We’ve been making great progress on the roadmap items we announced on January 14th, and we wanted to share an update.
Our main focus is ensuring chat feels active and engaging in every game, and make it easier to complete an age check so more users can keep chatting. We’re currently iterating on and testing these features to get them right, and we’ll notify you as soon as they’re ready for public testing so you can jump in and try them out. We will share our next update on February 5th.
In addition to the updates to the existing items under in the ‘New Update’ column, we’ve added another community need marked with a [New] tag below:
Community Need
New Update
[New] Prevent users from being placed in the incorrect age group either by buying an account, or by having someone else complete an age check.
Re-check age on account transfer: If an age checked account has changed ownership, we will prompt the user to age-check again to confirm the age of the new owner.
Re-check age if there’s a behavior mismatch: If you’ve completed an age check but your behavior on Roblox is inconsistent with your current age, you will be prompted to complete an age-check again.
We launched a test of both of these systems recently, and we’re aiming for a full launch in the coming weeks based on how the tests perform.
Broadcast one-way messages for server announcements or personalized news.
Supported today, creators can use system messages or build custom UI to broadcast messages to any of their users.
Ensure active and social experiences where enough users can communicate.
Matchmaking optimization - We want to ensure that all users are matched into servers that feel alive and have other users that they can chat with. We’re continuing to optimize the TextChat signal and matchmaking for all experiences, and we’ve rolled out a few improvements over the last two weeks.
New API endpoints - We’re on track to launch TextChatService:GetChatGroupsAsync() and VoiceChatService:GetVoiceGroupsAsync() to help creators group users by age in their Experience in February. We’ll let you know as soon as these are live, and update our documentation to outline their implementation details.
Global chat - We are adding a new channel within TextChatService which would enable all users to send/receive messages from all servers. Users will also be able to use appropriate safety tools for reporting. We’re in the process of scoping this, and more details to come on timing in our next update.
Chat with friends and family across age groups in Experience chat.
Experience Chat for Trusted Connections - Enable users to chat with Trusted Connections within Experience chat across age groups. In development, and on track to launch in early February.
Trusted Connections for Younger Users - Enable Trusted Connections for younger users with parental oversight. In development, and on track to launch in March.
Add Trusted Connections easily.
Easily Upgrade Connections to Trusted Connections - Yesterday we launched the ability to easily promote existing Connections to Trusted Connections via QR Code for 13+ users.
New ways to add Trusted Connections (ie. Links) - Add invite links to upgrade existing Connections to Trusted Connections. In development and on track to launch in March.
Creators want to maintain civility in their community across all age groups.
Real time, view-only experience chat for Creators - In March, creators will be able to give moderators permission to read all experience chat messages for all users regardless of the age band that they’re in.
Coordinate gameplay safely across different age groups using broadcast options.
Creator Defined Preset Messages - We’re scoping the exact specifications of a first-party system in the next week. Our goal is to have this system available in March.
In case you missed it, we updated our guidanceon creator-driven preset communication messages allowing you to create custom ‘quick chat’ / ‘message wheels’. We’ll share more guidance in the next couple of weeks on some important considerations when building this type of system.
Understand age checks and communication metrics in your experiences.
Communication & age-based metrics - After getting feedback from creators, we’re shifting the launch of this feature to the second half of this year to focus time and resources on higher priority items.
Obtain direct feedback from users to effectively iterate and improve experiences.
Real time, view-only experience chat for Creators - In March, creators will be able to give moderators permission to read all experience chat messages for all users regardless of the age band that they’re in.
Community Polls - This will enable you to poll your Community on Roblox for feedback on key decisions. Currently, this is in development and on track to launch in April.
Player Help Desk - Launching in early access by June, this upcoming feature allows players to submit support requests for issues like bugs, data loss, ban appeals or feature requests. As a creator, you can manage these tickets through direct conversations to resolve player concerns with tracking on the creator and player side.
Provide clear resolution paths for the instances where age estimation needs to be adjusted
Pathway to re-check age - Pathway to re-check age - Users will be able to redo an age check through their settings; this is on track to launch before the end of January. (Edit - Jan 30: The ability to re-check age through your settings will be limited to users who are put in an age group over 18 via Facial Age Estimation).
The update for checking age is just a mess. It keeps putting people in the wrong age groups, so you can’t even talk to friends you’ve been playing with for a long time. Additionally, it fails entirely half the time, making servers feel lifeless as everyone is prevented from participating in regular chat. It just makes things more annoying for both players and creators, without actually making things safer. Before it totally destroys community interaction, Roblox needs to address this.
OK. But does no one at Roblox not realise that no one wants this update? No feedback listened to on that 3000+ replies post about the age check rolling out! Also, how will the re-check age system work? Won’t that be even easier to make adult to get into kid age groups ?
You guys ever been trapped doing like 10 captchas in a row because a computer is convinced you’re a robot? What’s the guarantee that this won’t happen with age verification? Games like Adopt Me are made for children but have a very active adult player base as well. Will they be impacted?
Would storing this information be considered PII for the purposes of e.g. GDPR? It feels as though it indirectly exposes a user’s age.
Is Roblox at all concerned about people using off site platforms like Discord to convince 13+ users to promote someone to a trusted connection? It feels like this is an easy avenue for compromising the safety of a Roblox account.
Have you considered a world where this is just given to everyone who joins a community as a blanket permission? What mechanisms are being put in place to combat this?
What prevents this from being abused to brute force passing it in the manner you want? Is there a cool down? Are repeated attempts flagged?
I get you are trying to make this work, but it just won’t, it still causes issues down the line and I still think this entire update is terrible, this isn’t the way to go. I REALLY HOPE you realise the mistake of all this and just revert the Chat update, find a different system entirely.
oh my god this post is gonna get flooded with comments when age check updates arrives lol
also, can you just make a Q&A (questions and answers) that reads our feedback and answer the feedback we gave you? You’re ignoring a lot of people and its getting annoying
No player on Roblox in their right mind wants this age check or chat restriction update.
I said it before and I will say it again: It is not too late to revert this change.
Do yourself a favour, and listen to YOUR community. YOUR userbase. WE as the community know the platform more than you ever could.
The age check and chat restrictions update will regardless have a NET NEGATIVE impact.
The account transfer checks are a big step up but this update remains super painful to see. The one thing I would really like to see changed still is the age groups themselves. The biggest issue about this update is that it’s made everything seem so dead and quiet and that’s mostly because of how many age groupings and age separations there are.
Is it really not possible to simplify the age groupings at this point (<12, 13-17, 18+)?
Edit:
On previous updates on this I was confused on the age brackets and thought 18-20 was barred from anyone 21+, this doesn’t actually seem to be the case but looking at it now the current brackets are even weirder. If predation is such a big issue why can minors chat all the way up to people 20 years old? At 16-17 you basically get to chat with everyone on the platform, with this being stripped once you hit 18.
In case you missed it, we updated our guidanceon creator-driven preset communication messages allowing you to create custom ‘quick chat’ / ‘message wheels’. We’ll share more guidance in the next couple of weeks on some important considerations when building this type of system.
Can Roblox provide us with an absolute commitment that our Experiences will not be taken down if we implement preset-messages through TextChatService System Messages right now?
are you gonna complain when they start using server announcements or global messages to communicate with users? I don’t really know what you expect it being read-only to fix
We’re in the middle of designing a modular preset chat message system for our game that allows users to build messages with phrases and dynamic data, something like 'Player' 'MrTortoise_guy' 'please move forward'. Would this be allowed within the very non-specific guidelines written out here?
You are destroying the platform, this fixes nothing. This update sucks and your stock is in shambles because of it. Nobody wants to play a multiplayer game in which they can’t talk with others. Revert this update, hire more moderators, (which is what you should’ve done ages ago) and apologize to the community for not giving a flip about us before it’s too late. Even great companies can fall. You’re not immune.
