Another first time for yours truly tonight:
By some roll of the dice, I ended up in a large lobby of people who seem to be pretty central to the community. Good people, lots of jokes, lots of conversations about the numerous applications of the word "suck."
Sadly, for the latter part of this experience, I was inebriated. Shall we say, crossfaded as all hell?
I ended up being so bad at the game that my captain stripped me of my hades and my buff kit, because I failed at keeping things buffed and hit maybe 25% of my shots. Way to make a good first impression! No amount of "I'm not normally this bad" will excuse that performance, I'll tell you h'what. Even if practice turns me pro, I'mma think the scrub label will stick with me for a while.
However, the positives are numerous. I was exposed to a completely different way of playing the game in terms of communication, fun, camaraderie and community. It is certainly a whole lot different than maybe having one or two friends partied up and crawling from pub match to pub match. Needless to say, it was the most fun I've had in some time. I can only hope my shoddy display goes forgiven, and I can weasel my way back into something like that.