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(This was posted on another forum for Deadfire but thought I would share it here as well) Alvesa was born to minor Vailian nobility who've spent generations wandering Eora in hopes of restoring the prestige and wealth lost in the fall of Grand Vailia. A genteel disdain for any labor or trade seen as beneath their former station, however, has made it difficult for the family to improve their lot in life. While other expatriates from Old Vailia found success in profitable business ventures with the Republics or blighting the trade lanes with the Príncipi sen Patrena, Alvesa's family continued to drift from port to port, clinging to their faded pedigree and dwindling family fortune. Young Alvesa did not inherit her family's delusions for a bygone past and instead took this lesson to heart: “Accept no truth but your own.” Eschewing materialistic concerns, Alvesa turned towards the spiritual and became initiated in the mysteries of Wael whose domain of revelation appealed to a poor, itinerant child unmoored by the earthly attachments of her family. Not content to scour only libraries or temples for knowledge, Alvesa would also explore the back alleys and slum of the cities where her quick wit granted her access to the kind of illicit and disreputable dealings that her family never would've deigned to dirty their hands with. Undeterred by even the revelation of her patron god's true origins, Alvesa continues to seek out truth by uncovering the many mysteries of Eora. As someone who loves making a lot of crit-focused builds, I really appreciate Priests as an invaluable source of accuracy with their party-wide buffing spells. Because of that particular emphasis, I also tend to not want to multiclass them too often as I don't want to delay their access to these crucial spells. By a similar token, I also find action economy an issue with Priest multiclasses as they need to devote a lot of their time getting out their buffing spells before they can perform any other function. One of my personal white whales for a Priest multiclass has been finding a combination that not only justifies their slower ability progression from multiclassing but also overcomes the possible dilution of effectiveness by tacking on an ill-suited role to the Priest's kit. I believe this rather unorthodox Priest of Wael/Trickster build solves these issues by using several techniques and pieces of gear that allows them to not only get out their buffing spells in a timely manner but also lets them serve as a capable frontline fighter, profiting directly from their own buffs, and a disabler par excellence who can become a veritable gorgon able to turn their enemies to stone and keep them locked down for much of the encounter. Character Creation Class: Zealot (Priest of Wael + Rogue Trickster) Race: Ocean Folk | Culture: Old Vailia | Background: Dissident Other than the multiclass selection, these elements can change depending on your roleplaying preferences. Besides the thematic considerations, the Intellect and Stealth bonuses from my character creation choices also happen to suit the build mechanically. Attributes 10 Might | 3 Constitution | 18 Dexterity | 18 Perception | 19 Intellect | 10 Resolve This attribute distribution is fairly unusual and will probably seem controversial for a build that will also function as a frontline melee striker. The low Might is slightly counteracted by spells and supplementary damage buffs, though it should be accepted that this build won't be much of a healer unfortunately. The low Resolve score is similarly mitigated by the plethora of defensive spells available to this build. However, there is simply no getting around the liability of the low Constitution score, and some care and compromises must be taken with this build due to their low health. (If you play with the Berath's Blessings attributes bonus, I would definitely sink the extra points into repairing the Constitution score and slightly raising Might or Resolve for an overall smoother experience). The high Dexterity, Perception, and Intellect is in service of efficiently getting out spells and maximizing action economy and the efficacy of their crowd control ability. Skills Active: Stealth Passive: Bluff Stealth should be pumped exclusively because it will help action economy, which I will get into later, and also increase melee damage. You have more leeway with the passive skill choice. Keep in mind that Priests of Wael have Shady as one of their favored dispositions, and Bluff often acts as a corresponding skillcheck for a lot of Shady dialogue options in the game. However, you don't necessarily need a high Bluff in order to max out the Shady disposition, and disposition bonuses for Priests in Deadfire only affects the healing potency of Holy Radiance spell (and this build won't be doing a lot of healing) and the damage potency of your summoned spirit weapon, which this build won't be using at all. In short, feel free to let roleplay dictate your passive skill choice – I actually chose a mix of Streetwise and Bluff for this playthrough because it matched my character's background. Weapon Sets 1. Stalker's Patience + The Eye of Wael 2. Variable Equipment Devil of Caroc Breastplate, Whitewitch Mask, Charm of Bones, Cloak of the Theocrat, Gauntlets of Accuracy, Ring of Overseeing, Ring of Prosperity's Fortune, Girdle of Eoten Constitution, Footprints of Ahu Taka Abilities – (bolded are auto-learned abilities) 1: Arcane Veil, Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights | Suppress Affliction, Interdiction, Escape, Defensive Roll, Fast Runner 2: Ionic Projection, Mirrored Image | Two Weapon Style, Weapon and Shield Style, Dirty Fighting 3: Mirrored Image, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage | Dire Blessing, Combat Focus, Riposte, Bear's Fortitude, Snake's Reflex, Bull's Will 4: Llengrath's Displaced Image | Devotions for the Faithful, Adept Evasion, Persistent Distraction 5: Confusion | Champion's Boon, Tough, Farcasting, Rapid Casting, Uncanny Luck, Deep Wounds 6: Arkemyr's Wonderous Torment | Salvation of Time, Improved Critical, Spell Resistance 7: Gaze of the Adragan | Deathblows Strategy You may be wondering why this multiclass chooses Priest of Wael and Trickster as their subclasses, given that they offer seemingly redundant access to automatically learned Illusion-keyworded abilities at every ability tier. This is a deliberate choice as it enables the build to A) not have to invest in active abilities as much and instead put those ability points into passives that amplify their strengths and fortify their weaknesses and B) have two resource pools to draw from to use these powerful, cross-class abilities. The endgame, centerpiece ability is Gaze of the Adragan which this build will be able to cast multiple times as both a spell and as a Rogue ability that costs 2 Guile per use. With bonuses that give additional points to the Rogue resource pool such as The Devil of Caroc Breastplate and the Adratic Glow bonus you get from paying for a dip into the Luminous Bathhouse's pool, this build is able to cast Gaze of the Adragan a whopping total of SEVEN times every encounter when using up all its Guile and AT7 Priest spellcast. This build also maximizes the duration of every cast of Gaze of the Adragan by every means possible, including A) power level bonus from the Illusion-keyworded gear Whitewitch Mask and the The Eye of Wael, B) high accuracy enabling crits which gives a bonus to duration on debuff spells, and C) high native Intellect further boosted by items such as the Charm of Bones and Cloak of the Theocrat. Furthermore, Gaze of the Adragan when used as a Rogue ability is technically an AT6 ability (though Tricksters still only get access to it at AT7) which means that it gets additional, native PL scaling for a slightly longer duration compared to the Priest version – this is actually very beneficial as the bulk of this build's Gaze of the Adragan usage will be from its Rogue side (though this does mean that they don't benefit from Rapid Casting, which is a small downside). Before going any further, I should explain why Gaze of the Adragan is such a good ability/spell that's worth specializing a build around. It's most noteworthy feature is that it applies Petrified, a Dexterity Affliction that is functionally identical to Paralyzed but technically counts as a tier higher than Paralyzed which is already at the highest Tier 3. This means that even enemies who have Dexterity Resistance (such as the common Wood Elf among kith enemies) will only be able to downgrade Petrified to Paralyzed, thereby still suffering the identical effects of being completely locked down. This doesn't make Gaze of the Adragan's Petrified effect the be-all and end-all of all crowd control abilities because there are still enemies with outright Dexterity Immunity or Body Immunity who can nullify it, but it does make it just a little more effective among the other hard crowd control Afflictions. Petrified/Paralyzed also grants a hefty hit-to-crit conversion against afflicted enemies, a feature that this build will also exploit to maximum effect. The way this build manages action economy issues as a spellcaster hybrid that needs to get out several lengthy buffs before moving onto any other action is mainly through Stealth. While in Stealth mode, actions get a -85% recovery reduction bonus which allows for a speedy follow up action. What might be unclear is that non-hostile abilities do not break stealth mode, meaning classes such as Priests with multiple non-hostile, party buffing spells can cast several in a row while benefiting from the drastically reduced recovery time. By investing heavily into Stealth and placing them further back into the formation so that enemies don't inadvertently bump into them, this build will be able to cast the requisite Devotions for the Faithful and Dire Blessing spells at the start of combat to boost their overall accuracy without being slowed down too much (do note that Devotions for the Faithful has a hostile, enemy debuffing component to it so you should be careful not to also hit any enemies with it lest it break you out of Stealth mode). After casting these spells, this build still has an AT3 and AT4 spellcast to use on Mirrored Image or Llengrath's Displaced Image, which should be used separately as the other wears off since their deflection bonus won't stack concurrently; this is both an action and resource economy save as it uses Priest spellcasts to activate defenses, saving Guile to be used for Gaze of the Adragan, and they are instant cast spells. The build also has double castings of Salvation of Time to further extend any of its buffs as needed. While it's not an Illusion-keyworded spell, the PL1 Arcane Veil eventually gets up to a decent duration with power level scaling, giving the build yet another fallback defensive spell to have in a pinch. Once accuracy has been pumped up, defenses boosted, and enemies locked down, this build is able to join the fray to great effect thanks to their dual-wielded Stalker's Patience and The Eye of Wael loadout. While a dual-wielded ranged and melee configuration may be suboptimal on a class like Rogue with Full Attack abilities in normal circumstances, this is less of a concern on this build where all Guile is being spent on Gaze of the Adragan anyway. In fact, the split weapon types is actually ideal in this situation as it means only the spear will attack when in melee distance and the scepter will only attack while at range. Dual-wielding a melee and ranged weapon at the same time like this is a useful technique when you want to profit from the Two Weapon Style passive and have a weapon with an effect that you want to maximize the chance of proccing, and this is true with both weapons. In the case of Stalker's Patience, it has an incredible enchantment that gives it a chance to instantly recover on crits, which means this build's high accuracy and crit conversion turns into a high volume of potentially chainable, instant-recovered attacks. With Rogue bonus damage modifiers like Sneak Attack, Deep Wounds, Deathblows, and the spear's enchantment that grants a damage bonus that scales to the build's synergistically high Stealth score, this weapon is optimized to dish out a lot punishment in a small window of time, delivering devastating coup de graces against their helpless foes before Gaze of the Adragan wears off, whereupon they will cast it again and continue preying on their enemies. The same principle applies to The Eye of Wael, which isn't just an inert statstick that amplifies spells for this build but a decent ranged weapon in its own right. If the Priest of Wael/Trickster is out of spells, or their defensive and accuracy buffs wear off, or they're facing pierce-immune enemies, or it's just too dangerous to go toe-to-toe with a boss, they can fade back to range and blast things with their scepter. The Eye of Wael delivers slash/blunt damage to diversify the spear's pierce damage and will benefit from the increased action speed of Two Weapon Style while attacking solely with the scepter at range. Like Stalker's Patience, The Eye of Wael has a chance to proc effects including debuffing Illusion spells and random Afflictions, making it so that build can still profit from Deathblows/Sneak Attack and debuff enemies even after they've run out of spells. It even has a chance to make you semi-invisible – though it's not a true invisibility that works with effects like Assassinate or Backstab, it does prevent enemies from attacking you and serves as a nice defensive effect. In tandem, I think this weapon set is a neat package that fits the craftiness and ingenuity of a Priest of Wael/Trickster character. This build so far has focused mainly on the endgame with a setup that doesn't come online until AT7/Level 19 for a multiclass, which may seem shortsighted. The cool thing about this build though is that its access to free spells and abilities at different ability tiers and via different resource pools allows it to continually take on different iterations and change up its configuration as it levels up. So for the early game at AT1, you will notice that I place a lot of stock in abilities that apply Dazed or allows you to break free of engagement; this build was played on POTD difficulty with all upscaling, and I developed a healthy respect for being able to displace and get out of danger in the early game when this build is at its weakest. However, as soon as AT2 is reached, this build can start to more comfortably stand on the frontlines as it will be able to use its Guile to cast Mirrored Image for a hefty, repeatable deflection bonus. I also take Weapon and Shield Style and opt to wear a small shield like the Outworn Buckler which doesn't come with an accuracy penalty. You can wear a medium or large shield if you find you need even more deflection, however I wouldn't take any bashing shield as it will take away attacks from Stalker's Patience and be an overall reduction in DPS (and you can of course respec out of Weapon and Shield Style later in the final form of this build). AT3 is where it gets interesting because you then get access to Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, an aura that Terrifies foes. This gives you a short-range hard CC effect where your high accuracy now becomes part of your defense, disabling enemies all around you and making it a very decent stand-in Rogue ability to spend your Guile on until you unlock Gaze of the Adragan later. The spear's modal ability and shield setup actually remains a relevant loadout with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage as it provides additional engagement to help you farm disengagement attacks when enemies try to flee from your aura. You can supplement this later on with Persistent Distraction and Champion's Boon (though do note that the later's Might Inspiration doesn't stack with the Might coming from Devotions for the Faithful) for even more engagement slots. Another school of thought is to equip a morning star for its modal effect that drops enemies Fortitude by -25 since the Terrify aura targets Fortitude. This is more if you want to go all-in on with using Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage as your main form of defense, but I think it makes your more vulnerable against ranged/backline enemies since the Terrify aura will only reach immediately surrounding enemies and I actually think Stalker's Patience and its instant-recover will end up out DPSing even the two-handed morning star, especially when it has its negative damage modal active. Another setup that you can use before the endgame is going ranged with a rod weapon; I really like Rod of the Deep Hunter on a Rogue multiclass, especially one with high Intellect, because the AoE effect added by the Blast modal and its stacking deflection debuff can lead to some juicy hits. With a more dedicated ranged setup, you can wear lighter armor, respec into Two-Handed Style, and use your Guile more for active Rogue attack abilities rather than frontline defenses. Yet another option available to this build is going with the previous suggestion but using the Spiritual Weapon spell to summon Priests of Wael's unique scaling Rod weapon, which also has Blast and a scaling Shock lash – if you've maxed out your Shady and Clever dispositions at that point, it could be a very effective delivery system for AoE damage. As you can see, you have a lot of interesting ways of transforming yourself to tackle challenges at different stages of the game, sort of mimicking the shifting visage of this build's patron god, which I think is very thematically fitting for a Priest of Wael/Trickster.

Oh your know, she might have changes studios for personal reasons, or got a better offer, or whatever. First of all, I am pretty sure Grounded was a tiny project (under 20 people?) at least initially. From what I played of it, it is a very focused title, which might make it simply cheaper to produce than an RPG. 2ndly - Avowed is a pretty good actually. It is just not very RPGy - it's an open world action combat thingy - RPG elements are very light. It seems it was done by choice, rather than financial constrain - as they were working on Avowed combat was turning out pretty well so they leaned on it. I would say it doesn't quite find full identity - but it's normal for what is essentially new IP that went through birthing pains. I am sure that if they were ever to make a sequel, they would make it better. It's not a sprawling RPG, but I don't think it was ever meant to be - it was a coop game, which switched gears and turned into singleplayer actionRPG. It turned out ok. I actually think Obsidian has been on a roll in recent years - Avowed had more mixed reception, but Pentiment, Outer Worlds and Grounded seemed to all find their audiences. My disappointment is very selfish and personal - I used to be Obsidian's target audience, and it doesn't seem to be the case anymore - at the very least I am not the only or main target audience.

Using a motorised vehicle on Arrakis... They call that natural selection.

I went ahead and further tested the two separate blunderbusses scenario (fired first blunderbuss with Powder Burns modal to activate heating up, instant swapped via Black Jacket + Quick Switch to another blunderbuss as the reload animation started on the first blunderbuss, fired the second blunderbuss to restart the timer on Powder Burns, and then swapped back to the first blunderbuss). Unfortunately, even though the tooltip on the weapon reload time states it is getting the heating up bonus, the first reload on that first blunderbuss you use to activate Powder Burns will always require the full, unmodified time to reload. Swapping back and forth from another weapon to your second blunderbuss, however, will bypass that so one method you can do to get around the unavoidable, slower first reload is to keep a second blunderbuss (since it will continue profiting from heating up) in your weapon slot and only swap to that one to refresh Powder Burns while considering your first blunderbuss "dead" after it's done its job and activated heating up on you. This was all tested on the vanilla game, by the way.

I remember testing this exact multiclass and weapon setup myself and it was as @thelee describes where the first blunderbuss shot that activates Powder Burns doesn't get the streetfighter's heating up recovery bonus unfortunately. If you switch to another blunderbuss in a different slot, it will profit from it however (as long as the previous Powder Burns effect is still active). I don't remember testing if firing your first blunderbuss to activate Powder Burns, then switching to another blunderbuss in a different slot to skip reload and firing it to reactivate Powder Burns, and then switching back to your first blunderbuss will then give you the recovery bonus when you resume reloading it. I don't know if the game is sophisticated enough to "remember" the original, unmodified reloading time or if Black Jacket instant swapping and reactivating Powder Burns in between would then grant you the recovery bonus but that sounds like it's worth testing.

Seriously, Obsidian? Is this some kind of joke? You're releasing the second part of a game that had full Polish language support — a game my brother and I played for over a thousand hours — and now you're just dropping the Polish localization altogether? That is a blatant slap in the face to a community that supported you from day one. We bought the game, the expansions, we recommended it to others — and now we’re treated like second-class players? This isn't about entitlement — it's about basic respect and consistency. If you could provide full Polish localization in the first game, then cutting it in the sequel is just lazy cost-cutting at the expense of your loyal fans. Spare us the weak excuses about "priorities" or "resources" — we’re not buying it. Honestly, this is incredibly disappointing. The game looks great, but it’s getting harder and harder to support a studio that’s so willing to turn its back on its player base.

The bigliest bigly winning tariff of all time.

UK, Canada and Western allies sanction two far-right Israeli government ministers I wonder how big of a tariff Trump will put on them for that

Exclusive: DHS secretary sought military arrests and drones in Los Angeles in leaked letter this story should be getting far more attention. if the trump administration uses the military to conduct law enforcement operations, then you got a crossing the rubicon kinda event. am baffled that so many don't understand just how unprecedented this is. “We need … support to our law enforcement officers and agents across Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Federal Protective Services (FPS),” Noem wrote, “as they defend against invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens.” for years we have been warning 'bout the questionable use o' the terrorist label to enhance punishments and reduce due process rights o' defendants, but the use o' the military to conduct arrets o' protesters on the grounds those protesters is supporting terrorism is not something we saw as likely until recent. today is kinda predictable that ice barbie would use "terrorist organizations" to legitimize what in 2015 woulda' been unthinkable to every republican US senator. imagine how @Guard Dogwoulda' reacted if jeh johnson, the secretary of DHS under obama, had invoked the hobgoblin of "terrorist organizations" to call up and use the marines to arrest and possible shoot protesters during the ferguson kerfuffle? personal, we had our eyes opened to the genuine danger o' trump when he proposed a muslim ban... and the crowd on hand cheered. the cheering crowds is what worried us. we knew something were wrong not just with trump, but with too many americans. ten years pass and am waiting for america to catch up to where we has been since 2015, but that just ain't happening. instead, many republicans such as lindsey graham and marco rubio, who knew trump were vile in 2016, now thinks trump authoritarianism is keen and folks like gd has decided that politics is just too much o' a bother to be worried 'bout the possibility o' marines shooting protesters on the streets of american cities. so it goes HA! Good Fun! ps highly recommend the following sources for summaries o' the legal issues regarding the federalization o' the national guard and the surrounding issues: “The Insurrection Act” by Any Other Name: Unpacking Trump’s Memorandum Authorizing Domestic Deployment of the Military and there is likely no better source than steve vladeck when constitutional law and the military intersect.

Yes, this is where I'm coming from as well. Oh, and just to note, my comment about budgets was (speculatively) about their current games, not past games. So, TOW2 and Grounded 2.

Back in the late 90s, I bought a PC Gaming magazine (not sure which, I think it was a British publication) that contained a full walkthrough of Resident Evil 1. I have no interest whatsoever in Resident Evil or frankly anything in the horror genre in general, but I read that entire walkthrough start-to-finish. After all, I paid for that magazine and I'll be damned if I didn't get full value from my allowance money. So yeah, that's the sum of my experience with the series.

double-post apologies, but seeing as the previous post exhibits our typical lack of brevity, we didn't want this link to get lost/buried. Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent' I, probably stupidly, was asked by a — not even a journalist but a writer who just has a blog about my business going open-source, and I spoke to him. He had a bunch of questions about me working for DOGE and I felt that Elon was pretty clear about how he wanted DOGE to be maximally transparent. That's something he said a lot in private and publicly. And so I felt, OK, cool, I'll take him at his word. I will be transparent and sort of "ask forgiveness not permission" sort of thing. I said mostly that the government was not as inefficient as I was expecting. And then, my access got revoked pretty shortly after. I didn't get notified. I was basically ghosted and I just got an email notification that my access was no longer valid. HA! Good Fun!

It finally happened. I got eaten ny a sandworm. I was moving a bunch of stuff to a new base, and I was motorbiking across a big swath of desert. I had to swerve wide to avoid quicksand, and it put me on a bad path with a worm. He ate me whole. I woke up naked and back at my new base. Now I'm running around trying to rebuild me life. 10/10 - would become worm food again

neat build. one thing that might be worth calling out (apologies if you did and i missed it) is that you also double up on arkemyr's wondrous torment. you probably don't want to waste the guile from the rogue side (better spent on gaze), but priest gets it and you might as well. with wondrous torment, you can really cripple enemy resolve and will defenses, which can be a really great way to get stupid long durations on each cast of gaze of the adragan. it'll only really affect one enemy dependably (you have to wait too long for it to split and bounce), but can be really useful for making each gaze last during boss fights or other tough enemies.

G.E.C.K. That's the perfect gift: turn the lower wards into your own paradise!

illegal immigration is actually a boon for the US, but no politician could ever admit it. illegals do jobs no american will do and they lower inflation in the process. illegals pay taxes without drawing on entitlements. illegals commit less crime than natural born citizens. etc. in 10 years when china is f'd 'cause o' their self-made population apocalypse, they is gonna need millions o' indian foreign workers if they don't wanna see their economy implode. most o' europe as well as japan and korea is facing similar issues but is gonna take a bit longer for the impacts to hit home-- not enough workers or consumers and an aging population bleeding a nation dry is a problem you address ten years ago. is a problem the US suffers from to a far less degree 'cause? illegal immigration. our population and birth rate ain't been dropping the same as most o' the eu... and far less severe than japan. and again, china is already complete f'd. the US never could have gotten increased birth rates, low-pay labor and an increased consumer base in the numbers needed through legal immigration. like it or not, and in spite o' some real short-term costs, illegal immigration is arguably one o' the USA's greatest advantages. however, illegal immigration is illegal... even if it ain't criminal. we pass laws through representative democratic process and it not matter if those laws is wise when we decide whether they is legal. being in the US undocumented, like were the case for elon musk, is illegal, and there is statutory punishments for such infractions. that said, there is a reason illegals do not get criminal trials for their deportations and it ain't cause they is non-citizens. illegal border crossing or overstaying a visa is a petty infraction, akin to a speeding ticket. 'cause the punishment don't include loss of liberty (imprisonment,) deportation proceedings fail to trigger sixth amendment protections... though try and explain to us how sending people to cecot avoids such; we dare anybody to try and explain. regardless, arresting those suspected o' illegal immigration is not illegal. the current ice efforts is clear designed to provoke and inflame, but the arrests themselves... maybe what ice is doing is wrong, but it ain't illegal. trump sending troops to california is illegal and wrong. btw, the government lies and misleads. a 413% increase in assault o' ice agents? why not say what were the assaults and how many were assaulted? notice the government didn't claim any ice agents were seriously injured yes? if a child grabs the sleeve o' an ice agent while the agent is arresting the child's parent, that counts as an assault. if a citizen husband attempts to embrace his undocumented wife while she is being arrested and he happens to touch an ice agent in the process, that is an assault. and btw, if there were a 500% increase in la ice arrests over the course o' the past week, then how much would you expect assaults on ice agents to increase over the same period if all other factors remained constant? of the 118 undocumented rounded up by ice at the time o' their press release, only five were gang members, and am gonna remind people that being a gang member is not in and of itself illegal. please note that a handful o' crimes committed by those apprehended by ice is listed, but nowhere does it mention how many people had criminal records. one? why not say the number of criminals unless it is a comical small number? so yeah, this ice operation were performative and likely meant to help with trump's sagging poll numbers, 'cause the truth o' the matter is that trump's base, and many other americans, approve o' bad things happening to the undocumented. however, what ice did, rounding up undocumented individuals, were not illegal. the thing is, if more democrats had gotten off their asses and voted in 2024, we wouldn't be in this situation in 2025, so am actual a bit less sympathetic than you might suspect. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exploring-why-more-latinos-voted-for-trump-and-what-it-means-for-future-elections Geoff Bennett: There are people of faith who would wonder how you are able to look beyond Donald Trump's moral character, the felony convictions, the divisive rhetoric and cast your vote in support. Rev. Samuel Rodriguez: It's a legitimate question and something we have to discuss. And I put that right next to abortion demand without any restrictions, even in the late term, late-term abortion here versus character, tweets, rhetoric, personality and bravado. So I have to measure this. I have to measure government coming and intruding in how I raise my children versus character, rhetoric, tweets and bravado. So we measured it. Latinos measured it and went like — and many Latinos went, like, man, we don't like the guy. Many Latinos say, we don't like the guy, but his policies were amazing and his policies lined up with what I believe. And the Democratic Party sounds good, but the policies are counterintuitive to who I am as a Latino and as a Christian. Now, there may be, there may be an opportunity here. Let me explain. The policy of mass deportations, that policy is — it is controversial. I don't deny it. And what our understanding is mass deportations will take place regarding targeting primarily criminals, those that are involved in the terrorist activities. (Crosstalk) Geoff Bennett: Potentially, but the scale of what the Trump campaign has promised would likely extend beyond those undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes. So the question is, what does that mean for Latinos who live in mixed-status families or who are here legally, but are profiled and caught up in what could be this mass deportation effort? Rev. Samuel Rodriguez: Now, I could tell you right here to your audience, I would be the first one vociferously protesting if the administration comes after families that have been here 20, 25, 30 years, 15 years, God-fearing, hardworking, not living off government subsidies, whose children were born here. I will be the first one protesting, because that's not my understanding. And I can't disclose my conversations with the president-elect's team, but I can tell you that there have been multiple assurances from very powerful individuals to yours truly directly, regarding the targeted audiences. And we're talking about those involved in nefarious activities. So my understanding is that good, God-fearing, hardworking families that have been here for years, for years and are not living off government subsidies and whose children were born here, these families will not be targeted. I hope and pray that they adhere to — adhere to what they conveyed with yours truly regarding the mass deportation efforts. ... at least on twitter, we don't see mr. rodriguez's promised protests. a quick search reveals no news articles where he complains he were misled. nothing. most o' the protesters ain't complaining about the Constitutional issue which worries Gromnir. we know trump sent troops with the intent o' provoking a greater response and we see this move as yet another step towards overt authoritarianism, but that ain't what has people in the streets of la. ultimately, people are protesting 'cause when trump said he were gonna do mass deportations, not enough americans listened or believed. we dislike trump and his policies, but the folks we blame most for our current situation is all the democrats and independents who didn't vote, or who voted for trump 'cause o' the price of eggs, trans athletes and vaccine mandates... mandates which were imposed at the state and local level for chrissakes. Stephen Miller has set his sights on new targets to find undocumented migrants: Home Depot and 7-Eleven so ice goes out and legal does the bidding o' stephen miller who is implementing the policy goals trump promised during his campaign. for those only motivated to protest now, we got less sympathy. but again, sending troops to california is actual a different issue for us than the ice roundups. trump is clear exceeding authority granted to him by the Constitution, unless scotus once again goes ahead and invents a new trump authority which did not exist for the past 238 years. HA! Good Fun!

About to have my first rendezvous with lovely Ravel in PS: Torment since.... 15, 20 years? Any tipps on what I should get her? Chocolates? Flowers? My heart ripped out and put on a silver plate? May continue with another run of Fallout 2 next. Records of this Pip-Boys orgy inspired me to think about it.

Oh, what can I say. You can't lay on a couch with a mouse and keyboard.

yeah, the timing of the weapon reload is iffy so i'm guessing it triggers first before heating up kicks in. the first reload won't benefit, the second reload will. however, what might get around this for blackjacket purposes is to have two weapon sets each with a blunderbuss, and a third "normal" weapon set. because the reload/recovery benefit doesn't kick in immediately, i'm wondering if switching to the third weapon will give you a chance ot immediatley benefit from heating up (you make an attack and trigger a new recovery with the heating up buff), and when you need to refresh your heating up, you switch to the unfired blunderbuss and shoot - because you were still under heating up, your reload is fast. when you need to refresh later, you switch back to the first one and maybe you'll be able to reload real fast because it'll be under a different heating up trigger. if that doesn't work, you can switch back to the second one instead, which should benefit from the reload. this is just a theory. anohter idea is to have one weapon set with two blunderbusses. you let one fire, and don't let the other one fire until you need to refresh distracted. and then maybe when dual-wielded like this you can get heating up to work properly

I would say Outer Worlds1 was a deeper and richer RPG experience than Avowed. I am not 100% but Outer Worlds2 is currently the biggest recent Obsidian project. Also OW1 was a success, and it is a sequel, so they can build on what they done in the first game. It also probably wasn't originally designed to be a coop game, and haven't (as far as I known) been rebooted in development, so that probably helps as well. I struggle to muster excitement for Outer Worlds2 - I enjoyed the original just fine, and I expect the same will be for the sequel. That said, all they have said and shown looks good - I would be delighted to be surprised. I still expect it to be a very "mainstream" RPG.

Od lat jestem lojalnym fanem Obsidian. Grałem we wszystkie twoje gry — Avowed, Pillars of Eternity I & II, Neverwinter Nights 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Tyranny, Grounded — i każda z nich bardzo mi się podobała . Co łączy wszystkie te tytuły? Polska lokalizacja. Pełna lub częściowa, zawsze była — i robiła ogromną różnicę. Pozwoliła mi (i wielu innym) w pełni zanurzyć się w historii, docenić styl pisania i cieszyć się światem, który stworzyłeś. Dlatego naprawdę nie rozumiem, jak można wydać sequel gry, która wcześniej miała wsparcie dla języka polskiego — a teraz całkowicie porzucić język . Gdzie w tym logika? Gdzie szacunek dla społeczności, która była z wami od samego początku? Szczerze mówiąc, to bardzo rozczarowujące. Mam wrażenie, że gracze z Polski — kraju, który zawsze kochał gry RPG i wspierał twoje gry — po prostu już się dla ciebie nie liczą. I to bolesne odkrycie pochodzące od studia, które kiedyś uważałem za jedno z najlepszych w branży.

I’ve been a loyal fan of Obsidian for years. I’ve played all of your games — Avowed, Pillars of Eternity I & II, Neverwinter Nights 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Tyranny, Grounded — and I thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. What do all of these titles have in common? Polish localization. Full or partial, it was always there — and it made a huge difference. It allowed me (and many others) to fully immerse ourselves in the story, appreciate the writing, and enjoy the world you created. That’s why I truly can’t understand how you can release a sequel to a game that previously had Polish support — and now completely drop the language. Where’s the logic in that? Where’s the respect for the community that’s been with you from the start? Honestly, it’s deeply disappointing. It feels like players from Poland — a country that has always loved RPGs and supported your games — just don’t matter to you anymore. And that’s a painful realization coming from a studio I once considered one of the best in the industry.

Another interesting turn of events today. There are reports (including russian one), that UA infiltrated a train In Zaporrizhzhia with drones, in a similar way, that they infiltrated the trucks few days ago. The results again from Russian sources are dozens of destroyed tanks and other armored vehicles, which were en route to supply the frontline. UA sources are saying 13 tanks and 100+ armored vehicles of various types.

everything run on cheap labor legality was always cowardly excuses for exploitation used to be legal to own people and send children into mine shaft something being law now doesn't mean it should be law