I dunno, mdb was a resource and a community long before m2k2 was, the work done in bringing players together there is something I've always thought was really fantastic. It helped bring me into a community when I was able to gain access to the boards years ago, and reading the old logs they had of metroid NES secret worlds has for me the same value as m2k2's early gamefaqs logs.
Yeah, it was before my time though, I joined maybe in like 2000 or something... this was in 97-98 according to the page I just found it on, The Great Secret World Hunt. The site also obviously went through a bunch of iterations, most of which I recall had little hidden links all over with secrets in them. I don't know what more can be said about the trailer of 7/27 really. Focus shift.
Now I'm kinda curious as to what it was like there in the past. Sounds like it may have gotten really dumbed down over time. I wonder what would cause that.
T. J.'s approach and ultimately his mystique was a really important part of the site for me, and the forums were like only for a certain age, or had some sort of requirements to get in, it wasn't like an open forum. Anyway I don't think it was, it's hard to remember though cause I was pretty young then.