What Colors, When Colors, Why Colors?

Those of you who played Roblox back from 2006-2017 might remember being limited on the color palette given. "What colors were there to choose from, when did these colors get added, and why was the palette so limited?"

What Colors?

In 2006, Roblox added Lego part colors, down to their names. https://www.bricklink.com/catalogColors.asp (Color list is updated, but they are listed)
However, out of these colors, Roblox would choose only a limited selection, with only half of them actually selectable via a menu, with the rest being hidden.

When Colors?

The "When" of this is the most interesting part of the history of the Roblox colors, because it goes all the way near the beginning of Roblox's history.

Back in 2003-2006, they used simple Color3 values. No limited set colors, a complete RGB selection of colors at anybody's disposal. This is proven by looking at the XML data for the remaining 2005 Models.

Attempting to import a 2005 Model with full RGB into a client with limited colors, will make the client look for the preset color with the nearest RGB values and set it to that. A similar trick can be done using Color3 values with scripts, which allows you to do this same process but manually, effectively converting RGB into Roblox colors.

Eventually Roblox re-added full Color3 values in 2017, over 10 years after it's removal.

Why Colors?

It appears early on Roblox wanted to be a multiplayer Lego game, even commissioning prototype designs for Lego-Like characters created by Mike Rayhawk.
https://www.mikerayhawk.com/roblox.htm

Roblox also implemented an LDraw importer, although mostly incomplete, it used an XML file to determine how it should function, and this can be modified to add better support.

Despite Roblox starting out as a "Lego" game, over time their focus changed on becoming something different. Roblox is not the same thing anymore, it grew up into something much bigger, and that's not a bad thing.