Starter place

Not to be confused with Starting Place.

A starter place is a place that is automatically created when a player creates an account. They generally grant players building tools, so they can they build using basic building bricks to allow for simple building.

History
The concept of a starter place was rumored during the beta testing period of ROBLOX. The starter place had a controllable robot (it was presumably a prototype of a ROBLOXian robot). Beside it were some tall colored bricks. The baseplate is also very small. This marked the debut of the famous "Happy Home in Robloxia". It is seen in some "History of ROBLOX" places but it is not confirmed if it was the very first starter place. It was probably a really early prototype and the idea was scrapped because the ROBLOX developers didn't like it. This was an unused starter place released around early/late 2005 and used during December 2005. The map was also black & white including Happy Home.

In March 2006, shortly after ROBLOX was officially released, a second starter place was released which consisted of only a teal baseplate, a blue table surrounded by six unsittable chairs (colored blue and brown), and an unusable bed to the right of the table. Unlike most starter places, players could not build in the place, since building tools didn't exist during that time. The starter place was short-lived and was only used for a month. The place made a minor change the following month, in which the baseplate was recolored green, to resemble grass. The teal baseplate was like a carpet possibly.

In late 2006, a new starter place was released and the older starter places was retired. It features a large gray room with two plates, one filled with bricks and the other which is blank. Although there is a large open space on one of its walls, the player cannot escape. Players were finally given the ability to build. It seems to be the prototype of the Happy Home in Robloxia. This starter place was around before ROBLOX broke the texture of the presumed Happy Home in Robloxia prototype, and there are no longer any textures of the place as of early 2012.

In 2007, the starter place was changed and the house from the first starter place had returned (this time in color), which remained in use for five years until late 2012 (although it was revamped in late 2011). The place features 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 (some of them have been removed, such as the vehicles and the spheres). Several other features from the first starter place had also returned, such as the bricks. In early April 2008, starter places were made copylocked by default. In late 2008, sign posts were added and were scattered all over the place to teach players how to build. It was changed into a winter theme in March 2009, with everything staying the same except the baseplate, which was colored white, to resemble snow.

In early 2007–2008, a green baseplate was made and was later scrapped around 2010–2011.

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 less 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 on 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, three additional game templates were added: Control Points, Free For All, and Team Deathmatch. 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. However, due to the exploding popularity of smooth terrain (which was released two years later), the voxel terrain was officially deprecated (although not removed) on August 19, 2016, and ROBLOX announced it would be discontinued on January 1, 2017, to "optimize and fully support a single, consistent platform", and because "places that use smooth terrain/water are played approximately eight times more than places that use old terrain/water".

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.

Throughout late 2015 and early 2016, many new game templates were released: Racing, 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, 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, collectible 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 ImWhite_NotBlack. 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.

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