I thought everything I wrote last year would have been taken into account. I thought moderation would improve. I thought island reporting would be more clever by now. But no, the only difference now is that the community knows about it and knows how to game it too.
I am seeing random takedowns from creators on socials, one of the largest teams out there has been banned for no stated reason. Everything is a mess because no one was proactive to fix the issues when they were reported, and it’s going to get worse.
Now here I am, pre-release of a project we worked for 9 months, and I know that the world will be against me once we do release. And there is nothing to do but complain now and deal with all the issues below manually:
-
One can transfer maps and overrule moderation. This is a bad thing long term, good thing short term because Hive was able to work around their ban that way. Normally bans should be enforced, but since this ban sounds more like a bug than an actual reason, it’s good they were able to move all their maps in another account using the same code. But this should not be allowed once moderation and creator portal actually work.
-
No information on takedowns or rejections STILL. This one hurts, because I even had to @ Tim out of frustration last year, and to see now that the same abstract verbiage is still used, while the asset itself is not shown in the email/portal, or the specific flagging reason, goes to show that these systems are not only buggy but antiquated. Specific reason and asset should be shown, period.
-
Another major drawback to the whole moderation process is that it’s still “takedown now, ask questions later”. Whoops, we made a mistake, it was an automatic rejection for an audio track you have a license for, sorry for losing all your player base. I am sure you ll do great on the next massive project you make. Even though my example is fictional, it can happen today in one of the leading UGC platforms. Just stop and think about that.
Wouldn’t it be more fair to give a grace period to the creator when a flag is made, so they have time to fix it before the level is taken down? And I am not talking offensive, sexual, or hateful stuff, I am talking audio automatic rejections, stupid reasons like that alphabet fixation on player communication, copyright infringement, trademark infringement (yes that’s not very important to insta-takedown, everyone can make a DMCA report it seems, proof of background or legitimate paperwork is not required). Having a system that flags, then gives a period for the author to fix, also helps Epic show to a party interested, that the system has flagged content of that severity, which in the end both indemnifies Epic and doesn’t break uploaded content. Youtube allows you to tweak parts of audio and mute them without taking down the entire video, we need something similar. If content is indeed deemed to be taken down, then monetization from that grace period is lost, or later down the line given to the original creator if its a case within the ecosystem.
Fix bugs that cause takedowns, remove weight of users doing takedown requests, and hold moderation accountable for mistakes so they don’t inflate rules all the time. Health and Safety is not only for players, creators need to be protected too.
-
And after all these fake takedowns and rejections, I learnt recently that the main tool we creators have to battle against this, which is to revert to a previously accepted public version, now erases player save progress (or reverts? Idk yet and I am afraid to find out) which is very bad for games that want to hold a loyal playerbase. It’s what keeps players coming back, and now somehow moderation affects that aspect too, as if all the rest wasn’t enough.
-
Epic needs to start going through their own processes for content.
We only see true change once an Epic-made game mode goes through our tools. Do the same for all your modes. Go through your own moderation. Go through your own Discovery. Taste your poison, then turn it into honey. Scalability and complexity can’t be tested otherwise.
Imo if you think Discovery is great as is, place all BR modes in it and see how they do, even as an experiment. Then compare with other UGC platforms, and tweak. -
We still don’t have comments, ratings, user tags, things that can protect a player from malicious content. I don’t understand how an ecosystem can be safe only with algorithms, clickbaits, XP exploits and mid content. Open up all the complex and worthwhile projects in UEFN, take their stats and their map layouts, and use that as benchmark at least until we get something that allows players to ascertain that for themselves and protect others, like on steam, google maps, etc.
-
Malicious creators are still finding ways to takedown other maps. How is this still a thing, how are those users not liable to arbitration? Isn’t that grounds for defamation for example? Creators are again not protected, and anyone who decides they can make a good enough case when reporting can do thousands of $ damage to studios. How are large studios going to keep up like this?
-
We need a new process for claiming stolen content within the platform so creators don’t have to rely on DMCA. AI should be looking at stolen thumbnails and only through the approval of the original poster they can be reposted (with some bg checks on the actual check to prevent same team flags). This is to provide awareness to the original creator and avoid stolen content. Even if a logo is removed by image editing, if 67% of the image is similar to another image, content should be flagged (for thumbnails specifically). Contents in game is a more advanced area that I have no idea how to tackle, my view for now is that if you make something unique then you can’t be copied, however I 've seen complex levels overtaken by simple levels due to them using a better thumbnail but clickbaiting and copying the premise of the original (even if the thumbnail looks different), so that area I believe is where most focus should be given. At the case where a lot of copies kill a genuine level, that creator can make a case to Epic and get featured manually, because that’s the system failing to understand quality and until fixed, those cases need to be handled manually.
-
Still takes us 2 hours to do memory calculation on Mercs, which is also funny cause if in that time you didn’t have a new server, the server ends and crashes the whole thing. We also fail validation because engine assets get flagged, then reverted upon restarting UEFN, meaning we have to start live edit twice, after waiting for 40 mins for it to load. I ve spent now what seems like more than 24 hours waiting for mem calc, just the previous week. What a huge waste of efficiency, feels like my computer has light bulbs blinking and I am sending Morse code to get something done.
-
Analytics only show if you publish a map using the team owner account of a team. This makes absolutely no sense for large teams, and prevents us from using analytics all together. Which btw is a page that only the team owner can see. This has apparently being reported many times and its crucial for tracking takedowns too (bc play spikes). UEFN is made for teams, but the infrastructure to publish and maintain is still for solo creators.
-
You still cant share earnings to other creators on a %, on selected maps. Once that happens, the ecosystem will evolve with collaborations, curation, content creation, and a lot of equilibrium (scammers will always scam regardless)
At least the creator portal submission is a little easier now, that’s the one area that feels like someone cared about and actually improved it.
Even if half of these are not fixed, the ecosystem will never develop and the moment BR stops getting players, so will the entirety of FN. And that’s because we are still not trusted, and still not able to use advanced tools to maintain something that can stand near BR and be maintained like it too. Anyhow, back to it, see you on the next raging/venting post, mkay bye
EDIT: Totally forgot to add to point 10. Only the owner account can publish a build of the game, or analytics from analytics/acoolades device won’t work. This creates a security risk for the owner team account, as earnings and account information are also stored on it. We need to be able to publish with a collaborator account and have analytics and accolades devices work.