Starter place


 * Not to be confused with Starting Place.

"This is your very first Roblox creation. Check it out, then make it your own with Roblox Studio!"

- The default description of contemporary starter places.

A starter place is a place that is automatically created when a user creates an account. Modern starter places encourage users to use Roblox Studio to build in them, while older starter places granted players in-experience building tools for building with basic bricks. The starter place map is also given to content deleted experiences.

History
In August 2004, Roblox had three default maps: a green baseplate, a grey baseplate, and a light grey baseplate. These were not the same as modern starter places, however.

In January 2006, Roblox discontinued the 2004 default maps and created three new starter places: one with a baseplate, a table composed of blue and grey bricks, eight chairs which were also grey and blue, and a pink bed; one with a small yellow baseplate; and one containing a basic dollhouse structure.

In April 2006, a new starter place was introduced. It consisted of a teal baseplate (possibly representing a carpet), a blue table surrounded by six chairs which were colored blue and brown, and a bed to the right of the table (the furniture lacked or special programming and was thus not usable). It did not include building tools. The original version of this starter place was short-lived, having only been used for a month. The following month, the starter place was updated to make the baseplate green, making it resemble grass.

In late 2006, shortly after Roblox was officially released, a new starter place was released and the older starter place was retired. The new starter place featured a large tan room with two green baseplates on a brown wooden floor, with one baseplate having bricks lying by a sign saying "Free Bricks" and the other baseplate being empty. As of 2021, the textures in this place no longer load.

In 2007, the starter place was changed to a map with a house. This starter place featured a much larger baseplate, a one-story house with beige walls and a red roof, a grey path, a playground featuring a seesaw and a slide beside the house, and much more bricks (though some of them, such as the vehicle and the spheres, were removed). In early April 2008, starter places were made copylocked by default. In late 2008, signposts were added throughout the map to teach players how to build. The map was changed to be winter-themed in March 2009, with everything staying the same except the baseplate, which was colored white, making it resemble snow.

In early 2007–2008, a map featuring a green baseplate was added. It later scrapped around 2010 to 2011.

Around 2007, a black baseplate called "Empty Baseplate" was created and was later scrapped in March 2012.

Around 2008, a starter place known as the "BrickBattle Map" was released, making it the first game-based starter place. The place resembles two castles on a sand-like baseplate. Players could have this type of place if they reset one of their places. The ground was later changed to be made of terrain, which made it destructible.

On December 1, 2009, the starter place was completely revamped. The area seems to be slightly larger than the previous starter places. It featured fewer trees, a basic vehicle was placed near the house, the bricks were placed behind the house, a river was added which would sweep the player away if they go into it, a lighthouse was added, a ramp with race cars was added, a canyon was added with an elevator was placed inside it, roads were added which seem to be decals and two bridges were added. In fact, the first user to receive this template was jollyspeedy.

The starter place made several minor changes on August 15, 2011. This version of the starter place is similar to the previous version, except some of the objects seen in the other version were replaced with stamper-made objects, including the house (which was expanded and furniture was added inside the house), the trees (more trees were also added), the lighthouse, and some vehicles. Furthermore, a fence and a mailbox were added surrounding the house, a school bus was placed to the far left of the house, a castle-like area behind the house was implemented, street lights and teleporters were added plus a stamper-built space station, and the area filled with bricks behind the house were removed in favor of the new stamp tool which allows players to place objects rather than copying them. Players were granted with additional building tools, such as the Rotate tool, the Configure Parts tool, the Wiring tool, and the Classic tool (which contains building tools which were included in previous versions of the starter place).

In 2012, the starter place was modified into a place completely made with terrain. The house, the space station, and the jeep were re-implemented, but the place no longer resembles a city-like place. In addition, a desert filled with cacti was added, which can be accessed by either going through several tunnels or by just walking to the area through numerous hills.

On October 19, 2012, the starter place was changed to a simple large grey baseplate with no additional parts on it. Players spawned in the center of the baseplate, and there was normally nothing to do in the game unless the player builds something. titanic15474 was the first user to receive this template. The reason for this change was presumably because players have asked the admins to allow more building space to let them build more stuff. The place is still available as a game template, but the baseplate is lighter in color.

Four days later, four additional game templates were added: Control Points, Free For All, Team Deathmatch and BrickBattle map. Rather than building tools, players are instead given weapons, as the places focus on fighting other than building. Free For All and Team Deathmatch are played similarly, as they both focus on getting the most knockouts as the goal, while Control Points focuses on earning "control points" by stepping on pads, creating a team-colored beam depending on what team touched it.

Soon after, the "Capture The Flag" starter place was created. Like Control Points, Free For All, and Team Deathmatch, weapons are given to users instead of building tools. The game focuses on getting at least three captures (taking another team's flag and then taking it back to their team's base), and the game has a 5-minute timer and a leaderboard (which can be opened by holding the Q key) similar to the three aforementioned places. The "Capture The Flag" place resembles a piece of terrain surrounded by stone walls, blue and red-colored flags with four grey separate walls surrounding them (which were later team-colored), red and blue-colored spawn points, a river between the two pieces of terrain, and four wooden bridges designed for players to cross. Soon after smooth terrain was introduced, the map was redesigned to a place made with smooth terrain featuring some endorsed models, such as the bridges, which were made by the user 101PILOT (currently known as EndorsedModel) as part of his "Bridge Building Set". The team-colored flags are no longer surrounded by separate walls but are instead inside team-colored bases, as well as the spawn points. A beach-like area was added under the bridges, and the river is now between sand. Players can now climb a grassy slope to reach the surface. The flags bases now emit lights corresponding to their team's color. The area is now surrounded by smooth terrain similar to the surface.

On June 17, 2013, the starter place was changed into a place completely made out of terrain similar to the starter place from early 2012. On August 19, 2016, Roblox abruptly announced that the template would be discontinued on January 1, 2017, to "optimize and fully support a single, consistent platform". Around one or two weeks later, Roblox Studio users were granted a notification informing them that they should convert to smooth terrain as soon as possible. Roblox also stated that they are "100% focused" on "driving the technology forward" and improving smooth terrain. For the remainder of 2016, no behavior or API changes were made to voxel terrain. Alongside the removal of voxel terrain, all places which used voxel terrain were automatically converted to smooth terrain, even if a user didn't edit it.

On June 3, 2015, one week after the introduction of smooth terrain, the starter place was changed to be made out of smooth terrain. freddybear246 became the first user to receive the new terrain template. It is also available as a game template. This type of terrain immediately saw explosive popularity, being used and played by users approximately eight times more than places which use voxel terrain, which ultimately led to the discontinuation of voxel terrain.

At an Unknown date in 2015 (possibly March) they released the first version of Racing Template, this starter places served to help people, putting an almost ready place, the racing template generates a race track and a racing car.

Throughout late 2015 and early 2016, many new game templates were released: Racing (Second version), in which players would have to race around a track, Suburban, a suburb-like area with numerous buildings such as houses, a gas station, and a school, City, which is similar to Suburban but with fewer buildings such as a skyscraper, Obby, an obby-like game which was inspired by the popular obby type of games, Medieval(First version), which consists of a beige castle with a spiked door which damages players upon touching its spikes with a switch to open it and a forest, Pirate Island, which consists of several islands on a body of water with treasure chests and a pirate ship, Western, a desert-like area with numerous western-themed locations and a train station, Shooter, a sandy place with weapon and health dispensers, Infinite Runner, a game similar to Temple Run but with nothing to collect, Team/FFA Arena, which replaced the Free For All and Team Deathmatch templates, and Line Runner, which is similar to Infinite Runner but has grass, collectable coins, and different obstacles. Each of these templates contain endorsed models and many of them contain smooth terrain.

On March 9, 2016, a new starter place was introduced, which revived buildings and trees. The first user to receive this template was brayden1476. The place features three cabins, a building area in the center of the place, has tutorial signs like the late 2008 and 2009 version of the Happy Home of Robloxia, has seven hidden treasure chests containing popular gear items inside them, has a river with a bridge to cross, some pools of water, a pool of lava and a lava crater, a Stonehenge, and has some caves and mountains. It appears to be made out of smooth terrain, like many other of the current templates. It also became available as a game template. This template was no longer given to players starting at an unknown date in around mid-2017 when the place was reverted to a large grey baseplate, similar to the late-2012 place. Also during that time, the former place no longer became available as a game template.

At an unknown date in 2016 (possibly April ), the Medieval template got a revamp. The template was renamed to Castle, the castle was repainted to grey, added some people that can help players in and out of the Castle, remade the castle, added a barracks, added a blacksmith area and nerfed the gate so it does not deal damage.

On October 20, 2016, a new template named "Village" was added.

At an unknown date in 2017 "Infinite Runner" and "Line Runner" were added.

On June 12, 2018, a special event-based starter place named "Volcanic Island" was released as part of the 2018 Roblox Creator Challenge event and to promote the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom film. The map was created by, The_Immortal, and Ravenshield. It features an island which includes an erupting volcano, with some cliffs the player can maneuver on. Numerous lava pools can be found across the map, which damages the player upon contact with them. The player will spawn on one of the volcano's cliffs. On the other side of the cliff the player spawns on, one of the characters from the film, a velociraptor named Blue, is seen standing on the edge of another cliff; if the player encounters Blue, she will start following the player. Blue is immune to damage; although she can be knocked down and "killed" using certain gear, she will respawn in her original location without removing her dead body. She will also teleport to the player if they move to a location that Blue cannot access. Behind Blue is a small tunnel which leads to a rocky path to exit the volcano. In front of the path, a red "trap block" appears beside a path alongside a fireplace next to it. This leads to a ship which deals a small amount of damage to the player, albeit neither object currently serves a purpose in the map. The land the path leads to also contains an area with trees and a pond surrounded by fences. One area of the beginning of the path on the right side of it is over a pit which deals no damage to the player. This part of the path ends near a large lava pool in which the player must have built something to help them cross it during the event. On the other side of the lava pool, there are two more pits under the path, along with with two other pits outside of the path. Above the second pit on the path is a storm cloud which spawns light gray-colored bricks which deal minor damage to the player. Beyond the path, there is a trail which leads toward a ship, though the path actually points to a beach. To the southwest side of the ship is a warehouse which cannot be accessed, as well as some orbs and balls in front of it, including a meteor ball and a sparkling transparent orb. The map was kept available even after the event.

In December 2018, a new template—the "Story Game"—was added. It used to be a map for the Roblox Winter Creator Challenge.

In early 2017, the current starter place was changed to have the updated Roblox logo.

In late 2018, the current starter place was changed to have the black Roblox logo.