My match making in Quakeworld late nineties / early two thousands went from LAN with dad and brother at home, to LAN at compsci lab at HS after school, to local PC cafe, to regional LAN tournament to international scene once ISDN & ADSL became ubiquitous.
We were always welcoming newbies to the scene. But then starting 2003 the Nordic players became increasingly cliquey and started refusing to play anywhere further south than servers located near the Stockholm datacentre.