Wonderduck's Pond

October 16, 2018

One Day More...

As I was writing my diatribe against multiplayer video games below, I received a text message from my Boss, asking if I was okay? Well, sure... is there some reason I wouldn't be? "Well, you're not here and you didn't call in." Oh?

I didn't know I had to call in when I'm taking an approved vacation day, boss. "You're not on my schedule for having the day off, Wonderduck." You okayed it on Friday morning, I've got the e-mails. I even double-checked the request program. "...oh dear, my fault. So you're off supposed to be off Monday through Wednesday, right?

You have no idea how badly I wanted to say why yes, yes I am. Instead, I was a good little employee: "No, only through Tuesday, though if you said I could take another day off I certainly wouldn't say no." "Okay, considering all the stress I just put you through, I can approve that. See you Thursday."

Being on good terms with the boss is never a bad thing.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:32 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Boston Dynamics Mean To Another Bot

If you read The Pond, you're probably familiar with those cruel people over at Boston Dynamics. Y'know, the people who appear to make robots just so they can be mean to them:

(edit: if the playback isn't working, try going here)

Well, they've done it again... except this time, they're not just being mean to one, they're torturing the poor thing!

Making it dance to a knockoff version of Uptown Funk for our entertainment... if that isn't a human rights violation, I don't know what is. Synth rights (Fallout 4, salute!) maybe? Wait, I'm confused now.

Oh, Fallout 4... how I want to love you! But relationships require work from both sides, and you're not putting in the effort. As much as I love wandering around the scorched earth that is the Commonwealth, I'd like there to be a compelling story and Preston Gravy ain't doin' it for me. I mean, I can see how crafting a settlement or two would be fun for some players. I can, really! But y'know the term "social gamer"? Well, I'm nothing if not an ASOCIAL gamer. I'll play multiplayer games like World of Warships or War Thunder because of the tie to my MilHist background, but the fact is that there are a LOT of unappealing jackweasels out there. I mean, the last time I played WoW, some naval geenyus started berating me for firing HE shells from my battleship.

At practically unarmored light cruisers.

At Tier III.

And I was sailing an Orion, the first RN battleship in the game... which with flags has something like a 50% chance of setting fires with its HE rounds.

Yeah. I love being yelled at for doing the right thing.

So, "asocial gamer." On the whole, I like a good single-player game... Skyrim and Fallout 3 both have something like 400-500 hours on them. But having to build settlements and cater to the whims of Preston Gravy and settlers that are the least grateful NPCs I've ever made bedding for? Yeah, that's waaaaay too much like being screamed at by some wanna-be Panzer Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer because he didn't like the "68" I had on the side of my StuG III.

So love me, Fallout 4, love me!

Okay, enough of that. I'm going to write a sternly-worded letter to Boston Dynamics now.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:10 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 I just can't get interested in Fallout 4. Every time I play it, I end up loading up Fallout 3 so I can have some FUN paying Fallout.

Posted by: Ben at October 16, 2018 11:21 AM (osxtX)

2 Uptown Spot is actually pretty impressive. It would not surprise me to see some very interesting artistic exploration with robots in the next decade or so.
I didn't get into Fallout, maybe starting with Fallout 4 was the wrong choice?

Posted by: David at October 16, 2018 12:02 PM (HWHxc)

3 David, you can get Fallout 3: GOTY edition for $11.99 on steam right now. For a game that good, it's a ridiculously low price... and yeah, it's a MUCH better game, I think, than F4.

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 16, 2018 12:43 PM (+Lve0)

4 I don't think I've ever had Preston Garvey as a companion. I spend most of my time avoiding him since puts "Cleanup on aisle 3" quests in my quest bucket.
The settlements are kind of fun once you get the hang of it, and they provide caps; quite a lot of caps if there is standing water. They do so directly as well as indirectly if you get the Local Leader perk. Depending on your crops they can also provide resources for crafting.
The reporter, the detective and the robot with the sexy sexy voice are actually fun, and the latter has an awesome questline associated with her.
OTOH... You need to play the game a while to get to them though. (and the robot is not on anywhere near the main quest)
I think that despite its dumb as a box of hammers (and contra canon) storyline, Fallout 3 is much more fun at the beginning and better designed for roaming and exploring.

Posted by: THE Brickmuppet at October 16, 2018 01:18 PM (Oqyrj)

5 People.
People are why we can't have and enjoy nice things.

Posted by: Karel P Kerezman at October 16, 2018 04:49 PM (dPlYR)

6 Fallout 4 has a good -game- in there. The shooting feels a lot more solid than in 3 or NV. The crafting works with my pack-rat instincts instead of against them; I'm picking up stuff and dismantling it to make more stuff and improve the stuff I have, not going with the same handful of cookie-cutter weapons because everything's lasted through 200 years of post-nuclear apocalypse just to fall apart as soon as I picked it up.
3 and NV are chock full of traps in character development - things that you COULD improve and put a lot of effort into, only to discover that you've created a high-level gimp that can't stand up to the tougher enemies that show up once you've increased your level. 4 mostly avoids this. Of course they did it through simplification, but it works.

Shame about the story, though. (Although the story in 3 was crap too!) And I don't really like the Mass Effect conversation wheels. Since 80-90% of them don't have any effect, why are you putting in the choices? I don't need a "but thou must" response - if I'm going to be on the rail anyway, just take me there, don't ask me to steer the train!

The trick to enjoying 4 is to quit worrying about the stupid procedural busywork. There's no point running the quests when Preston says "hey, do this", or saving a settlement every time they stub a toe. Strap on a suit of power armor (another thing 4 did very well) and go explore and kill stuff.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 17, 2018 12:00 AM (v29Tn)

7 Av, I kind of agree with you about F4's Power Armor. The armor itself, yes, much better than in F3.
But in F3, Power Armor felt like an accomplishment, something you worked towards. When you finally got a set, you knew you were something badass indeed.
In F4, you get a set during your very first quest. From then on you can't swing a dead mirelurk without hitting a new set of power armor. I just reached Level 9 with my character, and she's got SIX FULL SETS standing in the baby's room. I think I stashed another set somewhere too, but I can't remember where.

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 17, 2018 02:44 AM (OjmJE)

8 While playing Fallout 4, I often found myself wishing I could transport my character to Skyrim and go questing in that world instead.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at October 17, 2018 11:05 PM (tgyIO)

9 Count your blessings J.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at October 18, 2018 08:20 PM (Oqyrj)

10 I've seen that before... I so wanted Liberty Prime to show up to take on the dragon.

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 18, 2018 11:06 PM (OjmJE)

11 By the way, I just got invited to the WoWS New Carrier beta test. First reaction? Still not thrilled with it.

Posted by: Mauser at October 20, 2018 08:13 AM (Ix1l6)

12 What's the difference, Mauser?

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 20, 2018 01:48 PM (OjmJE)

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October 15, 2018

Four Days Off! A Clarification

This was not supposed to happen. I wasn't scheduled to have Monday and Tuesday off. In fact, I couldn't have had those days off, as October was closed for vacation requests back in August. But then, a funny thing happened...

...almost everybody in my office called in sick a couple Fridays ago. I was one of the few who showed up, and there was only one other person in my aisle, when normally there'd be 11 of us. Why that happened I leave open as an exercise for the observer... I'm sure I have no idea. The reaction from The Powers That Be was... confusing. Instead of grumbling about all the outages, they decided to reopen October for vacation requests.

No, I don't claim to understand it. I will, however, claim that I took advantage of it. About an hour after the announcement was made, I had my request in... and it was approved late last week. I don't have to be back in-office until Wednesday! I really need it, too... I took a nap this afternoon/evening, around 530pm. Jokingly, I set my alarm for 10pm, thinking there's no way I'd sleep for that long.

If you've ever read The Pond before, you know what this means... I slept until 11pm. There was a chance everything was going to go as planned, as at about 9pm I woke briefly. Then I reset my alarm for midnight and went back to sleep. Instead of cursing myself when I have to get up for work the next day, I just grinned when I finally did rise from my slumber. Two more days! It's like I've been set free. I'm trying to ignore the whole "going back to work" thing.

I don't have to worry about that for a couple of days yet.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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October 13, 2018

Four Days Off!

Four Days Off! Four Days Off! Four Days Off! Four Days Off! Four Days Off!Four Days Off!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:23 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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October 09, 2018

Wellness Status Update

I think it's the weather. It's pretty warm for October, mid-80s today, and humid as all get-out. Tomorrow it's supposed to get down to the high-30s. That whipsawing has been going on for a couple-three weeks, which is bad enough. But that humidity is what's really killing me. It feels like my face is actually a couple of inches away from my skull, and faces aren't supposed to feel that way (newsflash, I know).

I almost called in, but somehow managed to drag myself to work. I'm so adult and stuff. Let's hope for a recovery tomorrow, after the rainy season is done. I'd really like that.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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October 08, 2018

I Am... Unwell.

I thought the day started fairly well, but somewhere along the way I began to feel very cruddy. Bad enough that after eight hours on the clock, I just came right home instead of doing some of my overtime. It'll make the rest of the week suck, but I'm pretty sure I don't care about that right now. I'm going to try this whole "life" thing again tomorrow... hopefully there'll be better results. Maybe some sleep is just what this little ol' duckie needs.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:27 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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October 03, 2018

This Afternoon At Work...

So, like, y'know, test of the cellphone alarm system this afternoon? I actually didn't know about it, but no biggie for me. However, the same can not be said for everybody.

There I am, grinding away at the claims, feeling like a total idiot for being there, when at 118pm Pond Central Time, the test message is sent. That EAS alarm... siren... thing... then rockets through the aether to cellphones all over the country. In her office, my boss's smartphone goes off, screaming at the top of its little silicon lungs. In the office of the MiniBoss, her smartphone warbles like all the demons of hell are chasing after Garfield Goose.

And on the production floor, four other phones begin to sing us the song of their people. Which is kinda bad, because the production floor is supposed to be a smartphone/camera-enabled device-free area. You can have a phone, but it has to be shut off and stored in your filing cabinet.

Gotta say though... it was amusing as hell to see the frantic scrabbling and clawing at things that weren't supposed to be there as the owners (busted!) tried to shut them off.

Yes, I'm petty.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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October 01, 2018

Distracted

So I seem to be completely unable to actually, y'know, concentrate on writing the F1U! for Russia tonight. I've started it, but I keep getting distracted by bright, shiny objects. So why I get a grip upon... something... here, have this:

...or this...

You can thank me later.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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