After the confusion that was the move from Invisionfree, IGNO entered a very slow and stagnant period where old members weren’t coming back...and new members, no doubt confused by the rampant inside jokes and culture of the formerly closed-off community, weren’t really joining either.
Still, once things got going again, the ZB era proved to be even more fruitful than the IF era. The ’IGNOLand’ concept that had been created just shortly before the move really took root here, and the pseudo-roleplay elements of the community became more prevalent. A whole new crop of members arrived in the memorable summer of 2009 (AKA ’Summer of YDB’), and with the addition of a cbox - and, eventually, an IRC channel - there were even more opportunities to hang out with fellow IGNOers outside of simply posting.
IGNO had finally come out of the reclusive shell it had trapped itself in during the latter Invisionfree years, when the board became a locked-off private community to keep out some unwanted intruders. If the IF era was IGNO’s awkward teenage phase, the ZB era was the college years, with IGNO coming into its own and finding itself new life as a young adult.
