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I propose that a system be implemented that would allow readers to view the variables and scripts of games, published and unpublished, without being able to alter them. This would make beta-testing and much easier, I feel, as a reader could investigate any bugs found in a game and offer the author more detailed advice on how to fix it and prevent it from happening again.

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No, lol.

After a storygame is published, not even the author can see what's inside of it anymore. If you want to help like that, you can be added as a coauthor during the development of the storygame.

What you're asking for is way too much for the minimal benefit it would bring.

Would it be impossible or too time consuming for all of the variables and the contents of all scripts in a game to be saved to another page, upon publishing of the story?

Maybe.

But something I'm making right now has well over 1000 pages (not a mistype) worth of scripts. I think you're vastly underestimating how large some storygames are.

That's a lot of scripting!  I wish I could approach that with just writing.

Don't be too impressed. Most of that was automated.

AKA - I used scripting to write scripting.

Using scripting to write scripting is also impressive.

OAN:  I found a random story generator.  It was horrible, but still better than a lot of the submitted stories of late.

Ok, how about just letting the author view, but not modify stuff? I'd love to look back at stories I've written to grab some code from them without having to unpublish...

Well, the idea was to make it easier for some of the more "scripting adept" members of the site to offer better advice when people ask for it, while also making beta-reading easier.

I get that original idea -- but since the original idea sounded like it simply wasn't going to happen, I proposed a back-up idea. :)

Not to be rude, but if your back-up idea would work, then why would my original not?

I'm not completely sure, but I was thinking that for an author to be able to view something they have published might be a simple switch, since they could already view it previously -- but for everyone to view that same information might be much more complex, because they could never view it in the first place. Since I'm not privy to the code and how the site works, I could just be sorting the mail here...

As Killa said, the author can't view their game's scripting once it has been published.

Yes -- and my back up proposal was to make it so that they could.

Yeah, I kinda had the same idea. It should be possible to make it so that all of the variables and the contents of all scripts in a game are saved to another page, when the story is published.

I certainly can see where that would be useful -- but I can see where it would be quite complex. Maybe even just a massive 1-page dump of all scripts?

Well, that's the only way I could think of that an author would be able to view their scripts and variables after publishing.

Personally, I think authors should always have access to the design view of their story, even when published.

All they'd need to do is make it so you can't edit anything without unpublishing it.

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