We'd like to show creators our plans for Circuits V2. This blog post fills in parts of the map so that you know where we are now and where we are headed.
Where we are Now
Right we are focused on providing the most requested capabilities from creators while also addressing user experience and stability issues found while building our own rooms. By giving creators these capabilities, the universe of possible rooms expands, by focusing on experience and stability, building those rooms becomes easier.
User Requests
Last month, 5 of the top 10 Circuits V2 features in Canny were built, including the top 3 overall. Canny represents creator's voices and that makes it a priority. Creators wanted props and chips so plenty have been added: Button, Toggle Button and Trigger Volume as well as Trigonometry chips. If you think a feature is important, this is the best place for you to let us know. We've read 100% of the Canny requests for Circuits V2 and don't plan to stop.
Experience and Stability
Circuits V2 was forged in the fires of ^TombHeist. By building this room, we met pains experienced by other creators. The experience and stability changes focused on improving those pains. We fixed 6 of the top 10 stability and experience issues found while building ^TombHeist. These changes include building a better Control Panel experience for Buttons, Toggle Buttons and Trigger Volumes as well as preventing crashes and unexpected behavior. We will continue building rooms with Circuits V2 to keep improving in ways that benefit creators as well as ourselves.
Where we are Headed
In addition to user requests, Circuits V2 will see major improvements to the overall experience. These improvements will bring more creators into the fold and multiply the speed of existing creators. Over the next several months the features listed below will be brought into reality. The list is roughly in order but it will shift depending on the needs of creators.
Learning Curve and Experience
On first contact with Circuits V2, its easy to end up confused. The barrier to entry is high and even experienced users get lost in the forest of chips. We are taking steps here right now. Over the next few weeks we are overhauling the experience for finding chips in the palette. In addition to building Circuits V2 into search we will enabled filtered searches. Creators will also see this improvement outside of beta.
To make learning and using Circuits V2 easier, creators need detailed information about chips and circuit graphs. Soon you will be able to discover what a chip does before using it and circuit errors will be evident as quickly as possible. This information should come in in over the next few updates.
Data, Objects and Types
Circuits V2 expresses many more kinds of data types. These types are a more sensible way to build that mean you don't have to shred the data of a game into a soup of integers. A button can send a message simply by plugging the button's Pressed port into a Show Notification chip.
Using types clears up what each port does but converting them is difficult. Circuits will soon include intelligent conversions between ports. This includes two differences:
1. Some ports which require conversions today will become compatible in the future
2. When ports require conversions we will automatically insert the necessary chips while connecting them
Networking
Networking in Circuits V2 has more flexibility than Circuits V1 but comes at the cost of complexity. Most confusion is conjured by the concept of authority. Authority is the player controlling an object when multiple players are present. Only 1 player can have authority and some chips only work on that player's computer. The `Has Authority` chip detects this but it alone is far too confusing. In the future, authority error information will be present while building. Some authority errors will be prevented entirely and those that aren't should be easier to diagnose without multiple players present in a room.
Debugging
When a circuit graph malfunctions, theres few capabilities to diagnose the source of error. Some sprinkle notifications across their graph but doing much is left desired. Getting to the bottom of issues quickly is important so creators can get on and build the rest of their game. Debugging information will be added to the world and palette including features for logging and discovering errors. We will begin to take steps here by showing error notifications automatically as they happen before building features for users to proactively detect errors.
Inventions, Roles, and Misc
To get Circuits V2 to creators quickly, it was released without many familiar features provided by Circuits V1. These features include things like gizmos, gadget visibility, roles and inventions. These will come one-by-one over time in roughly that order. Some of these have already showed up in creator requests and voting on them in Canny could impact when they are ready.
Closing
We hope you enjoyed this sneak peak of the Circuits V2 roadmap. Circuits V2 unlocks a universe of potential for creators and we hope this roadmap lets you know what to expect on the journey there.