I had dial-up through my Mom’s work’s VPN at the time and couldn’t even sign in to Steam with it, so I had to use an AOL 30-day trial just to be able to play the game.
When both the trial and Steam’s Offline mode timing ran out, I had sufficient motivation to learn how to crack WEP so I could borrow the neighbor’s WiFi
At least the mod didn’t break as a result, had me worried for a second there.