Good change, the old chat system sucks. For the people complaining: 99.9% of games with the old chat don’t have any custom functionality. It will just be migrated to the new UI and won’t break anything. I also HIGHLY DOUBT that they will “moderate” small games with no players for misusing the old API, it sounds like fear-mongering. It’s unlikely they’ll spend resources to police tiny, inactive games with minimal impact.
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maybe a bit much?
especially for inactive devs
but oh well
Beginning to force a migration to the new TextChatService when it currently isn’t on par with the legacy chat system in the first place is absurd. Others in this thread have provided a few examples of that.
I would hope these issues are fully resolved before the new TextChatService becomes mandatory.
Additionally, from the look of the timeline, it seems that even custom chat systems that comply with the new API will eventually be outlawed by April 30th, 2025 in favor of the new TextChatService for everyone. If this is correct, this is once again absurd. Why cannot people have their own custom, compliant chat systems?
(edited to fix typo)
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It seems pretty explicit that workarounds like this aren’t allowed for any type of chat. Even though GetNonChatStringForBroadcastAsync provides the strictest level of filtering.
But that aside having the chat filter results be like this isn’t ideal, as I would assume using the lesser strict chat filter for things like comments in games would be ideal. Given comments might be like a player giving feedback to another player, ect where comments act as a form of chat.
I would see using the chat filter for comments being useful in games like ClipIt or RecIt.
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So simply put, I dont see TextChatService being a end all be all for any user chat-like message filtering. I get why roblox wants this, but it ends up heavily restricting communication in experiences that want to do more with chat. Such as comments, cross-server chat for games that want to have huge servers.
As having 1000 player servers is cool and all as a plan, but itd be much cooler if I could have several 1000 player servers “linked” and have a cross-server proximity chat in a giant survival world for example.
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[Update] November 16, 2024
I made a small change from “experience” to “game” in the last line. So don’t be confused why I edited it.
Roblox, That’s the most dumb and stupiest idea ever, I am not gonna migrate from the Old Legacy Chat Service to the new one as the old one helps my players better to chat instead of using the - key to start chatting + I am not going to migrate it also since It’s a classic and legacy feature.
On April 30th, 2025. I will still refuse to use the new message system as I do not tolerate with this change. And with the new guidelines to make a custom chat system, it’s stupid.
I will continue to use the Legacy Chat as always and you do not have the rights to moderate my game or account if you do so.
11 Likes
Is this change due to the experiences that get you banned by taking over your chat?
This took me 5 hours to migrate from Legacy Chat to new TextChatService.
It would have taken shorter if Documentations website included more code examples and explanations.
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Migrate to new chat system > make a good chat moderation and anticheat 
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So we’re… Forced to have less freedom?? lol??
if you could modify LuaChatService (and i WILL keep referring to legacy chat as that) with freedom, I can’t say the same with new text chat service. If I want to add unique features ito it, i likely wont be able to just because we must use this closed-source system.
Oh yeee, I’ve basically made typings for LuaChatService for nothing. Thanks roblox (:
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This only applies to public experiences probably. You don’t need to go and update all the places you have ever created.
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I am not amused by this change like many others.
If you can’t read the whole post because of Roblox’s very complicated phrasing and wording I will clear up some stuff on which you may be confused about.
- Your account will not be moderated if you can’t integrate to the API or migrate to TextChatService. But rather your experiences (more-so Games) may be moderated some people misinterpreted this as in their account may be moderated.
- Not even your custom chat systems are safe from this whether if it uses the legacy chat system forked or not. You HAVE to migrate as seen below:
Don’t know what else to cover as these are generally the main points that are in the post, but I will get into my pet-peeves with this change.
- You have to wait 16 days just for this new API (CanUserDirectChatAsync) to release which can make migrating to TextChatService a pain + you are wasting 16 days just to notify developers about it and give them a notice. Why not release it already?
- You are allowed to integrate the new API into legacy chat systems or forked ones but because on April 30th you have to integrate to TextChatService all because of parental controls which is a niche point on Roblox’s hands. It would be far better if we were atleast fully allowed to integrate new API into the legacy chat systems and not have to integrate to TextChatService it would still hurt developers, but it would yield a slightly better outcome.
- TextChatService has a ton of unnoticed or unaddressed issues that still linger.
- What if a developer has a ton of experiences that use legacy chat? They have to go through the pain of manually integrating and migrating those.
Eventually a company has to turn corporate, but they don’t have to make changes that actively hurt their platform’s developers just to keep their investors happy while trying to be transparent with us while also making the most game-breaking change ever.
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This could actually become a good thing if Roblox decides to add theme presets to the new chat system including a Retro appearance which just has a identical look to the classic chat system. Roblox, if you’re gonna bring down the legacy chat system then please implement this as an feature. We don’t want to rely on user created content to do this for us.
Man, i don’t even wanna use any of these default chat systems. This is such a poor way to handle parental controls and i have to ask how much planning actually actually went into this. It’s also crazy to me how late these parental control changes are being implemented but hey what can ya do, guess those “Roblox - The Pedophile Hellhole” articles popping up left and right started denting their stocks. I really can’t call this anything other than pure incompetence from roblox.
Either way, let’s be honest here. This is nothing more than a slippery slope for the entire platform. This slippery slope will only lead developers (and further the platform) into some ultra high moderation zone for the sake of “protecting the children” (roblox’s stock) while never actually changing anything in reality. You guys know why you make the money you do from your experiences right? Well surprise surprise, it’s because the parents don’t actually fucking care and you guys already know that. How do i know this? You guys are actively promoting and standardizing the exploitation of children and your biggest developers are LOVING IT. But hey this is all fine since this exploitation is not sexual in nature, right? Who care’s if we are stealing the money of kids, who cares if we are hooking kids up with all tons of addictions, who cares if we are straight up lying in their face to get as much money as possible from their parents? As long as its not sexual then everything is magically A-OK!
If the parents cared then their children would not be playing those child exploitation simulators at all yet, they still are, en masse. This is beyond backwards to me. Large chunk of the platform’s money comes from exploiting kids yet you guys are forcing us to “save da kidz” from being exploited by pedophiles.
Unpopular opinion but maybe you guys should be telling parents to start raising their goddamn kids. I don’t mind these changes being some sort of optional feature parents can enable and developers to implement, but the moment these things are implemented in such a destructive and forceful manner is the moment i will tell roblox and the parents to piss off.
If having these things in games is so important than sure, whatever. Provide the goddamn API’s to allow us to be compliant and expand the experience questionnaire to ask whenever or not the game used fully kitted out chat systems. If not, then simply don’t allow accounts with parental restrictions to access these experiences.
This is straight up comical. Team Chat is quite literarily a proprietary plugin that you and only YOU guys have control over yet have to remove it because the new magic API’s for whatever reason cannot be implemented for it? How the hell would “annonations” and “comments” help with that?
Like 95%+ of your child user-base will never be touching Roblox Studio to begin with yet it’s also affected by all of this? Do you guys believe studio CAN be problematic with the team chat? Or is it fine since you guys would want more free annonations and comments around the place? Won’t people be even more prone to finding those magic annonations and comments than the team chat menu (with how hidden it is in studio)?
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Can you add an api so we can figure out when a person has the chat box visible and not just focused?
What i’m trying to say is:
Since developers are able to make custom chat UIs, why not atleast keep it in the form of a preset which runs on the new TextChatService? As i said, relying on player made scripts is both a security issue and a non permanent fix, considering how your engine updates are prone to screwing the codebase of games.
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Roblox needs to seriously stop being lousy as they always are and consider firing the team that was behind this, because who in the RIGHT MIND would think this is a good idea?
If this keeps up i might as well ditch Studio entirely and go to Unity. I have HUNDREDS of places all running on the classic TextChatService, and i do NOT want to go through 300 places changing them to the new one, even though 99% of them are private.
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Average mid roblox change, how fun!
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Dude like what the hell? I know me and MILLIONS OF DEVELOPERS AND GAMES USE IT. THIS IS A STUPID UPDATE. AND YOU WILL MODERATE GAMES THAT STILL USE IT? THATS SO MESSED UP. GET BETTER ROBLOX YOUR RUINING THE GAME. IF YOU KEEP REMOVING THIS STUFF MORE AND MORE PLAYERS WILL LEAVE
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I asked AI to sum it up because it’s pretty hard to understand what they are trying to say.
- Legacy Chat System Removal:
- The old chat system will be removed by April 30th, 2025.
- Starting November 30th, 2024, new experiences can’t use this old system.
- Mandatory Use of TextChatService:
- By April 30th, 2025, all creators must switch to the new TextChatService.
- This change is part of an effort to improve safety, especially for children.
- Action for Custom Chat Solutions:
- If you use a modified or custom chat system, you must integrate with a new API (CanUserDirectChatAsync) by January 30th, 2025.
- Why These Changes:
- To give parents more control over their children’s chat settings.
- To ensure compliance with evolving laws and improve safety features.
- To make it easier for Roblox to implement future updates and improvements.
- Migration Scenarios:
- Scenario 1: Using standard legacy chat – migrate to TextChatService by April 30th, 2025.
- Scenario 2: Using modified legacy chat – integrate the new API by January 30th, 2025, and migrate by April 30th, 2025.
- Scenario 3: Using a custom chat solution – integrate the new API by January 30th, 2025, and migrate by April 30th, 2025.
- API Integration:
- The new API will determine if a user can send or receive direct chats.
- Documentation and tools will be provided to help with the migration.
- Team Chat Removal:
- Team Chat in Studio will be removed by January 30th, 2025, replaced by annotation and commenting features.