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

General Feedback & Requests
168

I have to respectfully disagree.

Questions are useful not only in guaging how the seller is engaged with their customers (a very important aspect in determining a purchase decision), but also provide useful information ESPECIALLY in cases where the seller isn’t responsive. I can personally attest that other people’s responses in the Question section has been very helpful.

The majority of the questions I’ve read and posted are sincere and written as intended, although I agree that anything can be abused.

But while bullying, harassment, using questions/reviews for Discord verification are all undesirable, let’s PLEASE not throw out the baby with the bath water!

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169

I’m all in with Questions as long as we control it. That means, having a public Q/A section for each product, the Q/A offering popular questions with answers that only the Seller can edit at any time. The main feature: That Customers cannot ask direct questions, only see the posted Q/A. This helps avoid bullies and cheap Devs trashing products to lower prices.

If the Customer doesn’t see his/her question, they can send an Email. Problem solve, everyones happy.

170

Questions are not necessarily helpful, What I need before I purchase anything again are reviews from verified buyers/replies from Dev. That part is not optional.

171

Except this fails when the email isn’t responded to, or the seller responds in a rude, unhelpful way, which does happen. That’s when the community comes to the rescue and shares their insights/solutions to the questions being posted. Not a perfect situation to be sure, but far better than nothing, unless Epic allows refunds for poor or nonexistent customer support.

Again, I agree that reviews and questions can be abused and I realize this may have stung you in the past. Let me just say that the solution to abusive speech is not less or even censored speech, but MORE free speech.

Its obvious that these sections were immensely useful, otherwise there wouldn’t be a clamor for them. I wish I could cite the numerous examples of this, but alas it is impossible to do so with the Unreal Marketplace, er…Fab, in its current muted state.

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172

The lack of professionalism is extremely unwelcome.

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173

The only reason they clamor (cry) for Questions is because it allowed them to get cheap products and bend the system. Now they can’t. They’re stuck with high prices and won’t spend a dime. So let them :sob:.

I do support text-reviews after purchase. I believe they will add them later on.

174

Don’t. Feed. The. Trolls. They generally aren’t there to be helpful or add to the conversation. They aren’t professional. And they certainly don’t understand the needs of others for whom they have no compassion.

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175

Questions are helpful. I’ve asked them before making a purchase based upon the answers. I’ve read them to see how responsive the seller is. I also find useful information there that was left out of the description and not included in reviews. I need both.

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176

Well… you get none. Troll on that

177

“Cry…because it allowed them to get cheap products”?

“Troll on that”?

Well, this exchange already gives me an impression of how you would treat ME as a customer. You can do a quick search on YouTube with my handle “Jet Scalawag” and you will see that I have been an active buyer on the Unreal Marketplace and have purchased MANY premium products: Space Frontier Stations & Ships ($159.99), Sci-Fi Vol.3 Flyable Starfighters Constructor ($159.99), Space Creator ($129.99) just to name a few, all of which exeed the $99 maximum you have on your own Fab page. I certainly hope you aren’t alluding that I bent the system to get cheap products and “won’t spend a dime”.

I see that you also have spaceships on your Fab page that I might be interested in. Please know, that I utilize ALL information in making a purchase decision – Demos, YouTube/Soundcloud samples, Reviews, Questions, and now interestingly, FORUMS.

I won’t engage here with you again, have a nice day.

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178

So, you think threatening people with money is OK? :man_facepalming:t2::roll_eyes:. Keep it and pay your rent.

179

This is just lazy. Epic should SERIOUSLY reconsider reinstating what so many consider to be valuable resources. BOTH text reviews and questions help the customer evaluate both the product (short term) and the seller (long term).

At least one developer (bless his soul) recognized this and made his written reviews accessible via Google Sheets. Sure, there’s no way to tell if they’re valid or not, but it’s a novel solution and I love customer-oriented sellers (and you should too). Its perhaps no coincidence that I bought a few of his products in the past, and look forward to confidently purchasing more in the future.

Check out “Hyper Outliner and Symbol System V2” by Hyper to see what I’m talking about:
https://www.fab.com/listings/640d4c6c-4142-419f-804e-91a8efd61e84

The argument that text reviews/questions can be misused for Discord verification and seller abuse doesn’t hold water. If anything, it certainly tells me that the seller has pretty shady customer support, or is incapable of listening to criticism. It tells me to stay away from the seller, which in itself is pretty useful!

Smart buyers know how to sift through the information to come to a sound buying decision. They utilize ALL information available: descriptions, pictures, demos, videos, audio clips, reviews, and q&a, and even forums (lol).

Unreal assets can be expensive, many costing upwards of $100. To deny customers the right to make informed buying decisions, especially when the information was readily available on the old Unreal Marketplace is a HUGE letdown.

Do better, Epic.

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180

I still can’t see why people can’t just use these forums for that kind of stuff. After all, there’s an board for the marketplace (not this one)

181

Hello ScamBot45,

Just giving my opinion on this issue, hope I don’t come across as rude or anything.

Anyway, I suppose that you CAN use forums, of course. Or Google. Or YouTube. Even Reddit, or what have you. In fact, say if you want to buy a $149+ product, I believe you should do diligent research before committing to anything.

But, lets say, if you want to buy an Amazon product, it makes sense to check out the Amazon reviews first, especially with the “verified purchase” mechanic for writing reviews. Reviews from other sources certainly have their value and their place, but their veracity is certainly not unassailable.

I feel that information pertinent to the product should be made closest to the point of sale, which is in this case Fab, previously the Unreal Marketplace. Check out other sources if you will, but the first point (and I would argue the BEST point, the most information-dense point) of reference should always be the product page.

Now the questions section allows users not only to obtain solutions to their issues, but also to gauge the seller’s readiness (or even willingness) to support their own product. Red flags are triteness, or even rudeness, or even stark silence.

If a seller is unwilling to deal with issues on a public Q&A board, how much less will they be active in email? And good luck obtaining support from them in third-party forums!

Customer support is extremely important, especially in the highly technical, highly specialized world of Unreal Engine development. I’m just a solo developer, I need more help, not less.

Again, all this information (solving product issues and gauging customer support readiness) could probably be gleaned from a myriad of other sources – even forums – but the reasonable expectation is that it be found on the Fab product page FIRST.

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182

Well, that is an fair point. After all, you wouldn’t believe the insane amount of shovelware that pops up on another storefront and the odd review that usually spares my time with installing it.

It’s just that out of all of the alternatives to dealing with the lack of customer feedback, I’m not an fan of emailing people or joining another Discord server.

But as far as Fab goes, it can easily get an lot worse, though.

183

Agree, wading through tons of Discord verification in Reviews is irritating – but then again its an obvious red flag that should keep you away from sellers engaging in such dubious practices. (Just get the other water plugin! Lol)

And another reason I value the Questions section is that sellers are agonizingly slow to respond to email. Some sellers like that YouTube guy who sells Niagara fx doesn’t respond at all. Posing queries to a public Questions section puts the pressure on them to answer promptly and with professionalism.

I also agree that Fab has its strengths, its quicker to navigate, supports videos (I think?) and allows you to view 3D models. Its just a shame that Epic’s move to Fab hasn’t been the total upgrade we were led to believe.

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184

Text-reviews doesn’t need to be brought up again. We can all agree that we need them, IF the purchase is verified.

Honestly, that sounds like a real SPAMMER. Let’s make one thing clear and this is by the rules: No Seller is required to respond to each and every question. SUPPORT IS OPTIONAL. Now if you want to trash them by not buying their products… go ahead, it’s your right. But it’s also our right not be bothered every second cause someone has a different question.

Imagine a website product page from Apple or any of brand you like… do they have text-reviews? Yes, most of them. Do they have public Questions… No, NEVER :no_entry_sign:. Why? because it’s an open flood to HARASSMENT and BULLYING, which is why FAB does not have it. Epic knows this.

Now to solve Questions issue, it’s easy… do it like the rest of the World: Have a Q&A section inside each product with the most popular questions already answered for you and E-mail in case you don’t see that question :man_shrugging:.

185

I’m not entirely sure. 99% of the time it’s just an link to YouTube.

I can view them on SketchFab. But this feature is kind of broken on my tablet.

With the sole additions of the 3D view and the “claim everything from Quixel” button; everything feels more or less the same, to me. Of course, the only thing that’s missing is the bookmarks because I just found something that’s cheap and useful.

186

OMG you’re right! My 200 wishlists are wiped out! What in the *, Epic?!?

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187

I tried, but I really don’t like the omission of written reviews and Q&A. I don’t feel comfortable buying anything anymore. Reading what knowledgeable people had to write and ask about a product made me a lot more confident in buying. And that’s the thing, there was only a couple times I have ever actually had buyer’s remorse before, and I’ve bought quite a lot. I think that says a lot about the value of customer feedback.

I’m not against the idea of these forums being used for reviews and and Q&A as long as the developer provides a link to them in the product description. And maybe if only the developer can respond. The idea of anyone here being able to respond to reviews and product questions I think would create a lot of other problems, because people that don’t even own and use the product can respond.

And the idea of customers only emailing the developer questions seems like an obviously bad idea. Imagine 120+ people asking the same question within an email with a variety of other different questions. The developer would still have to answer the same question 120+ times along with the other different questions. The developer would have to spend all of his/her time responding just to emails. And while I do like FAQs, 90%+ of the time they don’t answer my very specific questions.

I think a lot of people here do online shopping. Would you feel comfortable buying a product from Amazon without reading what at least a couple customers had to say about it? I realized that I don’t shop ANYWHERE online that doesn’t have written reviews.

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