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It's occurring to me that Aug 2009 will mark 10 years since the start of Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News and thus we are hitting a major milestone for the community. Should we celebrate it somehow? Maybe a chat party, or a retrospective of some kind, or a series of interviews with folks who were around at the beginning, or whathaveyou?
I think that would be pretty cool, myself. How many people are still around who were here from the beginning? I didn't join until well into 2000, IIRC. Most of the other mods were here before me. I've always thought that shooting interviews at GenCon with the intent of making a video would be a cool idea, and GenCon is right around that time. Did you start the site right after GenCon in 1999?
__________________ "I hurt Firewing." is not something a huge number of people can say. "He dropped a parking garage on me," on the other hand, a lot of people can say. -Kazan, my Champions GM.
Did you start the site right after GenCon in 1999?
Pretty much. However, there was no forum for the site until I think Feb 2000, though I was in contact with lots of scoopers via e-mail and participating on WotC's usenet/message board thingy prior to that.
No, must be earlier than that, Eric. I found the forums in Fall of 1999, back when we were playtesting.
Can't believe it's been a decade!
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
I remember finding your original forums in Oct/Nov 99 (when I was goofing off a bit at my new job and doing some random searches). Wasn't so much forums then as one big threaded discussion page, as I recall.
Some of the names I remember from the very earliest time include Forgotten Hater, Cyberzombie and Ruin Explorer. I think I remember when Piratecat joined, confirming some rumours in a very not-breaking-any-NDA fashion, and spinning the yarn about his players fighting minotaur pirates. I think I remember when Henry ("C'mon August!") joined us from the WotC boards, as the owner of the then-most-memorable sig.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morrus
That is actually quite scary - it means I was a youthful 24 at the time!
Hey, you'll always seem youthful to me, you spring chicken!
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
No, must be earlier than that, Eric. I found the forums in Fall of 1999, back when we were playtesting.
Can't believe it's been a decade!
Let's compromise and say ... January 2, 2000. Found this in my archive...
Quote:
January 2, 2000
New Message Board Available: I have thrown together a message board for the discussion of 3E rules and speculations. My guidelines are simple: keep it civil, keep it clean, and keep it focused. While I do not anticipate that this board will replace the official 3E Message Board or DND-L, I think it will serve as a good place for general question-and-answer type posts. I encourage you to test it out! You can link to it here, or use the link under the 3E logo.
The Internet Archive doesn't go back far enough to catch us still using it, but you can see the remnants of it here: old 3e board
And yes, "one long thread" really did describe the first forum!
With a little luck the very first message board might still be at archive.org. For example, searching for the third(?) incarnation of the forums, when the forum url was dynamic.gamespy.com/~dnd3e, yields nothing interesting in the index:
2) Shortly after that we then set up shop on RPG Planet's forums. Couple of links for you - again we're looking at around Aug 2000 - the second one in particular shows you some usernames and you might see some familiar ones on the list.
Psionicist, do you realize that from our perspective you've virtually grown up on these boards?
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Cheers This forum means a lot to me. Thinking back I was quite obnoxious at times but it always worked out, and I’m grateful I’m still a part of the community.
Feeling really nostalgic reading the archives; Bugaboo, Caliban, Ruin Explorer, Chris Nightwing, Cyberzombie, Forgotten Hater, Angelsboi, Squirrel Nutkin, KarinsDad, angramainyou, Dragoth the Destroyer, Crypt King, muaddib… lots of names and personalities, and that’s just a few of those I haven’t seen around lately (some understandably).
I’m all for a chat!
__________________ The river sparkles and dances on the rocks.
At night, it flows deep and strong.
If I had the talent, I would volunteer to do it, but maybe someone would be willing to create a youtube slideshow or something that shows screen caps and/or pictures from the site (and ENnies) through the years would be cool - along with some memorable posts from the archives (such as Gygax posts or maybe even some of the first posts from memorable threads like shilsen's paladin thread or some of the more popular story hours). It could also feature some shots from the archived pages Eric links to above.
Edit - and if we want to get sentimental, maybe a part of it could honor those who have passed, such as angelsboi.
Found this in my archive...
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