Yeah, I know he doesn’t have any choice due to his format. The large pages is closer to the heart of the problem than the file format. Really he needs more bandwidth in general though I’m not sure if he sells enough OOTS merchandise to justify it. I’ve bought all the books to help support him as a webcartoonist but if you only make a book one a year…
Even without the text, GIF would still be a better format than JPG for his work. GIF is best for large expanses of uniform color with sharp edges between them, while JPEG is best for smooth gradations. Photographs generally consist almost entirely of smooth gradations, while simple 2-d computer generated images (like OotS strips) are mostly large uniform expanses. Incidentally, in the uncommon cases where the strip does contain smooth gradations (like the halo around Roy’s Archon), you can usually see compression artifacts from the GIF format not being able to handle that well.
My experience with PNG is that it’s generally better than either, regardless of the type of original image: I think they switch between compression methods on the fly. But PNG isn’t as universally well-supported as GIF on web browsers, which might be enough to make GIF the better choice overall.
You do realize the books have a bunch of extra strips that Burlew doesn’t post of the website? So even if you’ve read the entire online archive, you’ve only seen about two thirds of the story.
Never mind.
Quite frankly, if he set up some kind of Paypal gig to fund a new server (or a mirror site), I’d pay, as I am sure many readers would. The downtime and timeouts are getting ridiculous.
Let me append this: the collections of strips only have about a dozen new strips in them each (and I think War and XPs might only have three or four). There are, however, two book only stories On the Origin of the PCs and Start of Darkness that are prequels. They’re about seventy strips long each so put it all together and there’s about 160 strips that are not on the web.
Those prequels are well worth checking out. You get details that color a lot of the story like why it is a really bad thing that Durkon will return home “posthumously” and what Redcloak is really up to. If you can’t afford to get all the books and support the webcomic (and hey, not everyone can afford to) the prequels are worth the outlay of funds.
I can’t say I would donate since I prefer to give my money in exchange for product, but I’m down to buying the board game and I’ve heard it’s pretty bad. 
Huh…and here I thought they were all compilations of the web comic, with a couple of bonus strips thrown in as bait. I had no idea that there were books of nothing but new content. Consider them purchased.
The board game isn’t bad, exactly. The problem is that is too long and doesn’t have enough material to sustain its length. A big part of the game is that each character gains a bunch of abilities over the course of play. A lot of them are pretty neat and amusing, so it’s a lot of fun just getting them. However, in the times I’ve played, everyone has acquired them all in the first half of the game and then it becomes a bit of a slog to finish it. It can still be kinda fun, though.
The start of darkness in particular is an INCREDIBLY good self contained story. I reread the whole archive right after i finished reading it and it changed how i viewed a lot of the strips completely. Like at the start of the siege of Azure city when Redcloak orders the hobgoblin army to charge and under his breath he says “this one is for you mom” it completely switched my allegiance from the azurites to the goblins
The prequel books are worth reading, but because they weren’t written as individual strips, they don’t have quite the same flow as the web material. On the Origin of PC’s is a nice little backstory (and the team’s first battle is one of the funniest scenes in the entire comic), but it doesn’t seem like it’s crucial to have read. Start of Darkness, on the other hand, is much more important to read, and it’s tough to see how the story could end without the events depicted in there becoming very important.
GodDAMN it. I have no money, but now I must read these extra strips. I need a refresher on the particulars of the story. I went through and read the entire web series in a day last year, and the details are slipping. I’d do it again, but his server issues are prohibitive.
V’s digging himself in deeper . . .
Wow. That’s some good drama right there.
Everything Spouse said is corret, but V *can’t *stay - there’s still Halley and Roy(not to mention the world) to save. Sticking around to save his marriage would be as much a betrayal as leaving, if not more. V has no choice.
Classic tragic-hero stuff.
V does have to leave, but at the same time, it’s V’s choice to continue the soul splice or not. V’s tragic flaw seems to be that he doubts his own abilities, and that for him, gaining power has become an end in itself, because he’s afraid of being weak and failing.
Of course, V appears to still be under the impression that the fiends only get possession of his/her soul AFTER death, while as many people have pointed out the fiends never said that. V THINKS that he/she is only sacrificing his/herself by holding onto the splice - not making him/herself a greater danger when/if the fiends take control.
Also, it’s occurred to me now that we see that the splices can end separately - what if the fiends grab control NOW, while V is in a superpowered state ? I know that when I read the comic where a fiend comments that they get V’s soul in an “exact order of custody to be determined at a later point” ( panel 9 ), I just assumed they would negotiate among themselves. Perhaps the order is at least in part determined by when the souls are lost, because the fiend who owns that soul only then can take control. Purple-text fiend may now be planning to grab control of V for as long as V had the necromancer’s soul, while V is still powered up.
If my speculation is right, then keeping control of the Splice is a very bad thing.
To be fair, he needs the soul splice to go. He can’t teleport without it.
Although now that I think of it, he can always go to his old master and ask HIM for help, so… hmmm. Yep, it’s Tragic Flaw City.
Allowing a demon to torment your soul for ANY “set duration” is a bad idea when that creature has demonstrated that* it can stop time*.
Yeah, but I doubt they care much about something as mundane as torturing V’s soul. They’d much rather use him to seize contol of the universe.
Probably the most true statement made in the strip in a long time. Vaarsuvius has always wanted power, just for power’s sake. (Which is pretty true neutral, actually; he doesn’t want either take over or save the world, he just wants power.) He’s part of the OOTS because he can gain more experience and power that way.
Now, he has power. He’s not going to give it up for anything. He’s going to hang onto the splice as long as he can.
In any case, if V keeps going the way s/he’s been going, s/he’s going to end up in one of the Evil afterlives permanently, anyhow…