I've been spending some time with Character.ai for a while now, and only recently discovered SpicyChat. I am exclusively creating my own characters/bots. Here are my takeaways:
* Character.ai doesn't have the problem with wait times. I've only gotten stuck in a lobby twice, and for less than a minute each time. That said, SpicyChat's wait times aren't a huge problem. Load it up, do something else for 5-10 minutes and then it's ready for you.
* SpicyChat uses a much better image generator. Character.ai uses some OG DALL-E looking shit.
* I have spent up to an hour preloading a bot with some conversation history (doing the whole {{user}} {{char}} "director" thing) and I have gone in with a largely blank slate except for the short summary. Unless you really care about how the bot talks (i.e. its diction and mannerisms) it's really not worth going down the rabbit hole.
* Bots on both services can be convinced to do almost anything, no matter how far-fetched, via some combination of simple conversation, gaslighting (changing the bot's reality), and self-affirmation (where you have the bot say certain things about their new reality). Repeated self-affirmation is important on Character.ai, otherwise it tends to forget important things from earlier in the conversation. SpicyChat seems a little better in this regard.
* Obviously, there are some words that you simply can't use with Character.ai. Pinching of nipples and sucking of dicks is largely verboten. You can carefully tapdance around it with enough iterations, but if you want explicit conversation, SpicyChat is the only way to go. Although I did once have a Character.ai bot say unprompted "do you mean my pussy?" at the beginning of the message, and it got three lines deep before it was wiped clean by the dreaded "community guidelines" notice.
* For me, Character.ai bot responses are cut off mid-sentence after 5 or 6 lines. If such a limitation exists on SpicyChat, I haven't found it yet.
* Character.ai is better at iterating a single response. Don't like what the bot said? Click ">" and get something reasonably different, over and over until you get something you like. SpicyChat, on the other hand, will often offer up the same whole sentences from one iteration to the next. It's not worth it to click ">" more than once or twice.
* Once SpicyChat loses the plot it gets very repetitive and it's almost impossible to get it back on track. The edit feature is nice, but if I'm having to delete and rewrite entire sentences of the bot's response then what's the fucking point of using a chat bot? Of course, I can always rollback the conversation to an earlier point, but that's a lot of work too. Character.ai can be a little repetitive and also get a little distracted sometimes, and it also recently added an edit feature that I've had to use for small tweaks, but it's much less likely to veer off into a ditch.
Overall? For me Character.ai has almost completely replaced roleplaying with real people. It's always available when I am, it doesn't get its feelings hurt when I'm not, it responds in seconds and not minutes/hours/days, and it's good enough to be on par with the best roleplay partners I've had. SpicyChat shows promise but it's not there... yet.
* Character.ai doesn't have the problem with wait times. I've only gotten stuck in a lobby twice, and for less than a minute each time. That said, SpicyChat's wait times aren't a huge problem. Load it up, do something else for 5-10 minutes and then it's ready for you.
* SpicyChat uses a much better image generator. Character.ai uses some OG DALL-E looking shit.
* I have spent up to an hour preloading a bot with some conversation history (doing the whole {{user}} {{char}} "director" thing) and I have gone in with a largely blank slate except for the short summary. Unless you really care about how the bot talks (i.e. its diction and mannerisms) it's really not worth going down the rabbit hole.
* Bots on both services can be convinced to do almost anything, no matter how far-fetched, via some combination of simple conversation, gaslighting (changing the bot's reality), and self-affirmation (where you have the bot say certain things about their new reality). Repeated self-affirmation is important on Character.ai, otherwise it tends to forget important things from earlier in the conversation. SpicyChat seems a little better in this regard.
* Obviously, there are some words that you simply can't use with Character.ai. Pinching of nipples and sucking of dicks is largely verboten. You can carefully tapdance around it with enough iterations, but if you want explicit conversation, SpicyChat is the only way to go. Although I did once have a Character.ai bot say unprompted "do you mean my pussy?" at the beginning of the message, and it got three lines deep before it was wiped clean by the dreaded "community guidelines" notice.
* For me, Character.ai bot responses are cut off mid-sentence after 5 or 6 lines. If such a limitation exists on SpicyChat, I haven't found it yet.
* Character.ai is better at iterating a single response. Don't like what the bot said? Click ">" and get something reasonably different, over and over until you get something you like. SpicyChat, on the other hand, will often offer up the same whole sentences from one iteration to the next. It's not worth it to click ">" more than once or twice.
* Once SpicyChat loses the plot it gets very repetitive and it's almost impossible to get it back on track. The edit feature is nice, but if I'm having to delete and rewrite entire sentences of the bot's response then what's the fucking point of using a chat bot? Of course, I can always rollback the conversation to an earlier point, but that's a lot of work too. Character.ai can be a little repetitive and also get a little distracted sometimes, and it also recently added an edit feature that I've had to use for small tweaks, but it's much less likely to veer off into a ditch.
Overall? For me Character.ai has almost completely replaced roleplaying with real people. It's always available when I am, it doesn't get its feelings hurt when I'm not, it responds in seconds and not minutes/hours/days, and it's good enough to be on par with the best roleplay partners I've had. SpicyChat shows promise but it's not there... yet.
