Comment by xela79

and let's not forget QuakeWorld that introduced latency compensation, allowing you to have an OK experience with up to 200ms ping, where as the normal Quake TCP/IP stack was basically unplayable with anything over 70-80ms. https://quakewiki.org/wiki/QuakeWorld

my first multiplayer Quake was with Qtest in February 1996 using a null modem cable between two machines, and later on using coax cables and IPX in DOS

getting a multiplayer game running was a tech feat compared to the plug & play nature of things now. the learning curve is gone now.