CS 1.6 was peak gaming. There were servers with Warcraft 3 mod where you could pick your race and level up to receive additional modded abilities and items, and it would save your progress over months. Not to mention the map customizations.
Also, no paying for season passes or DLC, no paid skinpacks, no censorship or embedded ads or tracking. And custom porn sprays.
EDIT: there were definitely skins, they were just free downloads from modders. And they were client side so you could see them but other players would just have their own skin or default for the same item.
Titanfall is the only game I’ve seen that took surfing, and not only did it on purpose, but built the whole game around it. That’s why I love it so much, you literally just use your surf skills to fly around the maps like a fighter jet, doing dive bombs on people and just overall being a menace.
Personally, I'm kinda amazed everyone forgot about ads in the MOTD that a lot of multiplayer source games had. Granted, the ads were set by the server host, not Valve, but yeah.