The original Reddit thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4gv8xl/final_moments_before_city_of_heroes_shut_down_for/Search for cbruce to get his AMA comments in that thread.
I interacted with quite a few devs at Paragon, although certainly not all and not even the majority of them. I like to think I was friendly if not friends with a few of them, and BaBs was one of those. In the early days it was Castle and BaB that devoted the most time to chatting with me about game internals and BaB was one of the few devs outside the "powers" people that would give me the time of day back then. I lost track of him after he went to Cryptic to work on Neverwinter, but I'm glad to hear he's still working in the biz.
I kinda stuck those SPAM flavored nuts in there on a lark: even *I* don't eat those. And I still have that signed GR box, still sitting on my desk.
When I look back on City of Heroes, years after the last time I logged into the game, it was a great game and it was a lot of fun times, but what I think about the most is that in eight years I earned the respect of not just many of my fellow players, many of whom I sparred with constantly on the forums, but also some of the professionals that actually created the game we all loved to play. When you've lived more than half your life as a professional, and respect is the most valuable and ephemeral currency in your world, that means something. And that's why that box still sits on my desk.