Online gaming was just ridding itself of diapers.  A scant few massively multiplayer games existed (Lineage for one, it was released that year). Quake 2 was the game to play, having been released the year before. A childhood friend of mine, (Asmodai by name) invited me to play a new mod for Quake 2. The mod was called Loki's Minions Capture the Flag - #LMCTF , the first Capture the Flag modification for Quake 2, released the day after the Quake 2 source code was released.