Not really. They’ll answer questions regarding your reviewed asset, else they’ll tell you to try on forums (understandably).
A few years ago, that wasn’t the case. They used to answer right away. My opinion? the recent firing exodus is on their minds. Lot’s of people from Epic have been let go. You can smell the fear, any inappropriate post could mean their job.
On the other hand, they might just be waiting for FAB to come out (orders). Still, there’s no excuse for them not to answer this thread. It should be part of the service (job).
I think FAB is in it’s final stages before release, it’s probably not the best time to be changing anything or adding new features. I feel for Josh and the support staff - they get a lot of flack from frustrated customers - there’s probably not a lot they can say or do to help at this stage…
I’ve always had good responses for marketplace support from them, and times when I’ve needed support in other areas.
Definitely, once it reaches the testing stage there should be no more additions or changes, only fixes. At least that’s how I do things.
It’s a difficult one. People like to vent on forums and there is usually no good time to start a discussion. It does backfire. People just want to be listened to.
We have to be patient for Fab and see how it matches hopes and expectations.
Agree. Epic just create problems for themselves by starting threads like this one. What’s the point of promoting FAB on here, if there’s no follow up? Epic can get any feedback they want anyway from other channels or events. Its just a bad look. But that’s how Epic roll it seems.
Epic spent years telling users that support on here would improve and they’ve somehow convinced themselves that it has (stats can be misleading). They even upgraded the forums in the hope it would spark a re-energized community. But what actually happened? Everyone may have a different view on this, but it just seems like its a Fortnite NOOB paradise around here. Most users who actually knew anything left this channel and went to other Communities.
Or it might be as simple as the team has much less staff now, and thus have less time to interact with the community, because a lot of people were laid off to prevent the company from running out of money (at which point everyone would have to be let go …)
Indeed, it may happen sooner than later, specially if they follow Unity’s footsteps (replace staff & sellers with AI). A huge gamble for Epic IF they decide to take that road.
I don’t think those are the same situation. Unity is owned by a private equity firm. The goal of private equity is to invest the minimum possible in development, and extract the maximum possible value of the assets they have, for as long as possible. I would expect Unity to make their money through extractive methods from a captive audience that can’t switch away.
Epic is a privately held company that is still in the business of product development. However, they invested ahead of growth, to the point where they were bleeding more money than they were making. No company can survive that, so course correcting and spending less money is a necessity.
I would expect Epic to make their money by developing a strong enough product that people choose to enter into this ecosystem on its own merit.
At some point, Epic might decide that there’s no more development to do, and they just want to extract money from a captive audience, too, but that doesn’t look at all like what the current leadership is after.
It’s a huge guess but they might already be messing with AI in forum responses. I noticed a bunch of new bot accounts of which all posts were removed after I discussed them privately. Interestingly the accounts still exist but seem inactive. Wondering if it’s EPIC messing around or an outside threat. AI isn’t ready to deal with the forums on complex topics / knowledge when it just parrots info.
They could use AI in other ways. Bug reporting / merging. Linking related posts. Moderating. Behavior scanning to detect bots. Summarizing. Linking documentation. Translating. and so on. AI is good at parroting, let it parrot documentation. Devs get more free time, mods get more free time, so it’s a winwin. Just don’t let AI deal with discussions or complex topics beyond its capabilities and please mark AI as “AI” just like we see “staff” tags.
I’m ok with that. As long as they don’t use our work to feed a “Generative AI” without our consent. I also think AI should be use to detect uploaded AI content in order to reject it. Why? cause it’s a shameless copyright infringement.
Fixing it is as simple as a filter. I assume the site will have search filters and therefore I don’t share the visibility concern. Also running features for categories. I expect to be normal.
Indeed! With growing amounts of content, filters become more important. The Ai generated content already clutters the marketplace, with the result that I run out of time to browse the market during sales.
Important: We need additional filters for the existing UE market, and ideally the feature to hide selected authors.
One of my major concerns is that people abuse copyright items. I have given up on major sites like cgtrader ever sketchfab because they confuse fan art like a bust of iron as royalty free and they get away with it. I have reported hundreds of people selling items that are not royalty free. Just because you modeled iron man does lnt mean you can sell it as royalty free. Tons of items I have to look up only to find I out it’s a copied items from some sci-fi game that I can’t use anymore.
True. I think FAB has the potential to be a Gatekeeper or Copyright protector for Artists.
The way I would do it, is to give Artists 3 options to sell their assets:
1 - FREE
Meaning royalty free and freedom to use the asset however they like while giving credit.
2 - ONE TIME PAYMENT
Meaning one amount paid and after becomes royalty free.
3- SUBSCRIPTIONS: A) Corporate B) Entrepreneur
Because it’s impossible to track down Studio and Indie Devs sales to charge a Royalty fee… a Subscription can replace that in a more efficient and secure way.
A) Corporate Subscription (renewable):
Monthly payment of certain amount chosen by the Artist for commercial use of selected assets. **
B) Entrepreneur Subscription (renewable):
Access all assets from the Artist for a year (best value/price). **
** When a subscription expires, those assets should be disabled by FAB. In other words, Devs should NOT have the option to Export (it’s how piracy starts). All editing should be done inside UE5 (modeling tool Kit). This is how FAB can become a Gatekeeper and copyright protector for Artist.
Agreed, this marketplace is almost becoming useless especially for 2D content. Pages and pages of useless AI generated trash. It’s been a while since I browsed here and I am shocked by its current state.
soooo whats the deal its been a year and the first live stream of the state of unreal not even a peep about fab, its not even on the calander to even be talked about. we waited a year whats the details on this launch?? are we going to have to wait another year?
