The ROBLOXian's Guide to Becoming a Virtual Serial Killer

Don't Panic.

Kudos to you if you get the reference

     The Basics:

     When the game begins, everyone is given a random name. You will be assigned the job of Sheriff (you receive a gun), Murderer (you receive a knife), and Innocent (everyone else, you receive nothing). This guide assumes that you have basic knowledge of the game.

     The Murderer:

     You have to think like an innocent. The main rule of being the murderer is "Don't Panic." If you start to freak out, you will probably kill someone in the open, not catch someone when you intend to. You have to stay focused. In the beginning of the game, get an idea of where people are spread. If you can single someone off by themselves, go for it. Be careful, though. If you are talking to someone and they die, anyone could put two and two together and realize it is you. There are two tactics you can employ to win.

     Sociopath Tactic: If you are good enough as the murderer, you might be able to get away with this. Else, you will have no chance. Immediately discover who has the gun. Inexperienced users will hold out their gun and walk around. Follow them around, befriend them, and when they are out in the open (it doesn't matter HOW many witnesses there are, so long as they are about 5 studs away). Murder that gun-wielding maniac and guard the dropped gun with your life. You can pretty much spin and swing your knife and get away with it, but some people are smart. They just realize that they can run out the timer. If you try to chase them down, one can grab the gun. Know that you can throw the gun by holding click for a second and aiming, play it smart, and you should be able to win.

     Lesser-Sociopath Tactic: For the people who aren't gifted with the inner ability to think like a genocidal maniac. No matter what, always:

• Restrain yourself from panicking.
• Only kill if you are within one or two studs of the person, and if there are no witnesses at all (does not matter near end of game).
• Know who has the gun, and never be near them when you kill.

The first thing you want to do is find someone who is wandering by themselves. Track them down for a bit, and then rip them apart. Take them down one at a time, don't be ambitious. If you are discovered, either play dumb or murder as many people as you can in a futile attempt to win.

     The Sheriff:

     You spawn with a gun in your inventory and see a blue GUI telling you to kill the murderer. Excited, you pull out your gun and start looking around. You have already made a mistake. Any decent murderer will immediately try to find the person with the gun first. If you hold out that gun you will be either the first person dead, or the murderer will stay so far away from you that you won't witness a thing. No matter how many times an innocent screams for someone to say if they have the gun, you have to keep quiet about it. There isn't much to say about being Sheriff, you are just an innocent with a weapon.

     The Innocent:

     Your job is to almost be killed...but not be killed. If someone starts chasing you with a knife, you have to go off like an alarm, screaming the killer's name. If the Sheriff shows his gun, he's going to be targeted. Its your job to follow him as a witness if he is attacked, and as an "heir" to the gun if he is killed. There isn't a lot to say for the Innocent either. Try to stay alive, always be on the run, and think logically. If there are five people in the same room as you and you hear the knife, you are obviously all innocent.

     Map Specific Tips:

• If the gun is dropped on a map , there is a likely chance the murderer will guard it. Get on the roof above the gun, and drop down on it and run.
• On the laboratory map, it is easy to kill unnoticed as murderer. The only problem is that you have to track down the innocents and will run out of time. Do not waste your time, and start killing right away (don't be too hasty and be caught, though).
• Any good murderer should be able to win on the office easily. It is very small, confined, and yet there are many walls that can conceal your blood-lust.
• On the city map, you can hide in the trees as an innocent and be almost completely concealed.

Of course, this guide isn't even complete and might never be. The game hasn't even officially left beta stages.

Looking for a review for Murder Mystery? Look to Banjobug's post for that.

Links:
Murder Mystery Game 
Banjobug's Review of Murder Mystery

.
Did I miss any important tips or tricks? Have a game you want me to review? Tweet it or PM it to me.

Tweet tweet. @FiniteBlox

Thanks for reading,

     ~FiniteBlox

Murder Mystery Place Review

Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably noticed that Murder Mystery by Nikilis has recently shot up to the front page. At the time of this review the place has gotten 773,354 visits and has been the most popular game on ROBLOX for the past few days. The game updates frequently, so the version I am reviewing is version 0.2.5b.

Gameplay 8/10
The gameplay is really quite simple. There are three different teams. The civilians, the sheriff, and the murderer. The murderer's goal is to, of course, murder everyone in sight. The sheriff's goal is to shoot and kill the murderer. The civilian's goal is to find out who the murderer is and, basically, stay away from the murderer. Civilians are also able to pick up the sheriff's gun should he fall victim to the murderer's blade. Since no one knows who the murderer is at first the game can be quite hectic with people being incredibly suspicious and pointing blame at people for no apparent reason and confusing the sheriff. If the murderer dies or time runs out, the civilians win. If everyone but the murderer dies, the murderer wins.
Effort 7/10
The big problem I have with this game is the maps. The maps are all either copied from popular ROBLOX places like Crossroads, Chaos Canyon, and others, or they're relatively bland and easily built areas. The maps need to be about 20% cooler.
Creativity 9/10
I've seen a few games that are similar to this type of play (Trouble in ROBLOX Town, Deception Infection, ROBLOX Ultimate Assassin) but this one is different enough to pass the creavity test.
Overall 8/10

Suggestions

• The shop could use some more work
• Maps that are less bland
• More game modes
• A deputy with a tazer perhaps?
• Have a unicorn horn knife in the shop that grants the murderer magical powers.

If you want your place reviewed, or know a good place, simply contact Banjobug with a short message. Please don't stalk me. Also, if you find a really awful place that is somehow on the front page, don't hesitate to ask me to review it. It should prove humorous for both of us.

Place Reviewed: Murder Mystery
Reviewed By: Banjobug (I'm back!)

Chicken of the Month: January

So, I guess Brighteyes decided to start doing Chickens of the month, which is basically one chicken hat a month with a different theme. For some reason, January's chicken is a camo chicken, and not like, frozen or something (it's winter). Anyways, this chicken was made by TREVOR818730, and it's very nice.

Cotm: January Camo Chicken

"You think the sky is falling huh? Camo chicken is hiding out so the sky will never know where to find him. January's Chicken of the Month."

Appearance: 9/10

This chicken was made by a good friend of mine, TREVOR818730. It is primarily grey, but has blue 'blotches' all over it, which act like blue camo. It really looks nice, and it has a dark blue beak along with a sky blue mohawk type thing. Anyways, the chicken fits nicely on your head, and leaves an open area where the mouth would be that allows other players to see your face, or allows you to wear some other hat to go along with the chicken. All in all, it's a great looking hat, fits nicely, and, well, congrats Trevor.

Price: 10/10

This part of the article will mostly be ranting, but not because of the price. The price is fine, 100 Robux for this good looking chicken, so the price gets a 10/10. That part was simple. But.. I'm just throwing this into the Price section.. It's a "Chicken of the Month," so.. don't you think it should be on sale for, you know, the month? Or maybe a week? Or a few days? NOT JUST ONE DAY. So yeah, Brighteyes takes this amazing chicken, starts Chicken of the months, and put it on sale for a day. Why? Maybe to keep sales low or something? Dunno. Anyways, it's really not the best idea, but ah well. It looks great, and if you got a copy, you got a good hat.

Overall:9.5

This is a great chicken to start off a hopefully successful hat series of Chickens each month. Hopefully the next one is on sale longer than a day, though. 

~pbjms~

Hat Review: Cherry Pie Hat

Cherry Pie Hat

Mesh/Texture: 7/10

I find the mesh of the Cherry Pie Hat pretty nice. It looks just like a real pie and even has globs of cherries underneath the crust. The bottom layer of crust, though, doesn't look very circular. It looks like a 12-sided polygon, not very well modeled. The texture could have been better done. I like the texture of the cherries, it looks like realistic pie filling. Everything else, however, looks bland and poorly textured. They just slapped one color onto the crusts.

Price: 10/10

The pie's price was 75 Robux and it was on sale for approximately 24 hours. It apparently was available for Internetional Pie Day, not to be confused with Pi Day. For such a creative hat idea and hilarious hat itself, I find the price and time available very fair. You're lucky if you got it while it was available, it goes with quite a few hats and is a nice item to have.

Overall: 8.5/10

Although the mesh and texturing were done a bit quickly and lazily, this hat is amusing to wear, fun to own, and the price was definitely fair. Congratulations if you got this limited-edition food hat to add to your collection of hats.

An Update on Due Articles

Dear ROBLOX News -

It's been about three weeks since my return. I spoke briefly with some admins before posting this rather irregular message.

I want to apologize to RN for several things, among the first is an article I promised to have out this week which I will not have time to immediately work on regarding to "The Most Anticipated Games of 2014."

I also want to apologize for a more than less informative 'teaser' (hardly informative and for decent reason) for a new series i'm working on via YouTube called 'choices' - and while I am still going to go ahead with it, I have recently decided to add more things, more additions to the film's composition.

I'm going to be soon writing a set piece of series on 'getting organized' not only on ROBLOX, but everywhere. It could have the potential to give some insight to your potential and work from someone who does a lot of it on a professional basis with hundreds of people daily.

With that said, most of the reason for this less than predictable delay is Averate, my online internet communicate for creatives, gamers, content producers, and more. It's a serious work in progress right now, but we've reached 50 registrants in a little under 48 hours and we're heading forward to get 100 very soon.


With all said and done, I won't promise a precise date of release for anything. But if you have any questions regarding my 'getting organized and creative' series, I will write it here and publish to other places.


Thanks and sorry again,
^Noah (itsfutur)
noah@studioare.net
+FUTURTOPIA
@futurtopia on Twitter

PhireFox's View on New Site Layout!

Hi there! Today I bring you a video from the well known ROBLOX machinima creator: PhireFox. In this episode, PhireFox discusses his view on the new site layout. The new site layout has been rolled out to roughly 1/10 of the ROBLOX community as the developers wish to gradually implement the new design, test for bugs and to receive valuable user feedback.




Thanks for watching and look out for more content from the PhireFox soon!

Disclaimer: Roblox News and PhireFoxRBLX are in partnership to provide dual content and promotion of each other's media. Video content was used with permission from the respective owner. The views discussed in the video are not endorsed by Roblox News and are solely PhireFox's personal views.

Gear Review: Hockey Stick

So, I guess the Winter Games is ROBLOX's excuse to actually continue making gears, seeing as how there's been.. er, one gear..? Anyways, that gear is a hockey stick, or, as ROBLOX likes to call it, Hockey Stick.

Hockey Stick

"Shoot pucks at your foes and check them into submission."

Appearance:

Mesh: 4/5

So basically the mesh is just a hockey stick, which isn't very surprising. Like.. every hockey stick, there is a long wooden pole and a curved "blade" that you hit pucks with. Yet.. for some reason, the asset design team don't think that ROBLOXians need a nice comfy grip to actually hold the stick with. Shame on them. People are getting splinters, all because of a lack of rubber grips.

--------------------------------------------------------

Texture: 3/5

The texture is awful. The straight stick is red with random white stripes, under that is blue tape like most hockey sticks have, then the "blade" thing is just.. no. It's mainly red with yellow stripes.. but.. there is a "ROBLOX Winter Games" logo. Okay. I'm fine with tha- OH GOD. The other side. It's backwards and upside-down. A fantastic (heh) texturing job, that's what this is.

(So that's 7/10 for those who can't add.)

Ability: 10/10

Swing: 4/5

The first attack, done by clicking with the left mouse, is a normal swinging attack. You hit the puck, and it goes flying, hits your enemy if you can actually aim well enough, and knocks them down, doing 50% damage. It's a good attack, though there are two issues with it. First of all, if you jump and click in mid-air, you still swing normally, but the puck is flying in the air. Secondly, the puck goes on the ground for a while, then BAM. Liftoff. Watch as your puck soars above the ground randomly!

--------------------------------------------------------

Check: 6/5

For those of you (like myself) who don't play hockey, a check is basically hitting your 'enemy' with your stick, or just holding up your stick to block a puck or something. And no, it will not kill your rivals in two hits in real life. In ROBLOX, checking is just hitting your opponent with your stick after charging forward, which, like the Swing, does 50% damage and knocks your opponent down. "But pb, why did you give it a 6/5?" Well, when checking, you will charge forward about 20-30 studs.. but.. you won't be affected by gravity.. so.. you can get across large gaps because of this, and it can be used in many games as an escape tactic.

Price: 9/10

I don't really have much to say about the price. It's 250 R$... it's ability is amazing. Could it be cheaper? Of course. Is everything perfect? Nope. Except for me. And maybe arb (but mostly me.)

Overall: 8.5/10

To sum up this post, buy the stick if you have enough robux. It's most likely going off-sale after the winter games.

~Thanks for reading!~

~pbjms~

Hat Day Overview

Okay, so APPARENTLY there's a holiday called Hat Day, and to celebrate, ROBLOX made.. well.. hats! Along with some things limited (and other stuff).

So in this post, I'll talk about (and review) hats that came out or, in one case, went limited, during hat day.

I <3 Hats 2014                                                                                

     The first hat to come out was just a simple cap to 'introduce' the 'holiday.' It was just a simple cap priced at 10 Tix and set to go off-sale later that day. It got almost 50,000 sales, and was a pretty big hit during the day. It is a normal black cap, and has the words "I <3 Hats" on it, just like in the title of the hat. It's really nothing special, but it was timed, so it got a nice amount of sales before it went off-sale. But, in the end, it's just another cap that isn't very different from the rest.

7.5/10

Comically Oversized Hat                                                                 

     This hat is basically just an oversized top hat with a feather on it, nothing special at all. It sold for 100 Robux, and, like the cap, it was timed to go off within the day. Due to the price not being NBC-Friendly, it only got around 4,000 sales. It's a grey top hat with a red band on the main, er, "hat" part. There is also a feather on the bottom portion, colored yellow and getting darker and redder as it goes towards the stem of the feather. In the end, it's good for the money, but not something I'd wear.

8/10

Hat Stack                                                                                           

     The next hat to be released was the Hat Stack, which is pretty much an overpriced stack of ugly fedoras. It was priced at 250 Robux, and, like the other hats, went off-sale after a bit. Only about 1,800 of these sold, really getting across the fact that this is a failure as a hat, and not even a hat, it's three hats. It's basically three fedoras on top of each other, each getting uglier as they go up. The first is black with a red band and bow, the second is blue with a black band and a random orange leaf, and the top is brown with a black band and red feather. Ew. Not worth the money.

5/10


Marginally Less Modest Pile of Hat (Went Limited)                    

Dang. Long name. This item was a gift prize back in 2010, and came out of the Frosty Winter Collector's Gift, which was awarded to people who solved different riddles and were able to collect 6 out of 8 collectible items hinted, which was pretty tough. It sold for 1,000 Robux, which, back then, is quite a lot more than what that amount of Robux is worth now. Well, anyways, it failed, and is selling for negative profit based on what the gift sold for. Although it looks, well, okay (it's a mash up of a bunch of random hats), it still failed, so yeah.

7/10

Classic Hat Stack                                                                              

     That's better, a hat that looks great and didn't fail. Classic Hat Stack is basically just, well, a stack of classic hats. From the bottom to top, the hats include Summertime 2009 R&R&R, 2008 ROBLOX Visor, Green Banded Top Hat, and Golden Crown, all of which are either limited, off-sale, or expensive. To own all of those hats, you would have to spent around 5,000 Robux and 5,000 Tix (but a bit more than that). Anyways, this hat came out for 1,000 Robux and was a limited with 250 in stock. It took about a minute to sell out, and began selling for double the price. Triple.. quadruple... whatever 5x the price is called.. and all the way up to 15,000 Robux or more! It began to lower after a few days though, but is still selling for about 8,000 Robux, which is still a lot of profit. Plus, it looks great.

10/10

Stay tuned for next month, when I'll (most likely) be reviewing the Presidents Day sale!

Thanks for reading!

~pbjms~

"Choices" RN-Exclusive Film Series Coming Soon!

Many hellos. I mentioned a few days back that I was going to start a special RN-exclusive Video Series regarding to the story and production behind my work in progress game, memories that explains the origin, the idea, and the production of the film. Part One of the (three parts planned!) series will hopefully launch in March 2014. There are certain things that may curb this initial release date (such as the demand and success for The Averate Network.) Here is the first (and probably only) preview. Thank you. ^ItsFutur

Gear Friday Overview: Sleepy Gear. Yeah, only one gear.

Woohoo! Another Gear Friday! Finally! After so many months of waiting! Wait, what? Oh. There's only one gear. And it's a wand... that makes people sleep... Wow. "Sleeping" gears, I can easily see tons of other gears coming out, but I guess a bunch of ugly hats will do instead. Eh, the sleepy theme came with a face too, so that's okay. Faces are good. One gear on a Friday is bad though. Eh, I guess none would be worse.

Sleep Wand 

"You're getting very sleepy! Put your nearby foes to sleep for a short while."

Appearance: 8/10

Okay, for a pretty terrible gear, it looks okay. It's just a normal wand with a brown hilt, followed by a shiny orange gem thing, followed by a grey twisty thing, followed by a rock with a moon on it. Okay. Not that special. I mean, it's better than some other texture's and meshes we've been seeing lately that are totally low-polygon (you can see triangles in the mesh because it's not smoothed out, examples include Halloween Gift ribbons and other hats).

Ability: 3/10

If there was a ROBLOX dictionary where you look up a word and get a specific item relating to that word, this item would be under "useless." You pretty much just shoot out sparkles which legitimately go 5 studs up, curve down, and land about 10 studs away from you. As far as I know from Harry Potter, magic doesn't fling up and curve down. Terrible aim. Oh, and then when you actually hit somebody, you do damage for some reason (every though it's a sleep wand). Oh, and your enemy doesn't even sleep, the admins just took the lazy way out and made it so they couldn't move, but could still jump. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a sleeping person jump.

Price: 2/10

It's 400 Robux. That is totally insane. The gear isn't even useful, and it's priced at that? Wow. I mean, I'm excited that we got a new gear on a Friday night, but this gear is kind of pathetic.

Overall: 4/10

Eh, it's the looks that really saved this gear. Besides the appearance, this gear is awful. Just awful.

~pbjms~

Spotlight: Ignoble | Early Access Testing

First off, allow me to say welcome to 2014 everyone! May we be graced with actually good releases this year rather than the same, repetitive concepts that have been done to death that mostly populate the front page. That done, let's move onto the actual subject of the article; Teah Rudimentalitys new work-in-progress, Ignoble. Just a small note this article won't really have sections, since that's reserved for reviews, but spotlights are sort of just all over the place.

I'd like to bring attention to the name, Ignoble. What could that possibly mean? Well, a quick Google brings up this; "Not honorable in character or purpose."

Just knowing the definition of the name will give you a brief idea of the game, but some more exposition, just bear with me. Ignoble was actually already out late last year but was broken due to a ROBLOX update regarding camera usage, but Rudimentality fixed that issue and have since then been updating game with new content and bug fixes. The game also pretty much uses the same movement system as Strobe, another game by the same developer that's gone under for a bit due to the very same issue that broke Ignoble.

At it's core Ignoble is a third person shooter in the vein of something like DayZ but without the zombies, once entering the game you're able to customize your character with a variety of different hats, want to be a bandana-clad psycho in a suit? Sure, you can do that! Once you actually spawn into the game though it's about quick response time, since pretty much everyone is out to get you. Whether you spawn into a city, or out in an open field it's best to open your inventory and get your gun ready, and make sure you turn off the safety. Yes, you heard me correctly, you're able to switch the safety on/off in this game, something Apocalypse Rising doesn't have I'm pretty sure.

Your main objective in Ignoble (for the time being, anyway) is to basically play bounty hunter, or the mercenary. There are bounty boards scattered throughout important landmarks within the game that will show a brief picture of the colors of the player's garments and a bounty amount, and maybe their whereabouts if that's know. Then it's up to you to seek them out, or wait for them to come to you. But if that's not your kinda thing then feel free to roam about and get crates which contain random loot that you can sell to NPCs for cash and other items. Or maybe you want to just run around slaughtering everyone in your wake, playing the lone wolf? That's possible, Ignoble is all about choice to be brief. Choice is what will dictate your experience, but I suppose that's what can be said about all of these "DayZ"-like games.


But I digress, recently added are also guards which will stand around the boundaries of towns/cities and will shoot anyone that threatens them, or has $300 in bounty. (Killing more people gives you a higher bounty if that wasn't obvious enough, and killing guards instantly gives you a $300 bounty). Bounty can be decreased by helping out people by giving them goods such as "flour" and "exotic tea leaves". Radios are also a thing that were added recently, find a man named Carleton in a gas station and he can sell you random items for quests, and radios for $200 which you can tune into different channels with, but you will remain anonymous to players that you contact on the same channel, and it will reveal your whereabouts. Night vision scopes are also a thing, but currently broken and will be re-added in a later patch.

This is what I like about Ignoble, even though it's not in first-person it can actually be extremely immersive at times. The minimalistic hud and feel of the features give you this lonely, secluded feeling when out roaming the countryside and scavenging for supplies and keeping watch for bandits. Even if I don't feel like I did it justice, Ignoble is available for 25 R$ and I extremely recommend you check it out even if the development is still very early on it. You can find it here. Be sure to keep on the watch for this one everyone, it may very well be one of the most anticipated releases for 2014 on ROBLOX. At least, it is for me. There may be another article on Ignoble when it's in a more complete state but no promises.

Next time, I'll be looking at the sequel to one of the more known ROBLOX shooters, Authority 2: Corruption.

The ROBLOX Catalog and Events in Review: 2013

Image courtesy of Chris7198

The ROBLOX Catalog underwent major changes in the year of 2013, such as a new design and having more sales. Some big features, such as the price floor, owning multiples of one limited, and DevEx greatly affected the ROBLOX economy. This article is meant to be a precise outline on exactly everything catalog-related that happened on ROBLOX in 2013.
Worth noting:

-The Egg Hunt was okay, but found it to be too easy with literally no rare 
eggs. Whist site population is partly to blame, the Fabergés spawned too regularly. 


-The Witching Hour was literally the worst Halloween Event of all time, this is not an exaggeration. It did showcase the new consumables feature - (yay microtransactions /sarcasm). 

-Dev-EX made a dent in large limited values, with users desperate to sell their items so that they can exchange their robux for real cash, they are slowing recovering. Smaller limiteds weren't really affected. 


-2013 Christmas Gifts were stated to be much more accessible this year by Brad Justus, he was right. Good job with them guys!

January

- iOS exclusive items launched - you buy them with iTunes credit (real money) 

February

- Hero Factory: Brain Attack Promo

- MUCH MORE Gamecard Items; this remains a constant throughout the year. Most of them are now hats, which users have mixed feelings about. 

- Note that gamecard items can now actually go limited and possibly win hard; see Redspybot
- Sometime early this month Dual Illumina went limited; and failed, badly.

- President's Day Sale; first of a series of sales throughout the year

 - Dominus Vespertilio went limited (it at first failed but is now profitable) 

 - PVG's went limited and practically ruined demand for NVG's

 - Biggerhead went on sale 

 - CW Shades went on sale for the last time

 - Blizzaria finally came out, for 100k tickets

 - Scytheface failed even though it had less than 100 in stock, lol. 

 - Dark Cerulean Crown went limited.

March

- Face contest and egg retexture contest launched

- NERF Promo

- St. Patrick's mini-sale; the accursed evil GSTF came out 

- Owning multiples of a limited feature beta testing begins

- ROBLOX Egg Hunt 2013 launched

 - Similar to previous egg hunts

 - Much bigger, better map than last year's

 - Most eggs were either freebies or completing a small task

 - "Hatching" concept ruined some eggs

April

- Weekend Tax Holiday; tax temporarily reduced for weekend

- Owning multiples of a limited feature released - allows users to hoard rarer items, great. 

May

- In-game transactions (marketplace service) released

- Memorial day sale; second major sale of the year

 - Headstack went on sale

 - Valkyrie Helm went limited and failed

 - LOTM became the most failing hat of the year (sorry IBarrageI)
 - Clockwork's Shades FINALLY go limited
 - Bluesteel Bathysphere woohoo!!!- though it didn't profit much.
 - Red Stetson went on sale

June
- Midsummer's Night Sale; third major sale of the year
 - New concept; sale was a literal "night sale"
 - Midnight Blue Shaggy most projected limited of 2013 - then promptly failed, lol. 
 - Midnight Blue Sparkle Time Fedora (gosh there are too many of these)
 - Hats/faces/gears themed on night but nothing super special

July
- Percy Jackson promo; regarded as worst promo ever - literally 
- Fourth of July Items; not many but new shaggy
- A series of three BLOXcons around the world  begins, starting at Chicago

August
- The second BLOXcon takes place in London 
- Retro Weekend mini-sale
 - Linked Sword comes out with 100 in stock
 - Chronoinitium, 50k robux and 50 stock. Somewhat won.
 - Blackvalk, the 1 million ticket hat comes out
- Labor Day Sale; fourth major sale of the year
 - Teapot back on sale but NOT ruined; priced at a ridiculous 20k
 - Mr. Hatbot made limited and failed
 - Bluesteel Domino went limited; Red Domino went limited only a month or two ago
 - Glitched hats LOLzard and Leopard Fedora re-released
 - Black Iron Bucket; was 13337 robux and timed. 
 - Duke of the Federation; 100k and 25 in stock
- The final BLOXcon takes placd in New York City



September
- The ROBLOX Online Shop launches; you can buy IRL stuff and get virtual stuff along with it. 
- Outfits, a feature by Merely, launches
- Price floor raised
- Virtual BLOXcon - an online livestream of a BLOXcon, starts. Filled with Q&A, staff gameplay and Halloween event news

October
- 13 Gifts of October (rebranded as BLOXtober) begins
 - Prices started cheap but became very expensive for final gifts
 - Cheaper and better than last year's gifts
 - Big gift was Doomsekkar (31k like usual)
 - Also to note: Blizzaria went back on sale for the ENTIRE month.
- Price floor lowered slightly, but is still 100 Tix
- Sound uploading feature released
- Practically ALL packages are now available to all users (no longer BC only)
- BLOXtober Costume Contest launched
- Witching Hour released
 - Game is unlike previous games
 - Involves doing quests for admins to earn their bloxikins
 - Quests involved fighting monster AIsm
 - MANY buyable addons to help make the game easier
 - Introduced new features like consumables
 - The game in general had negative reception due to how the admins implemented the concept, the failed launch of the game, the many bugs with the game at first, and the many buyable things for it, not to mention the poor gameplay which focused on grinding the same task again and again.... and AGAIN.


November
- Parallel Universe weekend; some textures were leaked but nothing big actually came out 
- Bright Friday Sale; fifth major sale of the year
 - Happened a week before Black Friday Sale
 - Focus was on "bright items"
 - W's Top Hat back on sale; sorta ruined but not really- see black friday
 - Green Checkered Bow Tie re-released
 - Lime Green Shaggy came out
 - Dr. Ishmael, a white version of Mr. Tentacles, came out for 9k. Went limited after timer expired.
 - New white kleos came out
- Philippines Hats came out
- Thanksgiving Turkey Hunt relaunched but with new prizes.
- Black Friday Sale; sixth major sale of the year and usually regarded as the biggest sale
 - Frenemy on sale
 - W's Top Hat went limited and surprisingly won
 - Bluesteel Antlers; 20k robux and timed
 - Brilliant Bombastique; ugly retexture timed for 15 minutes and only 100 robux 
 - Hooded Frostlord; retexture by Errorless and big item of 2013: was 50k robux with 55 in stock, and fails - lol
 - Silverthorn Antlers put on sale again for 400 robux
 - Black Iron Warhelm went limited
 - Junior Tentacles on sale
 - Xanwood Chicken; start of a new series


December
- Giftsplosion 2013 begins
 - Some gifts based on new features; however not like 2012, and not all are about new features
 - 13 gifts in total
 - Almost all of the gifts are meant to be obtainable by anyone (even NBC)
 - Not all gifts are easy; some are actually challenging to earn
 - Gift prices were ridiculously expensive, putting an emphasis on gift earning
 - Big gift was for using DevEx; priced at 50k, opened to be Dominus Aureus
 - Statistics show that the Gift of Passage is now the most owned hat on ROBLOX
- Percy Jackson game reopens
- Christmas defend the fort style game by Team Rudimentality opens with prizes
- The ROBLOX Stocking comes out on Christmas; opened up later to be a Santa hat
- Year wraps up with some after-Christmas items (for people to spend their newly received Robux); bundle packages released, a new nonlimited shaggy released, sk12r, a new noob attack, both a festive periastron and an energy sword, and another Xanwood hat (that failed).

2014
- Cloud 9 promo begins the year
- Winter Games slated to start soon; will make use of universes and be the first (or second counting the christmas event) fully user-made event.


Personal Regards
After ending 2012 with a failed Christmas gift, I don't think any had in mind how much better 2013 would be for the ROBLOX catalog. The increase in sales in total was as a whole a great improvement to the catalog, and many of the sale items were received positively. The Sparkle Time Fedora series gained two new additions this year, the GSTF and the MBSTF, which I'd hope are the last of the series. (Interestingly enough, two other sparkle times were leaked this year, one during the parallel universe weekend and another at the end of the year, but neither came out). After the GSTF was released, rare item pricing was changed. At first rare items in the year were timed, and then went limited after the timer was down. This clearly failed though if you look at the Lord of the Magma, so it was changed later so that the rare item was LimitedU and was originally 50k robux. This seems to be the new standard for limiteds, but these 50k limiteds have both won and lost, making new rare items somewhat dangerous to buy. 

The first sale, the President's Day Sale, I believe as a whole was good but had room for improvement. Releasing Blizzaria and putting Biggerhead back on sale definitely made the community happy, but events such as releasing the unexpected Scytheface for 10k and making the Dark Cerulean Crown limited made it seem like the event wasn't planned out fully. The second sale was okay; it had a better schedule but the items were "mostly" good. The Midsummer Night Sale I'd say had much better items than the previous two sales, but I disliked it for the fact that you had to stay up all night. (it's not really good for people to stay up late on gaming). The Labor Day Sale I'll say was definitely the worst of the sales, nothing was appealing and the things that were somewhat appealing were way too expensive. 

Bright Friday was my favorite sale, I felt like the hats and theme were "done right" and it was all affordable. Black Friday was not bad (2011's Black Friday is still the best, by far) but I did like that they did more hats based on classic series, and brought more classics back on sale. I must admit though, some hats were too expensive again. BLOXtober (not counting the game) and Giftsplosion were MUCH better: the gifts and prizes themselves were great, and the Christmas gifts weren't just about new features. So overall, I'd say that this was a strong year for ROBLOX's catalog and I wouldn't be surprised if 2014's sales and events and whatnot was even better than 2013.

tl;dr version
The catalog improved greatly with the new sales and both the Halloween and Christmas gifts. The sales started okay but got much better as they went along, and the gifts for both Halloween and Christmas had improved quality and were planned out much better than last year.

-NonstopEpic, Arbirator and pbjms

Think You Have the Most Anticipated Game Releasing on ROBLOX in 2014?

Well, lets see!

I promised recently over Twitter that I would make an article regarding to "The Top 10 Most Anticipated Games Releasing on ROBLOX in 2014" and I wanted to make this an engaging and interesting article that anyone could have the potential to be apart of.

For this, i'm looking at games not just by popular ROBLOX builders and scripters, but looking at work by common ROBLOX players! Think you have the most exciting game that will be released in 2014? I guess we'll have to see.

Read the rules for the 'contest' below to see if your game meets the guidelines, if so: send forth your game!

GUIDELINES:
- Your game must be releasing sometime in 2014.
- Your game can only apply for the contest if it is not complete and is still under development.
- Your game cannot apply if it has been released (as a final copy - a general release - if you need help understanding this, PM me)
- Your game must be original: no stolen places. Send me one and i'll laugh at you.


IF YOU MEET ALL THE GUIDELINES - SEND MYSELF (ITSFUTUR) A PM BY CLICKING HERE.

(Since it has been asked - you can send forth any game you think is the most exciting game coming out in 2014. Your friend's game, your game, your cat's game, any game you want to!)

In your PM, please list the game name, the user who made it, the genre, and other details that I should know about the project.

Winners may be contacted for an interview - this contest closes January 31. There will be ten winners, the winners (of course) will be posted about on here for the 'Top 10 Most Anticipated Games Releasing on ROBLOX in 2014.'

Best of luck, and as always: have a good day!
^ ItsFutur

Review: Cookie Clicker GUI Game

Cookie Clicker
     By David1234501              

     Hello, readers. Today I bring you Cookie Clicker, an all-GUI tycoon that recently took the BC Games page by storm. This differs from Quenty's in the way that the lag is very, very reduced (being that the entire game was made with GUIs). While the graphics are questionable compared to Quenty's, it has almost the exact same game aspects. A giant cookie to be clicked, upgrades to how many cookies you get per click, and items to purchase that make cookies for you. Different from Quenty's, though, is the "Chocolate Milk". Every so often (you can see the exact countdown in the bottom right corner of your screen), Chocolate Milk will activate. It increases your Cookies per click by five times.

As it isn't a very complicated game (yet), I don't see much more to be written besides the bugs. When you leave and come back, your Cookies Per Second stays the same and your Cookies stay the same. Your upgrades, though, are erased. The problem with this? When you come back, you are able to purchase the upgrades for their starter prices, which is easily exploitable.

Cookie is more of a tech-demo and a showcase than a game, albeit a good one at that!

Links: Cookie Clicker
          David1234501
          Quenty's Cookie Clicker
          Original Cookie Clicker

Hey! This is my last post on this Gmail! I changed my username to FiniteBlox.

Tweet tweet. @FiniteBlox
Thanks for reading,

~FiniteBlox
          (Formerly DDude9091)

Conversations with Myself: Limited Items (Part 1)

Conversations with Myself;

Limited Items  (Part 1)

Hello, FiniteBlox here. I decided to share my opinion about the Catalog today, and thought to myself, "What better way to do that then talking to myself?" So here you have it, me talking to myself about the Catalog (specifically Limited Items).

Me:

I think having a conversation with myself is a wonderful idea.

Me:

Shut up. We're supposed to talk about the catalog.

Me:

Fine, fine. The catalog, right. I myself am a little bit of a trader, with roughly 14k RAP worth. I thought I might throw together something explaining the catalog a bit, and what makes limited items rise and fall in price.

Me:

I'll start off with the original sales of limiteds. When a limited sells out, prices skyrocket. Other users see that they missed an item, and want to try to snag it.

Me:

Yes, and when that happens, limiteds rise very fast. But on limiteds that have sold for especially low and have many owners, there are more people competing for lowest price. At benchmark numbers, such as 200, 250, 275, there will often be five or more sellers.

Me:

This severely slows down how fast the limited sells. It stays at the same price for several sales, leaving more time for people to try to sell for lower.

Me:

Lots of times, this is how a limited starts to fall to a more reasonable price. The hype slowly ends, though this can take days (or will never happen, depending on what reputation the limited has in other members of its series).

Me:

That's the beginning of a limited over-explained. When the limited is past the original hype, the demand either dies, it raises, or it lowers.

Me:

I'll begin with how they raise.

Me:

I was going to begin...

Me:

As I was saying, limiteds tend raise in price after a plummet in demand. Take the Azurewrath: Duke of Demons for example.

Me:

What exactly is the chart supposed to prove?

Me:

It's just there for reference. The Azurewrath, one of my old limiteds, is horribly low in demand. This happens when a limited's price raises faster than its demand. It sells maybe once, and owners raise prices to above what remotely makes sense. Slowly, over time, users will trade it away. The people who received it saw it and thought, "Easy profit." They combat for lowest price, and now that the price is near the RAP, it sells. This causes a huge jump in RAP. Note that this is just one way that a limited can raise.

Me:

Yeah, because we're too lazy to explain the other ways!

Me:

Sh...

Me:

So terribly lazy, in fact, that this is being split into two parts.

Me:

Part two will cover ways that limiteds lower and lose demand. That'll be all for this part, though!

.
Do you think I'm a complete noob when it comes to limiteds? PM (or tweet) me what I messed up, and I'll slap it in Part 2.

Tweet tweet. @FiniteBlox
Thanks for reading,

~FiniteBlox

OPINION: The Truth Behind ROBLOX 'Coffee Companies'

ROBLOX Coffee Companies.
We're hearing a lot about these so-called 'companies' and what they turn out to be. A hospitable experience in a fancily made home store where a nice ROBLOXian stands across a shining counter - ready to prepare you a hot, pixelated cup of joe. But behind all this glamorization - I can't help but feel a little aggravated by such a ridiculous idea. This entire idea of virtual food in 'virtual stores. How does it even make sense?

It's no secret that I hate ROBLOXian 'food companies.' To me, they are no more than a bunch of over-dramatic roleplayers where everything is more so about interaction rather than making content or decent stuff. These food companies (especially coffee companies) rely on a stature of reliability: they need to make an image out of themselves to draw everyone away from the sole idea that all of this is just virtual, tasteless coffee and food. So by adding a sort of 'hangout' experience, workers, and a sense of life to the restaurant, some people thrillingly pull this off - and without explanation, even.

Yet, companies like StarBucks and Costa are some of the biggest 'companies' in ROBLOX consumables - their places drawing thousands of customers to their stores on a weekly basis and the question is how? Isn't it just pixelated food? The ROBLOX community is heavily disillusional in the idea that every aspect of real life should be on ROBLOX. After all, ROBLOX coffee? ROBLOX brands, just like the real ones? Exact replicas of public places? Food chains? I'm not one hundred percent on the understanding how some people find the entire concept of working at a 'ROBLOX Food Company' interesting [hey kids, would you like to work at a McDonalds in real life?], let alone visiting them. They must just be essentials, and since it would only be make-sense to visit places that distribute and sell food in real life, perhaps it's just something that is essential to your experience on a virtual game? Even though it sounds ridiculous, perhaps that is all there is to it.

Some would say it's absurdity - the idea of opening a company where you serve "coffee" to people and manage to squeeze out a return. But to me, it's the most hilarious idea I've ever seen. Coffee Groups toss thousands of ROBUX and TIX into the fire by advertising their groups, and what is their return? Nothing more than a few thousand measly and meaningless place visits where they make their roleplay coffee look fancy for all of about five minutes before the average, bored ROBLOX user leaves and in many cases: never returns.

Altogether, the idea when invested properly can make for an interesting roleplay experience. I don't exactly find the working part amusing, nor spending hours visiting these ROBLOX restaurants and cafes but if that's what ROBLOX players are into nowadays, [the pursuit of perfecting virtual food that you can't even taste] then that might as well be how it is.

I'm not going to tell you what to do with your ROBUX or TIX - but let me make a suggestion: don't join this so-called 'coffee industry' because it's an 'industry' with no returns, no promises, and only losses. There are only so many people that can glamorize pixelated drinks and pixelated food and somehow manage to make themselves, and their companies look good and odds are, you are not one of them.

^ ItsFutur

Please take note that the article you just read is one-hundred percent opinion. The article written by myself is simply a concept. These opinions do not reflect the ideas or beliefs of the 'ROBLOX News' site. Due to this being a potentially controversial subject, I completely understand that there could be some mixed feelings about the content of this article. Rest assured - your opinions are your opinions, and my opinions are my opinions. I say it time after time again.

OPINION: The Heat Death of FPS and the Rise of the Intellectual Game

First-Person Shooters are a much-beloved game genre among millions of gamers around the world. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and BattleField 4 sell millions of copies, profiting billions of dollars a year. The FPS industry is booming everywhere - even though there is no sign of innovation, no sign of creativity, or anything industry-changing, and personally: we ROBLOX players should all take a note.

The Heat Death of FPS is already among us. While FPS games will always be made by obsessive ROBLOX users in love with the concept of creating such games, it's clear that the very definition behind the quality of FPS games has risen and fallen with the spike of constant creativity. Nowadays, every way you turn, not just on ROBLOX, but everywhere you'll see some form of violence: whether it's in the form of a video game, propaganda, or senseless and reasonless murder. Violence is everywhere - inescapable, and it only extends to the dime-a-dozen, low quality and absurd ROBLOX FPS games. There are only a few decent First Person Shooters left on ROBLOX, most locked, in-development (aheheh Borderline,) or the users responsible for the works of art have left and abandoned their work and because of this - the quality and amount of talent left to create engaging and great FPS games is gone.

But there is something new. Look around, not just on ROBLOX but everywhere. 

Games like AntiChamber are some of the most innovative, interesting, and best-selling games on Steam. Lets look on ROBLOX - Choices, memories, Thoughts and The Fabric of Reality are just a few among the new era of impressive and meaningful games on ROBLOX. So, ladies and gentlemen: I present to you the replacement for FPS, INTELLECTUAL GAMES.

Intellectual Games are taking ROBLOX, Steam, and the Game Industry by storm, usually games created by independent developers, these games take on a new set of priorities: meaning, story, ideas, and graphics and combine these four powerful and moving priorities to move the user - to create a compelling experience.

Intellectual Games are truly the future. They invite gamers to try strategically challenging and puzzling games and that is why they will be so popular

(still working on it - waiting for some quotes from GollyGreg's interview)

With that said, there is so much expansion for games of this type in the future, and while it may be a subtle change of the mass index of people playing FPS to this new and exciting game type, it'll be a very interesting scene to watch not just on ROBLOX - but all over the game industry.

^ItsFutur