspect them to be things like cookies, cake, and other foods that you consume. With a little extra thought, I realized that they are possibly going to be items that you "consume," as in, use a limited amount of times then have to re-buy it.

Admins in Costumes:
During the information about the Halloween Event, some images of moderators and admins in costumes came up. They will be appearing around the level. Some costumes include Builderman as a skeleton, Sorcus as the grim reaper, Shedletsky and Brighteyes as vampires, StickMasterLuke as a zombie, ReeseMcBlox as a witch, Fusroblox as a zombie ninja, tarabyte as a cat, and blockhaak as a spider. There is also an admin in a fish monster costume, though whoever that admin is is unknown. And of course, there are most likely more admins that are unknown. Their use is to give the ROBLOXians different tasks during the level, though not much is known about that.

Gifts:
The Thinker's GiftNot linked with the event, Halloween Gifts were also announced. This has been a yearly tradition since 2011, and if it stays the same, all gifts will be sold in robux. None will be earned, and the biggest gift will be 31,000 Robux, though none of that is confirmed.
OVERALL:
This event will be HUGE. It will involve a new item type, a mysterious event, admins in costumes, and of course, Gifts. The gifts will not be linked to the event, most likely. My idea for the event itself is a trick-or-treating game. The admins in costumes are said to give tasks, and the map is said to "have tons of secrets, tricks, and treats." The event will start partway into October, so stay tuned on Roblox News and Roblox for more info in the future!


~pbjms





Place Showcase: Kestrels' New HomeStore

I thought, that as suggested by Arbirator, I should write a Place Showcase. Following this will be a interview with the creator of the new HomeStore, Chairman of the Board, Gidein. It will be all about his HomeStore and how he came to join Kestrel.

Gidein decided to make the new Kestrel HomeStore after MagicalBeakz, one of the Chief Operational Officer, retired. Magic was making a HomeStore although many people commented on how it's structure looked very similar to Tiger's. Gidein, on the other hand, decided to go his separate way and his 'Work in Progress' place is inspirational, detailed and highly skilled. I asked him what made him decide to build it like it is, and he told me,

"I just started this as fun thing, but I've gotten so much
much support I just kept building. The new style was just so epic and I can't stop!"

Gidein's HomeStore is unique. He is designing a place like you would see when going to a building created by a professional architecture. He has added 'Tix Clothing' in a smarter manner, many more pieces of women's wear, he may be adding bathing suits soon, and may also add underwear. In a few spots at his HomeStore, there are little, glass-shielded displays with a small sign and the Kestrel logo and name and Kestrel's motto: "Clothing at it's best".

There is now also a little room that is very obviously the 'Customer Service' room. In the current HomeStore and member of staff can enter and it isn't very well displayed, in Gidein's HomeStore it is very easy to see that it is Customer Service because if the wall behind the front desk, which says 'Customer Service'. On the back of that wall is a list of rules for all members of staff.




Womens-wear, women love it, men love it and it looks great. UhmSir is the Chief Design Officer for Kestrel, she handles all clothing worn by women, and all Designers that create women's clothing. If you want a piece of clothing custom made you should talk to her about it and she will either design it herself or get one of her skilled designers to design it. UhmSir isn't just a CDO, she is the CEO's Assistant, she manage Security and Senior Management and she helps every single person with the same kindness and honesty.


Visit the place yourself, just Click Here.
To view the current HomeStore, Click Here.
To visit Gidein's profile, Click Here.
To see the Kestrel Group, Click Here.

-Bennyhill44




Friday, September 20, 2013

Item Review: September ROBLOX Card Items

ROBLOX Card Items Review

So as everyone knows, a new set of ROBLOX Card items is released around the beginning of every month, each with its own unique theme. August was vikings, July was fedoras and headphones, June was shades, and May was robots. This month, the theme is ninjas.

Blue Ninja Sword Pack
Blue Ninja Sword Pack
An awesome blue retexture of the Deluxe Ninja Swordpack and Classic Swordpack Throwback. It looks basically the same except all of the more vibrant colors have been replaced by a dull shade of blue. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Toys R Us in the United States and Canada.

Shadowy Ninja Assassin
Shadowy Ninja Assassin
The Shadowy Ninja Assassin is a retexture of the regular Ninja Assassin hat. The black part of the hood remained the same, but the red was replaced with the same dull shade of blue found on the Blue Ninja Swordpack, and the blonde hair was remade into a greyish-blue color. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Sainsburys in the United Kingdom.

Angry Ninja Master
Angry Ninja Master
Angry Ninja Master is a retexture of an old 2010 contest prize called Ninja Master. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw this, because the original Ninja Master looks better. Nevertheless, this still looks quite feirce and is defnitely worth it. Angry Ninja Master is a ninja good with angry red eyebrows painted at the top and a demonic-looking mouth painted at the bottom, giving it its "angry" look. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at GAME in the United Kingdom.

Ninja Tie
Ninja Tie
The Ninja Tie, not to be confused with the Ninja Necktie, is a dark-grey tie with 2 words inscribed in Chinese[I think, don't get mad at me if I'm wrong]. As I don't speak any languages besides English, I have no idea what the tie actually says, but the description of the hat says "Elegant and deadly", so that may be what the characters mean. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at London Drugs in Canada.

 Ninja Headphones
Ninja Headphones
Possibly the coolest September ROBLOX Card item. I honestly can't tell whether Ninja Headphones are a retexture or have a brand-new mesh, but they look awesome either way. The top of the headphones is a darkish grey color and the actual headphones have cute little ninja faces on the side. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada.

Ultimate Victory Headband
Ultimate Victory Headband
Ultimate Victory Headband is a retexture of the original Ultimate Victory. Ultimate Victory Headband is basically Ultimate Victory inverted. The headband is black instead of white, and the originally black text has been switched to white, with different Japanese letters and larger font size. The only thing that remained the same between the two is the red dot in the center which is symbolising the rising sun of Japan. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at CVS Pharmacy in the United States.

Ninja of the Light
Ninja of the Light
Ninja of the Light is a ROBLOX Card item with a brand-new mesh. What I find interesting about this hat is that it has a neck even though ROBLOXians don't. The hat itself is white, or a very, very light shade of grey. The mouth covering is a darker shade of grey but can also be considered white. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Target in the United States and Canada.

Metal Ninja
Metal Ninja
Metal Ninja is an advanced ninja mask that can protect you from anything. Judging from the joint at the top, I assume the mask is meant to close over your face like armor. Very useful, and it looks great too. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Walmart in the United States and Canada.

Zombie Ninja
Zombie Ninja
Zombie Ninja is an interesting looking ROBLOX Card item for this month. Zombie Ninja has a bluish-black ninja hood with a grotesque zombie face peeking out with only its right eye intact. The hood is detailed and has highlights. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Gamestop in the United States and Ireland, and EB Games in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, making it the most widely available ROBLOX Card item this month.

Monster Ninja
Monster Ninja
Monster Ninja is yet another disturbing ninja item this month. It showcases a dark grey ninja mask with thin red horns sticking out of the top and a green face with red eyes peering out of it. The mask bulges out at the mouth section implying that something truly fearsome awaits underneath it. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Best Buy in the United States and can be found at Gamestop and Future Shop Canada.

Seein' Shurikens
Seein' Shurikens
Seein' Shurikens is a retexture of Night Shades. The shades are a very dark shade of purple becoming lighter at the bottom, and the rims are dark grey with shurikens decorating the sides. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at 7-11 in Canada.

Darkest Ninja Hood
Darkest Ninja Hood
Darkest Ninja Hood is one of the few ROBLOX Card items for September that has its own mesh. The hood, like most of the other ninja masks, is dark grey. It has a metal attachment on top with a kenji symbol written on it in black. I honestly can't tell what's coming out of the side of it. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at Walmart in the United States and Canada and ASDA in the United Kingdom.

Flame Ronin Katana
Flame Ronin Katana
The Flame Ronin Katana is a retexture of the original Katana gear and is one of the only 2 exclusive gear featured this month. The handle of the katana looks rusted, or at least has a rusty color, and the middle of the sword is gold. The blade of the katana looks rough rather than smooth iron. ROBLOX Cards for this item can be found at FYE in the United States.

Ace Ranger
Ace Ranger
And lastly, the monthly ROBLOX Card package. The package this month is Ace Ranger, and in my opinion it is the ugliest package so far. The arms of the package have green shoulderblades with silver spikes sticking out, a brown spiked wristband on the left arm and a black glove on the right arm. The torso has a brown leather vest and a thick, ugly-green belt. The legs have nothing but large brown boots. The hat that comes with the package is the Ace Ranger Mohawk, which is small, doesn't go good with combos and is just poor-looking. The gear that comes with it is the only thing that looks somewhat nice, the Ace Ranger Axe. The axe's handle alternates between black and red and has a spike on the end of it. The blade of the ace has a unique shape and a large hole in the middle of it. This package can only be obtained from a $40 Gamestop card in the United States. I say save your money for other card items, or for something you want in real life, because it definitely is not worth it.



Well, that was my summary of all the September ROBLOX Card Items. Most of them are very good, with a few notable exceptions. As of the publishing of this article, there are 11 days left until they become unavailable.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Making Your Code Professional

Good Coding Practice

Hello, my name is Cameron Stickley ( LOLFUNNY12345 | @roblox_tweeter ). You probably don't know me but I was a Roblox Builder and was very active but rarely use Roblox now. I have turned my head away from building and now spend my spare time using code to do complex maths algorithms and make programs to test my abilities. I know Pascal, Python and some RBX.Lua. 

When you learn computer science and research code structures you start to take on the ideas which go with them, these ideas being Code Structure. There are 4 main ideas I want to describe how to use properly.

Indentation

Some languages (inlcuding Python) don't use "end" to end a function or procedure instead they will use "white space". This means that the compiler will check to see if the next line of code has been indented to a same or greater distance and then skip over it. If it's not indented as far it is "out of the function" this means that the compiler thinks it is the continuation of the code. Indentation also makes your code look neater, cleaner and more organised, it helps with cleaning up or removing errors that occur in the code and mean you can edit code more simply.

Comments

You may be used to people occasionally placing comments in code as jokes, for instance as you read through "Person299's Admin Commands V2" wrote in RBX.Lua on the Roblox platform you will see him commenting just about a bug on his computer screen. This is not a useful use of comments, they are meant to be used to explain what is going on in that section of code and why. This means that you can debug the code easier and not affect the rest of the source code.

Functions/Procedures

Functions and procedures allow you to call a predefined set of code with certain parts of information entered to affect the code, you don't always need a parameter in a function but most do require one. For instance in RBX.Lua the most used function is probably wait([number]) not many people think of this as a function but it is, it stops the code for a selected amount of time and when there is no parameter or argument entered ( wait() ) the value is set to the default you can change in roblox studio settings (I think it's 0.0333333 seconds). Functions also make it easier to debug as you only have one line to change with an error rather than as many times as it appears. This allows easier debugging and neater code.

Variables

The 2 main variable problems are you need to define variables at the start of code to reset the value to prevent errors due to dividing by zero etc. The next problem is sensible names; you may think good coders use "for i = 1, 3 do" in RBX.Lua (sorry if code is incorrect syntax, been using varying languages recently) but this is the sign of an amateur. "i" is not a sensible variable name and does not help. Try using "count" rather than "i". 


Following these rules should help you become a better coder, thank you for reading.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Worth It or Forget It: Sir Rich McMoneyston, III Disguise

Worth It or Forget it?
Sir Rich McMoneyston, III Disguise
          Hello readers! Chubbs21 here with another "Worth It or Forget It?"! Worth It or Forget It is a type of article where I look at all the pros and cons of a catalog item and rate it as "Worth It" or "Forget It".

Pros:
          Recently I bought this hat to go with my Black Iron Bucket. Trying not to be biased, I think this hat is very nice and can make for some cool "hat combos". I really like how the top hat isn't like any other top hat and is just straight on your head. This one is at a slant giving more variation when wearing other hats with it. The top hat includes somewhat of a brown texture, though it's most likely just brown with noise splatted right on it. But if you like brown top hats, this is for you! This hat also comes with a monocle, but to be honest I don't think it looks that good. And lastly, it comes with a free mustache, for mustache emergencies. If you want a mustache, this is, once again, for you! Also, if you want to dress like a rich guy from back in the day, this is still for you!

Cons:
          As I stated, the monocle on this hat isn't very good looking. The texture on the hat is pretty basic too. But other than that, I can't find any other flaw unless you either count the hat being slanted a bad thing, or the 11,111R$ pricing too much. To add on, this hat is the most expensive not-limited robux hat. (Not including tix hats that when turned into robux, is greater than 11k.)

Worth It or Forget It?:
          Now it is time to rate it overall, or as some of you call it "TL;DR". This hat has more pros than cons as you can tell from the length of the two paragraphs. This hat features 3 main parts, the top hat, a monocle, and a mustache. The texture is sort of simple and the monocle isn't the best looking monocle around, especially the glass piece. This hat is priced at a somewhat expensive 11,111R$. So is it worth it, or should you forget it? I'm gonna have to say, it's...

Worth It!

~chubbs21