Dashingdon: Free ChoiceScript Game Hosting

I see you have two kinds of “startups”: startup.txt and startup To Upload.txt
Are you sure thay you’ve triple checked everything?

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Yes. I’m not sure if there is a way I can delete some scene files from the dashingdon server but it should start with the startup right? Not the other…

There shouldn’t be any errors if the CSIDE explicitly showed that the correct file is startup.txt and you updated the correct file and name.

Try closing and reopening the tab editor in CSIDE, reopen the file, do a double check, and update it to dashingdon.com.

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I did as you asked, but it’s the same. I really don’t understand why it’s doing this. Thank you for the suggestion regardless!

It looks like there were some filename differences/issues that caused this confusion. As @Szaal said, there are two versions of several text files with the second version including “To Upload” at the end of the filename.

I’m working on a big update to DashingDon that will allow you to delete individual files from the server. The update will also provide the actual word count (without code) of each hosted story so that visitors will be able to see how ‘complete’ the story may be. Not sure when it will be ready as I have to work on it between paid projects but hopefully I’ll have it out next month.

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Of course, please take your time. That update sounds really good! Either way, I solved the problem temporarily by creating a new account on dashingdon and posting the game there.
Thank you for replying though and good luck on your projects (^-^)/

You could also delete the entire game and recreate it to get rid of the files (until the update, at least).

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Yes, but deleting the game will be be last resort. I’ll wait patiently until the update ^-^

A suggestion:

Please add a ‘WIP’ tag in order for readers to not expect to be able to finish the stories. I love the website, but it seems like a lot of the WIP’s have been abandoned.

Moreso, it seems that most of the ‘stories’ on there need to be highly editted, spelling, grammar, etc. It is very very amateurish, but even still, I prefer stories to at least resemble something that I would pay for (which is why I would not pay for stories on DashingDon. This website, Choice of Games, usually feature amazing stories, error free, etc) but more importantly, it seems like a few of the people writing were absolutely drunk when writing them.

I hate to criticize anyone, but a lot of the stories are there, the ‘finished’ ones, are stupid. They are incredibly juvenile and childish and would insult my 6 year old niece. I will not name names or titles, as I do not want anyone to feel bad, but they REALLY need to have serious quality control on this website.

However, this website does host some epic stories such as ‘Highland: Deep Waters’ which I feel is the reason I continue perusing the website. I have rarely found any story on there that matches up to the quality and readability that Highland measures up to, but still, my search, though almost-fruitless, is far from over.

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Most of the stories on Dashingdon are works in progress. That is one of the primary purposes of the site, so that people who are writing works in progress will have somewhere to host the game so that testers can review them. They will typically have associated forum threads.

A tag for stories that are completed might be more useful, since those would be rather more distinct.

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Highland is a published game.
You could, yknow, buy the full version?

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Also…

Dashingdon is a hosting site. That is its function. It’s not supposed to be curated or anything; it’s supposed to be a place that anyone can upload something they wrote using choicescript. “Quality control” would completely defeat its reason for being.

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Wow ok, most of the stories on there are WIP’s meaning most do need a good deal of editing to be polished enough to publish. That’s why Dashingdon kindly allowed hosting on his site, to allow forum members somewhere to post their WIP games after the Dropbox saga went down. You could… you know, offer feedback to improve the WIP’s there, otherwise your best bet is to stay out of it as unpolished stories is mostly what you’ll find there. None of them are paid apps while hosted there. As @TSSL said, quality control would be the opposite of what that site is designed for.

It’s quite offensive to say people are drunk when writing them. You do realise most of the ones on the Hosted games page (including Deep water) were hosted on Dashingdons when in beta right? As for the finished ones, I don’t know all the ones on there, but know of at least one which is a comp entry by a published, award winning author (Felicity Banks), although it may well not be to your taste. Short and experimental stories often end up as the completed ones on dashingdons, otherwise they tend to go to hosted games.

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Yes, @Ivan, not to pile on, but I think you’ve misunderstood Dashingdon’s purpose. Dashingdon hosts WIPs and enables people to play and test them; its function is like Dropbox or Google Docs in that it’s simply a way to share projects in a way that many people can access, play, and experience, and it is largely used for hosting demos of nascent products or for continuous testing. Almost nothing you’ll find on there is finished, because once authors do finish the games, they’ll have to remove them from Dashingdon and submit them to the actual storefront for finished products: Hosted Games. So if you’re looking for high-quality, polished products, Hosted Games or Choice of Games is your way to go. Dashingdon is only a way to access public works that are still being developed. There can be no such thing as ‘quality control’ there, though I do agree a “completed” tag might be useful (?).

(Also, many people who are learning ChoiceScript and who have put up links to their games are from all over the world, and English is often a second language. I would be careful about saying it’s like someone was drunk when someone could actually be trying their hardest in writing in a different language.)

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I still amazed how casuals and mobile market has muddied what a Wip and editing is portrayed.

WORK IN PROGRESS as name said is in progress. Open to improving and unfinished. Is free because that same reason. It’s not finish; it is public to share feedback find a future public and maybe editorship or a co author.
Amateurs writers need to eat and working they aren’t paid for this and doesn’t have fancy oficial copywriting or editors. And many people like me is learning English and have no ambition whatsoever of being publish. We only want share our imagination with others.

We don’t need people put the finger saying You are shit or drunken etc…

IT IS FREE NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO PLAYING IT is not published.

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To be fair, guys, @Ivan’s first paragraph is the important one.

On reflection, it’s not at all clear from a casual visitor’s perspective that Dashingdon’s wonderful service is precisely that – a great place to host works-in-progress and not at all representative of finished, polished, works. Maybe the disclaimer at the top could be elaborated slightly to better inform the uninitiated, or maybe an ‘About’ page added to clarify things?

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Most of games in description say Wip and if you ended in DashingDon page is because a wip from here That clearly labelling as Wip.

And still is not reason to insult amd mocking people and is work. THAT’S FREE and not published. I feel personally insulted by that commentary that is gratuitously and trolling without add anything positive. And worse that insult great writers as you and @dashingdon that made a working of love giving us a powerful hosting after the Dropbox debacle. Nobody could be grateful enough to his working. And I won’t let him or anyone of forum being trashed.

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:raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:t4: :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:t4:
Easy, easy everyone.
This is one omega-mis-understanding.

@Ivan definitely didn’t know that dashingdon.com is a hosting site meant to host WIP works (and experimental as well), thinking that it’s like an archive or collection of ChoiceScript games. It’s not really surprising since, from the perspective of a newcomer, nothing tells you what dashingdon.com is or where does the WIP works are hosted.

Though, in fairness, calling someone as a drunkard is a bit hurtful (unless this someone is truly a drunk, ofc) :kissing:


One solution that I can think of is a homepage in the site that welcomes and explains to visitors “what is this?”
Just going to tag @dashingdon Don to pile up the possible WIP to polish the site
:pray:t4: :clap:t4:

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That’s fair :sweat_smile: I guess I’ve been used to the idea of reaching the site from the forum, where its use as a hosting site is abundantly clear, whereas if someone were to stumble on the site on its own, there wouldn’t be as much information. Maybe some sort of mission statement on the site itself would help—and maybe a link from the site to this forum thread would also be useful?

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Search results for dashingdon come up on a google search if you type in the name of a game. For example, typing in “the grim and i” without quotes results in a dashingdon link on the 3rd result. I’m guessing it’s easy for people who don’t know what the site is to get confused.

I wonder if this could be fixed by adjusting the robots.txt (unless of course, the site wants to come up in search results).