10 years of ENW

[EricNoah]

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?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

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?

 

[EricNoah]

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.

 

[Piratecat]

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!

 

[Morrus]

That is actually quite scary - it means I was a youthful 24 at the time!

 

[Plane Sailing]

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.

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!

 

[EricNoah]

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...

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!

 

[Psionicist]

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:

Internet Archive Wayback Machine
According to the index there's only one archived copy, from May 18 2001 (which is broken).

However, there are still archived copies around. Here's one from june 6 the same year:

D&D 3rd Edition News Board - powered by Infopop

Not sure how to find these hidden copies though.

Edit Alright, found something from february 2000: The "post message"-page, complete with the red/black color scheme: http://web.archive.org/web/20000229101310/beseen2.looksmart.com/boardroom/z/46117/Post

 

[EricNoah]

More internet archive fun...

1) The move to RPG Planet (where I stayed until the end) took place in late Feb 2000. Internet Archive only goes back to Aug 2000. Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition News - and here's where you can see more archived stuff - Internet Archive Wayback Machine

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.

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition News

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition News

 

[Morrus]

Feeling nostalgic, Eric?