CYS Involvement in the IS contest.

[Locke]

It just seems very short-sighted to me to throw out something that seemed to have a lot of promise to it, apropos of nothing. I'm sure I'm overreacting, partly because I've become invested in this IS/CYS venture that got incidentally nuked - apparently I'm the only one - and partly because a few other things went to pieces today. I'm not intoxicated, but call it one of those drunk posts, I guess. I meant every word, but I ought to have used more tact.

[Usoki]

I am irked at the tone of JJJ's post in that it makes us sound villianous and dastardly, but I will take it with a shrug because we are being pretty ass-ish about it. It's our right to be asses, and we take advantage of that right pretty much all the time, so I suppose it's expected.

Here's the thing that bothers me- this whole contest did not have one single, confirmed aspect about it during these talks. Ves has recently chosen our theme. That's about all we know about the contest. We were discussing the possibility to open this contest to CYS, making it joint. We never agreed that this was actually going to happen- only that it might be fun and interesting to do. Before the contest got out of the planning stages, these discussions were taken to CYS and treated as though they were facts inscribed onto stone tablets, given to us from the Heavens. We never said we were actually going to do it. We are not entitled to any sort of obligations, because we never promised you anything. We discussed the issue, and it appears that it will not be happening. If you had waited for our official opinion on a joint contest, you would not have to go back to your site and "call the whole thing off." I admit I am tired and cranky and more blunt than I would normally be, but...

You are not just counting your chickens before they hatch- you're selling fried chicked breast to hungry customers. For you to come in and mope about a feature we took out of a rough draft is insane. There was no guarentee that it would happen. I agree that it would be a fun thing to happen sometime- but it is becoming more and more clear that IWT6 is not going to be that contest.

A joint affair is generally handled in two ways- a host structure, and a 50/50 split. Unless someone would like to create a chooseyourinfinite website to host works from both sites, one of the sites would have to host the entries. Having the site that initiates the contest also serve as a host makes sense. Having entries on two different sites is pointless, and more than a bit confusing. You say there is no reason this can't be done- this is an odd thing to say, as you also offer no reason why it should be done. Just because it's harmless doesn't mean I'm obligated to go and do it.

[Usoki]

It just seems very short-sighted to me to throw out something that seemed to have a lot of promise to it, apropos of nothing. I'm sure I'm overreacting, partly because I've become invested in this IS/CYS venture that got incidentally nuked - apparently I'm the only one - and partly because a few other things went to pieces today. I'm not intoxicated, but call it one of those drunk posts, I guess. I meant every word, but I ought to have used more tact.

All of the unused IWT themes have a lot of promise to them. I would have rather pretty much any theme have won out over IWT4's Hell theme. I am very bad at writing dark works, and I think the God-awful quality of Hellstone proved that. I participated for the heck of it, and the experience was good for me...but man that theme was not in my ballpark. The porn theme? Even less so. But I did try, and it turned out a lot better than I'd have guessed. Who knew a virgin could score second in a porn contest?

It's only natural to get defensive over the theme you prefer- just it's only natural to get defensive about your favorite political candidate. But there can only be one winning candidate.

And there is only one IWT contest. We have to throw out the failed themes- no matter how popular they were. If you want to arrange your own joint contest with its own set of rules- no one's stopping you. The support you'll get in the endeavor is another question entirely...but, it's the same risk you run with collab works. I honestly wouldn't mind trying my hand at a CYS variable story, provided someone could explain to me how that crap works (I browsed the site a few years back, and found it way over my head.) I know a lot of people are unsure about doing two contests- with enough time, I'd be willing to give it a shot. I dunno about the quality I'd be putting forward, but I do enjoy writing, and I really wish I did it more often. These contests are springboards into getting me into the habit of constant writing, and the feedback is amazing.

The CYS/IS joint contest and the IWT don't have to be the same thing. They likely won't be. Will having two contests mean that one will end up with little to no participation? Who knows- we're all lazy fucks. I mean, how much non-contest work have each of us put out in the past year?

I guess what my rambling is trying to say is... The IWT6 will probably not be joint. You can lament this fact, or you can try and organize a separate, joint contest since you seem so eager about the idea.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Usoki,

http://www.chooseyourstory.com/forum...MessageId=5483

I'd say that there was more than just a little conceptual idealism going on.

EDIT: If you're ever interested in learning our editor, we have an article database for your perusal: http://www.chooseyourstory.com/help/default.aspx

Re-Edit:

A joint affair is generally handled in two ways- a host structure, and a 50/50 split. Unless someone would like to create a chooseyourinfinite website to host works from both sites, one of the sites would have to host the entries. Having the site that initiates the contest also serve as a host makes sense. Having entries on two different sites is pointless, and more than a bit confusing. You say there is no reason this can't be done- this is an odd thing to say, as you also offer no reason why it should be done. Just because it's harmless doesn't mean I'm obligated to go and do it.

I want to write on my own editor because I'm more comfortable with it, it keeps my writing consolidated, it's more readily available to the criticism of that community that I am admittedly more bound to, it gets me EXP points which is somewhat valued over there and I get to use chapters to organize better. Also there isn't a silly bug like not being able to edit the amount of links in a page after exiting it.

[Usoki]

Usoki...
I want to write on my own editor because I'm more comfortable with it, it keeps my writing consolidated, it's more readily available to the criticism of that community that I am admittedly more bound to, it gets me EXP points which is somewhat valued over there and I get to use chapters to organize better. Also there isn't a silly bug like not being able to edit the amount of links in a page after exiting it.

Those are all very good reasons for having the stories written on CYS. If you get credit for writing stuff on your site, then it makes sense that you'd want your stuff on your own site. And now that you've told us that, it makes a big difference. I stand by my original claim that only one site should have all of the stories- so why don't you guys host it? If you hosted the contest, we would have to come to you. ...I would, anyway. My words stand for myself alone, and no one else. I'm not sure how Apoth and Ves'd take it... but I bet you could get End, DEP, Katie, and maybe Locke to play along. There's nothing saying that you guys couldn't be the ones to start the IS/CYS joint contest.

[Megamantn]

Ha! Voting for CYS users to be forced to post stories here if entering the contest was a good idea. Popular & what I know is a good idea.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Those are all very good reasons for having the stories written on CYS. If you get credit for writing stuff on your site, then it makes sense that you'd want your stuff on your own site. And now that you've told us that, it makes a big difference. I stand by my original claim that only one site should have all of the stories- so why don't you guys host it? If you hosted the contest, we would have to come to you. ...I would, anyway. My words stand for myself alone, and no one else. I'm not sure how Apoth and Ves'd take it... but I bet you could get End, DEP, Katie, and maybe Locke to play along. There's nothing saying that you guys couldn't be the ones to start the IS/CYS joint contest.

Keeping all stories consolidated doesn't really seem to be that important, at least to me. You could still read all of them, and you could still rate all of them. As for getting votes across, the CYS side could be sent to Endmaster or myself and then sent to Apoth, or he could create an account over there, or whatever, there are many solutions to that one.

If we hosted a contest with the purpose of being a joint IS-CYS contest, I can assure you that it would have stories on both sites, I understand that this contest wasn't hosted for that purpose, but the aforementioned forum post started by Endmaster and endorsed by Locke (Edit: Locke and DEP) did lead the populous over there to believe in such a thing.

It's for this reason that Locke does have some logic in saying that he is disappointed in the "throwing-away" of such a contest, as there was some premise to believe that it had been decided. I do see both sides though.

[Usoki]

You've still yet to explain why the works should be on both sides. Yes, you could read the works on both sites. But why is that any better than having them in one place? Let alone ease of finding stories... In the interest of fairness, I believe we should keep things as similar as possible. That includes using the same editor. If you don't want to use ours because it is "broken", then why should we let you use a "better" editor and still assume the contest is still as equal as possible?

We could argue about which editor is better and get nowhere very, very fast- but it can at least be assumed that they are very different. Either we use only IS, and have very straightforward CYOA stories...or we use only CYS, and have a variety of odd game-like stories mixed in with the more traditional CYOA. But a writer not using the variable/tool features on CYS is knowingly ignoring the features that might help him, and if CYS hosted the contest, I'd have no problems allowing those features. I don't care what we do as long as it's in the same place, and as equal as possible. The writer can ignore the attempts to make it fair- but the attempts are there, nonetheless.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Valid points for sure, obviously the editors are very different, this is an accurate representation of the fact because otherwise I would not be asking to be able to use our own over there. I also wouldn't call your editor broken, I mean, it works, and I'm sure there are bugs in both editors, I'd just prefer to use my own because I'm more comfortable and familiar with it.

I believe that we should allow stories on both sites (providing no extra features are used over at CYS, becuase you all feel that that will make judging more difficult. Extra features include Variables, Scripting and Items.) because that way neither gets the perceived "home-editor" advantage. Although, this is all a mute point, I suppose, as the joint-site aspect as obviously, sadly, been canceled.

Also, my apologies for my tone earlier, I did not mean to make you out to be villianous or dastardly, it is your contest and in the end of the day, you guys make the rules.

[Usoki]

Meh, I've been over the tone thing ever since I started typing. What bothers me now is that you've given up on having a joint contest just because IWT6 will not be a joint venture. If CYS is chomping at the bit for a joint contest, who's preventing you from starting one? Heaven forbid there be two contests going at once.

...Though that could very easily be the opinion of the rest of the site, I suppose. This conversation will become a lot more useful when it stops being just the two of us. XD

(Your guys' editor seems to be the most confusing thing since sliced bread. Do you have any examples of what a page with variable/item coding looks like? FAQs mean jack if there are no fragments of sample code. You don't learn by lecture, you learn by seeing and doing. Message me about that- there's no point in cluttering this thread with an off-topic tangent...especially one which will have some fierce debate going on in a few hours, when everyone else returns to the site.)

[JJJ-thebanisher]

EDIT: REMOVED SCRIPTING JABBER

As for the contest thing, I'm not even posting over there, the administration (which I'm embarrassed to be a part of) has run wild and I'm not going to risk deletion by posting. I'm just saying what I believe would be a solution, I'm not going to go start something up over there.

Also, running two contests at once might be problematic, I know it's tough to write one awesome story, let alone two.

[Dragavan]

I have to agree with most of what Usaki said and reiterate that this particular contests was created to grow the number of quality stories in THIS site, mostly as a backlash against the number of "featured" stories that randomly appeared on the front page being utter crap. A secondary feature was to push people to write thing in areas and genres that the site was lacking at the time (yes, that was the original reasoning discussed for having a set theme the first time around). Sure, as the contest has grown through several rounds now these original reasons seem to have been morphed into new, more general, reasons (or even possibly forgotten al together from time to time), but I still think the original ideas were good ones.

For these reasons I see nothing to be gained through opening THIS contest to having entries posted on another site. It will neither increase the number of and quality of stories here (more than the contest as it stands now would on its own) nor will it fill in stories in themes and styles that this site is lacking (although this point hasn't always seemed to be a factor in choosing a theme the last few times... although the porn one did actually end up doing that).

That all being said, it only covers THIS particular annual/semi-annual contest. There is nothing preventing anyone from staring a completely different contest with its own rules, styles, and themes that is designed to be a co-op contest or even a site vs. site contest. In those cases the rules would be specific to that contest and it would have the ability to be handled on two sites at once as part of those rules.

In fact, I think it would a great idea to do two contests a year (about 6 months total each, like 5 months to write and the other month for judgement and what not) and only have one of them being our standard old contest... Let the other half of the year be dedicated to some new type of writing contest, like a joint venture between our sites... Or something else completely if people would rather have that. Hell, you could make all sorts of new rule, like no room number limits, word counts, or whatever you want... Even give them new criteria for judging.

Just my take on all this... feel free to ignore it if you wish.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Makes sense to me, Dragavan. I can see how from an infinite-story perspective, you really don't gain anything.

[Dragavan]

On the subject of the variables and items and other aspects of the CYS editor, you are creating games. I seriously do not put that on the same level a writing a story. Neither one is better, but they are not the same.

Take, for example, "Zork" and "The Cave of Time" (two of the first examples of both these styles).

Zork has variables, items, and choices you can take in each room/page that affect what text appears on the page and what choices you have at the time. The only real difference between that and what you do as CYS is that you are shown all the available choices as links as opposed to having to type them in.

The Cave of Time is a story that is set in what can and does happen, it's just not organized in a linear fashion. The story has a set of choices and places you can go that don't change, because the words of the story are always the same.

A non-linear story is not really a game, but if you toss in game elements into it (like they did with some of the later books in this style from other companies) then you start to morph it into a game. This is what the editor CYS uses does. This doesn't mean you HAVE to write a game using it, but that's what it's really built to do (especially since you have RANDOM variables that your own help guides refer to as dice).

Don't get me wrong... I used to write text adventures (in BASIC on a Commodore even, no fancy editor to help me there) and I love story games... but there is a distinct difference. These sites should not be confused as being "close enough" to the same thing that they should be judged equally.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

I disagree with you. I believe that any time you introduce ANY interactivity (like links) to a story, it becomes a storygame. When you make it easier for the author to write, (by adding scripting so that instead of creating 8 links, he only needs to create one and set restrictions), it is no less of a story and no more of a game.

When you start to see visible results of the variables, and when you start seeing items, it becomes more game-like, but the EXISTENCE of scripting in a storygame hardly makes it any more "game-like" than any storygame here.