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Working on a game mode story gave me a few idea and then made me think for hours on how to do it before realizing that I can't.

A few things.

The first would be the possibility to publish a draft story with only the first chapter getting published, leaving us the possibility to stager the release and to have unfinished chapters on the initial publication date. I started mapping out a game story before realizing that if I publish I'll have a dozen empty chapters with a few notes, variables, ideas and spoilery stuff.

The second point is related it's about hidden chapters. Simply said having a conditional chapter that if a box is checked won't appear as a choice if the conditions are not met, won't be in the story map (except for author /editor) and won't be notified to readers (in some case any title that makes any sense is a spoiler to someone that hasn't read this far or has not met the conditions)

On the same page without being invisible, an option for a chapter not to be notified or to not display the chapter title in the notification could be great.

On this I'll return to writing my story. (I mapped on paper a few events for the bare beginning of a conditional story and I have 21 nodes already before barely anything happens, it will be long)
 
Lake_Nine said:
When browsing stories the chapters deep number can be misleading. Maybe a small number showing abbreviated word count or something like that. It could be total or chapter average, might let you find better content quicker.
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Second on this. I find that depth can be misleading.When I was just a lurker on the site, I had an automatic bias towards stories with deep threads when looking for stuff to read. Now as someone with a story with only a few fairly long chapters, I worry potential readers might think the same way.
Maybe add Wordcount as a filtering option.
 
I like Sthaana's "word count" filter idea and GeneridEditor168's profile idea.

I think the "Notable Writers" could use an update to make it more fluid. It seems to only show the same people forever, perhaps have it change to be like the "Top Story of the Week" where it shows people who have recently received a lot of likes or gained a number of fans and then change to a new set next week. This will help give exposure to a wider variety of writers (especially ones that create long chapters rather than a dozen short ones)
 
I would like for a way to better communicate with my fans, maybe a way of easily mass-messaging them. Could be that you could create statuses in a fashion similar to social media that is displayed in your profile and fans would receive a notification. I write short stories that don't really have a place here and I would like to be able to alert people following me, but this isn't a really big issue, more of a quality-of-life than anything else. It could also be used for writers to communicate on their progress for their stories/chapters, maybe if they're close to finishing one, needing inspiration, taking a break, etc.
 
I Read the thread on those various stories that use likes as a voting system on the forum and it gave me an idea.

Both for those stories and the popular [Quest] type of stories: why not add the possibility of having polls on stories like there is on the forum.

That way people will be able to vote for their favorite options in both context without tampering with the ratings or spamming with comment notification anyone following a story.

Another point but of lesser importance, given the way most people use the function (just to receive notifications, without ever putting likes on chapters) why not rename the add to favorite stories button : follow this story
 
Not wanting to spam, but hey I didn't invent suggestion threads ^^.

A Reader/test mode: something an author can use to be able to read a story of his own like any reader can, without any of the various annotations given to authors like on the link chapters and seeing hidden variables... We can unlog but cannot access unpublished stories if we do and I don't remember if game mode works if not logged.

Not sure if even possible, a menu with all variables used in a story (for author /editor only) with the option of renaming a variable and have it change in the text of the chapters and score changes. I put down {gold} instead of {money} at the start of my story but the sums are more in line with silver, hunting down every use of it for change is tricky.

Alternatively, something that changes the color or put in bold each variable in the text when writing/editing (not visible when published) to more easily spot them in long chapters.
 
TheDespaxas said:
A Reader/test mode: something an author can use to be able to read a story of his own like any reader can, without any of the various annotations given to authors like on the link chapters and seeing hidden variables... We can unlog but cannot access unpublished stories if we do and I don't remember if game mode works if not logged.
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+1
(It should be possible to use game mode without being logged in, but that way the game can't be saved.)
It is also kind of strange to play a game that appears different just because of being the owner (editor).

TheDespaxas said:
Not sure if even possible, a menu with all variables used in a story (for author /editor only) with the option of renaming a variable and have it change in the text of the chapters and score changes. I put down {gold} instead of {money} at the start of my story but the sums are more in line with silver, hunting down every use of it for change is tricky.
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That kind of automatic replacement could be bad if the replacement goes wrong.
I would rather prefer an in-story search or a child branch search function. (Though this wouldn't work for Score Changes and Conditions)

TheDespaxas said:
Alternatively, something that changes the color or put in bold each variable in the text when writing/editing (not visible when published) to more easily spot them in long chapters.
Click to expand...
Could imagine a feature for authors ("editor's mode"), where you could insert Variables with values and click "update". Then you would see the chapter text which will be shown in black, all other text in grey and the syntax in other colors.
 
It would be nice if the reader test mode automatically skipped ahead when linked instead of showing the author that this page is linked to so and so page though I do not think it is possible.
 
RicoLouis said:
It would be nice if the reader test mode automatically skipped ahead when linked instead of showing the author that this page is linked to so and so page though I do not think it is possible.
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It would be possible, but the drawback would be, that it is harder for the author to reach an edit button for that chapter.

I would prefer a switch for editors to decide if the want to see the editor's version or reader's version.
 
A completely unrelated suggestion regarding the list of "Top Chapters" on the front page:
  • Currently 6 out of 10 chapters are by neo_kenka and the story Apex Seed.
  • Another 2 out of 10 are by Javalar and the story Happy Maid.
  • The remaining 2 are by different authors and stories
Of course i do not begrudge neo_kenka and Javalar their successful chapters. But perhaps it would be nice to have some diversity in the list. So I wonder if it would make sense to filter the list and only allow a single chapter with the same author+story combination.
And then perhaps add a link when you click on "Top Chapters", that takes you to an unfiltered list of the Top 50 or so chapters.
 
Things I would like to see. These or based entirely on opinion and should be taken as such since my opinion is no better or worst then the next persons.

I wish the recently updated stories where a little more organized. With the large bracket the way it is I have noticed my stories get more hits if they are in the first, second, seventh, eight, thirteenth, and fourteenth spots which are the ones you see if you don't scroll over and it is hard to look at all the stories on the list depending on how you are viewing them, I imagine it is worst for people who use their phones. It might be better if they went up and down or left and right but not both. Even just two longer columns would make navigating it a little easier on the readers. It is the same with new stories category as well that probably gets less love being father down on the page. Extra points if it could auto scroll but that may be asking a bit much.

Stories of the week. Instead of just having one story of the week on Monday have several stories based on what has been updated the most or got the most love over the previous week. Maybe turn the story of the week into story of the a month.

Do away with the top chapters. I don't really see the point of it since you would be jumping into the middle of a story and six of the ten all lead to the same story.

Pictures for categories. instead of just having a " over each category. Just doesn't look that inviting to me. Or maybe just buttons with the names over them. Something to draw people in. Also changing the feed for each category to something else besides relevance to start with. If you go to the BDSM category for example many of the first stories you will see haven't been touched in months if not years, and most have less then ten chapters in depth. This will not be to inviting to a first time reader who doesn't want to dig through the stories and who might get turned off by finding a bunch of dead stories.

But like I said this is just my opinion.
 
RicoLouis said:
I wish the recently updated stories where a little more organized. With the large bracket the way it is I have noticed my stories get more hits if they are in the first, second, seventh, eight, thirteenth, and fourteenth spots which are the ones you see if you don't scroll over and it is hard to look at all the stories on the list depending on how you are viewing them, I imagine it is worst for people who use their phones. It might be better if they went up and down or left and right but not both. Even just two longer columns would make navigating it a little easier on the readers. It is the same with new stories category as well that probably gets less love being father down on the page. Extra points if it could auto scroll but that may be asking a bit much.
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I can see on my phone (Android+Chrome): One, seven, thirteen. For everything else i got to scroll (swipe) to the right.
On my 4K Desktop (Chrome) i can see the first four stories in each row. The picture of the fifth story in each row is partially visible, but not the name. So i got to scroll right for the fifth and sixth story in each row (5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18).

I like the current setup, compared to a only up or down option, because your stories have several chances at a bit more visibility on their way through the rows of the recently updated stories.

RicoLouis said:
Do away with the top chapters. I don't really see the point of it since you would be jumping into the middle of a story and six of the ten all lead to the same story.
Click to expand...

I have to admit, i do not use the Top Chapters that often either, since you have to scroll quite a bit to get there.
But: In the current layout of the front page, the existence of the Top Chapters list doesn't take away from anything else.
Why take something away, that is already there? Even if it's only viewed from time to time. Unless it can be replaced by something better, i would vote for it to stay, .

Of course i already made a suggestion regarding the Top Chapters just recently, that would improve that list in my opinion ;-)

RicoLouis said:
  • Pictures for categories. instead of just having a " over each category. Just doesn't look that inviting to me. Or maybe just buttons with the names over them. Something to draw people in.
  • Also changing the feed for each category to something else besides relevance to start with. If you go to the BDSM category for example many of the first stories you will see haven't been touched in months if not years, and most have less then ten chapters in depth. This will not be to inviting to a first time reader who doesn't want to dig through the stories and who might get turned off by finding a bunch of dead stories.
Click to expand...
I agree with these two suggestions!
 
Ok this one will either be easy peasy or a nightmare:

Bring back the guide chapters for the markdown method of inputting BOLD Italics Underscore and all the rest!

Because I write on my phone a lot I can't use the nifty new text editor that you seem to think has taken away the need for all that and as such I have been stuck on trying to add an image to one of my chapters for 3 hours...

PLEASE, I beg of you, restore this key resource for those of us that prefer to write the old way!
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
Ok this one will either be easy peasy or a nightmare:

Bring back the guide chapters for the markdown method of inputting BOLD Italics Underscore and all the rest!

Because I write on my phone a lot I can't use the nifty new text editor that you seem to think has taken away the need for all that and as such I have been stuck on trying to add an image to one of my chapters for 3 hours...

PLEASE, I beg of you, restore this key resource for those of us that prefer to write the old way!
Click to expand...


Picture is ![](url)

*Text* for italics
**text ** for bold

No idea for underlined.
 
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