I guess I'll join in the history.
First online game I ever played was Medal of Honor Spearhead. Was recruited in my first and only clan I joined (=WFC=) August, 2003. I was an average player in the clan, but that changed once our higher ups decided to implement a mod that forced you to play the game with only the files included on initial install (Ie: no custom sounds/skins/etcetera) Suddenly, more than half of the division was gone and I was one of the best shooters in the clan.
Progressed up the ranks, and eventually hit Colonel in the clan. Spent my time recruiting and getting quality players to join my regiment. My regiment was the most active and respected one in the clan. Met some guys that became real-life friends that stand behind my decisions no matter what.
Then I caught wiff of this new game called BF2. I've played '42 and Vietnam and enjoyed the concept of the game (infantry and vehicles together). Played the 2 week demo before the game was released, and left the Spearhead division for a Colonel rank in the BF2 division. Got the game the day it was released and had fun playing with the blackhawks winning every game we joined. Many of the guys that were my closest friends in the Spearhead division came with me to join up the BF2 division. We had close to 100 members within the first month, and soon had the privilege of gaining a 64 ranked server from the Clan HQ.
Well, me being a dedicated clan-member sat in that server for hours waiting for the 10 people needed to start. I learned early on that this game is so much more fun when you don't care about your pretty stats (probably why I'm still a Lieutenant after 3 years of playing), I'd be there playing around while 7 of my clanmates would be off trying to get that next unlock. But my time was well spent. I don't know anyone who's found as many glitches/eastereggs/just plain funny stuff as I did on my own. I sometimes break out these sorta tricks of the trade and get so many WTF?!?! and How the hell did you do that sort of replies from the enemy's team.
When the game was actually going, I decided to at least work towards a badge when the team wasn't depending on me for a win. I chose engineer because I assumed that was the least played kit by most (seeing you needed 250 hours to get silver) Being an engineer, it was second nature to be in a tank, so that's what I did for the first few months straight.
Because of this 'lack of dedication' our clan lost the ranked server because it rarely ran. To solve this, one of our shady members decided to fund his own server for us to use. Eventually he used that server as leverage, and pulled it whenever something happened he didn't like. Because of this and other tension in the division, our numbers started dropping. Our division leader was promoted to clan HQ, and our next few leaders weren't the greatest. Eventually, I was promoted to the spot (even though I really didn't want it) and started getting our division rolling again. By this time, BF2's been out for a year and a half, and COD 2 (or one of the expansions) was being released, so our numbers never grew again. Now we have a solid core of 4 or 5 guys that come on every day to play, with stragglers coming on every so often.
Then the dreaded patch that lowered the requirements for everything. I was promoted 3 times in 1 round, and found out that I suddenly had 70 hours over the required rank for gold engineer. So I pounded that out quick and was one of the first few to earn that badge. At that point, I discovered how amazing the AT kit was. I became very good at using the AT missile and my closest friend did also. We became notorious for being able to destroy a chopper before it knew it was being targeted. We were kicked/banned from servers many times because they claim that we had some sort of no-reload AT rocket. (
Click here for another story)This started us into the extreme teamwork that we now present in every server we join. Our entire clan was banned from servers because we were simply dominating everyone in the server to the point where they weren't having any fun. The whole time, I was very strict upon my members to not use cheap tactics like bunnyhopping/spawncamping. Alongside that, we made a division rule to not be in armor because we worked so well together. We did this to give the other team a fighting chance against us, no matter how futile it would be. (Kinda hard to take out a squad of 3 expert AT 2-3 medics and a support) I tried IO for a round or two, but found that that game-mode was really lame. The game, no the franchise was designed for infantry and vehicle interaction, and playing IO made the game really bland. After my few rounds of IO, I swore to never see that again.
Then I got my new computer. Went from 15 FPS on all low settings to 300+ everything turned up. Suddenly I could hit everything. I actually became awesome at TV's in the chopper. On the occasions that our 16 man server has a chopper, I can dominate the entire server. I am now working with one of my core players to rise in the TWL 2 v 2 chopper ladder. We have our own server that runs Non-IO with every vanilla map in the rotation. That's my sanctuary and since there is very few other maps with that, I never leave our clan's server. Course, we still enforce our no-armor for clan members in the server, but we encourage pubs to jump in them. (It's our little keep it fair so they don't leave the server cuz we destroy them rule, not to mention we get to use our AT kits again
)
And that's it. I'll soon have my AT rocket as the weapon with most kills and will celebrate that day. Props to anyone who actually read my entire book.