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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • At least for me, it does. It got so bad that watching a Twitch stream caused my phone to overheat to the point of freezing up and turning off. In comparison, the offical Twitch app doesn’t cause the same issue, neither does Brave. Watching YouTube on Firefox drains the battery basically 2% per minute. OK, my phone is older and runs a custom rom, but other apps run flawlessly.


  • Unfortunatly this wasn’t Android exclusive. The Firefox Android App sucked ass in the past and will probably suck ass for the foreseeable future. There are currently multiple support and Reddit threads going about insane battery drain and heat build-up caused by the Firefox App (even when suspended and battery optimized). The UI is barebones and lacks basic features like closing tabs from the navigation bar or opening new tabs by scrolling left on the rightmost tab. Even something as simple as having actual tabs akin to the desktop version is not present, instead you have a tab list or grid view that barely manages to load previews for each open website. The native video player also hasn’t been touched in a literal decade.

    All in all Firefox Android is a horrible experience that has only the ability to use extensions going for it.



  • This is a genuine invitation for disscussion.

    Let me tell you, over more than a decade I’ve played a lot of Battlefield Bad Company 2, like a lot a lot.

    Last year, in December the servers for it got officially shut down by EA. And you know how I felt? I barely cared. It is still one of my favorite games of all time, and while there are private servers still active, I have no intention to play. And the reason for it that is simple. I’ve played enough of that game, I feel fully unsatisfied with the time I’ve spend with it. Its like 2 people growing apart over time.

    Just to play devils advocate here. What is the benefit of forcing developers to provide access to old games that require online functionality indefinitely, instead of just hard limiting them to say 10 years wich is essentially indefinite in terms of non-live service games. If you haven’t managed to get enough joy out of something during a decade of you life, then maybe the developer isn’t responsible for your personal issues.

    By this time The Crew 2 would’ve been 6 years old. I agree that’s fairly short time to turn of the servers, but would people be still as frantic about the server shut down in say 2028? Wouldn’t 10 years be enough? Why straight up go for indefinite access.


  • A new map isn’t gonna name everybody stop playing the old ones, look at Counter Strike’s de_dust from 1999, people still play that map religiously even if there are new ones. The old maps were balanced and refined, and have been replaced with a completely imbalanced one. They’ve should’ve been available along side the new one.

    I’m running a 1080 Ti, can still do most modern games on high - ultra on 90 FPS at 1440p. Played Hunt maxed out for years no issues, now I got everything on low except textures and barely scratch 70 between compounds. Searching the Steam forums and reddit shows similar complains from other people with even better hardware than mine.

    Before I was finding players 2 seconds after I pressed search on Europe servers, now, even though player numbers skyrocketed after the patch, I can go make my self a cup of tea, come back and it’s still hasn’t found anything. Maybe it has something to do with my MMR rank.

    Speaking of, you’re right, I noticed the rank changes before the patch. I was always a 4 Star player, sometimes dipped in 5 Star after a good match, sometimes dipped into the 3 Star. Now I’m effortlessly sitting at 6 Stars. How do I know I improved skill wise if I’m already sitting at the max possible rank? Why are mediocre players like me suddenly bundled with sweatlords, who presumably are also 6 stars?

    The skins now have rareities that determine their price, this came with the new update.

    I’m not talking about minor bugs. The reason why I uninstalled is because if the boss gets killed in my compound by me or anybody else and I open the map, my game freezes and crashes on a regular basis. I validated the game files, I’ve updated my drivers, etc. It is straight up unplayable. I open the map on accident and I’m out. Again I’m not the only one with this problem. This is not some minor bug, this is absolutely unacceptable for a PvP game with permadeath. But that’s the reality of this new shitty Hunt.

    That’s why DayZ has open experimental servers running months in advance, and their push to official is largely bug free. But, oh my, Crytek wants a big reveal for big update, who cares about playability, buy our Battlelass.

    The best to come of this update was Port Sulfurs new single.



  • Funnily the only Isekai that was somewhat interesting and realistic “Drifters” still doesn’t have a season 2. It’s basically powerful and influential political figures and warriors from random time periods get transported into a medieval fantasy world after their death. All I want is to see is WW2 anime Hitler take over a fantasy kingdom and get killed by Ninjas, is that to much to ask for? It’s realistic in the sense that the main characters are 10 minutes into a fantasy land with magic and beautiful nature and of course they’re already started making guns and bombs.


  • Most western cartoons are self contained episodes tho, while there is a general recurring antagonist, the conflict has to arise, develop and be resolved within the same episode. Very rarely you get multi episode arcs. Sometimes you get overarching storylines as a driving force that span whole seasons, but the main conflicts remain episodic. Spongebob is still working in the Crusty Crab by the end of the show, Kim Possible is still fighting Dr.Draken and Shego by the end of the series, Homer is still working in a Nuclear Powerplant, etc…

    Anime is different in that regard because the story is laid out from start to finish usually over the course of 10-20 episodes. Whether the story has actual substance is a different question. But the thing is, anime can get away with an episode were nothing happens as long as it drives the plot towards a conclusion. But a children’s cartoon where for a full episode nothing interesting happens usually won’t even leave the storyboard.

    That’s why “filler episodes” are usually an eastern anime instead if a western cartoon trope.


  • I’m also an avid lurker of r/onepunchman and I have to say, Tatsumaki fanart is fairly tame compared to Fubuki. Fubuki is also used in the exact same way as Faye in Bebop. Her sexiness is the antithesis to the main characters general indifference. Her being on most of the mangas cover art sporting different outfits in each is another parallel to that. She’s essentially the artists creative outlet for fashion. As for Tatsumaki, Murata (the artist) himself, said that he doesn’t really like drawing petite women, but her appearance is in theme with the rest of the manga, being that the weak looking characters are usually the strongest.

    Does her looking like that drive the sales up? Sure.

    Does it taken away from the story? No.

    That’s why the straight up rapey approach from Ugly Fuehrer during the Monster Association arc was so impactful, because beside her sexualized outfit she is usually treated respectfully by the other characters.

    What i mean by “taking away from the story” is if another anime has a girl in a small skirt face a tentacle monster, oh jeez, I wonder what will happen next? This is a story that is being told 100s of times and doesn’t have to be told again. That I completely agree on.

    I’d say One Punch Man, is a good example of how to use attractive characters to attract viewers, given that men and women are represented equally attractive and especially the men with a large variety of bodytypes. Saying that Tatsumaki is the only character looking like that and being sexed up is a bad thing should also imply that the Fat Guys superpower being able to eat everything, or Speed-O-Sonic the Twink Ninja wearing skinthight spandex is equally bad. It’s just packaging and appearance.

    The problem is that most other anime’s/mangas have only packaging with not character behind it. The fact that people in the subreddit are mostly discussing power levels, possible theories, story implications, etc.instead of simply drooling over the women means that the characters and story is fleshed out enough that the fan service is beside the point. You usually won’t find whole communities like that for run of the mill echi series with zero dept.


  • It’s weird that the Japan - the country which arguably had the most positive global influence on how fight scenes are filmed and choreographed in movies has had a complete devolution in fight scenes in animation.

    Like look at this fight scene from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Look how calm and harmonic it is 99% of the time, followed by quick bursts of action.

    Or this scene from Evangelion (1999), Bebop (1998), Hellsing (1999).

    There are some memorable modern fights that push the envelope of animation in modern anime like, Madara Uchia from Naruto (2016), Mob Psycho 100 (2019) or Castlevainia (2021).

    But overall modern anime fights are composed mostly of flying, still images screaming “HEYAAA”, internal monologues and 3D explosions.


  • I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.

    I’d say there’s a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it’s done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She’s essentially a artifact of the 90’s rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.

    I’d say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think “we can’t show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper”. The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90’s anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.


  • I don’t think people straight up hate anime, nobody is going to pick up a remote and turn of the TV if they see somebody else watching it and angrily leave the room.

    It’s just, for the most part (and this is also true for non-animated movies or series), you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

    There are only so many times you can tell the story of boring guy gets put in fantasy land and is not boring anymore, or mysterious things happen at school and the afterschool mystery club has to solve them.

    So what do you do? You cling to what you know is good. Studios, directors, etc. If Miyazaki makes an anime movie you watch it, if Quentin Terentino makes an action movie you watch it. This is also partially why anime’s are less popular than mainstream movies and series. You can watch a movie solely because you like an actor/actress, regardless of whether they play the same character or somebody else. In anime, each new series has a new set of characters, so each time a new personal connection has to be built.

    Other than that, a good measure of “is this worth my time?” is pop cultural representation. Rule of thumb, if an anime spawns memes, it’s usually half decent.

    But just like with movies and series, there are timeless classics. Like, who hasn’t seen or at least heard of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Trigun, Dragon Ball Z, etc… Even my parents know Pokemon. Those have been around for so long and been shown on mainstream western channels during prime time slots, that they were impossible to miss. I think people who aren’t familiar with those are just not that interested in motion picture as a whole, regardless how its presented.

    I’d say without overeaching, anime’s can be put in just a few categories:

    • Artistic, Philosophical, Experimental, Parodies: Those are your Miyazaki films, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, etc.
    • Long running: Like, Pokemon, One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, the Fate Series
    • Trying to sell you something: Again Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam, Beyblade, etc.
    • Mass produced trash: All the ones where the title spreads 3 lines and tells you 90% of the story
    • Otaku soap operas: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the Monogatari series, Nagatoro, Komi-San

    But those categories are not evenly spread in appeal, quality and quantity. While the first 2 categories have barely any presence but arguably the most cultural impact, the later ones have the most presence but are individually culturally insignificant. But quality is harder to judge than quantity is to see. So people tend to see the mass produced trash and ignore the good stuff that is being overshadowed. With classical film, a movies intention can usually be discerned with just one look, if for example a modern movie is black and white, its usually artistic. But looking at things like Evangelion, or the Ghost in the Shell Series, you couldn’t guess the deep philosophical implications on first glance. People tend to see cutesy anime art style and associate it with either the mass produced trash, or shows made for children. What makes a film/series good is the intention and execution, if it happens to be animated this usually doesn’t take away from the underlying message. See old animated Disney Movies - Lilo and Stich is about Family Values, Monetary Struggles, Loss and Friendship. Adult topics packed in a medium that both children and their parents can enjoy.

    People tend to hate anime for the same reason they hate superhero movies, they see the overarching medium, but not the individual pieces. You can’t compare the significance of Iron Man 1 with Thor 2, or Infinity War with The Marvels, some of these movies are good in a vacuum, without the whole Cinematic Universe attached to them. Same goes for anime, some are simply good stories regardless of them being animated.


  • How was that even an upgrade, they removed 2 maps, tanked the performance, increased the matchmaking time tenfold, reduced server performance, screwed up the ranking system, increased skin prices and introduced countless new bugs and crashes. If anything this was a huge downgrade.

    They should’ve left Hunt the way it is and released Hunt 2, but they didn’t have the balls because they knew nobody would play that shit. I guess releasing good old fashioned sequels to multiplayer games is bad for business, especially if you’re such an incompetent dev. No, the new school way is to shitify you game in the name of a next gen update, and straight up deny everybody the ability to play the old version, see Overwatch, CS:GO, Squad, Warzone and now Hunt.

    And don’t come at me for saying Crytek is incompetent. Incompetent is the most polite thing they can be called. What they’be done is straight up malicious. You know how I know? Because you could sit me down, 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and my whole job for months would be nothing but to come up with the most dogshit UI possible, and I couldn’t even come close to what they’ve decided to release. They must’ve had a whole TEAM of “experts” working 24/7 on that.

    I swear I wish Steam would introduce a new rule. 2 hour refund window resets after every major parch, just to put the devs and publishers on a leash, when it comes to fucking up the product people have already paid for.








  • Quite the contrary, I love this subgenre more than any other one regarding shooters. But I’ve never seen it done right. If you know any game that doesn’t end in frustration about the AI, please tell me.

    I’m more than OK with micromanagement in games, but that’s not how it should work in shooters. Men of War is a good example, it’s a strategy series with a notorious amount of micromanagement, but the difference is, you get all the information needed to manage your units and you as a player are not part of the battlefield. No enemy unit can look up in the sky and shoot down your birds-eye camera. But in shooters, not only do you have limited information about your enemies and your own team, you can also be killed during micromanagement. This is not how it should work. Your friendlies being a little bit more pro active is the least one could ask for.

    Like imagine you storm Osama’s hideout and every time your soldiers have to ask you - the captain if its OK to shoot the terrorist in the room, or if its OK to move onto the next room, or its OK to take cover, that’s how it feels.

    And because you’re essentially responsible for every single action of your team, you also feel responsible for every single mishap, whether it actually was your fault or not.

    Also modern shooters themselves have already fairly demanding controls, pairing that with the ability to command different units means compromises have to be made in user experience. Your commands are usually limited by line of sight, you can’t tell your units to advance behind this wall and search for cover. Arma 3 tries to address this issue with the “Command Mode” that let’s you zoom out the camera to a birds-eye view, but that’s essentially what a strategy game is anyway. You also can’t command multiple squad simultaneously, each squad needs separate attention, while the AI computer can do everything at once, putting you even more at a disadvantage.

    Developers also rarely bother implementing actual military techniques. The only 2 examples I can think of are Arma 3s combat advance (half the units cover, the other half moves) or Ready or Not’s room clearing. What ends up happening is, people just take 4 machine gunners with scopes or 4 snipers, since all units essentially behave the same AI wise, there no downside to that.

    In my opinion a squad control game should essentially play itself, meaning that if your character dies, the rest of your AI should be smart enough to finish the mission or at least retreat on their own, just like a real squad would if their commander dies. The challenge shouldn’t come from janky controls or cheating AI, it should come from having the odds stacked against you. The goal shouldn’t be to just finish the mission, but have everybody come out alive. A lot of those games become almost trivial, if you just leave the AI at spawn and run through the mission yourself.