Somehow I manage to ask the impossible because I have at least three threads that have gone unanswered.
I haven’t been developing with UE4 too long so I don’t imagine my questions could be too complex, and I try to explain everything in detail when posting questions. Yet, most of the time no one is able to help.
The frustrating part is that my questions are not necessarily asking for assistance with work but rather questions about the engine, something staff should be able to answer.
UE4 seems like a great engine, the royalty program is excellent, and it’s certainly easy to use. But the fact that there is so little support when questions do arise is discouraging. Especially when competitors are more active with resolving issues.
So in my opinion to improve UE4 you must improve support. More specifically support for unanswered questions.
The forums are meant for discussions, while the AnswerHub is geared more towards getting questions directly answered. If you are looking for answers from the Epic staff, you should post on the Answerhub, and really shouldn’t expect staff members to answer them on the forums. There are thousands of people asking questions, Epic staff wouldn’t get a whole lot done if they answered all of the questions.
Results seem to have been similar both on the AnswerHub as well forums. I do submit bug reports to the AnswerHub and those are promptly answered. But generic questions seem to go unnoticed.
It’s obviously not Epic’s job to answer questions but I’m surprised so many do go unanswered to begin with. The community might just be smaller than what I’m used to but a good community goes a long way in the development of anything.
The community is neither small or large. I would say in the middle. While Epic can answer literally every question (considering it’s their Engine after all), they don’t have to. I am sure they would want to but they are busy about handling the Engine most of the time. That’s why the Bug-part of the answerhub gets answers 99% of the time.
Problem is, not every developer has the time to spend on answerhub checking for questions. Most people are busy making their own games and what not. Many people who knows Engine inside-out are probably very busy with their own Engine Modifications, AAA+ games aswell. And unfortunately the gaming industry is not that free-style when it comes to time. Deadlines are works of a demon!
Whenever I have the time to roam Answerhub, I tend to see alot questions like “how to make fps and make it multiplayer?”. Those questions ofcourse never get answers as they are generic “do my game for me” type of things.
So try bumping your posts per 4 days. Maybe you catch a fish!
In order to prevent me from writing a long-winded post in response to this I’m going to summarize in bullet-points.
Epic Games doesn’t guarantee support on the Answerhub or Forums.
We would love to if it were feasible from both a time and business standpoint, but it’s not. (on average more than 800 posts are made every day across both sites)
Epic still tries very hard to be active on the Answerhub and Forums, and help out as often as able.
Don’t forget to run a Search to see if there is already a solution for you across the Answerhub, Forums, Wiki, or the official learning resources.
Most support effort from Epic goes into areas that will benefit everyone, such as getting engine bugs fixed and identifying trends in troublesome areas where we can drive improvements to learning resources.
Ultimately, the community is the best possible resource for assisting other developers. There are a lot more of you than there are of Epic!
The UE4 community is still relatively new, just like the product, but it is certainly growing and getting better every single day (also just like the product).
However, so many of you are absolutely incredible and insanely talented. We see great things happen when the experts in the community get involved.
Take a look at the Answerhub’s sidebar for the weekly top karma earners. These people are awesome, and I thank them for helping. In fact, Epic is looking into added incentives for this.
If there is some major issue or question out there that really needs Epic’s attention but we haven’t spotted it yet, rally others to get involved. The more votes and views something has on the Answerhub, the more likely it will get on Epic’s radar. (Votes will be coming to the forums soon). We’ve also got a fantastic group of moderators who watch over the sites. Not only are they very knowledgeable and may be able to solve it themselves, but if they feel it really does mandate attention from Epic, they have means to reach out to us.
So in summary…if you have knowledge, please get involved and help out others throughout the UE4 community. A strong UE4 community is a benefit to everyone!
