"Fab will not support open-text reviews or questions sections"

General Feedback & Requests
203

@Hourences

An associated forum thread for every FAB product sounds absolutely FAB actually. Here’s why… It’d cut down on duplicate info being lost or spread over multiple places. Especially info being hidden behind closed walled gardens like Discord. It’d also help boost engagement on here and raise the profile of the forums. So a big yes to Forum threads tied to every FAB product. @ScamBot45 Didn’t you suggest this?

This is where Epic could leverage sellers directly and ask them for help. Perhaps offer two threads per product. One for Reviews and one for Discussion / Q&A. But either way, Epic needs to moderate these, to eliminate Discord Validation and other Spam (and Epic’s record on moderation is questionable). On the flip side though… Its totally wasteful for Epic to lose time creating a new TEXT review system for FAB. Especially when the forums exist. TEXT reviews are crucial, so decide soon. Making wishlists a higher priority seems misplaced (example).

Lots to do, but Epic should try and leverage the Forums to help compliment FAB wherever possible. Otherwise, not sure the forums have a future. The Dev platform is also behind a Cloudflare wall that the regular Forums aren’t. That needs to be fixed as VPN’s / soft-VPN’s get blocked. Even A-P-K Spam is still an issue. Epic need to own this and add more humans or find better AI. :wink: BTW: Please add pagination to FAB. Plus a way to download Plugins without checking Installed Engine Versions. Plus please offer filters to block certain creators (AI).

204

Yes, but an forum thread per creator would be more reasonable, now that I’ve thought about it. Especially with the occasional instance of AI portraits flooding the marketplace.

To be fair, I haven’t seen much of the bootleg apks being passed around in the last few weeks.

205

First of all, thank you very much for replying our concerns

As a seller, I like the idea of having a Questions section on the product page, flagging which clients have acquired the asset, so it is easier to identify pre-purchase questions from support requests, exactly like it used to be on the Unreal Marketplace.

I don’t like the idea of a mandatory forum thread, I believe this could be an optional feature. Some sellers already have dedicated forum threads on discord, reddit or their own websites, having another thread would decentralize information. Having it as a optional feature would allow sellers that don’t have a thread yet to create one, without decentralizing information for sellers that already have one.

Regarding the reviews, the former Unreal Marketplace review system was good enough as it did follow the industry standard. A good review system only needs the user name, a single score and mandatory text justification for the score.

Having a report feature to let the Epic Support team mediate any conflicts is also interesting, this feature was also present on the former UE Marketplace review system.

I believe most sellers and clients just want the old review system back, it was good enought to let people make an informed decision. The only improvement necessary, would be a way do deal with Discord validation reviews, as it was indeed a loophole.

Creating a new system with multiple scores will overcomplicate the review process, making it harder to create a system that makes sense for multiple types of assets.

It will also make clients less inclined to leave a review, as it will be more time consuming. Multiple scores will also consume more database resources than the conventional single score system.

Following the industry standard is the safest and fastest solution to implement, so I believe restoring the old UE marketplace review system as it were is the way to go.

Regarding restoring the text reviews, I did worked with migration of large data volumes in the past, as long as the table structure for the review system is ready on the FAB database, the data can be migrated gradually using scripts, usualy during server maintainance time.

I also believe the minimum five reviews threshold should be dropped.

Regardless if an asset as only 1 review, it should show its current average score. Clients are smart enought to know that a single review is not enough to make a informed decision, but 3 ou 4 reviews are.

The way it works now, if an asset as 4 negative reviews, a client would still buy it, unware of the quality issues. On the other hand, an asset that has 4 positive reviews is less likely to be sold. Treating both assets as the same is not fair for either clients or sellers.

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206

Comments should stay opt-in. A mandatory forum thread will lead to Spam and price Harassment for our products :no_entry_sign:. If they want to harrass, force them to do it in the text-review section where they are required to BUY before comment. It’s common sense, buyers shouldn’t be allowed to trash a product without trying it first.

207

@game-maker

Indeed one the reasons we put the comment forum threads on the list is because it is a pretty low lift due to it being able to rely on the existing forum infrastructure, while it can provide decent value and handle anything from reviews to feedback to support to showcasing work people made with what they bought.
We are hoping to get to it in January. That is what I will try to push for at least.

The reason we are looking at having both the comments threads and text reviews is that the text review feature would provide a cleaner list of actual reviews as opposed to what might be hundreds of replies of technical discussions or questions to wade through, and more control. With a forum we would not be able to limit text reviews solely to those who actually purchased the asset which might increase abuse, and we would not be able to manage it in other ways that could help improve the quality of the reviews. For ex a forum would not allow us to randomize the reviews shown, or whatever other mechanism we want to try.

The combo of forum comment threads + wishlists should hopefully be an improvement already. The reason we got wishlists ahead of text reviews is based on the fact that the wishlist is easier to implement. Text reviews are harder because there is also a moderation component to it. I understand text reviews have a big value, but we felt that the sum of a range of easier to implement changes together may still have a good impact, and allow us to bring improvements faster than doing a single larger feature that will take time to get through. That is what drove our prioritization basically.

We can look into this, but what is the dev platform?

Yes, several of us in the team would really like to see this happen too. It will probably come at some point.

You can hide AI content via a switch. And as per the roadmap we will make that switch persistent so once you enabled it, it will stick.

Yeah that might be better. Though for sellers with a lot of stuff this is going to lead to confusing situations probably. Ideally you can pick how you want to do it, but as that would add complexity I think for now we probably need to settle on one per product.
Long term we have this idea that we’d love to be able to offer an entire mini forum/community per creator, but that is not that easy to set up on a Discourse based forum, and at a scale of potentially hundreds of thousands of mini forums. That is probably more like a 2026 thing at the earliest.

Indeed, that was our original thinking too. Maybe optional is best.

All of that makes a lot of sense. When we get closer to starting work on the text reviews and ratings we will take all of this into account. The intend with the multiple ratings is to try and summarize things into a clear metric but maybe it is overthinking it.

And I will discuss the 5 review minimum with the team. I see that come up a lot.

Got it, optional it probably is then.

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208

Prohibit tags on sellers’ support threads that will show them on the various general forums’ pages, especially on Unreal forum.
A lot of off-topic, self-promo and “How to install UE???” newbie questions are already now burying serious topics and questions.

If you now push for thousands of asset-creator-support-comment-threads to invade the forums where each thread will pop up on the top with every new comment, you will make it a nightmare to use the Forums.

Even if this is now just a quick workaround before you implement a proper QA section on asset pages. You should still appropriately implement it to not worsen the already not-the-best UE forum experience.

Thank you.

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209

Yeah, this is exactly why I said that it would be best to have one or two megathreads per creator. But my concern was that it’ll clog up the “new threads” feed on here.

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210

:+1: :cool: :sunglasses: Cheers for the replies & clarifications @Hourences.

_________________________________________

Just meant content found under dev.epicgames(.com)… Unlike the Forums, the Dev-Platform / Portal (dev.epicgames) sits behind a mandatory Cloudflare check. If you don’t pass it, all content is BLOCKED. This never happens with the Forums though (its been that way since UDK). So you can browse any post / thread, even if using a VPN (it even works if Javascript is disabled).

Whereas Cloudflare is a nightmare, especially if you travel a lot… Why? Think endless infinite loops checking ‘security-of-the-connection’… This happens a lot at shared-working-points, coffee-shops, airports / hotels. And its even worse on-board flights / trains / buses (where wifi is already patchy). So what’s the solution? Can Epic dial down the Cloudflare checks, so everything pretty much just loads like the Forums? Otherwise its like the overpowering Captcha. Its so adversarial its a real turn off to use most of the time. :wink:

Example… Is it possible to download offline installer? This forum link loads on any browser, from anywhere, even on poor Wifi. It even loads when using VPNs (or if Javascript is off). But dev.epicgames where Tutorials / Docs / Sample-Code are, do not - not always. And in the example above, the most helpful overall answer arguably is found on the Dev-Platform (not the Forums).

211

Thanks a lot, @Hourences , for taking the time to respond to our concerns.

The thing with forum threads is that, unlike in the old section, there’s no identification (as far as I know) of who’s the actual seller and who actually purchased - and therefore is criticizing from a position of knowledge. Other than that I guess it’s a valid way of implementing questions and feedback…

This is great! I just don’t think, regarding questions and reviews, that Epic can escape having to moderate them and remove, for example, the loads of “Discord verification 5-star reviews”. I know it’s not a simple task, but Epic shouldn’t accept only the laurels of owning the market.

I don’t want to sound like I don’t acknowledge the work, but this also relates to the laurels I just mentioned… Epic just merged multiple marketplaces into one… I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the inclusion (or not removal?) of the already existing reviews and questions, specially given the relevance they have to the store…

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212

Can someone clarify if this comment forum thread will be accessible and can be commented on by non-buyers? I just want to ensure there’s a place I can ask the seller a question (or read a question and answer already asked by someone else) before I decide to buy something? Thanks for the info!

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213

Without a comments section, discourse of a product is locked behind a paywall (or private emails, and I for one do not want to give out my email (or create a temp one) just to ask a question. Not to mention that only answers that question for you, and the seller will ultimately get asked again).
A lot of problems and concerns of a product can be seen without purchasing it and voicing those concerns should be allowed, as to help those who may miss them.

It will be hard to trust sellers that don’t enable them. I personally cannot think of a good reason other than to silence. Like when you see YouTube videos with them turned off.

Comments could allow other users to help troubleshoot issues, share creations, and give recommendations to the seller. it’s just better for the community.

Also since it will be housed in the unreal forums it allows for an easy weighing of opinions since I could just go to someone’s profile and check their “rep” (Trust level, likes received, other comments, etc.) to see if they are a troll or not.

At the risk of sounding toxic myself, please look through their comments on this thread and weigh their opinion from there. That person is a toxic troll and does not represent the opinions of the majority here.

Moderation is the issue, not the comments section.

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214

Seconding this. Most of what he was complaining about was largely from him being harassed on the old marketplace

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215

Indeed. This is a troll. He is toxic towards other sellers and buyers. He tries to push FAB changes that will benefit shady sellers with bad support and low-quality assets. His complaints are nonexistent for the majority of the UE buyer-and-seller community. His comments get 0 likes.

This is truly worrying that this troll’s marginal opinions are being immediately approved by Epic staff, as if he is the voice of the whole UE community. Epic’s staff should not base FAB decisions upon a troll.

Dozens of counterarguments, from other users contrary to this troll, get tons of likes and written support. Epic should listen to them.

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216

Speaking of which, has anyone seen any other examples of “price-bullying” on the old marketplace? Because I know that people are more or less free to set whatever prices that they want. But I really don’t remember seeing an lot of people complaining about the most expensive listings that had ever existed. Aside from that one guy who was charging $1,500 for a set of props. Working my down through the price range in Orbital, nearly everything else is just normal activity and the Discord verification process

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217

Moreover, I would like to add that commenting on the price is not bullying.

I mean, on all the most famous online shops you see people discussing about the quality/price ratio, I’ve never seen those customers to be banned for ‘bullying’.

I’m a UM/Fab seller since more than 5 years and I never felt bullied by people asking questions about my products.
Also, I’ve never noticed on other sellers products such a big bullying problem that makes things so difficult to manage.
99.9999% of the questions that I’ve read were polite and legit, unless you consider “bullying” reporting a case of theft/copyright infringement or being critical on the product quality.

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218

100% agree. A look at his add-ons shows strange childish quality with ridiculously high prices. He seems to have an edgy personality that shouldn’t be taken into account at all.

That said, I don’t see a problem if sellers can opt out of Q&A and reviews so everyone has the freedom to choose. However, I wouldn’t buy from them, and I doubt people would trust such an account.

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219

Kinda thinking high but I do think that when an asset has some pointed issue and the seller fixes it, it should have some edit on the review from the original buyer, or at least a checkmark like “problem fixed” or something. Like when there is some thread asking a question here and a “solved” tag after it.

There were lots of times when we read reviews that is pointing something missing or broken that was already fixed. To the ppl buying it would be kinda misleading and honestly discouraging of buying it in the first place.

By far not one of the main issues that FAB has, but it would be a nice addition.

@Hourences Thanks for answering the community. We really need someone that at least answers our questions.

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220

Multi billion dollar company and can’t even put out a proper marketplace. This whole “roadmap” we plan to ad things in the future is nonesense. This should all be available day one. You have a break through game engine but a marketplace made by monkeys.

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221

I agree, that would be a nice addition to the review system

222

Thank you very much for taking our concerns in consideration.

Since the FAB release, the biggest issue was the silence around the most critical missing features.

However, since the roadmap livestream I’ve noticed the community concerns are now be properly heard.

I look forward for the release of the improvements, so FAB can finally reach and surpass the quality level of the former UE Marketplace.

Regarding the review system and Q&A section, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, the former UE Marketpalce systems were good as they were.

Also, thank you very much for acknowledging the minimum 5 reviews threshold issue. This is the first official response I’ve seem about this issue.

Keep up the good work,