Long ago, before I had the fortune to play all your fancy Halos and Battlefields and Call of Dutys, before I had a console that could even handle online multi-player-
There was one game that introduced me to a world that changed my life forever, and that was Wolfenstein: ET.
Moreso than just the game itself, there was one server in particular, The Sniper Server, that I would frequent when I just wanted to hang out and goof off, or when I just needed to blow of steam after a rough game.
(Mostly) everyone there treated you like a friend, even if you were a total stranger. There was no rage between players, no grudges, no flaming, just good old fashioned banter between headshots and stabbings.
I still remember sneaking across a river or ravine, from one school house to another, to get the jump on the enemy team. (Or die trying.)
Or hiding out in an ambulance on the hospital map, or totally biffing a jump and falling to my death on the desert map-
Those carefree summer nights feel like such distant memories at this point, but they're memories I think I'll appreciate for the rest of my life.
It's where I learned to love online fps games. Hell, it's where I learned to snipe in FPS games! Though, I fell out of ET over the next couple years, I remember hopping back on some time later to find the server was nowhere to be found.
Like an utterly unique flash in the pan- A blink of a semi-obscure FPS experience that couldn't be recaptured no matter how hard the game devs of the future might try, it was gone.
I'm not sure why, but I always wished I could reach out to thank all of the folks who made the server so much fun, and so inviting in the first place. For all the years of gaming that might have been different, were it not for them.
So, without rambling too long, if you're reading this, if you remember what I'm talking about, thank you.
And I hope you're doing well.