[SUGGESTION] Improving the Forums

[MavenLoL]

Greetings everyone.

Today as I was browsing the forums I have realised that not everything is being used to its full potential.

With that, I am talking about the forums as a whole. There are many things that could be used better, they could be
better made or improved in many ways. Below are some suggestions and explanations to why they should (in my opinion) be implemented or
fixed. Let’s get right into it.

1.) Visibility

There is a big problem with that. With this I am aiming at icons, titles and ranks in the forum system.
As an example, let’s take the “Sticky” post option for admins/moderators to allow the thread to be in the top area of
the page. The current icon and text for it is very dull, makes it hard to be visible and looks plain and uninteresting. Why not make a bigger, brighter text
with a larger icon so people can instantly see the importance of the post.

The same thing is with Ranks, which are one of the most important parts of forums - this was you know who is who and what
they are doing here. Every name looks the same, there are no special icons or differences between the fans and the staff.
It should be different and it would appear as more clear if the Admins and Moderators would have a different name as everyone else (not including
the rest of the staff and the development team). The current state is very plain and inseparable from the rest of the text.
An example would be if you gave them a different coloured name. Example: ****. Maybe make it a different style,
make it bold or anything so that it would be more clear.

2.) Design

Black letters on a light grey background and grey dividers between replies? It could be improved by a lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on the forums, it’s just that I see many things that could be improved or added
(kind of like in video games, you play a game, you don’t like something and think about what they could do to improve the experience for the fans).

Make the forums more attractive so more people would come and instantly know what is going on. At the moment they look very plain and a lot of work
could be done to change that. Create more diverse icons on the main page of the forums, any basic forum is using the one UE is using. For such a big thing like
this, I don’t think that is enough. Let’s be creative, think out of the picture, make it so that when people come to the forums, they are stunned by their beauty
and want to explore them further. It’s the same as you are trying to sell something. You need to make it attractive.

3.) Forum Control

The police of the forums. Hire volunteers that apply for this job. Add Forum Moderators, Forum Designers and Artists to work on the forum together, in order
to make it a happy and beautiful place. Make their names green for example. Like our buddy ****, one of the Admins, our new recruit Moderator Jimmy is here.

Anyone spamming the forums, using the wrong section or asking for help? Your Forum Police is on its way.
Make a special section on the forums, explain the roles of these Moderators, give special ranks to the Forum Designers and Artists and make them a team.

There are plenty of tools in the forum control panel to give certain rights to ranks and give them specific access to the control panel in order to improve it and watch over things.

4.) Expanding the Forum Community

Why not think out of the picture? Instead of making this just specific to the Unreal Engine, make it a bit more wider. A Gaming Community.
Now, it doesn’t have to be something big and involves everything, but adding elements that will make the fans interact more with each other
will bring together a stronger community and toughen it up. One example is an Off-Topic section, where the fans could discuss sports, events, places,
whatever they feel like talking about (of course, only if it obeys the rules - we got the Forum Police for checking that). They will be excited to come back
and see what’s going on. It will become a part of their daily routine.

---

That’s all that I have for you today, look forward to many more suggestions on Game Design, as well as updates on my Forum-related suggestions.
I will update the thread here with future ideas on how to improve the forums.

Thank you for your time reading this, it means a lot to me.
Be sure to leave your constructive criticism and ideas below on how I could improve this. I am always here to help.

Maven

[Noxa]

@MavenLoL;43323

Greetings everyone.
The same thing is with Ranks, which are one of the most important parts of forums - this was you know who is who and what
they are doing here. Every name looks the same, there are no special icons or differences between the fans and the staff.
It should be different and it would appear as more clear if the Admins and Moderators would have a different name as everyone else (not including
the rest of the staff and the development team). The current state is very plain and inseparable from the rest of the text.
An example would be if you gave them a different coloured name. Example: ****. Maybe make it a different style,
make it bold or anything so that it would be more clear.

I totally agree with that one.

[Danielito]

What I am missing, is a function to better follow what the EPIC Officials" post from day to day, especially in the section of UT.

[MavenLoL]

@Danielito;44043

What I am missing, is a function to better follow what the EPIC Officials" post from day to day, especially in the section of UT.

Yeah, I completely agree. I have experience with handling a forum (nothing big of course), but the concept remains the same, as well as the commands on the control pannel.

I wish they would add Moderators that would manage the forum and make it a better place. That way they could enhance the posts that the Officals would create.

[DieByZer0]

We had the [EPIC DEV] in epics staff posts, There were also more noticeable letters of ranks.

[MavenLoL]

@DieByZer0;44477

We had the [EPIC DEV] in epics staff posts, There were also more noticeable letters of ranks.

Still, many many things could still be done. Would be a good idea to hire Staff for Forums. Could make a big difference.

[anonymous_user_89b5ed72]

I would like to see an official avatar for Epic staff, personally. We have that on the other forums and it makes it easy to tell when posts come from someone at Epic at a glance in my opinion.

I’ll look into that.

Still, many many things could still be done. Would be a good idea to hire Staff for Forums. Could make a big difference.
[/QUOTE]

We have staff that monitor and manage the forums in addition to community moderators. What should they be doing to make things better here?

[MavenLoL]

@;44583

We have staff that monitor and manage the forums in addition to community moderators. What should they be doing to make things better here?

Perhaps they could work together with one or few Designers and Artists in order to make the forums more attractive visually. If they have the ability to manage the forums,
why not add make the rank systems more visible. This is all possible from the Control Panel. Also why just stick to managing, they could talk in their own locked thread (if there is a thread not visible
to anyone except staff) or in Skype for example, about what things they could add to the Forums to improve them. They could also add a section on what type of new Forum Staff members they were
looking for, so others could apply (similar to the “Got Skills? Looking for Talent?” section.

These are just a few things that could be made better from my point of view

[anonymous_user_89b5ed72]

@MavenLoL;44641

Perhaps they could work together with one or few Designers and Artists in order to make the forums more attractive visually. If they have the ability to manage the forums,
why not add make the rank systems more visible. This is all possible from the Control Panel. Also why just stick to managing, they could talk in their own locked thread (if there is a thread not visible
to anyone except staff) or in Skype for example, about what things they could add to the Forums to improve them. They could also add a section on what type of new Forum Staff members they were
looking for, so others could apply (similar to the “Got Skills? Looking for Talent?” section.

These are just a few things that could be made better from my point of view

Those things wouldn’t necessarily fall on the people I was referring to. They are more like moderators so they deal with making sure things are organized and run smoothly. They do bring feedback to others that have the ability to act on the things you mentioned though. Many, if not all, of those things are already logged and it’s just a matter of finding the time to address them at this point. I will make sure it gets brought up again at our next community sync-up.

Thanks for the feedback!

[MavenLoL]

@;44745

Those things wouldn’t necessarily fall on the people I was referring to. They are more like moderators so they deal with making sure things are organized and run smoothly. They do bring feedback to others that have the ability to act on the things you mentioned though. Many, if not all, of those things are already logged and it’s just a matter of finding the time to address them at this point. I will make sure it gets brought up again at our next community sync-up.

Thanks for the feedback!

Awesome, sounds good Thank you for your time.

[DanDaDaDanDan]

Thanks for all the feedback! My apologies for the slow traction on turning it around and improving the forums. This is an area that has been under-resourced and we hope to rectify.

On a related note, we had an artist turn around some awesome icons so hopefully we can at least add some visual polish soon

[anonymous_user_e7c22c13]

Hello and Vogel
I would also suggest installing a few plugins that I see being used in other forums in which I participate, and that helps a lot:

• Quote Notification via PM](://) (Thus, we can track when a user quote our posting.)
• Separate Sticky and Normal Threads (Facilitate distinguish pinned topics of normal threads.)
• [AJAX] Helpful Answers - Allow users to rate individual posts](://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=233296) (Very useful for questions areas)

[anonymous_user_923c79df]

@;44583

I would like to see an official avatar for Epic staff, personally.

This would be good, then it will be like in the UDK forum where it was pretty easy to recognise the epic games staff

[MavenLoL]

@Vogel;45094

Thanks for all the feedback! My apologies for the slow traction on turning it around and improving the forums. This is an area that has been under-resourced and we hope to rectify.

On a related note, we had an artist turn around some awesome icons so hopefully we can at least add some visual polish soon

Great, that sounds lovely Can’t wait to see how it turns out. By the way, is there a section where you can write an application for a Moderator or something similar. Would
love to help with stuff, I have a lot of spare time