How SF came about, and a partial story of my WoT experiences

mongoosejake, on Sep 17 2014 - 09:16, said: -Before you have a read, be warned, it's long. As in, really long-   In November 2012 I found WoT by watching an FPS Russia video with my wife, where he was driving a M5 Stuart tank around and said it was one of his favorite tanks in a game called "World of Tanks". He had a link to the game's website in the videos' discription, which of course I just had to click. My wife and I watched a few gameplay videos and got hooked. We hadn't ever played an online game before, at least not in any depth.   For the next couple of months (November and December 2012) I hadn't learned hardly anything aside from the fact that I loved playing my low tier arty... A lot. Okay, far more than I should've. I played the T57 and SU-26 back and forth, and then mixed in the T18, PzII, and other vehicles that seemed easier for me to play. I didn't know anything about crew training. I remember clearly thinking: why in the heck would I pay for a crew when I can get one for free? LOL! I wondered about what this equipment stuff was, and also wondered how people could shoot me when I never saw them, and was amazed at people getting 6/7/8/9 and even 10 kills in MS-1's and Ltraktors. I was truly oblivious to many things, and would be for quite some time. I stayed at tier 2 for a long time, while my wife was working her way up the tech tree, and had a big lead on me in a number of country's lines.   Then the T1E6 showed up in my garage on January 1st (and I had a few days off of work to boot!), and I literally played it non-stop for about 3 days, racking up over 200-250 battles in the first week of having it. It's still sitting as one of my most played tanks. My wife promptly sold hers after trying it for a few battles, lol.   As the effect of "the awesomely fun new free tank" wore off, I started playing other tanks and began moving up the tech trees. I remember the first time one of my tier 3's (an M2 medium I think) ran face-to-face with a Hetzer, and was promptly was blown away. I was shocked and thought "I gotta have one!". I made my way to it, and found out the meaning of a stock grind. I called my new stock Hetzer my turtle... It was so slow, and I found myself facing new tanks that I had no clue on how to fight, or why my stock gun kept bouncing off of the front of these massive heavies when I so clearly remember being blasted away by the fearsome Hetzer I had faced. My wife had gotten her Hetzer fully upgraded and was doing the blasting herself, so I pushed on. I finally figured out that the WoT world was very different from tier to tier.   I shelved the Hetzer for awhile, working on other things. I got mediums, heavies, and TD's. I kept working up the arty lines, and stuck with light tanks as well. By the time I got my Pz38NA, I all of a sudden found myself facing monster tier 8's, and wondering how in the world do I fight these things? I knew nothing of actual scouting for the longest time, but used its speed to charge forward and spot the enemies for a few brief moments before being blasted straight back to the garage.    Fast forward about a year: By the fall of 2013, I had learned alot. I was actually becoming a good player, but still had more to learn. I had found the forum, and finally installed XVM. My wife and I were watching Jingles videos, reading guides on tanks, maps, game mechanics, etc. We were becoming useful to my teams, and actually started getting platoon invites from total strangers (declined), and were even invited to a "clan" a couple of times (we at the time thought that clans were controlling and made you play at certain times, mostly from chat about clan wars-which we knew nothing about still) to which we politely declined.   Over time, I learned more techniques and put them into action. I used bushes 15m in front of me to conceal me while firing, learned to go hull-down in tanks or TD's with good turret or superstructure armor, learned to sidescrape in cities and other places with hard cover, learned to not keep popping up in the same spot over and over, learned when to peek-a-boom and when to push a corner with help, learned to focus fire on enemies, and also when to turn my attention elsewhere when needed. I was moving from being orange, to yellow, then towards becoming green. My wife was playing all this time, and was experiencing the same progression. We were both hooked on this game, and becoming better at it.   My wife and I at the time still only had 1 WoT capable PC. We alternated playing, her mostly in the daytime while I was at work, then me later at night before our personal time together, or early on weekend mornings (I'm an earlier riser). We started to think about joining one of these "clans" to have other people to play with (especially after learning what clans were actually like, and that they weren't as controlling as we once thought), so we weren't fighting solo always. She really wanted another female or two to platoon with, and I just wanted someone to have my back. We planned to by another PC, but that costs upwards of a grand for a decent one (which we planned to buy, but weren't in a rush to do so), and joining a clan was free lol.   We joined one clan, where things worked out well for awhile until a certain male member took a liking to my wife and kept harassing her, even as far as going outside of the game to do so. He was a tech guy, ran the clans website (for which you had to provide an email address in order to sign up for) and used her email to contact her and tried to get her into an online affair (turns out he's done this a number of times before, and even was the cause of a former clan of his disbanding due to him stalking the other clan commander's wife). We left that clan once I found out he was doing this, as the commander of the clan is a buddy of his and wasn't going to side with us, but rather as the guilty party as the recruiter in order to assist him in his endeavors (he can easily recruit couples when he feels like it under the guise of a mature and friendly clan).  This was our first experience with a clan... Not good so far, but we seen the possibility for the good side of what a clan could be.   We joined another clan which turned out to be a fairly good one (The HorseMen aka THM). However, I seen the need to give running my own clan a try. THM had shown me a good clan, what they did, and how a clan can be well organized. I also wanted to have myself and my wife be in control of what went on around us.   So, I bought a second computer, and setup SF with my wife who could now be my partner in destruction, lol. We got our best buddy (ZenofWar) from the former clan where things had went wrong and made him our first company commander. We added a few guys slowly, based on the simple "be a decent person" requirement, and even have a few gals as well. The fact is, this stage of my WoT career has been the most enjoyable. Now we have a small group of good people and are platooning each night, improving, winning more, and most importantly having fun.   SF has been worth the effort and small expenses (clan fee, and I give out gifts to the members randomly, and on important days like anniversaries/bdays/etc), simply to make WoT a better experience for me personally. The fact that I can also help others enjoy the game more is a nice bonus.    The one issue I've ran into is that it is slow going to try and build up members for a new clan. Even harder when you put the stipulations of being nice, mature, not vulgar, not rude as requirements for getting in. Looking for decent people (both guys and gals) can be akin to the whole "needle in a haystack" example.    The game and forum provide a few ways to recruit, but without spamming topics in the clan section you don't get noticed without being a big clan. In-game, people get tired of seeing the copy/paste clan recruitment messages in the chat, so I'm doing that, lol. I came to the thought of simply telling a summarized version of my story, not only to bring a bit of light to SF, but just for the heck of it as well.    For those with much time spent in World of Tanks, just try thinking back to how you were when you first started, and how you played. I thought it'd be hilarious to be able to have some of my first replays to watch (didn't even know there was such a thing when I first joined, lol).    For those just starting out, it can be a journey. An event filled journey with frustrating moments, but those tend to be far outweighed by all of the fun times and rewarding victories. Having fun is the key, and winning while not losing sight that this is a game, all while trying to improve has been my goal throughout. So far, I've had a blast.