Why did you work to become a veteran?

[Montessoir]

The biggest problem of this game, as I see it, is player apotheosis. I make the distinction from retention because it's not just about people coming back to the game. What we need are new veterans, people who grind to 45, involve themselves in clans, forums, and events. So I want to get a discussion started about what motivated you to stick with the game.

When I first played the game four years ago, I was enamoured but overwhelmed. As a novice I didn't find veteran mentors, but instead antagonists. Suffering brutal defeats with impatient and rude players. At the time I only played for a few hours but it was a bad enough experience for me to put down the game for a year, before picking it up again on a whim. I was lucky enough at that point to be able to play in novice only games, learn at my own pace, and to make friends. Once I got past the initial learning curve, I knew this game would be one of my favorites. So I started a clan to try and keep players like myself from quitting when the going gets rough. Growing and maintaining  the clan gave me a reason to keep coming back, and I've been a regular for two years now.

So that's what kept me here, what about you?

[Schwalbe]

Full price I payed and respect for money I spend.

[Solidusbucket]

TLDR at bottom.

I was very into DCS World when I saw this game for sale on steam for 6 dollars or whatever it was. I watched some videos and decided to purchase.

At the time, I had recently started to thoroughly enjoy both air to air and air to ground PVP in DCS World. However, the flight times to combat were long (5 - 10 minutes), it had processor related lag that would often times kill me, and the teamwork aspect was a hit or miss (the server [yes, only one pvp server with a max pop of 60] had TeamSpeak  but it was not always populated). Furthermore, it was unbalanced from the competitive perspective.

In fact, if you search this on YouTube: solidusbucket dcs world ( https://youtu.be/x0BKKLTjpGM )
Someone was recording a flight we had together in a pvp server - we were doing air to air combat.

My favorite aircraft was the Su-27. I liked this one because it had some features other planes didn't: it could do air to ground and air to air, the flight mechanics were realistic, and it had a basic flight model. By basic flight model I mean things like starting the airplane was a single button press opposed to other more detailed aircraft that required about 10 steps just to turn the plane on. In essence - it was a nice mix of arcade and realism that I enjoy.

One thing I started to enjoy specifically (besides coordinated air to air) was coordinated air to ground. I enjoyed flying the night missions and illuminating the target area for bombers then floating around protecting them from air threats. Teamwork became something I liked more and more.

Eventually I tried a competitive match with DCS World. The communication was okay. The problem was I was at a disadvantage - first, it was an organized clan on one team versus a mixture of pub players and some clans on the other. Second, my favorite airplane was not suited for air to air or air to ground in a competitive environment. DCS World cares nothing about balance. It is a sandbox game. My only possible way to fight in air to air was among mountains. The enemy knows this and draws the fight into the open where they have radar advantage. Air to ground is impossible in a SU-27 in the competitive matches because the ground assets will shred anything that tries to deliver unguided munitions. Furthermore, it’s just a waste of a plane to take an air to ground loadout on a SU-27. I'm better off ambushing enemy air assets.

Then came Guns of Icarus. A game that has decent flight mechanics, arcade style shooty uppy, no latency issues (for me), and teamwork like I have literally never played before. The closest game to Guns of Icarus' teamwork that I have played would be Natural Selection.

I loved it. I got fucked up all the time. I tried every stupid combination of guns possible. I read the wiki first and I understood how to kill something and what each gun's purpose was, but that is about as much knowledge as I retained (I still don't know the armor values, how much damage each gun does or any of that stat stuff). Eventually I got to the point where I wanted to try competitive.

So, I started paying attention to clans that had members who would listen to my crazy ideas of how to engineer on a boat. I noticed many names from SkBo. I asked if I could join and I was in. I asked if I could play in SCS - something I found out about by visiting the forums and going to community events. I think that's how I found out about SkBo - the sign up roster - not sure though. I kept being told "no". I asked about this at some point last year and was told it was because SkBo wasn't signing up during that time when I was asking about it.

Eventually SkBo signed up and I joined in as an engineer. This was also around the time I started going into SkBo VOIP and learning who the regulars were. It was awesome. More eventuallys later I got to captain in an SCS. A lot more eventuallys later we started winning. Many more eventuallys later I'm still here.

TLDR -
I came from an unforgiving flight simulator that didn't give a fuck about balance. The learning curve was stupidly high and I loved it. It had a real lack of teamwork (or any decently sized multiplayer) - but when the teamwork existed it was an amazing experience. I tried competitive but it wasn't for me. I still play that unforgiving flight simulator: DCS World. Just not nearly as much.

Guns of Icarus was my replacement. It was more consistent with the gameplay elements I liked in DCS World.

[Richard LeMoon]

Work? Not so much. Just liked the game and kept playing. I actually tried to keep my levels low by avoiding doing any chieves, which called for only flying one type of ship for 3 months (Galleon). I liked facing 'vets' as a level 4 (out of 15 at the time) Galleon pilot and wrecking them and their silly little metamidians. I enjoyed taking strange builds that took pinpoint piloting and somehow making them work. Never once took what was considered a 'meta' build at the time.

I have put a crazy amount of time and work into making the game better though, through testing, feedback, developing the community VIP (which inspired VIP Deathmatch), other random projects, and now helping make assets and run testing.

[Red-Xiii]

This is a worthy topic.  I was enamored with the game early when I realized it couldn't be solo'ed.  But also having the feeling of actually flying can't be replicated in another game.  I also found out early when the desire, focus, and effort is there you and your 4 man ship could carry a match even in the worst of circumstances.  Even a "solo" ship is not really solo when you are battling with 3 other people for the same goal.  When the underdog wins, it's always a nice feeling.  Or unexpected kills even in a loss. 

But the biggest determining factor was I saw a need to circumvent the toxicity I saw in high level captains.  They were not making the game fun.  They were ordering the crew like military.  We may have won.  But I did not enjoy myself in victory.  You can have fun in defeat and winning depending on your attitude.  I tend to have horrible flying days, and then some really good days (matches how erratic a person I am), but at the same time my crew is always respected and fun is had. 

I was contemplating hanging up my captains hat to move on to other games here recently.  But this topic definitely has me reconsidering.  Well done. 

[Huskarr]

It kinda just happened. I enjoyed myself as engineer and just played the game. I started to look at guides to git gud and it worked. So I just kept playing until I turned into a veteran. Nowadays it's mainly the friends I made in the game that keep me playing or wanting to play with them.

[Kestril]

It was the teaching, and the leading.

In the days way way waaay, long ago I was a we deckhand learning the gatling-flak junker (It was meta at the time). I figured out the movements to juke a charging pyramidion, the way you could spin to maintain broadside while keeping track of the fight around you. I took the nimble junker out and crushed the metamidion meta in eye-to-eye, full-broadside brawls.

Then I played the next day with a crew I didn't know. They were not as responsive, a gaggle of 1's and 2's, they never really knew quite what to prioritize in the thick of things.  We were crushed 0-5. Something must have been wrong. Just the other day I had defeated these pubbies with the same exact loadout!  So I decided to take the next step.   The next match, for only about the second time, I decided to use my mic.

"Welcome aboard the Silversail!" I boasted in a cheerful manner, certain of my strategy, "Here's what we're gonna do. . . ."

The next match, against the same captians, with the same loadout, on the same map, we destroyed them. That match, my junker was a whirling dervish of death, slicing open armor with twin gatlings and shelling the broken adversaries with round upon round of flak.

"We are monsters!" The gunner cheered after the flak struck home for the fourth consecutive kill. I gave a quick "Yeah! Now right side guns!" of acknowlagement before throttling the engines up do dodge another incoming pyra.

To the thunderous report of the guns, the Silversail claimed all five kills and zero deaths. 

Over time I learned just how much this game rewards leadership and teaching. I can recall many victories and comebacks where my crew and I prevailed against more skilled captains and crews due to high morale and a very clear, concise explanation of a plan. This was the first game I played where the salty players didn't win--couldn't win against a positive outlook of a well-coordinated crew. I noticed my crews would stay around in lobbies longer with me, and some other crewmembers would swap off their salty, high-level, captains for a chance to crew aboard the Silversail. Guns was the first game that really matched my tactical expertise, teamwork-focused mind, and positive attitude.

That's something you don't get anywhere else.

Now I'm the high-level captian, and I'm trying to set the example for others 

[Hoja Lateralus]

I'm so rotten I can't remember honestly. I remember that I played during holidays and could spend like 6-8 hours daily, but why? Too many things happened in between for me to remember.