Then spending the time checking out all the pages and usually saving the
link somewhere to visit later again. Too bad a lot of times you end up
finding a page and it was like 'wow I can't wait for this QB game to be
released!' and then you see it hasn't been updated in a few years. Or
worse, you find the site and then within one or two updates, it's dead.

I think with the recent 'protests' on Reddit, it seems to be that the
leadership there either doesn't get what makes the site great (like you
said, the text/comments tied to topics) or actively don't care and just
want to get it as cash positive as they can before selling it to someone
else or even worse, just milk it until it's a shell of its former self.

You should go check out those backups if you have time. I've done a few
dives through some of my old stuff (even stuff that's still posted on the
NE site from back in the day) and it's always been a fun nostalgic trip
down memory lane. It's weird how going back and reviewing old things you've
written can transport you back to when you were writing it.

For example, the Hellbent remake I started but never finished around 2006 (
http://nukementerprises.puckdroppersplace.us/projects/ne/qbasic/hellbent/index.html).
I clearly remember one day waking up at 5:30-6:00am, getting a cup of
coffee and heading back to my room to work on some of the magic spells and
inventory items. Back then the 486 didn't have its top case on (was doing
upgrades to add networking but left the case off for wayyy too long. ended
up bending my sound card one day when something fell on it. It's still bent
a bit to this day but somehow still works...). It was sitting on top of a
rubber storage crate next to my desk with the monitor cable snaked up to
the CRT on my desk and the keyboard in my lap.

There's a change.log file in the zip for that game that has entries for
each day I worked on it. I'm sure the day I'm remembering is one of those
entries. I haven't checked in years but the memory is still vivid.