Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Zuljaras Is that that mod I keep hearing about? If it is I am afraid not I just have the original complete edition that GoG has. I had it years ago on disc and still own I just don't have a disc drive on my laptop.

@Tasuki Believe me you MUST HAVE that! And it is solely made to fit the GOG version! AND as a bonus it is compatible with the HD Mod.

It is not a mod it is an expansion. It looks like it is made from 3DO themselves!

2 new factions (Cove, Factory) that are crafted to perfection, new terrain etc.

And the best part, its FREE!

The latest version is HotA 1.7.1.

@Zuljaras I will have to look that up. Thanks for the info

So, that why Sully get a lot of fright energy.
He was literally scaring bunch of the young princess from Wreck it Ralph during their slumber party. 🤣

Wanted to say hi! Haven’t been active on forums for a bit, especially yesterday. I need to stop procrastinating and change my avatars to something cool lol. How is everyone doing? What did you all do today?

I had a great day yesterday and a currently great one right now! It’s the afternoon where I am, and I’m excited for the nighttime when I can relax. Yesterday, I ate a lot. Earlier we ate at Jack in the Box, and later we went to a Vietnamese pho restaurant, which was a first time for me. I got a pho that was a seafood combination, and if I can remember, it had crab meat, fish cake, shrimp, fish filet, and calamari, alongside noodles! Alongside that, I got a delicious Thai iced tea, and we had an appetizer that had shrimp and rice paper rolls. I have tried calamari and shrimp (albeit at different non-Vietnamese restaurants) but not the other food they had in there. They gave me a nice plate of bean sprouts and jalapeños to put in there. After we treated ourselves to frozen yogurt. The pho tasted good, but oh my goodness I couldn’t finish it. I got a regular bowl, but it was way, WAY too big, and I sadly could only eat all the seafood in there and could not get to finishing the broth or remaining noodles without feeling sick and needing to throw up, so I left it half-eaten, and I feel sad I did, but I have a bad tendency to always want to eat everything when I’m served a big plate or bowl of food even if I can’t finish it, cuz I don’t want to waste delicious food or upset anyone, even if I might feel sick and need to throw up after.

Months ago we went to another restaurant, and I got a ton of food, and I was able to finish all the food, but I felt slightly sick upon finishing. I think I got a really random combo of sweet potato with brown sugar and a plate of chicken tenders. I’m sure I ate another dish there alongside those two, but the sweet potato was sickening by the end. Probably one of the worst feelings from eating food.

Today I went to Daiso, which is a dollar store in Japan that sells a variety of high quality products at low prices. They are from Japan, but here in America there is a good amount of them. There are multiple Japanese dollar stores like Seria and Can Do (though the latter sounds like they want to expand overseas) Daiso is the only major Japanese dollar store to have shops in America. I’ve gone to American Daiso multiple times, mostly for their art materials. This time I got a big sketchbook, a bit of fluorescent gel pens, a new pair of socks, a red bean bun, and small sheets of Kent paper for drawing. I had to resist myself from buying a lot of gel pens, since I’ve been obsessed with those a lot in my art recently, and I’ve been making attempts to splurge on art materials less.

I have yet to try the other stuff, but I ate the bun earlier and it was great. Red bean buns are popular snacks in Japan, and it’s also popularized by a famous and long-running children’s series called Anpanman, since the main character is a superhero with a red bean bun as a head.
Despite the low price, all of Daiso’s products I have gotten are quality, even more quality than American dollar stores like Dollar Tree.

If I remember, in the past I have gotten alcohol markers, pencils, erasers, a ruler, and lots of paper from there in the past, though the Daiso I went to didn’t have much art materials as I thought it would. All Daiso’s have the same or similar products, but they don’t always have the same items. However, Daiso has a lot of other items that are not art, like socks, organizing containers, make-up, cleaning supplies, toys, and snacks imported from Japan. If you have a Daiso near where you live, I’d recommend visiting it and buying something there. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the quality. Dollar Tree does have art supplies, but they are more on the cheaper side in terms of quality, and while most of the stationary I have gotten from there works mostly fine, I remember getting a set of pens and one of them had ink and it didn’t work at all when I tried to write with it. Sometimes the pen tips get clogged too, so I’d recommend Daiso way more for some stuff like that.

I watched Harold & the Purple Crayon movie yesterday and it was... really cringey movie. 😑
To see the whole storyline about Harold looking for the old man (narator) in real world looked so terrible.
I didn't react at all, keep having poker face and sometimes cringey face during watching.
Bad movie I guess, anyway it was 4 from 10 in my opinion.
Also, when I watched the movie, I didn't see any kids watching, just very very few adult peoples who have curiosity to watch Harold & the Purple Crayon.
I was thinking that franchise was not appeal for kids nowadays, maybe only appeal for current adult who have ever experienced with that franchise when they were young.

@Sunsy I'm a bit of a history nerd, so I enjoy learning about older buildings and what all they were used for. I like visiting them too - within reason. I'm not going to enter a condemned structure that's about to fall down with the next big wind lol. Nearly 100 years...that's pretty good for a building on the North American continent. There's another one-screen theater in the town I work in that was restored at one point, but it's currently not in use. It has changed ownership more than once and was in the process of being restored before repairs had to stall out again due to rising costs.

I really enjoyed Inside Out 2. The film team really did their homework on psychology and human emotions as we currently understand them. I'm no expert, but I've had some exposure to the field. How Riley calmed herself down during her panic attack through grounding and controlled breathing is how one would handle that situation in real life.

@Pastellioli Daiso sounds like a great store, though I've never heard of it. I went to their site and searched it...the closest location to me is in Texas. Not a short drive at all.

I never used the Twitter/X app at all, just the website. And half the time I only navigated there through article links from sites like NL. The site has changed a lot over the last few years. It was never great in my opinion, but it's gradually becoming worse. I don't visit the site at all. Now if only I could fully ban my eyeballs from Reddit. I don't have an account, but the site can still be a rabbit hole.

Console wars....While I certainly acknowledge there are pros and cons to every modern gaming platform - though the importance of features can vary based on the individual - I don't think needless arguing is beneficial. Xbox and PS are usually beating each other up constantly, while primary PC users are on cloud nine (I've ran into a few uppity PC master race types, but most are chill) and Nintendo is happily doing their own thing in another corner. Sounds like the comparison with Metroid Dread was what I call an apples to tomatoes comparison. Both are basically fruits but have very different culinary uses.

I don't think I have anything to add regarding the "bad" song account, other than I agree with you regarding jumping to conclusions. The account owner is entitled to their opinions, but that doesn't mean one opinion necessarily leads to another.

I can’t go into Daiso if I expect to have money later. There are 3 near me so I have to practice restraint.

Hello Im back

Got banned from discord so Im going back here for the time being. What a lovely day we are having

@Princess_Lilly Hello! How are you doing?

@Pastellioli pretty good, how about you?

I see the forums are getting a bit deserted

@Princess_Lilly I’m doing well, pretty normal day for me so far!

Yes the threads are sort of becoming abandoned and dead unfortunately, which is surprising for me since they are usually very popular and active. I don’t think I’ve also seen a lot of discussion on any of the news articles recently too.

@Pastellioli I feel like I know why, vg journalism is at its all time low so people dont really visit major sites anymore

Also nobody checks validity of claims so if someone doesnt like you, well, tough luck.

@Pastellioli I think August is just one of those quieter months y'know?
Not a lot of news or releases and a lot of people are away on holiday/vacation (as in they might have gone away somewhere)

Although somehow it's the end of August🤯
For a particularly long summer for me, it seems to have gone incredibly fast as always. Has anyone else noticed some of the leaves starting to turn?
But hopefully that should mean forums and news should be starting to ramp up a bit as we head into September/October!

I finally changed my profile picture and made it a GIF! Sadly parts of it look a bit too cut off (especially some parts with Conker in it) but eh, there’s no way I’m going back to fix it. I had to use a GIF maker though since the recording I used was way too big. I wasted way too much time making sure the files weren’t big and cropping the runtime to reduce the size.

@Nintoz Definitely true. August is super quiet right now…I saw that reflected a ton on one of NL’s sister sites, PX, cuz I was in a game club and this time it was super quiet, plus I think a lot of people went on holidays or to some other places, or were just super busy, and a lot of the big game releases aren’t until September-December. Hopefully there is more next month. I really like talking to people on here the leaves where I am haven’t turned brown yet. Still a nice shade of green.

@Princess_Lilly Yeah, really because there aren’t really any big game releasss right now. The game that is being discussed the most on this site right now is Emio, (plus it’s one of August’s notable Nintendo titles) and while I have seen lots of traction and chats about it, it isn’t a super big game, I think it’s when September-December comes the journalism will pick up and discussion will start more, since a lot of the hyped up games are releasing soon. Hopefully less people will be busy too, cuz some holidays are coming up as well.

Forum activity can ebb and flow, especially on weekends when more people are busy. If I also recall, I think it's a bank holiday weekend in the UK. News is typically a bit slow around now too...or would be if Nintendo hadn't announced a joint Indie World Showcase and Partner Direct tomorrow.

(Also as an aside, I do have a full time job and other responsibilities. So my own activity widely varies.)

@Pastellioli Ugh, I hate the 502 bad gateway errors. Those are a server side issue though; nothing we can do. I'd like to visit a Daiso store sometime just to see what they have, but I'd likely also have to refrain from buying too much. XD The closest I typically get to Texas is when visiting relatives in Oklahoma, but that's very rare and is almost a day drive from where I live - stopping included.

Reddit is...a major mixed bag in my experience. Some of the smaller subs can be informative and wholesome, especially the more niche gaming and food communities. A lot of the larger and/or very opinionated ones can be crazy echo chambers though. The moderation can also be very bad as typically said mods are part of same echo chamber; I've seen sensible comments removed for no reason. Because Arceus forbid someone comes along with a different opinion sometimes that doesn't fit the status quo. Some really bad subs were removed in the past, but not all IIRC. I'd go on, but I'd be breaching the site rules if I did. Some of said echo chambers have loud yellers that don't represent humanity as a whole and can skew general perceptions on a subject.

I like that Conker display! Clearly some work went into it.

Sadly with console wars - no, with pretty much anything where a preference is involved - you always have folks who like nothing more than to get a rise out of others. AKA Baiting. They do it for entertainment. I'd say the concept is similar to bloodsport from the Roman Coliseum days, but physically less messy. Some things out there MAY be worth getting worked up over depending on the subject, but entertainment mediums are not one of those things IMO. Personally, I'm mostly team Nintendo with a bit of PC sprinkled in. Probably more of the latter once I finally get around to building my own machine once I save up enough. Outside of Rare Replay, the Xbox ecosystem doesn't have any exclusives that interest me. PS has a bit more exclusives in its favor, but most of what I'm interested in on that console ends up on PC eventually. I can wait; it's rare I buy games day one.

@Tyranexx I think I get those 502 errors a ton when I write really big paragraphs. They are super solvable, all I have to do is just go back and then re-enter the thread, and my message is usually already there. It’s not a big gripe, only happens to me a few times!

For me, it’s so hard to not buy a lot of stuff from Daiso. I sometimes go back and forth between items and going “I want this” to “I don’t think I should buy it.” I stink at restraining myself from buying a ton of stuff at the store, especially if it has a huge focus on being inexpensive.

I have heard of a lot of super bad subreddits on a Wikipedia article and some videos. Again, it’s these and some of the bigger subreddits that usually are the worst, combined with how some moderators act on those subreddits. It’s always the smaller subreddits that tend to have the best community and moderation, and the ones I visit the most. It’s sites like NL that I love the most over other forum sites, also because the moderators here do a good job making sure everything is in order and everyone is having a good time. Plus, they are super kind too.

The baiting is very annoying to watch. I am still a Nintendo fan (although I haven’t played the Switch in a few weeks), and it pretty much was my go to console in the past, had the Wii, WiiU, and almost everyone in the family had 3DS and 2DS handhelds, and I also had a bit of PlayStation in there too. I had played the Xbox 360, but it was traded in for a Wii. Then come probably almost a decade later, I’ve become a Nintendo and Xbox fan, but Rare and Rare Replay were my only reasons for getting into Xbox. If Rare’s games were still exclusive to the Switch and Nintendo consoles (had the Microsoft acquisition not happened) then I don’t think I would have swapped to Xbox. I like the performance, I found value in Game Pass (though the new pricing is icky) and have played a few other games on there, but I really came for Rare and Rare only, but I am open to playing other games. I also never buy games immediately day one or pre-order. I only do it after it releases, or if I know that I’ll like it. But a lot of people have now been seeing issues with pre-ordering games, cuz I have heard too many stories of people pre-ordering games that turn out to be sloppy and pretty mediocre or terrible.

Thought I would say hi again! Discussion has been very dead here huh? A bit disappointing but it’s fine. Is everyone doing well? I love NL and all the people on here; the team running it for their hard work to make everything good and the community for being super kind and silly.

Yesterday I tried to stay up and draw late, but my art block is getting super strong and I don’t know what I should do. I want to draw specific things and specific characters before I draw other stuff, but I feel like I need to draw something original and practice to get out of this art block. However, I think I also need to draw smaller so I can finish art faster on this busy schedule. I want to draw so many video game characters in my style but I don’t know how to make them look right…I’ll maybe try one last time before I give up. I think it’s sad that I’m starting to care less about art since I haven’t had time to do it and I can’t make anything nice without scrapping it and going “oh this looks like garbage.” When I look at the amazing artworks online on Instagram, I go “I want to draw something like that” but I just don’t have the time to and when I do so, I just fail at it spectacularly. Sometimes makes me doubt if I will be able to become a popular artist if I’m stuck in an art block and if I can’t have enough time to practice and improve my skills and fix my stagnant progress. I was too busy last week from two factors, and I’m also too busy right now to do it. Ive said multiple times that I would draw a specific subject only to swap back and forth cuz I can’t draw an aspect of it right, and it sucks.

I haven’t been really gaming as of late. I’ve been a bit busy working now, so the only time I really have to play games is on the weekends, and sometimes late at night. But, it’s also cuz I’m trying to focus on art, but I’ve been super into trying to make something.

Sometimes I don’t really have the motivation to do any of these hobbies, and I sometimes just feel like lying down and sleeping. Or, when I plan on doing it, I delay it or fall asleep on accident and wake up with all my free time gone. It super disappoints me that I am starting to slowly hate and get angry at stuff I once loved. Guess not having time and constantly failing is what causes those feelings.

Anyway, sorry for my rant lol. I just really feel like I’ve done nothing noteworthy or right from how I feel.

@Pastellioli Yeah this chat has definitely slowed down! Guess it's time to go for the classic
Pineapple
Pen
Ugh!
...Pineapple Pen