Marcus Orealias

Been playing Wasteland 3 and... it's not as good as Wasteland 2. I know, shocking, games studio does a follow up and it's not as good as the predecessor, but it's also not a bad game, they've just made changes to the systems as well as the tone, that don't work (for me).

* Now, on to a side note. So Wasteland, and later the Fallout 3 franchise (yes I do differentiate F3 from proper Fallout, why do you ask?), never really struck me as having memorable weapons. Oh, sure. F3 (and I'm sure 4 and suck) have unique bs weapons. I can even remember a few, but nothing...

... stuck with me like the stories and memories of the .223 Autoloader from Fallout and Fallout 2. My love for that stupid little pistol have not diminished despite not having played those titles in almost twenties years.

... to ever suffer a ̶w̶i̶t̶c̶h̶ Synth to live. Now, my whinging and grumbling aside. It looks like, if you can play things just right, I mean just fuckin, no margin for fooken it up at all, right, you can still get the good ending. But you have work five times harder if you play as a "Proper Ranger".

Which, hmm. This might just be the first time I've seen a game reward you with playing "the right way" by making it harder, more inconvenient, etc. (There are a lot of other choices I'm skipping over talking about, they are completely messed up shit, but it's tonally appropriate in setting.)

... the game for "reasons" (insert sounds of sucking off Elon Musk) and no one had the balls to say "that's kinda... tonally off script, yanno?" Anyway, it comes up every other time the Rangers encounter Synths/Machine Intelligence, and in each of those occasions it's weighted heavily to be...

... sympathetic to the AI side. To be merciful, lenient, etc. Even to one who wants to recreate the villainous AI from the previous title and start anew ye olde "kill all humans" plan. That's the tonal shift I'm having issues with. There is no good reason (from the perspective of the Rangers)...

It's not as big a "betrayal" as the Mass Effect 2 nonsense, but it's close. There is no attempt to paint this as "for the greater good", whoever wrote this didn't even seem to understand the as an issue. It comes up elsewhere (a lot), but that the Rangers have an AI in their vehicle...

... is never once addressed. However it is addressed later when you can "upgrade" your vehicle AI to different one and the option is "the only good AI is a dead AI". But yet, still AI in vehicle not mentioned? It's like someone wanted there to be a self-driving autonomous combat vehicle in the...

Tonally. Okay, so it's not...eh... it's not "changed" so much as it feels like someone on the writing team was very much deep-throating some AI Techbras and wanted very much to be in the AI Techbra circles....

If you know the prior Wasteland titles (mostly 2), you know that the Arizona Rangers and Synthetic/Machine Intelligence get along like oil and water. They are //enemies//. Mortal enemies. Ain't no other way to say, so that this title makes you work with an AI right off the bat...

In Wasteland 2 Small Arms was literally my "backup" short-range weapon on //every// character, because in Wasteland 2 weapons had "best used at ranges", and CQB and longer ranged weapons did not do well in point-blank ranges. † The Perk allows a free shot after reloading, regardless of weapon.

Continued system griping: Melee is still screwed, but they've taken steps to make melee and H-t-H characters unto being small gods if you spec just exactly right. i don;t have the patience to do so... so, well... it's a waste on me. If I ever play again, no Melee or H-t-H characters will be made.

They've tried to make Small Arms a viable skill on it's own this time by giving it useful Perks... but with such a tragically short range it's not an actual "useful in combat" set of weapons. The weapons are not where Wasteland have ever shined anyway (more on this later*) so... eh?

Small Arms is still only viable as a backup weapon, or for what I like it for in this game, "Oops, I don't have enough AP for the main weapon, but I have enough for the Back-Up-Pistol/Shotty and that enemy happens to be in short range..." and the one single perk† that makes the Skill worth it.

System wise: They've changed how Attributes and Skills work in a way I don't like, but can get over; INT no longer gives more skill points per level and CHA gives extra exp, so some Rangers can start out leveling others. (Protip, have all your Rangers with similar CHA scores)

Marcus Orealias reposted

Miaganga

@miaganga.bsky.social

finance.yahoo.comMeta Unseats Musk as Tech Villain for Lula in Brazil’s ElectionA new villain is emerging in the closing stretch of Brazil’s bitterly contested presidential election: Meta Platforms Inc.

16h

HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE MOTHER FUCKING FIRES!

Holger Hestermeyer@hhesterm.bsky.social

The correct legal approach to this seems to be that when platforms start favouring some content over other, they don‘t deserve immunity for third party content on the basis that they are just platforms. They should become liable. finance.yahoo.com/media-advert...

Marcus Orealias reposted

Cat with confusing auras

@linedcat.bsky.social

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸 🌸🌸🌸🐱🌸🌸🌸 🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Literally half the cats I've had, the other half have all been brontophobic (so they'd be hiding for all loud noises).

Mika_Hyv@mixuhyva.bsky.social

#cats

Marcus Orealias reposted

KetAnthropic JoshAI

@ketanjoshi.co

The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilot A mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr...

Marcus Orealias reposted

Kat

@kat8655.eurosky.social

You are laughing? Bolsonaro is forcefeming his chud supporters and you’re laughing?

Marcus Orealias reposted

Joel S.

@joelhs.bsky.social

One of the most salient aspects of today's politics is how everyone imagines a conspiratorial "them" controlling things behind the scenes. Elon Musk is literally powerful enough to affect the course of the Ukraine war, but he's still imagining faceless puppet masters who need to be unmasked.

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social

He's correct in one way... once Trump is out of office the war will end and fuel prices will come down.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

"I just trust President Trump. Everything that he's said, he's always been right about. I believe he'll continue to be right about everything."

Marcus Orealias reposted

Jason Koebler

Replying to @jasonkoebler.bsky.social

Security through obscurity is a terrible principle but in practice a lot of things didn't get hacked bc people ignored them, or didn't know they existed, or just generally got missed. AI makes it easy to probe all of these things at scale + makes it easier to find/develop exploits

Marcus Orealias reposted

Lilypad 🪷

@tiisaiscientist.bsky.social

Couldn't stop thinking about pathetic spider donut so I decided to draw him

Deviled Egg 🐾 🔜 Furpoc@hucklebutting.bsky.social

📿 Went to dunkin this morning and caught sight of this and nearly died on the spot laughing.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Shipwreck

@shipwreck75.bsky.social

DOJ is suing Alaska to block certification of election results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...

politico.comDOJ sues to block election certification in Alaska if Republicans lose Senate raceDOJ argues that the presence of an independent candidate also named Dan Sullivan constitutes a purposeful effort to mislead voters.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Modus Pwnens

@pwnyslaystation.bsky.social

Whoa just saw an interview where 50 cent claimed he was offered $500k to appear at Trump's 2017 inauguration... Not perform, just show up. Old news but hadn't heard before. Start to question everyone who shows up at those things

Marcus Orealias reposted

Cats of Yore

@catsofyore.bsky.social

Yet another reason for North Americans to keep our cats indoors.

This post is unavailable.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Peanut Gallery Member

@pnuttgallery.bsky.social

This would be the “invasion of Poland” moment for WWIII.

Natalka@natalkakyiv.bsky.social

‼️ Some brutal truth 🔽 “I want to see which European capital could withstand just one drone attack. They’ll run away, shit themselves — pardon my language — and surrender.”.” — Garry Kasparov

Marcus Orealias reposted

Electronic Frontier Foundation

@eff.org

Your right to privacy doesn't end when you get behind the wheel. Our new license plate frame sends a clear message about the importance of protecting our movements from surveillance.

shopeff.orgAnti License Plate Reader (ALPR) FrameMake a statement on the road with this EFF license plate frame. Featuring the message “I Do Not Consent to the Tracking of This Vehicle” and the EFF logo, this durable plastic frame features raised le...

@justinwolfers.bsky.social

As a USAin, it's come to this. Hopefully this will the wake up call our politicians finally need.

Modus Pwnens@pwnyslaystation.bsky.social

All this stuff is insanely expensive, but absolutely necessary.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Jorts (and Jean)

@jortsthecat.bsky.social

I’m sure you have seen the buzz around this video but when you have 4 minutes, it’s 100% worth watching

Abdul El-Sayed@abdulelsayed.bsky.social

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Justin Wolfers

For 30 years, computers kept getting cheaper. Now building your own PC requires a mortgage approval.⁣ ⁣ With @svaneksmith.bsky.social https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/all-onion-no-bloom

Marcus Orealias reposted

Scott Horton

@robertscotthorton.bsky.social

Zuckerberg's own employees confirm that he directed an intentional effort to throw the Brazilian election in favor of Flávio Bolsonaro, apparently because he understood this is what Trump wanted. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

reuters.comMeta employees said Lula's accounts were hindered during Brazil election, Folha reportsMeta employees acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were hindered by ‌restrictions during the country's election, newsp...

Marcus Orealias reposted

Maya Posch

@hackkitten.bsky.social

This is the way. videocardz.com/newz/modder-...

videocardz.comModder fixes RTX 5090's melting 16-pin power problem with four 8-pins - VideoCardz.comRTX 5090 modder DallasGrave has developed a quad 8-pin power conversion that bypasses the original 16-pin cable. It arrives as NVIDIA reportedly stops supplying new GB202 GPUs.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Michael Hobbes

@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

I swear to god the administration is going down the list of reasons pundits said it wasn’t fascism and doing them all one by one

Kim Masters@kimmasters.bsky.social

This is 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨fascism. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

washingtonpost.comRep. Ilhan Omar’s lawyers say authorities ignored judge’s restrictions on home searchIn a letter obtained by The Washington Post, attorneys for the Minnesota Democrat condemned a Justice Department inquiry into her immigration history as a politically motivated attack.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Phil Foglio

@thephilfoglio.bsky.social

#books "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli. One of those books everyone has heard of, but few people actually read. This is a shame, as it explains a lot of what is happening in our modern world, and one cannot begin to change things until you understand what it is exactly that you have to change.

Marcus Orealias reposted

Angry

@angrystaffer.bsky.social

This is pathetic. Ukraine tested Starlink speed restrictions in Europe and had no issues - the restrictions only exist in Ukraine. The Trump administration is actively helping Russia kill Ukrainians - and risking the lives of US and NATO advisors in Ukraine.

I was trying to play Cult of the Lamb last night... but it's so buggy if you don't have a controller. le sigh Okay, I guess I have to unistall & reinstall Heroic, and play Prey until I can find my usb controllers or dig up enough cash to afford an external harddrive so I can play something else...

I mean... I know where the usb controllers (and my Logitech Flight Joysatick) are, it's just not easy to get to them right now. And I'm being lazy, and I have to work... and... and... I don't wanna do it after work. Uninstalling and reinstalling I can do while I work.