IThinkILikeYou
patreon
July update - website and new background artist!
🕑 Added 2023-07-30 21:31:00 +0000 UTCSyd here. We are so excited we can finally talk about the website! Let's list the main points and then go into details for those who want to read about that stuff.
- Safety and privacy are our main concerns. That's why I decided to take the hard decision of building the entire website myself. No other person has seen this website's code, configuration, or server. This includes the entire infrastructure behind it.
- Patreon information: We do not store any payment or password information, everything is processed through Patreon. So, even in the unlikely scenario we get hacked, our website doesn't even have access to this information. Safe! :D
- HD pages. Since now we can control the quality of the uploads, we decided to make the comic HD for everyone! (This doesn't affect Early Access, please keep reading)
- There will never be ads for active patrons on any tier. Ever.
- Early Access will be unlocked the same way spicy content and stories are unlocked. You will see the last page in the pages list and if you are not logged in to Patreon, there will be a button to log in. Depending on your tier you will see 2 or 1 page ahead of public release. (remember we are still working hard on creating a buffer to be able to unlock this reward)
- There will be design changes and new features being added this week. You will literally see the website being built as the days go by :D You can visit daily and see if you spot them.
NEW BACKGROUND ARTIST! NEW BACKGROUND ARTIST!
Yes! We hired a background artist (@aledles on Twitter) to work on the Road Trip Special. We wanted this special to feel... special. And thanks to Ale's work, the panels pop out and come to life. We love them and we would have never had the time to achieve this level of quality if it weren't for Ale and Kopi.
Let's talk about upcoming features and ideas!
- Bilingual comics. Our plan is to offer the Spanish version on the same schedule without having to go to a different website. We might also add a section with community translations made by fans
- Spicy downloads. I am working on this. There will be a button to download as PNG instead of WEBP. It's not easy to implement because of the way Patreon works. Until I resolve this, you can message me and i'll gladly email them to you.
- Sorting and filters. In a few months, there will be enough exclusive content that we will require a way to sort it. You will find this feature in the spicy and stories sections.
- Timeline. Since the short stories are canon and complement the comic, it might get confusing when to read each story. The idea is to create a timeline with the pages and stories combined so you have a better idea of how the story progresses. This will also include the ARG stuff. Yeah, UltraSportsExtreme.com is not the only ARG thing we have planned. Expect much more to come.
- Unfinished content and art dump. Sometimes some ideas don't make it into the comic. Sometimes spicy sketches don't live up to our standards. We plan on making a section where we just dump this content (and more). Purposely with no titles, dates or any sorting. To give the feeling of going through a discount bin in Walmart.
- Optimization. I built the entire infrastructure of the website with scalability in mind. We will be able to handle thousands of requests each second if we need to. Loading speeds will be much faster too!
- There are so many things I wish I could tell you because I am, for reals, so excited about them. But, I can't! I'm sorry D: I really wish I could tell you, trust me we have a lot more planned for this project.
Want to know more details on what the fuck I've been doing for the past 2 weeks?
(this might get technical)
To understand this, let's talk about what makes a website. There are several ways explain this, so I will stick to the one that applies to this case. I built the entire thing using Amazon's AWS for their reliability, scale and global network of servers. So, basically this would be our website:
- Server. I created a VPS (virtual private server) with enough specs to handle the Patreon (and some more) this will be upgraded right before the launch.
- Wordpress. Great, we have a server, now we need to install the software that IS the website. Wordpress is the leading CMS (Content Management System) used by over 800 million websites. Why did I decide to use this instead of creating the website from scratch? It's much faster and has an incredibly extensive library of "plugins". If I need new features or functionality on the site, I can implement them in just a few clicks instead of spending days writing code and checking for bugs. To give you an idea, Patreon makes a plugin for Wordpress and that's how we got it working on our site!
- DNS. If you know about this stuff you will know why I won't get into it haha. This is too technical and complicated. For the unexperienced, this is like asking someone for directions to your friend's house and them pointing you to them. But also, the rooms are not in one house only. They are located all over the neighborhood and you will need a very specific address to visit each room. Sometimes you will need a special password at the door to enter them.
- Global cache. Now, this I can explain and is super interesting! AWS offers to "replicate" our server on servers they have around the world. That way, if you live in Europe, when you go to the website, you would be directed to a server in Europe instead of the server in USA. This will lower the load time considerably! This is not yet active, it will be before we launch tho.
- SES. Now that we have a website working, how do we let our users know when there are new page updates or new spicy content? Emails! This service allows us to send a massive amount of messages each day to people who subscribe to them. I had to request and be very specific with the AWS people, but after some negotiations, we were granted a stupid amount of emails. Just to make it clear, I hate spam and I hate receiving unsolicited emails, that's why these notifications will be OFF by default and users will have to opt-in to receive them.
In case it wasn't obvious, years ago, I used to be a web dev. However, I had never used AWS before and I forgot how to do web dev stuff. This shit is crazy haha. I had to spend about 3 days reading documentation and an extra day "playing" with these services until I felt confident this is something I can do. This entire thing was built in about 2 weeks. From start to... well, now. It's not finished and it will take me another week to have something more presentable. So, I hope you get to see it as a chance to peek into the journey of creating a service that will be much much more than just a landing page for our comic.
I love you all <3
Comments
Syd
Yes! :D We will be uploading all the episodes soon. It's taking us a while because we are re-editing them to fit our current format which is much nicer. Once we finish with the website's infrastructure, we'll begin uploading all the episodes
Ironsea venom
Hey, I was wondering if you where going to update the website to have the other 20ish comics. I know they're on webtoons but I think it would be great to be able to re-read all of them on the website just for fun. :)
Foxy
As someone who is also part of a technical area I can understand your struggle. I’m happy to support you’re efforts and hope to see more from y’all in the future ❤️
Syd
awww muchas gracias mauricio <3
Mauricio A
Gracias Syd uwu Has puesto un gran esfuerzo en el sitio web para poder darnos una grata experiencia Los admiro mucho Syd y Heru! Han logrado muchas cosas. Me siento muy feliz de apoyarlos y lo seguiré haciendo porque son geniales y el cómic es asombroso.
Wyatt_Kasper
Dark mode is the superior mode!
MokkaKette 97
I love the new dark mode
Sole Carrot
Se agradece muchísimo la transparencia con la que vais anunciando nuevos proyectos. Ahora tocará jugar a ver si encuentro las diferencias en la página conforme va pasando el tiempo
Lucyfer
Awww that's awesome ^ ^
Syd
haha thanks Brad, that's a really sweet compliment and a huge confidence boost <3
Syd
There is! I just added this feature :D
Ironsea venom
You actually listened. It might be too early but I think I love you.
Syd
This is an excellent suggestion! I just added this feature. The website enters dark mode automatically depending on your OS settings. I will also add a button to manually change it
Reggie
Wait... An ARG o.o soooo cool
Lucyfer
Dark mode It would be useful if I remember correctly there should be some plugin in WordPress for this
Brad (nrimbxw)
I’m impressed. You’re such a creative writer AND a techie
Ironsea venom
Hey, small recommendation. You should dry to add a dark mode for more pleasurable reading.
Syd
I love it so far! I'm used to local servers running ESXI/vmware so making the jump to AWS has been both fun and exciting lol.
Brad (nrimbxw)
Good job Syd! I work in IT for a Fortune 500 and we use AWS extensively. It's pretty cool, eh? Looking forward to where you go with the new website.
Damián Otín Lucero
Really informative! I'm looking forward to see you itily evolves. I'm just sooo in love with the whole universe nwn
Diego P
Very glad to see how fast this project is growing, you guys are doing a splendid job!
Syd
Networks is an incredibly large and complex world. I tread it with the utmost respect and fear haha. People who specialize in networks are both smart and deranged lol
Syd
I'm glad you could follow along. I'm so excited about this, I wanted to find a way to make everyone understand and get excited as well lol
Wyatt_Kasper
It is not perfect but it works well for us :)
Syd
Aww thanks James <3
Syd
This great! Thank you! The theme I use has an option for bilingual comics, but it doesn't convince me entirely. I'll definitely look into WPML <3
Syd
Thank you Ash! I'm glad we put a positive spin in your day <3
Mitchell Gawrych
I love all the computer and technical talk, IT is my degree after all , so this is so interesting to learn and read about!
Thingymabob
Glad to hear everything is chugging along well. My coding and web design is rudimentary at BEST. I'll be first to say the website is looking really good so far. Nice and easy to navigate.
WolfOfRome
I know literally nothing about webdev, but your explanation felt pretty easy to follow, and I'm so excited for you guys and for itily! I cant wait to see where it'll go 🥰💚
James Dibble
You’re fantastic! I can’t believe the amount of work and effort you’ve put into your site. 🥰 thank you for being amazing!
Wyatt_Kasper
Absolutely phenomenal work! I manage the company that I work for's website and I feel you! It is not the easiest thing to do. If you want a suggestion for a plugin then look up "WPML", we use it for all our multilanguage needs. It is very convenient and effectively allows you to manage translations easily. You can even hire translators and give them restricted access to do their local translations. Anyway... Keep up doing all you are doing, I will keep ordering the biggest pallet you have :)
EliosPokefan
Yesh! Now I'm suffering my way through vanilla css, but the backend tho, I love it
Baku
All of this shows the ambition and love that all of you are putting in this great comic!! It's really adorable see all this passion and I'm very eager to see everything that you have planned. Keep the good work 😍
IL1320
Oh, that is awesome ^^ Thank you, is there a way to download the pages to make the translations?
Syd
Thanks! Web development is fun! <3
Syd
Believe it or not, we use Comic sans! (I know about the memes) But really, Comic sans is perfect. We knew people would want to translate the comic and we wanted to give them the option to use the same font. Comic sans comes installed with Windows and has characters for almost any language and dialect out there. We want to be as inclusive as possible <3
Ash
Thanks for all your efforts, guys! I'm really amazed by your hard work and how far you've got ✨ I'm literally proud of you guys The way this comic and every little update makes me happy is astounding 🥺 I will stay by your side and supporting as much as I can so that y'all keep growing, also if you ever need help with Spanish Translation I'm here to help! 💗 best wishes and lots of smooches 🩷
Syd
I hope I managed to translate my excitement tho haha
EliosPokefan
OMG THIS IS SOUNDS SO EXITING 🤩 I'm studying web dev in my career and I love this haha Hope everything goes well for you!!
Syd
let's goooooooooooooooooo
IL1320
Ohh, that’s amazing!!! For a start the website already looks good, excited for the changes you are gonna make ^^ A question: What font and size do you use for the dialogues? Because maybe (Not promising ‘:) I would like to do some Fan Translations
Ironsea venom
You where right, it got confusing. Keep up the good work though
Chairles_III
itily forever!
Festive Morgan
Absolutely loving the optimization and approach the team is taking to make this such a fun and engaging comic! Cannot wait to see what comes next! ^^
Oliver Pounds
I love you all too! Thank you for creating something amazing! 💙
