Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Eel - It kind of looked like the hair had been rubbed off in the picture, which could still be a form of a burn. It would only take a second if she was near some sort of belt or pulley. At least, that’s what I imagined when I saw the pic.

@ThanosReXXX - Ah, whoops, I mixed the two up there. Your balcony still sounds like a nice spot for a R&C!

I’ll be honest, I’m not interested in the new consoles until there’s a fun Fallout or Mass Effect. FO4 and Andromeda were the only reason I even bought an X1, and I kinda regretted it after awhile anyway. Switch has kept me playing largely because of the hybrid nature.

@NEStalgia Console power doesn't do much for me. More fluid gaming is always nice, but what attracts me more than anything else to a console are any exclusives/franchises that I'm interested in.

The anti-consumerism was an issue for me too. Plus the whole "always online" thing and the comments about those with an unreliable/no internet connection sticking with a 360. That was a very real issue for me when I lived with my parents around that time; heck, their "broadband" is a 3 MB/s connection that's slow, oversold, and flaky on weekends.

@NEStalgia
Xbox X design for me was like Gigantamax Meowth version of Gamecube machine. 🤣

@HobbitGamer Yeah I’m not sure what the future of Bethesda and BioWare are. 2019 was a very bad year for both. Hope they can rebound next gen, but not holding my breath too hard there.

Work Christmas party starts in about half an hour. Time to show up in my new Mario Christmas sweater. It's open bar and catered by a decent family-style restaurant that everyone likes, so it should be a fun time!

_{Not really looking forward to how packed the place is gonna be though....}

@Tyranexx have fun, sip drinks, be merry 😊. We're just going to a steak house near the office next week, and on a Thursday, unfortunately. We can drink and order whatever we want, but it's not a party setting, and more like a company dinner outing. We have a small 7 employee company so theres no need for a big bash, but I wish it was a Friday or Saturday so I can at the very least, have more than 2 drinks 😂

@Tyranexx Yup, that link works for me. Interesting stuff, but then again: even without pictures, I already added it to my itinerary, like mentioned a couple of pages ago...

@NEStalgia Of course it is. Please remain seated and calm, sir. The nurse will be right with you...

@bimmy-lee Oh, don't get me wrong: it's still nice to use in the summer, but it's not like you can put an entire table for more than three or four people on it, because it's not big enough to allow people and chairs all around the table, so I'd lose one of the long sides of the table, leaving only the two short sides and one long side. And even that is going to be a tight fit, if we're talking the average decent/comfortable size garden chair and table setups.

I think the size of it is around 10 to 13 feet wide, and between 7 to 8 feet deep. I never took any exact measures, so that was me eyeballing it as we speak...

@Tyranexx The reason to get an XBox this gen is for Game Pass. That is still their strongest selling point. And it is a good selling point. You get a lot of games in the package, and it encourages you to try a lot of different stuff you wouldn’t have otherwise purchased.

Apparently digital purchases I made on the PS4 can be transferred to the PS5, so that is enough for me to choose Sony’s box instead.

If I wasn’t already in the PS “ecosystem”, it would be a tough call though.

@NintendoByNature Thanks! I had fun overall. Plenty of great food (shouldn't have hit the pre-meal hors d'oeuvres as hard as I did, but man was that stuff good) and had a couple of decent drinks. Decent company too. I didn't go crazy with the drinks as I intended to drive myself home. I just made it home a little bit ago without issues.

Christmas parties at my old job were a relatively quiet affair. My boss would have them at his parents' property at a nearby lake. Some fun was to be had, sure, but the last couple of years....Well, that's a long story that involves some odd company dynamics and losing a lot of the team/people I was closer to. Suffice it to say that I didn't enjoy it as much. To be fair, the party the year before last was cut short by sleet/freezing rain that showed up earlier than planned. Darn weather.

@ThanosReXXX Ha HAH! Mission accomplished! ^=^ I'll try to report on the place when I do get over there to see everything. I'm thinking a short spring trip, but we'll see.

@NotTelevision Oh yes, I'll still be keeping an eye on the proceedings of the other two "Big 3". While I'm primarily a Nintendo gamer out of preference - most of the franchises I like are on Nintendo platforms - in this day and age they're also the only company I've had time for. I'm glad that Ninty has consolidated all development into one console at present; between each current-gen handheld and console from them (two systems, essentially), my gaming time was/is more than occupied. I'll have a Switch soon, but the 3/DS library is still keeping me quite busy.

I have GOT to become pickier with the RPGs I pick up....

@NotTelevision i started last gen in both ecosystems, dropped xbone like a hot potato and went Sony. But xbox, and especially it's handling of digital is much better than Sony..i ended up rebuying and double dipping to move it all to xbox, and Sony now only has the exclusives.

@Tyranexx to me, where power matters is multiplats. Devs are usually happy pushing visual flourish whole letting the game run mediocre, so having the most powerful hardware means cheating past the lazy designs

@NotTelevision bioware exists only in name. Bethesda took the jeering and ran to the bank. It won't bite then until next game.

@NEStalgia Hah, I suppose that makes sense.

@NEStalgia Yeah for me I just don’t have any interest in State of Decay, Gear, Halo, or Crackdown. The previous indie exclusives on XBox like Cuphead and Ori I had already played on PC, so it would have been an especially frivolous purchase for me this gen. I was initially interested in Sea of Thieves because I love nautical and pirate themed stuff, but it reviewed really poorly. That leaves Forza Horizon as the only XBox exclusive I actually have interest in.

But yeah essentially 97% of the Xbox and PS library is identical, so it just came down to the 5 or so exclusives on PS that I thought looked worthwhile.

Game Pass is certainly a heck of deal for what you get though. If I didn’t already have a PS then I’d consider getting an XBox just to play those multiplats.

@NotTelevision having owned ps4 before x1x, for me it came down to ps4 having more exclusive games (including 3rd party like persona) BUT all of those other games they have in common run better on x1. I figure if I'll spend 1000 hours playing those games it's rather then run the best they can

Plus the digital ecosystem and game menu navigation is light years ahead. I bought x1x to be my niche digital only system. No i ended up rebuying everything i had physically on ps4 digitally on x1x. Hard to explain but somehow it's just more fun browsing and switching digital games on x1 than ps4.

I like both platforms but unless I'm playing an exclusive 8 find i just reach for the x most of the time if i just want to browse "what to play today"

It only took me half of December to enter festive avatar mode.

Come on everybody, put on your nonspecific holiday hats.

OMG...!!
My games order from Ebay has been arrived 2 weeks faster than my prediction. 🤯
I was short in money so i have contacted to my friend that i will pay the orders after 2 weeks later (after salary day). 😅

@Tyranexx sounds like a decent time at least. Glad it was enjoyable. The appetizers always get me too lol

@Tyranexx When looking at those pictures, I do have to admit that I would have preferred if they had stuck with the earlier paint job, though. The current one is decidedly flat. In comics it works, because of the black lines that the characters are drawn with, but without those, surfaces tend to look really flat and opaque/plain in real life. More like an amateur's paint job. Oh, well. Can't have it all, I suppose, and having an actual Metropolis and and actual Superman statue is still pretty cool.

Real life Metropolis does look a lot more like Smallville than it's actual comics-related namesake, though...

Anyway, I'll definitely be looking forward to that report. I hope it contains your own photos of the statue and the museum (if it's even allowed to take pictures there. I know of plenty museums where it's either frowned upon or downright forbidden)

I somehow got a Fortnite creator code, and I don't even rev up Fortnite content.