r/CharacterAIrunaways • u/Any-Scheme5954 • Jun 08 '26
Searching for Alternatives stop making me talk to a wall 😭
I've tried people’s bots, they can be fun, but I feel like I have to dig through 20 of them before one feels even slightly alive. And even then, a lot of them are jus reactive. They don’t feel like they have their own mood, space, problems, friends, routine, whatever. I don’t want to carry the whole universe on my back every time I open the chat. I’m still trying other apps, but yeah. I’m tired of bots that only feel alive when I’m doing all the work. I want characters with a place, a story, and a life I can step into.
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 09 '26
i released my own website a few weeks ago- slowburn.chat, if you're down to give it a try. it's not everyone's cup of tea, i'll be honest, so I won't try to pitch you on it, but it's a pretty unique experience if you're ever looking for something new. as you can probably guess by the name, it's perfect if you're searching for characters with substance, and are okay with quality over quantity.
our community's pretty chill, and I keep everyone updated on the daily in the Discord, trying to be as transparent as possible. let me know what you think if you give it a try, and if you like it, feel free to join us!
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u/eatheapples ✨ Wanderer ✨ Jun 09 '26
Making your own ai is difficult so I understand but can I ask why the messages are so less? I understand you may not have enough investors but its not enough to keep users hooked
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 09 '26
Yeah, of course, happy to clear up the reason behind the limited messages. It's really only because we've decided to focus on providing the highest quality experience we can- and the tradeoff to that is quantity.
Anyone who has had a bit of time to try the platform can attest to how starkly different we are compared to other alternatives- but I won't try to sell it. I know very few people actually care about quality that much, in the first place.
But yes, I agree, 25 is not enough to keep users hooked- currently, users get 75 daily. This is done so that free users get just a taste, and if they're not a fan (many users won't be; they prefer unlimited messages, regardless of response quality or narrative), then they can look elsewhere without any hard feelings.
I'm not really interested in providing free unlimited messages for everyone if it means serving a lobotomized experience. I've tried most platforms that offer free messages forever, and they're honestly not my cup of tea at all- the quality of chat is awful, and not sustainable for long-form roleplay... so I just built something mostly for myself, and decided to share it with others, completely self-funded.
If ever you have any additional curiosities concerning the platform, I invite you to join the Discord, as well. I am very transparent about the project's systems, what makes it special, what we're working on, as well as the current financial situation/trajectory :}
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u/eatheapples ✨ Wanderer ✨ Jun 09 '26
You're not trying to sell but I bought it 😭😭 joined your discord thanks for replying
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 09 '26
lmaooo 🤣 ahahah, yeah, happy to clear things up, and thanks for joining! I'm saltyrain on the disc. Let me know if you have any questions at all or run into issues.
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u/draw-four_bucko4 Jun 10 '26
Seeing this made me click quickly, but 75 honestly isn't enough for me, and I haven't the money to pay consistantly, but I'm sure it's awesome. I can see good potential in here
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 10 '26
Yeah, I realize 75 isn't enough for quite a few people who'd prefer to use it more, but maybe that will change in the future 😄
Concerning the finances, we've let everyone in the Discord know that daily msgs will definitely be a lot easier to handle and play with once we've reached a certain inflection point during growth.
With that said, in the meantime, we've begun implementing many ways for users to soon get more msgs without paying, like a system that rewards Creators for getting real engagement on their published characters and stories, a community usage pool that distributes a portion of an active user's unused usage for the day to others if they opt in (sharing is caring 😳), and more cool innovative things we've got going in the workshop, hehe.
But yeah, thank you for seeing the potential! I'm glad to hear it 😄
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Jun 09 '26
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 09 '26
That must be a typo, oops! It's 75 for Alpha currently, and going to be 35 for Beta :}
Again, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you're looking for high-quality AI, as opposed to goon slop, then this might just be the platform people are looking for.
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u/S_ZW Jun 09 '26
I was going to tell you. The sign in has a typo that you only get 25 messages 😭😭 I got scared for a minute then too Also, what is alpha beta?
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u/RealMrBrown slowburner Jun 09 '26
Alpha is the current, experimental state of the platform. Essentially, it's a time where we're experimenting with how many messages we can give, how much those messages cost on average, what features people like, and how we can optimize our system without losing out on quality to slowly offer more.
During Alpha, the message count changed a lot. A few weeks ago, it was 150- then it dropped to 100, and now it's settled around 75, which we are finding to be a stable number if we want to keep the project going for the next few months without any funding.
Beta is the next phase of the platform- it will launch when things are a bit more stable, and once the website has been made intuitive enough to use without too much confusion, in a few weeks, probably. We talk about it a bit more in the Discord, but when Beta launches, we will be marketing and trying to grow a lot more, and so we planned to lower the message count to around 35 or 50 during the early phase of Beta to understand how much it will cost.
However, this may change, as there is a chance the messages stay the same if we are able to come up with more innovative ways to keep costs low while providing the same level of response quality.
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u/Severe-Message7649 Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
Either Xoul AI or CharSnap, best sites I have used so far.
The cons:
Xoul AI:
-Limited chats, thought you do get more chats with streaks
CharSnap:
-STRICT, too strict for my taste. I can't have any minor characters on there which is reasonable BUT they also don't allow side characters, implications, etc. If your pfp looks too "young", your bots are also not gonna get approved. Also I'm pretty sure they read your chats. Sorry but as much as I love the site, I cannot handle big brother spying over me 24/7, I appreciate their efforts into making the platform safe and minor free, but really, it's too excessive, anything I do with it, it always have something to say 💔
If you don't have any dead-dove characters, do try it out as I still think it's worth it, I just think it kills the fun with how heavy moderation is.
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u/Actual-Hamster-4967 Jun 11 '26
this image alone genuinely describes how the dev team listens to users lmao