PC gaming in the early 2000s was a very special time and place to be a part of.. No explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant..

There was madness in any direction. At any hour. If not on the IGN boards, then out in your living room on your mom's dinosaur on the AOL chatrooms or on IMDB.. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any realistic or life-goal pursuing sense; we didn’t need that. Our headshotting and micromanagement skills would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. .