Place

Templates page on Roblox Studio

A place is a type of instance data that can be loaded into the engine's data model. Models share the same data structure but are intended to be inserted into the data model rather than being loaded in full.

On Roblox, places are an asset type, and are the fundamental component of an experience (connecting multiple places together). Users can visit a place run by a Roblox server. Users can also publish places under an experience. The term "place" is commonly confused with "experience". A place can also be uncopylocked, allowing other users to access its file.

In Roblox Studio, the data model can be uploaded to a Roblox place or saved in a place file in either binary (.rbxl) or XML (.rbxlx) format. Roblox provides templates including a default one known as a starter place which will be used when the "New" button is clicked or when a place is created on Roblox.

History

See also: Experience § History

This section is currently incomplete.

2005

• Between June and April, places were referred to as "games" on the homepage and in game URLs, while being called "levels" in the URL of the Games page.

2006

• On March 23, users could now edit the name and description of their games.
• In April, places were now referred to as such in the URL of the Browse page.
• On June 5, multiplayer was announced on the forums, but was only seen in places made by Roblox admins. These multiplayer games were displayed in their own self-titled tab on the website instead of the Browse tab.
• The first multiplayer place, Brick Battle (later named Brick Battle: Crossroads, then sometime later Classic: Crossroads), was released on July 14, 2006.
• On September 28, all users can now make their places multiplayer and all multiplayer games were now on the Browse page.
• On October 25, place names can now be searched with the new search function.

2007

• On January 1, Telamon calls places "levels", which may suggest that players or admins around this time still called them as such.
• On February 17, the copylocking feature is added. This feature allowed users to set their places to "copylocked" so other users cannot copy them.
• On May 1, places are now displayed on the Games page, have an 8 player cap limit, and create different copies (later known as servers) of itself.
• On May 14, users can now gain 1 Robux from other players joining their place.
• Some time before or in June, the max player cap was increased to 20 and users could now have multiple places.

2017

• Before September 27, the amount of active places one could have were limited based on their Builder's Club membership. The amount goes as follows.
  • Free users - 1 active experience
  • Former BC (users whose BC membership has expired) - 5 active experiences
  • BC - 10 active experiences
  • TBC - 25 active experiences
  • OBC - 100 active experiences

2018

• Historically, experiences were created in experimental mode, signifying that FilteringEnabled was disabled. However, in 2018, experimental mode was disabled. All places are now created with Experimental Mode off and all existing places have transitioned to normal mode. During this transition, <13 users were unable to join Experimental Mode experiences for a short time.

2019

• At RDC 2019, David Baszucki said that "it might be possible to run 600-player games with no additional cost."

Creating places

In order to create a place, developers must go to the Create page on the Roblox website (as shown in the picture) on the experience page. When clicking on the Create page, the user can see all of their places by clicking "experiences" on the left side of the page. This allows the user to quickly open any place for any experience in Studio. Every experience automatically creates a starter place. A starter place's thumbnail, name, and description is used on the website page for an experience. More places can be added to the experience through Roblox Studio.

Configuration

To configure a place, simply select the gear icon on the right side of their experience's entry, then select "Configure Place" from the drop-down box. Configuring a place allows the user to:

• Change the place's name/description.
• Change the place's icon.
• Change the place's thumbnail image/video. Video thumbnails cost 500 Robux.
• Choose whether or not experience access is sold for Robux (toggle paid access).
• Change the amount of visitors allowed on one server. The maximum amount of visitors is 200. (Users in the Roblox Beta program can set Server Size to 700)
• Change place access privileges
• Change the place's copylock protection (Disabling this allows people to copy the user's experience and edit it for their own needs.)
• Change the experience's genre (as seen by the public)
• Reset the place to a starting template
• Revert the place to a previous version

Templates

The user can choose to start building on one of 16 starting templates, many which lay framework for a potential experience: * Indicates that the template includes instructions and hints for designing the experience

• "Baseplate" (formerly "Baseplate 2021"), consisting of a large gray block with a simple texture to serve as the ground as well as some basic lighting effects; this is the most-commonly-used template
• "Classic Baseplate" (formerly "Baseplate"), consisting of a large gray plastic block to serve as the ground; this was the most-commonly-used template before being overtaken by Baseplate
• "Flat Terrain", consisting of a large empty stretch of flat Terrain.
• "Concert", consisting on random generated Terrain with a configured concert with events
• "Village" *, consisting of a small medieval village surrounded by rivers and a lake
• "Castle" *, consisting of a large castle surrounded by hills and mountains
• "Suburban", consisting of a small suburban town, complete with streets, 3 houses (2 are empty), a gas station, and a school
• "Racing", consisting of 4 drivable cars and a landscape-decorated race course
• "Pirate Island" *, consisting of an ocean, 4 tropical islands, and a pirate ship
• "Western", (no longer available), consisting of a small Old Western town and a long railroad track located in a desert and woodland
• "City", (no longer available), consisting of streets and 4 urban buildings. This was replaced by "Modern City".
• "Modern City", includes a fully built city area and a Modular City Building Kit so you can easily construct your own buildings
• "Obby", consisting of a very simple obby
• "Starting Place" *, consisting of a cabin and a yard incomplete for sake of building surrounded by hills and mountains; this is the default place every experience created has
• "Line Runner", consisting of several platforms with obstacles, works as a linear 2.5D endless runner
• "Infinite Runner", (no longer available), consisting of several platforms with obstacles, works as a 3D Temple-Run-style endless runner
• "Capture the Flag", consisting of two competing camps (one red, one blue) separated by a river, works as a round-based "Capture the Flag" PvP experience
• "Team/FFA Arena", consisting of a military camp next to a cargo yard and a forest, works as a round-based PvP game
• "Combat", consisting of an empty flat desert with 2 weapons givers and a healing kit giver
• "Move It Simulator", consisting of a walking simulator set in a realm, meant for Build It, Play It: The Island of Move
• "Mansion of Wonder", consisting of a magical mansion, meant for Build It, Play It: Mansion of Wonder
• "Create and Destroy", (no longer available), consisting of an ocean with a lobby island, the main island during rounds, and an island with pieces meant to design the second aforementioned island, works as a competitive round-based experience, themed after the Godzilla franchise and meant for Roblox Creator Challenge (2019)
• "Galactic Speedway", (no longer available), consisting of an extraterrestrial landscape with dissembled pieces to build an aircraft from and floating rings to fly the aircraft through, themed after Star Wars and meant for Galactic Speedway Creator Challenge
• "Story Game" (no longer available), consisting of a library with a pedestal holding a book, meant for Roblox Winter Creator Challenge
• "Volcanic Island" (no longer available), consisting of Isla Nublar in-midst of a volcanic explosion, themed after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and meant for Roblox Creator Challenge (2018)

All templates, excluding the Creator Challenge places, can be viewed on the official Templates account, linked here.

Old templates

• These were the old templates:
  • "Happy Home in Robloxia", consisting of a stamper-made house along with terrain, which received strong criticism.
  • "Starting Brick Battle", consisting of two opposing walled towers, two different teams and a baseplate. Visitors would get all of the standard Roblox fighting tools.
  • "Baseplate", consisting of a large stretch of Terrain.
  • Personal Server Starting Place.

Visiting places

Users can visit a place on Roblox, which is run by a Roblox server, through the Roblox Player client. The "start place" of an experience is the place where users visit first, as other places of the experience cannot be visited directly. In order to visit other places of the experience, TeleportService may be used.

Hierarchy

• DataModel
• Workspace
• Camera
• Terrain
• Lighting
• MaterialService
• ReplicatedFirst
• ReplicatedStorage
• ServerStorage
• ServerScriptService
• Players
• StarterGui
• StarterPack
• StarterPlayer
• StarterPlayerScripts
• StarterCharacterScripts
• SoundService
• Chat
• TextChatService
• LocalizationService

The typical hierarchy of a place.

The data structure of a place is based on the tree model, in which the DataModel is the root and each node is an instance. This is known as the hierarchy. A place hierarchy data can be edited in Roblox Studio. In Roblox Studio, the hierarchy can be viewed from the Explorer window. The DataModel object serves as the root of the hierarchy, accessed by game in Lua, which houses services. An object that shares the same data structure but functions as a modular component of a place is known as a model.

The data may be stored in a file, in either binary (.rbxl) or XML (.rbxlx) format, both of which Roblox Studio can open.

Services

The DataModel houses services, each of which represents an internal service. Services cannot be instantiated through Instance.new. There are services that are mostly used:

• The Workspace is used to contain descendant instances of 3D-related classes such as parts for rendering and physics simulation.
  • The Camera is used to change the renderer properties such as position, orientation and field of view.
  • The Terrain represents the terrain mesh.
• The Lighting is used to change how lighting works.
• The ReplicatedStorage is used to store instances. Parts are stored here to prevent them from being simulated or rendered.
• Similar to ReplicatedStorage, the ServerStorage is used to store instances that can only be accessed from the server.
• Similar to ServerStorage, the ServerScriptService is used to house server-sided Scripts which are executed automatically when the place runs.
• Players serve as a container for Players, each of which represents a client (of a user) that is connected.
  • StarterPlayer changes how a Player and the character are loaded.
    • StarterPlayerScripts and StarterCharacterScripts act as containers for the Player's PlayerScripts and the character, respectively, in which LocalScripts are executed as soon as they are cloned and parented.
  • StarterPack acts as a Tool container for the Player's Backpack.
  • StarterGui acts as a GUI container for the Player's PlayerGui.

Trivia

This section is a trivia section. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections of the article.

• New Gear Test, created by the Roblox administrator Soggoth, is the only place known on Roblox to go past 700 max visitors, with a server size of 123456789. Only Roblox employees can set Server Size past 700.