Blog Archive
Last week, we brought on four up-and-coming engineers to join us in our never-ending quest to make ROBLOX better, faster, and more streamlined. These are names you’ll recognize if you’ve spent some time on ROBLOX–many of them are legends in the community. That’s right, being a power user on ROBLOX can lead to some great things, like an internship right here at ROBLOX HQ. Without further ado: the ROBLOX Summer Interns.
Stravant, formerly xlegox, is known across ROBLOX as an innovator. He was one of the first builders to create a real-time strategy game in ROBLOX (ever hear of a little game called Conquest? There were five of them), in addition to being one of the first builders to create a functioning train (and tracks!). The 20-year-old will be working on ROBLOX’s foundation. Oh, and his real name is Mark Langen.
ROBLOX: What’s the plan for this Summer?
Stravant: I’ll be working on tools in Studio–basically I’ll be creating and altering tools for builders. I’m also hoping improve the Studio experience. I just re-wrote the terrain generator, but there’s still a lot of room for improvements. I’m also working on a super secret building project that I don’t think I can talk about.
ROBLOX: What are your goals?
Stravant: I’m 100% vested in pursuing programming as a career. ROBLOX was the first step. Now, I’m studying computer engineering in college, and I hope to eventually work as a game developer. When you’re a game developer, you get to do a little bit of everything, which suits me.
MrDoomBringer, also known as Cliff Chapman in real life, has had quite the ROBLOX track record. The 21-year-old was already a ROBLOX moderator before accepting the internship, and was the first ROBLOX builder to create a little something you may have heard of: VIP shirts.
ROBLOX: What are you going to be doing here this Summer, Cliff?
MrDoomBringer: Whatever I can to try and make the website better. This involves several aspects. I’ll be working on internal moderation tools, primarily. The tools haven’t been touched in ages, so I’ll be bringing them up to speed. My overall goal is to make roblox.com a much smoother experience in general.
ROBLOX: Tell us a bit about yourself.
MrDoomBringer: Similar story to Mark–I’m currently in college and am studying computer engineering. I want to go into low-level software development, hopefully one day developing my very own indie game. ROBLOX sort of dragged me into programming at a young age, and showed me the patience and skill it takes to actually sit down and focus on building something big. I moved on to C++ and love the language–that’s what I hope to pursue after college.
Merely is the premiere collector of limited items on ROBLOX. He’s also created several popular ROBLOX titles, including Trade Hangout, a game where you can bargain with other users and make deals for limited items. His real name is Nathan Dean, and he joins our team along with his twin brother.
ROBLOX: What are you working on for the Summer?
Merely: I’m mostly going to be working on the web team, finding and fixing bugs. I’m also developing a new feature that would allow you to save your entire outfit, and load that getup with a click of the button. That way you can customize your character’s look, head to toe, then save it and load it easily. I’ve made an Outfit Extension that’s the most popular Chrome extension for ROBLOX, with over 6,500 users.
ROBLOX: Give us some personal background.
Merely: Well, I’m currently studying computer science and engineering. From very early on, I was extremely curious to discover how ROBLOX.com worked. My brother and I began reporting any and all bugs and glitches we would find. Over time, we did all we could as users to help improve the website.
Stravant: [Laughs] Meaning they did all they could to break the website.
Merely: [Laughs] Exactly.
Last but certainly not least, Merely’s twin brother Seranok (aka Matthew Dean) needs no introduction. The creator of Catalog Heaven, one of the most played games on ROBLOX to date, he’s eager to get to work fixing bugs and glitches.
ROBLOX: What are you doing for us this season?
Seranok: I’ve always been more curious about software, as opposed to hardware. I feel like my brother and I have done all we can from the outside to make ROBLOX better. Now, it feels good to come in and work from the inside to see what we can get done. I’ve been working on an extension that can rapidly look up items–you just type in an asset ID, then click on the item. I’ve also been working on a Chrome extension that notifies users when new catalog items come out, or change price. It already has 2,000 users.
As you can no doubt see from our recent staff hires, learning the ropes could land you a sweet gig, and not just here! Many of our users are growing up to be successful programmers, artists and game developers. There’s a massive spectrum of talents to acquire using ROBLOX, whether that’s on the Web, in Studio, or simply learning to make fun games. So keep building! You never know where you’ll end up.
Editor’s Note: Be careful when using Chrome extensions. Though useful, not all are made for your benefit. We recommend you never enter your password anywhere other than ROBLOX.com.