An entirely gratutious comment: never seen one before but that has got to be one of the best looking full sussers I've ever seen! THe seat post mounting alone puts it an different design class from 90% of the competition!
I'm pretty sure in 98 Scott were still on the Vertigo/Octane phase. Early versions of these were around too.(Called a CFX? with a metal X shaped thing in the head tube) The G-Zero's were an "upgrade" from the octane frame which kept snapping and came later. 2000+ maybe.