Unreal Stream Team - A Community of Livestreaming Game Developers

Unreal Stream Team

Ever wanted to watch a game being made live? Interested in experiencing tutorials along with other developers? Just want to hear some cool people being clever with game design? Then come over to Twitch and see what’s playing!

The Unreal Stream Team is a collection of professional developers and Unreal enthusiasts who livestream their awesome game content. The Unreal Engine channel hosts these awesome folks all the time, so be sure to come by and check out what’s being made live!

Team Members

Do you have an awesome stream? Want us to check out your stream? Feel free to contact me or anyone from the team!

Still not enough? Additional streamers in the Unreal community can be found on the Wiki.

[=Zeiten;672351]
Hello,

I just wanted to chime in and say this sounds great but … those in charge need to add some more restrictions to this. I feel Epic staff may need to step in and ensure some type of guidelines are being followed.

For example … right now as of this post unrealengine is hosting one of the Team Members listed above, and they are not even doing anything related to Unreal Engine.
The problem with this? … there are several other streamers who are actually streaming Unreal Engine itself/Game Development. (xDrDoSX, FrankiePixelShow, Meldamiriel, RainbowWarrior_, oldworlrpg are all on and doing actual game dev as of this post … but unrealengine is hosting someone playing with GarysMod)

Why is this accepted? (confused) I feel those who want to be auto hosted by UnrealEngine (the OFFICAL may I add twitch account) should have a dedicated stream for UNREAL ENGINE/Game development ONLY for UnrealEngine to host them.
Not sure how but those in charge should ensure there is a rotation of all #UE4/Game developers so gets a fair use of this COMPANY twitch stream account.

Just my 2cents and I feel the above should be resolved quickly as it is unfair for others who are actually streaming UE4, vs off playing some video games that have nothing to do with UE4.
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Hello Zeiten,

We hear your concerns, however the “person doing nothing UE4 related” is actually not something we can control, the engine stream has auto hosting for certain people, this is something I myself can’t even access and we can’t unhost automated hosting. Whenever one of our team members streams something unrelated to Unreal Engine they let me, or someone else know and we will look out for other people to host.

In most cases this is whenever there’s no other UE4 stream, or no English UE4 stream. We also don’t have eyes on who’s streaming 24/7, we also have lives and can’t check constantly to see if a Unreal Engine person is actually live.

In another case, not all people who are auto hosted are part of this team, so we’re not always notified whenever someone on the stream is not using Unreal Engine.

Auto hosting is not controlled by the Epic Stream Team or Unreal Engine, it’s automated by Twitch and we can’t change that, nor can we change the rotation or anything related to that.

People from our team are not exclusive UE4, and whenever they want to play games or do something else they are free to do what they want, we’re free people. We do not hosting to those not streaming UE4.

In your exact case, I can’t say why this happenned, but it’s most likely because of autohosting kicking in on someone we don’t know was playing something else(And i do require to say whenever they stream something not UE4 so i’d know). If it’s a member of the team we were aware but we aren’t checking 24/7 if someone else is doing Unreal Engine.

[=Zeiten;673595]
Noted, but you can control who is on the auto host list (or someone can) And if there are no such restrictions you allow users to stream non game dev related content … which was experienced most of Saturday from Twitch.

I feel a company’s official twitch streaming account should have some guidelines and if any user who is on the autohost cannot abide by those rules of having an account solely for game dev vs LoL/WoW/CS:GO/ they shouldn’t be allowed to be on the auto host list.

As there is a priority given to the auto host list … and if one user happens to be above another who is hosting game dev, and the higher priority is streaming games … there’s no way around it other than hoping someone in charge changes the priority.

I understand no one can watch 24/7 - thus my post and the suggestion that a requirement of having a game dev only account to be listed on the auto host so we never run into this issue of having an auto hosted member, higher on the priority list, playing a game vs a lower priority member who is actually doing game dev, being over shadowed by a non game stream.
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I think the stream you are referring to on Saturday was my 24hr stream for charity, where I did primarily games. I only do this gaming stream once a year, so it’s not exactly a problem that pops up frequently on my part. I did forewarn the team, but with GDC incoming and the current manual host override being a volunteer position it wasn’t always possible to host someone who WAS streaming UE4.

We had already discussed within the team whether we should turn off autohost to avoid such situations, and I think we will be discussing pros and cons some more. The current auto-host system has a lot of flaws, and the priority system only kicks in when a hosted stream goes offline, meaning that a higher priority stream can go online, but the hosts wont swap unless someone manually overrides or the currently hosted stream ends. There’s no way for the hosted channel to decline a host either, which would have solved the issue this weekend. Realistically though, the incidents of those of us already on the team streaming non dev, is very very low overall.

(On the bright side that non-dev stream you might have stumbled over on Saturday raised £3,679.20 for the charity SpecialEffect, they make custom controllers / setups so that disabled people can get (back) into gaming. Sorry about the non UE4 content though.)

Love
Gladpus
<3 <3 <3

[=Zeiten;674225]
… hmmm just noticed this …

but …

So … you absolutely can do something about this? You even state “someone lets you know or someone else know and you look out for others to host” … but even disregarding that … Gladpus states you do have manual override. So is this a lie to us? Saying you can’t? Because one second you make it sound like you have control over it, ^-- “we look for others to host” next you don’t then Gladpus mentions manual override. Hmmmmmm…
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We can and can’t do anything about it.
Yes we can override who is currently being hosed, we can’t unhost a automated host.
Shortly put if an automated host is something not UE4 and there’s no current UE4 stream we can’t unhost, if there is a UE4 stream we can but we don’t always notice this. Some people stream in categories where we don’t expect people to stream and with the new twitch creative and communities it’s getting harder to have all game developers, certainly UE4 developer show up on one place so it is possible we miss a person that is streaming or we just don’t have time that day to check.

If someone from the team lets me know that is also on the autohost list(Note, not on that list is in the team) I will try to look out for other hosts, and usually i will find someone but if i don’t I can’t check every 15 minutes whether or not someone else popped up, and this is where the team comes in, we all check when we have time but it is possible that at certain times no one has time to look for another host.

[=Zeiten;674914]
NOTE: I do not personally stream, nor have any desire to. This is a concern for those who do.

,
I’m unsure how to respond to you. My second concern at this point is how you became leader of this team? As a leader of this public gift you should be striving to resolve all issues brought up. I came here to point out an obvious problem and even gave a reasonable solution which you still, as ‘leader’, have ignored and not commented on which would solve this problem. And after reading both your responses it’s just littered with excuses. Anyone can deduce the same opinion I have by reading this whole thread, sadly.

I’ll still humor your response of you don’t have rights (which we all know you do at this point) but if no one on the team who has these powers that Gladpus mentioned (which you failed to tell us as leader …. I really, really wonder why?) why wouldn’t the privilege of being hosted by UnrealEngine have that simple requirement: If you wish to be auto hosted -> do game development only. This way you do not get Auto Hosted and end up doing (whatever non-game development related) over others who are? (Again, I will state I believe there should be exceptions for Charity --only–)

However, I’ve dug into this for you as I feel at this point you do not know fully what you are leading. (A simple search brought the following link up): Customer Support
Again, I’d like to state personally I’m unsure how you became leader of this team without knowledge of twitch. This is a twitch focused game development team, right? However, we do not have to worry about the ‘priority list’: Clearly in the link, the second to last question at the bottom states you can have it do random selections of a list vs a priority list. Fantastic! that resolves “favoritism” in the list and prioritization and I hope it is that way. But the issue remains, which you pointed out twice now and I am responding to twice: Members of this team cannot be on 24/7 and it’s not (shouldn’t be) expected of volunteers; so, to resolve this issue there should be requirements to ensure those who get this privilege of auto hosting are doing it correctly. If they violate it, give a warning. If violated again removed from the auto host list and never added again. It’s not difficult.

Sadly, at this point I cannot discuss this with you anymore as you have clearly showed there is no understanding on your end or simply no concern for a very real problem I have disclosed or even bothered to acknowledge the solution. As well as not mentioning information that should be public to here (that you can manually do things). It’s my understanding, you do not own the UnrealEngine twitch, I may be wrong and if so all of this is a waste of time for me but I don’t think that is the case? However, as a leader you should be striving to resolve all issues brought up, not trying to make excuses.

Either way, I will be contacting Epic Staff to help assist in this matter as you have shown you have no desire to fix it. I recommend others who wish to be auto hosted also bring it up to an Epic Staff. Clearly the leader of this gift is not acting in a way that is welcoming. The image this gift is getting from your responses is not a very good one. What if someone else has a problem? You will respond the same way? Lies? No desire to show concern? This is very, very bad.
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Zeiten,

We are aware of the issues, and I do not have access to the auto host list, as proof see this image.
chrome_2017-03-03_14-41-43.png

I do have the desire to fix this, the reason why I “haven’t yet done anything about it” as you say is because of GDC, I have no intention to bother the community managers with this issue until GDC is over, I have mentioned it before GDC but Epic Games is extremely busy before GDC so we weren’t able to solve it.

Without access to the auto host list I am not even sure who is on the list so enforcing a requirement(which is nothing we will ever do, and this is internally discussed) is not even possible, I do not own the UnrealEngine twitch account and do not have direct access, I only have access to decide who is manually hosted.

Everyone is free to stream what they want, and we’re discussing solutions for this issue but right now we can’t do anything about it until the GDC heat cools down.

If you have concerns you’re free to contact Epic about it.

Hi Zeiten,

You have brought up a valid concern and we thank you for the feedback. Having said this, it is important to note that neither nor Gladpus are to blame here, nor have they been providing excuses. The auto hosting functionality is only available to Epic staff and cannot be updated by anyone outside of Epic staff, so the stream team is not at fault. We are going to look into our current auto hosting process and see what improvements can be made.

Zeiten there is an easy solution to not wanting to watch games if they by happen to be on that stream, don’t watch them…

Hey,

I deeply apologize I wasn’t available to respond to this sooner. I’ve just gotten back into the office and I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify what you were experiencing @Zeiten and why it won’t be an issue as much going forward.

The curators of the Unreal Engine stream have the ability to override the currently hosted channel with another live channel, but they cannot unhost a stream without content to replace it. This is a limitation of Twitch and I’m currently talking with their people to request the /unhost feature, which is the core of the problem. I’ll also review the auto-host list with the team and they can tell me who/what should be in it and I can make those changes as the account owner. We also plan on adding more Editors who live in different time zones, since the problem of not always catching non-development streams stems from only a few people being awake at certain times of the day. These Editors work on a volunteer basis and we at Epic really appreciate their work.

That being said, I wish to clarify, I am the account owner. is an Editor and all Editors do not have access to the autohosting features, but have the power to do host overrides if there is a channel to host. As I said, I am working to have this fixed.

To else out there, please feel free to help out your community by streaming your game development with #UE4 on twitch. Thanks!

[=Zeiten;676883]
You sir with one reply have shown here why exactly you are the Community Manager. You have brought back lost hope with a simple reply. I am overly ecstatic at everything you said and truly care about the community and supporting those that stream. Thank you for such a wonderful reply, truly I tip my hat to you.

Keep up the amazing work
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No problem! Thanks for watching the streams :smiley: