Shotguns actually have an effective range of about 100 feet, pretty much as far as a musket. Video games and films show them to be useless at 6 metres. edit: wow just noticed candles' post, but I originally got my facts from TvTropes anyway, so you know it's genuine. Fixed.
Nobody's going to create a realistic shotgun though because those would utterly break 90% of games in half. Unlike real life, where combat occurs at ranges up to a kilometre, in video games combat rarely exceeds 100m
To be honest, I feel as if the smg2 fills the role of the shotgun in all but name. It cuts through infantry in close range, and is pretty useless over longer distances without accuracy upgrade. As long as the pistol continues to be the weapon it is, I feel as though a shotgun would be a great weapon choice for the scout to have.
Just a heads up to everyone in more recent news. We've actually had ALOT of interest from programmers far and wide regarding our need for programmers at this place and time. The programmers include but are not limited to: A Cactus KILLX Mootant My Dog 'Sophie' And lastly a dude who thinks he's a German Kaiser (No..... Seriously, I'm not joking). Mootant and Sophie have proven outstanding programmers but I think the cactus might beat them both out for a spot on our team as the Cactus's portfolio is great and extremely diverse, he's worked on AAA Titles like Shaq-Fu (SNES), Superman (N64), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600), War Z (PC), Diablo 3 (PC), and was the lead programmer to the Eternal Silence Mod (PC).
Angry convinced me to return to my previous position at Empires! I've already got jets and helicopters working, so expect huge updates soon!
I've always found it interesting that TF2 calls their scout a "scoot" but we use "scunt." And more importantly, I find it intriguing that both classes can be so different, yet so hated. At this point, I'm not sure if I would even want aircraft. The longing for this idealized concept of aircraft is almost better than actually getting to use some potentially mediocre implementation of aircraft.