THE NEW CHYOO (with link)! Also, what features should be part of an updated CHYOO?

[mack2028]

When I included cup size and a long list as an example I just wanted to show that there were other possible uses for immersive text, and sometimes you don't want them paired. A story could include First name, Last name and Sister's name but there's no need to fill in sister's last name. Mind control stories could use the word as a keyword to activate the mind control. A field could be the name of the company you work for, the color of your crush's hair, etc. The important part to me is that a default is there so that the reader doesn't need to fill in fields they don't want to and so the correct format for this variable is apparent to the reader.

so, here is a thought and I am not sure how useful it is. What if you set it up so the threads could check the variables and only let you through if you had the right ones? This could be an optional feature that would allow stories that weren't purely liner. You could also allow people to add or remove variables in individual threads, for example you could set a variable that is just a number and have one represent meeting a girl 2 be getting her number 3 be having a date with her and in the story you would get the option to call her if x<1 and go on a date with her if x<2 that would fix the problem with threads needing something specific (like the threads could check the breast size variable to see if an option is available) and allow people to post stories with a less linear focus (like the highschool one where you are planing a party and you want to have various people either come or not come)

 

[GreenBanana]

so, here is a thought and I am not sure how useful it is. What if you set it up so the threads could check the variables and only let you through if you had the right ones? This could be an optional feature that would allow stories that weren't purely liner. You could also allow people to add or remove variables in individual threads, for example you could set a variable that is just a number and have one represent meeting a girl 2 be getting her number 3 be having a date with her and in the story you would get the option to call her if x<1 and go on a date with her if x<2 that would fix the problem with threads needing something specific (like the threads could check the breast size variable to see if an option is available) and allow people to post stories with a less linear focus (like the highschool one where you are planing a party and you want to have various people either come or not come)

Well, so far you can't jump tracks, because story threads only increase outwards and don't coincide with their parallels. The stories are linear in this regard, so it seems like having something along the lines of an inventory isn't necessary, because there's no convergence nor detours.

 

[Indirect]

What mack2028 is suggesting could be handy, though it should only get implemented once the site is already up and running.

It would take a bit of extra syntax to make those variables useful. I've added to one story on CHYOO and seen a few stories on that editthis wiki that would have benefited from this kind of thing. Instead of messing with story fields set up by the author this mechanism might work better:

{SET flagname value} and {IF flagname} . . . {END}, {IF flagname = x} . . . {END} //The first IF version would be true as long as flagname is not zero, the second could do >, >=, <, <=, !=

In one story I've added some threads to there is a chance the reader has met a girl named Candice. All the further options dealing with her have to be titled "Tell Lisa about Candice (if you met her)" or something similar. If this flag system were implemented I could put {SET MetCandice 1} in the thread where the reader met her (which would display nothing on screen to the reader). Then in a subsequent thread I could have an option with the caption {IF MetCandice}Tell Lisa about Candice{END}. The option would only show up if you had met her.

You could also use it for text in a thread, such as if the character is thinking of their conquests: You lie back and think of those great times you screwed Diane{IF MetCandice} and the great sex with Candice{END}.

I realize something like this would be an advanced feature and would probably not see too much use with existing stories, but as long as it was well documented you could use it to store a player's inventory, keep track of health and keep track of choices they've made during their travels without having to make a separate thread for every possibility.

"You curl up in a ball after the minotaur has its way with you. You never knew a cock could be so large and so hard. {SET health health - 15}{SET pregnant "Minotaur baby"}"

Again, definitely something for later implementation.

 

[GreenBanana]

But once you've met Candice, all the subsequent story threads will always be upon having met Candice. Or at least, that's how Chyoo appears to be set up to me.

 

[Murakami]

I thank we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us get something functional working before we try to make an all new procedural generation system.

 

[Chouken]

I thank we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us get something functional working before we try to make an all new procedural generation system.

I agree. We can worry about clever doohickeys after we got the basics.

 

[GreenBanana]

I agree. We can worry about clever doohickeys after we got the basics.

Agreed. A functioning site and the basis for a revised tag system for more open-ended story writing will get us into the 21st century no problem.

 

[Chouken]

It also helps with the logistics of testing bugs; it is easier to identify and fix a bug when the code is smaller and less complex than when the code is bigger and more complex.

 

[Indirect]

I did mark it as something for later at the top and bottom of my post. Getting something working is priority one, any tweaks should be filed under 'would be nice'.

I was just expanding on what mack2028 had suggested to show why it might be useful. With the current system a story can branch enough that you may end up with masses of duplicate or near duplicate threads.

 

[GreenBanana]

With the current system a story can branch enough that you may end up with masses of duplicate or near duplicate threads.

That must make it difficult to search for posts, as well as frustrating for the reader who thinks s/he's backed off to a different route in the story and finds him or herself seemingly reading the same material over again. Kind of reminds me of a MUD (multi-user dungeon) which is kind of how one of the Story9000 sub-sites was set up.

 

[Nilth]

Hi guys, just noticed what you're doing in the other thread.
It's awesome and I hope It has huge success.

I'm just going to add my 2 cents for the new version\site here:


- In my opinion the quality of stories\search is of primary importance. I'm sure you've already thought about all that's necessary to avoid spam and the like, so I'll just add this: *please* make it absolutely clear to authors of new stories they have to indicate the correct *point of view*: 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, ... It makes a huge difference on how a story is told and it should be the correct information.

- In case of the 1st and 2nd person PoV make it clear as well that they have to indicate the gender. Again, huge difference and of primary importance in searches (provided there's that option in the first place)

- Give to authors of new stories the possibility to briefly indicate the general direction they want others to follow, and which topics should be avoided. And make it so that every new contributor has that information delivered to him in clearly. (also make that editable by the author)

That's all

 

[GreenBanana]

Hi guys, just noticed what you're doing in the other thread.
It's awesome and I hope It has huge success.

I'm just going to add my 2 cents for the new version\site here:


- In my opinion the quality of stories\search is of primary importance. I'm sure you've already thought about all that's necessary to avoid spam and the like, so I'll just add this: *please* make it absolutely clear to authors of new stories they have to indicate the correct *point of view*: 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, ... It makes a huge difference on how a story is told and it should be the correct information.

- In case of the 1st and 2nd person PoV make it clear as well that they have to indicate the gender. Again, huge difference and of primary importance in searches (provided there's that option in the first place)

- Give to authors of new stories the possibility to briefly indicate the general direction they want others to follow, and which topics should be avoided. And make it so that every new contributor has that information delivered to him in clearly. (also make that editable by the author)

That's all

So keeping story guidelines to encourage narrative consistency. Don't forget tense (past or present) along with perspective.

 

[TAMS]

- In case of the 1st and 2nd person PoV make it clear as well that they have to indicate the gender. Again, huge difference and of primary importance in searches (provided there's that option in the first place)

This is important, but I'd be careful about being too strict with gender. The main characters may not always stay the same in a story.

 

[TAMS]

1. I'd love to have the ability to temporarily lock certain threads while leaving others open. For example, we have the option to create four threads and I know I'll need three, but right now I'm only working on one. Instead of making a half ass placeholder option to change later I'd like to be able to leave only one of the four continue thread options open for others.

Where does Mary go?
* To the store (the one I'm actively working on)
* (locked by author)
* (locked by author)
* (open thread)

2. This is minor, but a better feedback and rating feature. I'd like to know who leaves certain comments, because I don't often know what they're talking about and it would be great to be able to write back to them for clarification. Obviously there's something to be said for anonymity.

3. The option for an author to turn their story over to someone. If I've exhausted where I want to go with a story, but someone else is still doing great work on it I'd like to be able to make the decision whether or not they get it. This would take a burden off of the forum moderators when they have to hand out orphans. Maybe even a feature that allows us to mark one of our stories "orphaned."

 

[GreenBanana]

1. I'd love to have the ability to temporarily lock certain threads while leaving others open. For example, we have the option to create four threads and I know I'll need three, but right now I'm only working on one. Instead of making a half ass placeholder option to change later I'd like to be able to leave only one of the four continue thread options open for others.

Where does Mary go?
* To the store (the one I'm actively working on)
* (locked by author)
* (locked by author)
* (open thread)

Allowing unlimited threads where the choice is dictated by the writer of the following segment might circumvent this. Without a limit on the number of branches, there'd be less need to "reserve" thread space.

Reservations make me worried, since I dislike the notion of competition when we should be cooperating on writing stories. That said, I understand why a person would want to reserve a slot--on another interactive story, I'm much too slow and distracted to get the whole addition done in one night. Perhaps there ought to be a feature which organizes story threads alphabetically, so that there's less bias in which thread gets the most work done simply by proxy of being "FIRST POST". Who'd take someone seriously if they preempt a choice with "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aardvark taming class"?

 

[jeharris25]

I sort of like the idea of variables. I'm more of a reader than a writer, but I've gone through a few stories that have merging plot lines. I can't think of the name of the story right now (Test Lab?), but it was written in TWINE.
The plot followed a girl through her day at an animal testing lab, and there were only so many things you could do. Instead of having 20 pages of "sit at the desk", there was maybe one page of "sit at desk", with different options. This helped keep things clean if the author wanted to change a detail or two along the way.
- check email
- call home
- check security cameras (different branching threads here, depending on whether user followed path of turning the cameras on)
- get coffee (only if user followed branch where they found coffee machine in back).
- head to back room

All of those branches looped back on each other. There would have been multiple duplicate threads if each one was taken as its own path.

Those are the 2 cents of a lurker. Carry on.

 

[Nilth]

Allowing unlimited threads where the choice is dictated by the writer of the following segment might circumvent this. Without a limit on the number of branches, there'd be less need to "reserve" thread space.

I'm torn as to wheter allow unlimited branches to be honest. Aren't you afraid there would be literally tons of branches that go nowhere? From a reader PoV it's pretty frustrating to choose a lot of dead branches.

I'd limit them to a reasonable amount..8-10 maybe?

 

[GreenBanana]

I'm torn as to wheter allow unlimited branches to be honest. Aren't you afraid there would be literally tons of branches that go nowhere? From a reader PoV it's pretty frustrating to choose a lot of dead branches.

I'd limit them to a reasonable amount..8-10 maybe?

Nobody adds onto my stories anyway, so I can't say I really sympathize. Sorry. A pro writer should consider a balance between continuations with new threads, anyhow. It's a good idea to also strike a balance between leaving things too open-ended. There's nothing wrong with writers prompting what the next logical choices of the narrative are. It's in the spirit of collaboration for people to actively pursue an established thread of the story rather than always trying to commandeer someone else's story for their own personal whims. That's what creating an entirely new story is for.

I don't think the new site would benefit from a complicated system of checks and balances to determine who gets what permissions, since this needlessly bogs things down with the sorts of rules that have been glaringly exploited in the past.

Perhaps choices can be sorted by the number of continuing branches they have available. Or perhaps how many words its further additions contain. Perhaps a story's creator/editor should be able to determine how many possible links a story has.

 

[Indirect]

I feel that having no hard limit avoids more problems than it causes.

With unlimited threads it would still be possible for the author or editor to reject a proposed thread. They could tell the person who wrote the addition that they feel there are too many branches and perhaps this thread would fit better after one of the existing options.

 

[GreenBanana]

I feel that having no hard limit avoids more problems than it causes.

With unlimited threads it would still be possible for the author or editor to reject a proposed thread. They could tell the person who wrote the addition that they feel there are too many branches and perhaps this thread would fit better after one of the existing options.

This almost makes me consider what if we had a way of saving our proposed writing. Mostly I just can't finish writing something particularly lengthy in one night, but we'd have to be able to prevent users from submitting the same rejected work a million times over to our stories because they can't take a hint. (Incidentally, I wonder how the new site will be guarded against the dreaded accidental double or triple click. Hey, my mind wanders /really/ easily, and commercial-driven internet service is slow.)

With Story9000, you could link any two writing segments together in either direction. It was easy to get lost, but in a way, that's sort of what that site was about. Just getting lost in writing...

Maybe a way of popping stories into other, more appropriate sections would get far too messy.

 

[Murakami]

I'm torn as to wheter allow unlimited branches to be honest. Aren't you afraid there would be literally tons of branches that go nowhere? From a reader PoV it's pretty frustrating to choose a lot of dead branches.

I'd limit them to a reasonable amount..8-10 maybe?

This can be a problem on some sites (see the BEA), but we have something they don't: Editors. The editor can reject a thread or remove it if things get abusive, and that prevents this kind of behavior.

 

[GreenBanana]

This can be a problem on some sites (see the BEA), but we have something they don't: Editors. The editor can reject a thread or remove it if things get abusive, and that prevents this kind of behavior.

Is it currently possible to intentionally set a trusted friend as a co-editor? I've only posted three things on Chyoo (I'm terrible), so I'm unaware if we have this functionality. Not that I expect too many people (myself included) to trust even a close contact with editor ability on a story.

Also, is it currently possible for, say, a story's editor to decide if a thread should be an endpoint in the story?

 

[2p1k3]

2.> That is the whole point of anonymity. For people to be able to say things without threat of retribution.

I certainly understand the frustration with someone using it as a tool to be a bully. However, such people are actually being complimentary because the work is good enough for them to get stuck an author. Their actions say that they admire the author so much they feel compelled to regurgitate meaningless negative drivel in an effort to bring the author down.

I personally find some use for the feedback even though the use is outside the bully's intent. However, I also think the writer/author should have the ability to delete such negative drama. Instead of forcing them to scroll through it every time they look at new feedback.

A useful compromise could be the ability to delete plus giving a 'registered' user the ability to send anonymous feedback.
4> That is a 'site mechanic of CHYOO2 that I agree is irritating. That being edits fail to be shown to the audience unless the post is auto-confirmed.

It makes 'editing' work 'in' CHYOO2 after it is submitted impossible unless you are trusted. Instead you have to copy and past in-and-out of a word processor program. Then we are forced to wait for the reply for any further edit.

...
2> There is nothing to be said for anonymity; All it does is allow people to criticize you with things they would never say (proverbially) to your face. Besides, I would be far more interested to be able to contact someone who gave me a lower rating/feedback, for instance, due to a certain spelling/punctuation error they felt they saw where/when my usage was actually correct
...
4> I edited an Intro thread (simply d=fixing spelling & punctuation errors, as the editor had requested I do in several prior E-mails), & the edits were not there minutes, hours, or days later.

I abundantly agree that having unlimited branches as an 'option' for the author/editor is best. I think its even best as the 'default' option, thus an author/editor must go in and 'change' this as a whole for his story or for any particular post/thread.

As Indirect says, the author/editor still should retain the authority to approve or disapprove/delete the submission.

I feel that having no hard limit avoids more problems than it causes.

With unlimited threads it would still be possible for the author or editor to reject a proposed thread...

 

[TAMS]

Allowing unlimited threads where the choice is dictated by the writer of the following segment might circumvent this. Without a limit on the number of branches, there'd be less need to "reserve" thread space.

That's a solid point. I think I'd rather have caps removed or at least the author have an option to determine how many choices are possible.

 

[GreenBanana]

I like everything DamianWhite said above about being able to change your ratings. Adding to his reasons, opinions can change after a night's sleep. Ratings should remain anonymous, but perhaps we should be able to reply to a rating on the ratings page in case a reader's fallacy needs to be rectified. Sometimes harsh ratings need to be given, and some people (like myself) are just cynical and negative and find it difficult to give ratings that are too high. It doesn't mean I hate the author or think their writing sucks and that they should give up. I just find it hard to give the highest rating available out.

It's not important to me so much what rating an addition receives as it is the ratings that are usually given by a person--one reader's three can be more valuable than another reader's five. Furthermore, a numerical system is logical to average out, but for whatever reason I just find it difficult to understand consistently what earns a "four" compared to a "two". I'm not good at compacting abstract feelings down like that. Another factor is the notion that a story might set out to accomplish multiple things. One reader might prefer more plot development, while another is impatient for sexual content. Their ratings will differ depending upon what that particular segment is about. We could rate depending upon different criteria, but that feels like it could needlessly complicate and bog down the site with added variables.

I think we just shouldn't worry too much about ratings, and we need to find ways to encourage that all stories can be as visible as any other.

We definitely need to fix up the story map in a couple ways:

1) Thread titles should not become basically vertical blocks after the storylines reach a certain length.

4) We need a better way to deal with long storylines than having the page infinitely scroll horizontally. One things we can do here is change the horizontal spacing; it doesn't need to be nearly so wide as it is currently. Spacing more like the tree view on Fiction Branches would be more appropriate and just as clear. Probably at some point we will need to indicate a carriage return on the storyline.

I wonder if there are any examples of branching systems we could examine for ideas. I adore saving space and reducing scrolling while simultaneously reducing the quantity of pages loaded and the clicks a user needs to make. Of course, in my bid to utilize space rather than waste it, I can become a bit cluttered. Hm.

When I looked at a story map on Fiction Branches, I found it difficult to vertically discern which thread continued from which other thread, particularly the further one scrolls down. On Chyoo, the numeral notation for chapter branches can help rectify this somewhat, but I wonder if vertical guidelines wouldn't become a bunch of visual noise. Maybe clicking those little pips before each chapter title and author could highlight a vertical line, or contract/expand any options down that route. I dunno.