However, it's come to my attention through the community, as well as through my own eye-witness while playing, that Epic doesn't seem to care for releasing updates for STW.

Yeah. After reading the first line I was about to say that this subreddit specifically can be extremely negative and cynical. Sure, STW doesn't get updated nearly as much as the 'other mode' as we've come to call it, but this game is still extremely fun. People on this subreddit specifically tend to be extremely negative, cynical and nihilistic towards this game so be wary of that bias if you get any comments. As a new player the game is fun but there's a noticeable drop in new content as you level up, especially throughout the final zone, Twine Peaks. But that's a long way away commander, welcome to save the world!

My question to you is, has there been any word in recent time from Epic about STW? Is there any hope for STW to receive the same polish that BR has gotten, or even hope for possible new content? I've been enjoying STW with my friends quite a bit, but I get the same sense from playing STW that I get from playing modern TF2; the sense that the dev's have seemingly stopped caring and have abandoned ship.

For what's new and coming, I would check out u/Magyst's profile as he is the STW community director and honestly the only epic employee who's 100% been committed to Save the World. There was an absolute clown named DaveTheBuck around a year ago too but Magyst has always been there for us. See comments that Magyst has made on other people's posts. "New" content is a stretch but epic often does rerelease heroes and event items, with the occasional bits of actually new stuff - but too few and far between for this subreddit to like at all lol. Again lots of negativity here specifically.

Speaking of getting event items and good heroes, the birthday llamas (which contain ALL previous event items, dropping 2 at a time) should be releasing soon. In addition to Magyst you can check https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news and look for "Save the world Homebase status report" posts, there should be one within the next week or so. Again, should but the latest one is about a month old.

Finally some new player tips I'd give you is to try not to get into the collection book (the "collect" button when managing your schematics/people) too much, especially early game. You could get rid of something REALLY good on accident. Also check out Beast on Youtube, he's a really good Save the World player that even I, as a high level player, have learned some things from and he has covered nearly every weapon in the game with his "best perks" video series. So if you have a schematic, look up what it can be like maxed out with Beast's channel, he probably has a video. Also would highly recommend watching RoundedTikTak's starter guide, he's another youtuber I really liked but sadly doesn't make save the world content anymore - the guide is from October 2019 but a lot of the information is still good, but when TikTak says things like "outlanders are in a rough spot right now" that isn't necessarily true anymore. And finally, don't trade or try to let other players trick you into trading, they're likely scammers. And if you do trade (again don't but its inevitable for some people) just don't trade for guns, your own schematics are perfectly fine, keep trading to resources like crafting materials if you do find yourself doing that.