The front page. What seems to be such a wonderful place for users to find fun, popular games that many people are enjoying and jump into some instant, surely good fun.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case on Roblox.
Users are clearly farming tickets from their places, dragging in users with faux place names and pictures, only to trick them into joining an unrelated, and most importantly, un-fun, place, just to rake in as much virtual money as possible.
I think at this point it is safe to say that since Roblox is a building and exploring game, it is simply no fun to be tricked into someone's moneymaking scam. There is no reward for good building or exploring.
Trying hard to get my own place which I put a lot of effort into become recognized on Roblox, while watching copied scams of places rise in popularity everyday, is disheartening. I believe the community as a whole wants this to be addressed.
I have pulled together various methods for fixing this clear problem, drawing from other websites as well as reasoning to formulate several simple plans of action Roblox could take to try to fix this.
Method A: Add a (non-intrusive, optional) rating system.
-Allow (registered) users to rate places INGAME from 1-5 stars based on the amount of fun they are having.
-Make the rating system not interfere with gameplay, so the user may rate when he pleases once he gets a good idea of how much he enjoys the game.
-Display average ratings beside player counts on the front page.
-Disallow users from rating more than once, and disallow accounts that have not been active for at least a week to rate. (To prevent spamming)
-UPDATES RESET THE GAME'S RATING. (This is an optional fix that could address the constant updating of front page ticket-farming places to make them seem new)
-Base tix income from places on that place's current rating. Bad rating but a lot of visitors = not as much tix as good rating, lot of visitors.
Method A-1: Player Reviews
-Allow users to submit short text reviews of places which the owner of the place may feature beside the comments/servers section as a new tab.
-Community involvement, constructive criticism, cuts back on scams and highlights good works.
Method B: Prevent places from earning tix for a certain time period after being updated.
-Another preventative measure dealing with constant updating of front page places to make them seem new. This prevents the ticket-farming user from getting the only thing he wants, tickets, and forces him to not make new scam updates to his place if he wants to keep earning them.
Method C: Cycle the front page places.
-After a place has been on the front page for a certain amount of time, it cannot appear on the first page for a certain amount of time. This period allows games from less-visited pages to have their time in the spotlight.
-May not stop scamming altogether, but prevents users from constantly hogging the front page.
Method D: Remove "Disable Comments".
-The only good that Disable Comments is doing now is covering up scam places. If a place is a scam, people deserve to know. Spam is being addressed at the moment, so it should be less of a concern. There is no real reason to allow users to disable comments on their places.
Method E: User, Developer Picks
-Top-rated and favorited games of the previous day are showcased in a "User Picks" section of the front page, for the current day only.
-Developer picks section, where developer's favorite games are showcased at the top of the front page. THIS IS A GREAT WAY TO REWARD GOOD PLACE BUILDERS.
Method F: Don't allow guest visits to earn tix.
-Self-explanatory. When a guest visits a place, don't make it give the place owner the tickets for place visits. Why? This will stop the main source of income from scams and scam ads, thus moving the power to the main playerbase seeking a good time.
-Its not like the guests will be in any way disadvantaged by not giving someone else a ticket for playing their place. It's all about building and exploring, right?
tl;dr, read the method headlines.
I hope these ideas are considered in some form in the near future. Hopefully, Roblox can return to a building and exploring game, and leave behind ticket farming.
Thank you for your time.
Other users with ideas that may be reading this, post your own suggestions below. |