Hey everyone. Thanks so much for commenting on this thread. I posted this about a month ago, and I just wanted to revisit it to respond to some of the comments. I think we've got some good discussion and ideas going.
Assimilation wrote:Interactive stories are, bar none, my favorite medium for vore content. Yet, about 5 years ago I significantly slowed my participation on writing.com amid their first round of reader access changes, and I abandoned checking up on WDC interactives entirely about 2 years ago as they restricted reader access much more heavily and took down the vast majority of my old favorites (whether through active WDC staff removal or author's account expiration, I don't actually know). I was hoping that the new (4+ years ago) interactives system here on Eka's would be a good replacement, but in practice I've found the system disenchanting, especially between the missing navigation controls, poor management tools, and simply ugly layout.
Despite everything I've just said, I think the most important factor towards a replacement site for vore interactive stories
isn't a high quality interactive story system, but that it's simply a
single destination that's visible enough for a writing community to form and keep itself afloat. Interactives stories are interactive in 2 ways: you get to choose your own adventure as a reader, and you can contribute to other authors' creative vision as a writer. It's easy to drain yourself if you're writing all the choose-your-own-adventure chapters by your lonesome in the quest for quality control, so the more-appealing aspect to me is the lowered minimum of commitment when you get small bursts of inspiration to continue from someone else's writing.
Therefore, while I would love to finally see the
overhaul of our system here on Eka's, I'd rather not hold my breath and instead I'd prefer we (together as a vore writing community) establish a website with sufficient tools for interactive story creation and hosting, and somehow be very constant about promoting the site in other vore communities. But that's, of course, a matter of putting money or muscle where my mouth is; if I'm not the one to do it, why should I expect anyone else to do so?
I definitely agree with your point about a single destination. Keeping not only accessibility and visibility in mind, but also the potential for collaborative creativity, these are all of the things that we need to keep in mind for a successful interactive story platform.
GeneralUrist wrote:Is there any script kiddie or something with a paid account around here? Because it's increasingly looking like emergency backup/archival efforts are warranted...
There are a few efforts to do this right now. While I'd like to see the old works recovered and backed up, however, my biggest concern is with the future of the genre/platform. Right now, there aren't a lot of viable options for us to continue to write.
Jswrighting wrote:If I were to write an interactive story these days I'd probably use something like Twine or Squiffy.
It really depends on the person, I prefer squiffy since its mostly text-based, but others might prefer twine due to its pretty graphical interface for linking your interactive fiction together. They're great because you can use variables to store gender, height, etc.. which can solve the problem that many interactive stories have which is cloned content or early "What is your gender" questions which end up totally diverging the story, rather than a similar, or same one being told just with edits.
So, yeah, Squiffy or Twine. Both have a bit of a learning curve but are well worth it.
While I really like these programs, the problem is that they don't offer any potential for collaborative creativity like an online-based platform does. So, while I could download the programs and write my own story, I could never get others' contributions without actively recruiting people. The advantage of an online platform is that others can just contribute AND read it at ease. Does that make sense, or am I misunderstanding?
Aickavon12 wrote:Instead of complaining about the tragedy that is writing.com.
Perhaps maybe it's better to do something more constructive? I mean to say, our interactive stories page is well... it has no organization! If you want to find anything there, you have to know what you're looking for before browsing. If our interactive story page had some sort of tagging method, or searching method, then I think it would make a lot of potential interactive writers far more celebrant to write down stories there as well as contribute.
Jump ship and see if we can improve our own website. I don't know if there is a way to ping eka or anyone responsible for such a vast undertaking but I mean. It's worth a thought. We have more control over here than we do at writing.com
lovethetailhole wrote:We really could use an update of the interactive section on this site. Making it a little more visible and easier to navigate, especially on mobile, would go a long way.
Right now, I think these are the most viable options for the future of interactive stories. However, I agree that it's a lot to ask from a platform that we ALREADY use for free. As far as I can tell, these are the things that we would need, in order of most to least important, to make Eka's a permanent replacement of WDC
1. The ability to delete links and pages (currently broken)
2. A searchable interface instead of a list
3. Tags
However, like I said, I know that it's a lot to ask from a service that we currently pay nothing for. While I'd be willing to help raise money to make such a thing possible, I know that it isn't that simple. But right now, as the largest vore community on the English-speaking internet, Eka's offers the best possible alternative to vore on WDC (where, let's be honest, it was never really welcomed anyway).