Sharp decline in Official Responses from Epic throughout the community.

[VictorBurgos]

@DamirH

This thread hit home, but not just due to the decline of official responses. Here are my two cents on the matter:

1. Looking at some old AH posts it seems that a lot of the “old guard” is no longer employed. Whatever the reason may be for that, I believe the team has been re-organized quite a bit to the detriment of forum interaction (I don’t really care much about AH due to reasons previously discussed, it’s not a place that can facilitate any sort of community)
2. The live streams have become more “sterile”. No offense to anyone involved in them nowadays, but the whole thing feels more distant and impersonal.
3. Even the existing responses of the staff feel more “official”. I understand being casual is a slippery slope since people will rip apart everything you say, but it’s still something I feel was lost.
4. The new forum software / layout is… well… it’s bad. Even when we disregard conformity and the fact that this place just doesn’t “feel like home”, a ton of features are clunky and the whole user experience has been downgraded. I believe the current forum software is actively pushing away people.

I could obviously be wrong on all of these, this is just my impression.

Aye, I definitely agree on all your points. Which is why I wanted to bring attention to it. I love this community, love the people at Epic, love Unreal Engine, I don’t want it to just “disappear” and have people wonder why it did so. (Not saying it would disappear, because come on, we know it’s the best game engine ever) But here are some “devil’s advocate” responses to your concerns:

1. Changing of guard is going to happen regardless, even if you’re paying them good, sometimes people leave for other reasons. But I would hope that the one you are thinking about left on their own accord.

2. The live streams…what live streams?! I can’t believe they dropped it down to once per week (only every so often we’ll get a Tuesday one back). I forgot to mention that in my OP. I do wish they would get more varied community members on there though. Even so, I wouldn’t mind seeing it go back to Tues/Thurs, alternating between Community/OfficialDev Tuesday Training streams.

3. Aye, sadly we live in such a…hmm…what’s a good word… “temperamental” world nowadays, anything can set someone off, get them fired, ruin their careers. GGWP Internet.

4. Forums aren’t terrible. But I do wish we could get improvements at a much faster rate. Where’s the dark theme? How hard is it? S-ed had it done in less than 24 hours.