2013 was my favourite year of World of Tanks. There was just something so utterly blissful about it back then that makes me feel a really melancholic and strong sense of nostalgia. I miss the way the game looked, the gun sounds, the old tank models, the stupid low tier platoons with friends… there was something so incredibly magical about playing back then…

Don’t get me wrong, the game had it’s issues 10 years ago, notably the KV-1S and artillery, but back then I was 14 years old and didn’t care. I had around 400 wn8 with 47% wins and I couldn’t have cared less about XVM stats, my service record or playing to improve. I just wanted to shoot tanks and have fun.

Nowadays I feel like I can’t do that anymore. Since one particular day in 2014 where I had the audacity to call some guy in his M37 arty a “bad player” for drowning himself, this sweaty player in an AT2 with 3k wn8 messaged me after the game and wrote a University essay in the garage. About how I was quote on quote “the biggest noob going, 400 wn8 utter noob with terrible stats” and then went on to explain how he was basically a god at the game compared to me and all this other stuff.

14 year old me took that to heart for some reason, and took it upon himself to get better and prove the guy wrong. It didn’t do me much good because every time I made a mistake those words would swim around in my head and I’d start beating myself about it.

I quit the game in 2015 after realising I wasn’t getting any better and started playing TF2 instead. Since then, I have started up again and quit in disgust due to not performing at the levels I wanted to about 6 times. I’m back again for the 7th time and it’s really starting to make me feel kind of sad.

I used to love playing 10 years ago. Hell, I played so much one week in the summer I got motion sickness and I could literally hear the sounds of the tanks as I lay in bed. And even then I refused to stop playing.

Now, I log into the game and sit in the garage just staring at my tanks because I’m so fucking OCD about having below 2.5k wn8 sessions. I have countless tanks in my garage, including multiple tier 8 premiums that I’ve never played because I’m convinced I’ll do badly in them. 14 year old me probably would have jumped at the thought of having a new tank, and would probably have stayed up for 2 days straight trying them all out.

I miss not caring about stats and just playing for fun no matter how badly I played. It always feels like I have to prove something to everyone, like I always have to show the rest of the players that I’m not a “trash greener.” It’s really killed my enjoyment of the game as every time I do manage to play, I’m playing for purple xvm numbers and not for fun anymore.

Anyone else have the same horrible situation? Do you miss 2013 WoT too?