garion wrote:Yes sorry I should have clarified, obviously Andy and JJ were/are part of GW staff.
Interesting post from you though Milo. To be clear I am not disagreeing with your version of events here - I just knew that info from an interview I did with JKL for an article a while ago -
GLN: How did you get involved in the BBRC between LRB1 and LRB5?
JKL: I was on a newsgroup dedicated to Blood Bowl and at the time Jervis would come and go as he could, which wasn't much. I noticed it was all too much for him so I offered to be his front man on the newsgroup, collecting questions and giving them to him all at once and then returning the answers. He liked the idea and after a couple of posts he came up with the idea for the BBRC.
Here's something I've never shared before. I was actually responsible for picking the first online members. I never spoke of this before because there was already so much tension in those days. Too many disagreements about different rules. It was a hard decision process because as he had outlined it, we would be looking over the entire rules set and fixing problems we found there.
I purposely choose some members because I didn't agree with them, but I respected their knowledge and enjoyment of the game. Chet and I fought like cats and dogs online, but he knew his stuff and I never regretted bringing him on. I also had to cut one of my friends from the short list because we were from the same league and I wanted a range of experiences. I would often consult with him about some ideas because he was really the best player I have ever seen, but I couldn't include him. (His name is Doug Webber.)
I also made sure to bring in players from around the world where possible.
As the group evolved from consultants to full blown developers it taxed our time greatly. Debates were often backed as much by anecdotes as by statistics. Playtesting happened in our own leagues.
So it all started with a simple email to Jervis Johnson, who I respect greatly for his even handed game design and his ability to muster disparate opinions.
Well, I guess JKL and I remember things differently, then. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any emails dating back that far because I was using an email client called Eudora, and it's hard to access those emails these days. JKL was right about collecting questions and taking them to JJ -- that was why Jervis invited him into the group originally. I think the "newsgroup" he's talking about was the BBOWL-L email mailing list, though I'm not sure why he referred to it as a newsgroup. I'm not aware of an alt.games.bloodbowl back then, although it's possible there was one.
And he's also right about Doug. Doug was a great poster, and he and Chet monopolized the BBOWL-L list so much sometimes that I would call it the "Douggie and Chetty Show". Both very smart guys, liked to play devil's advocate for one another, and really helped coaches think through the various sides of arguments. I would have happily invited Doug to join the BBRC. (I honestly liked Doug more than JKL, but that was just a personality thing.) But both Doug and JKL lived near Ann Arbor, MI, at the time, and played in the same league, and Jervis wanted a better geographic spread. At the time, I lived in Alaska, Chet was in New York... I can't remember where Dean was, at the time. (Tennessee, maybe?) Babs was chosen not just for his presence in the BBOWL-L group, but also because he could help get feedback from Australian players and provide a different perspective. Andy and Jervis, both GW employees, also represented the UK/European area.
For anyone who wants more history on this time period, thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine, you can still see some of the chat sessions we had on bloodbowl.net with Jervis here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010309075 ... 12701.html
I did find the emails when I stepped down and nominated Tom to take my place, and I'd be willing to post that (for posterity's sake) if Tom's okay with it.