I played TFC for probably less than a year all told but it still hasn't been surpased by any online or single player game.
I started back in 99. Loadsa people i knew from HLDM had started playing it and loved it. I gave it a try, didn't really like it at first but gradually got into it over the course of a couple of months until a found myself logging in at 6 on the dot and not logging out again till gone midnight.
My first clan was a wireplay only clan by the name of horny beasts [HB]. Nothing special, and didn't enjoy my time there that much, (but at the time i really enjoyed it cos i didn;t know it could be so much better).
Joined the newly reformed [DW] over the christmas period of 1999 and never looked back. I don't know about the rest but i never really expected that much from DW. I only knew one player in person, and the rest by reputation. But when we started playing clan games in january 2000 we ht the ground running, beating the previous season's UKTFCL champions iD. Within a couple of months we'd beaten all the competion in UKTFCL including most peopls favorite, and a rather arrogant ~A~, and had become the team of the moment. I'd also got to known my clan mates and got on with them famously. It was my perfect clan. All the players loved the game and took playing it seriously, for a period of several months we had more than enougth players willing and able to play a game every night. They also didn't take winning too seriously. We never cherry picked clans we wanted to play, we would just play whoever was able to field a team against us. Some of us (ahem me) did get a bit arrogant (and trust me we where a damn site more arrogant in private than public) but damnit we where the best
.
After valve butched my scout class in the infamous update of 2000 i wasn't willing to re learn my class or a new class, especially considering at the time i was playing CS alot and had high hopes for it. Then of course CS went down the shitter and i regretted not staying with TFC and DW. I tried to come back a couple of times but it just annoyed me cos it was never quite the same so never stuck at it. It's been a good 4 years since i've played TFC seriously and 3 years since i've played it at all. I'm really looking forward to fortres forever, being a new engine and the time gap being so long i should be able to avoid making unfavourable comparisons with my time playing TFC with [DW].
I'm really looking forward to FF as there are no online team games around at the moment with any sort of speed or arcade feel. There all realism realism realism, Which can be good, but variety is the spice of life.
O and hello Defrag, hows tricks? And i hope you've inproved your map making skills from old if your the chief mapper. :P