[Aco-]

You mention UT99/2003/2004, did you play competitively by chance? I miss the good old days of gaming, clans, ladders, forums & IRC.

If it weren't for UT's modding & hacking community I wouldn't have got in to this industry. A lot of people I know have similar stories.

[eswat]

Nope I wasn’t part of the competitive scene. I was just an active participant in some of the fansite communities (BeyondUnreal, Planet Unreal) and the various mods like The Third Reich and Red Orchestra.

The only artifact of that era I still carry is still hanging around the neotokyo IRC channel after 15 years.

Like you said, the modding community helped a lot of people get in this industry. I wonder if it’s still the same now that it’s less about modding/hacking a game with a group of people and more about contributing content piecemeal (Elder Scrolls/Fallout) or working on an actual game from nearly scratch.