Nintendo’s online service is …awful.

by on September 15, 2018 at 3:43 pm
Posted In: Video Games

I’m seeing a lot of people tying to explain this away with “Well it just costs $20” but I don’t think that’s a fair assessment . I want to get my thoughts out in full on this really, really dumb online service.

Two things:
1-Saves are hidden on the Switch and there’s no way to back them up except Nintendo’s online service which is paid. So, for no reason, you want to safe guard your saves, something you’ve been able to do as far back as the Game Cube and can be done on their competitors hardware- you gotta pay up.

My problem with this is, I don’t have any use for their online except this feature and yes $20 year isn’t so bad- I don’t care. Why is a basic feature that everyone enjoys everywhere else sporting a fee? Especially when hackers have made software to do this already. Cheaters? Who cares, they’re gonna do it anyway as we’re watching right now.

2- They just announced very pricey NES controllers that are seriously limited to only NES games (I can think of a few indie games they’d work with just fine, but what do I know?). What does this have to do with online? Mike, have you lost it? Are you just bashing for the sake of bashing?

No, the reason I bring this up is because you need the online service to purchase these things and they’re already $60. I saw one defend this as “Well this will stop scalpers” no it won’t. It’ll just make these things MORE expensive when they sell them. No one has done this. Is it to make the online service more appealing? Is it actually an attempt to stop scalpers?

Look, I got a Switch, it’s honestly looking like it may be my favorite handheld. But Nintendo is handling this online thing so bafflingly stupid it’s incredible. Their competitors figured ALL this out years ago, but they’re insisting on going this route? I mean, as far back as the Gamecube you could back up your save games with them- and as far back as the SEGA CD you could back up games! So what are they doing?

I type this up because I’m immensely frustrated that I can’t back up my saves. Someone sits on my Switch, it gets stolen, random hardware failure? All my RPG save data is gone. And I’ve already suffered through that before due to outside problems.

Agh, Nintendo, please make this article out of date and let me back up my saves, please don’t be this thick.

 

 

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Hiatus ends 9/17

by on September 10, 2018 at 11:30 am
Posted In: Antares Complex, Uncategorized, Updates, Website

Hey all, I’ve been hard at work trying to get things ready and it’s taken a bit longer than I expected due to a change in art style and formatting, also …ya know, work. I think things should be moving smoothly from now on.

I was up for like 52 hours trying to get stuff sorted out for my job, nothing I feel like chatting about just know that it made things a lot more tedious than it needed to be…. BAH anyway,

Here’s a look:

Boom! Shit gets real in issue 14!!

As you can see the style has taken a large turn and I think it’s for the better. I honestly fought against this change internally for a long time because… Well I was crap. I wasn’t doing things 100% digitally and I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out how to get nice, clean, lines on traditional. I’d scan pages in and paint them in photoshop and I thought that the painting style that I did in previous issues fit the more traditional inks in those pages. I did used to make comics like this with more crisp lines and such …but I made all of that in vector/flash/illustrator and that’s a story for ANOTHER day…

What do I mean by formatting change, I looked this up ages ago for a standard comic page size and there were a few options. What I decided here was to go with what I found with Comixology. I’d like to one day get these comics up there and sold with some extras so it’s good to future-proof  I s’pose.

For now;

It’s time to move on to a style that suits me and I think, the series better. Hopefully you’ll all enjoy this and I’ll see you on 9/17 for Issue 14: Electric Bill

If you want to support this comic and get:
-Early access to 2 pages from two different comics a week
-Early access to various comic art/fanart
-Live stream recordings.
-Exclusive artwork.
-Status updates and more!

You’ll also get your name on the donator wall and in the comic on the supporter page where it will STAY even if the book gets printed!

Hit my Patreon for all these bonuses:
https://www.patreon.com/Gx3RComics

 

 

 

 

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After issue hiatus, don’t panic!

by on July 30, 2018 at 7:44 pm
Posted In: Antares Complex, Updates, Website

I know I already said this in a description of the last page but since I know most don’t read that kinda stuff on youtube it’s safe to assume the same here. Maybe.

Okay, so issue 13 is complete, so I’m going to take a month off or so- that’s not a holiday, I’m working on getting pages ready for posting. There’s a lot to be done with a full page comic. If you keep an eye on my deviant art stuff, you might see some other art to keep you busy. OR if you want to check out my NEW COMIC that I haven’t made any post on here yet, you can check out Journey to the Skyline who’s first issue is still going strong, updating every thursday. I’ll probably have a more formal post soon- I totally don’t have a draft just sitting around that I haven’t posted because of anxiety, nooo that’d be absurd.

And, as usual if you want to support and get to see stuff early, check out my patreon where I’m posting all sorts of stuff early. Throw me a tip to help support my work, you’ll get your name on the current running issue and on the donator wall. My patreon or ko-fi for tips.

As I say every hiatus I take, no this isn’t the update that ends the comic, I have a buffer of pages but they need some finalizing and this lets me catch up and have more pages at the ready.

 

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No update this week. Sick.

by on July 14, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Posted In: Antares Complex, Life, Updates

Not sick as like “Nice work man, that’s sick!” no I mean my nose is leaking into my throat, which is now sore because of that. Taking something for it but it’s drying me up and making me lose focus on what I’m trying to do.

I worked on the comic for a bit and only managed 2 panels in pencils in the time it should have been probably the whole thing. I can’t keep focused to the point where I started trying to remake the background for the site and I was like “what, am, I, doing??”. There’s other things site-wise I’d like to get done, new character profile images, finishing character bio’s that aren’t on the damned site as it is. Or just filling out more info in the database.

Annoying that I also feel pretty okay then suddenly 0 energy. Go lay down for an hour. Okay, better, then randomly later egh 0 energy. I’ve already had a similar (but far, far worse) experience with mono years ago-so it’s a familiar annoyance.

Egh. Either way, I’m sorry but I’m not getting an update out this week. I know some might be thinking “But Mike, why don’t you just shut up, relax and play a game?!” because I’m a workahaulic. I played an hour of Tales of Xillia, is that good enough for relaxing?…. Probably not.

Also, I managed to smash my freeze-y mug. You know those cups that have water in the lining? Bloody smashed it on my fridge on accident. There’s one xmas gift in the bin. Two bins actually. :\

Anyway, some good news is … Sonic Mania’s expansion is coming out soon and I’m eagerly awaiting it!

 

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New comic series starting soon!

by on April 21, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Posted In: Artwork, Other Projects

Ah-ah! Don’t panic! Nothing is happening to Antares Complex! I’m still making pages for this comic…as we speak in fact I’m making a planet for a new page.

It’s wildly different from Antares Complex, so I’m not sure how much interest is there for you. BUT, I don’t see the harm in letting you know what it is, what’s up with it and how it effects Antares Complex (it doesn’t! that easy).

Journey to the Skyline is the new comic, it’s launching withing a week or two. (ideally monday) It’s a light hearted cartoon adventure following cartoon animals…think old Disney cartoons I guess? Sonic the Hedgehog? Stuff like that, they’re on a quest which will be revealed in the story.

 

poster for comic

On a world filled with floating islands, the planet itself long told to be uninhabitable and space running out, the future is uncertain. Cora looks to the stars and sees the future, the only answer to the growing population. So, her and her robot friend Blip work on inventions trying to get that to that dream …between making cars for the city.

Things all go wrong when her latest prototype of a mech goes out of control and well, we’ll see what happens!

Why make a new comic? :
That’s a good question. Thing is I’ve been hearing for …years, that I should be making a cartoon-style comic. “Your cartoon stuff always stands out to me!” is what I hear when trying to get a critique for an Antares Complex page and they spot something I doodled around with. It’s something I wanted to try a few years ago but, another friend with ..eh fairly negative views put me off the idea.

But, that kinda got rekindled when I met some new friends in a comic group (Webcomic Underdogs) and despite knowing them a short while they pretty much started telling me the same thing I was hearing before. OKAY, FINE! You win, I’ll try it. I spent about a year developing the characters, story and here we are, soon to launching a new series.

Also, don’t think I’m doing this just because of peer pressure or whatever. I do like drawing and creating cartoon characters! Otherwise I wouldn’t have a deviantart that has plenty of that sprinkled in the way of fanart. I just wasn’t sure if I could swing it, anxiety is fun right? Either way, I’ll announce here, on my twitter and deviant art when the comic is going live, where you can see it.

Leave a comment by the way, I’m curious what you think about this!

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