[PTS] Pirates History

[Folterknecht 2,257]

 

 

by KK3K [EU] part I+II

 

Part I

 

Back in june-july of 2010 I started playing a weird new game called world of tanks. The game itself was in early beta, and not many people were actively playing, but more and more were joining this brave new world each day. Back then, a high tier match meant there was a KV in the team. I remember thinking how the hell am I supposed to fight that beast?. Everyone was new to the game and the matchmaking; it was a time of learning, not only for the players, but for WG.

By the time I was getting my IS-3 onto some battles, ( I didn't even had the BL-9 on it yet, mind you ) some people were already fielding tier 9-10 tanks, though they were very rare. Seeing a Maus was a genuine WTF moment. The biggest arty was the S-51, and it could one-shot pretty much everything. As I was about to learn on this battle in malinovka.

This battle, I remember, not because it was a good game or because anything funny happened. No, I remember this battle because that day, the S-51 arty in the enemy team that one-shotted my IS-3 was driven by deathnoise, and he was playing with halfik. I remembered them from a few games, were I saw them playing together most of the time, and doing good. I sent deathnoise a short "good shot man" over the battle chat, and he thanked me. I get out of the battle and contact them over chat, asking if they would like to play together, after some introductions, TS/Mumble data exchange, and a little kurwa, we joined forces against the randoms.

Every day, we played, and after some time halfik created a channel in-game so it would be easier to talk between us, and some other few guys that we had find in the random jungle that were the battles back then. He named it PTS, why? I never really asked, was it a clan? No, not at all, the idea of a clan was not even a thought we had. That channel was a meeting point, a room where we would all find each other to try and play together. As the days passed, we were inviting more people onto the channel, most of them polish, some Germans, a couple of Indonesians, and a friend of mine (MadCow) and me from Argentina. But the common denominator between all of us, was that we were good, and only good players could join us. Looking back, maybe we were a little better than the average, but we learned from each other each day. You have to remember, back then there were no platoons. To play with a friend you needed to do a countdown and hit battle in the hopes that you would get not only the same battle, but the same team. So we were not only playing with each other but also against each other most of the time. And it was good.

As days passed, and thoughts about taking this group of players to the status of clan were starting to cross our minds, WG announced the first tournament in WOT. The Closed Beta Test tournament (CBT). Yes, the beta was not even open yet. It was decided, after some discussions that we would do it, we would become a clan and try to win that tournament. The prizes sounded great and playing all together as a team sounded even better. That first tournament (tier 8 max/ 90 points) had a particularly unnecessary rule; each team had to be either all German tanks or all Russian tanks. No mixed lineups and you had to give the lineup to the devs beforehand. We decided German tanks, which in general were good, and because we didn’t have that many Russian tanks. The big difference was, that the only nation with a tier 6 arty was the Russians with the S-51. Using German tanks meant we had to manage with Hummel’s. Back then, and although the Hummel was much better than it is now, the difference was big. But that didn't stop us from choosing what we believed at the time, were better heavy tanks.

So we entered the tournament, with halfik leading the team to the sound of kurwa. The map chosen was Lakeville, a very different Lakeville from the one we play today. Back then, tanks could not be pushed or moved, not even destroyed tanks, which meant a light tank could block the middle pass of the map. And that was what happened most of the time. We trained almost every day, and the tactics we used would now seem crazy, but you have to remember that WOT has changed a lot since then. When we couldn’t train against each other, we would try and find another clan to train. This was the case most of the time as we were not that many in the clan.

The tournament started, and we were all thinking that we weren’t ready, that we needed to train more. First match, first time we all played together as a team, first time we faced a team. The adrenaline was pumping and the frequency of kurwa was increasing, but the moment the match started we were mostly silent, the nerves were not there anymore, the training paid off, and we all did what we were supposed to do. We won without any problems. That first match gave us a lot of confidence, we felt the group knew each other well; we were playing as a team.

And as a team we won the next match. Using basically the same tactic, we won against every team we faced. And we made it to the semifinals, which meant that we already had won something, 2500 gold after release and a diploma (third place). Lack of confidence was the least of our problems. We felt great.

In the semifinals, we faced the first good Russian lineup, the enemy? RED TIDE. Their S-51s and battery of BL-9s coupled with good gameplay did short work of our King Tigers, our Hummel’s did damage, but in the end, it was not enough. We were beat; we lost against a better team, but we would have our revenge… soon.

Here's a video of the match against RT

 

 

This first tournament was the foundation of PTS. In my mind, at least, we never lost that tournament. We won; we won because we learned the basic rules that would make pirates become in the future, in my opinion, the undisputed best European clan in WOT.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

Part II by KK3K

 

 

Pirates grew after that first tournament; as we focused on getting more players to join the clan. We were the first clan to ask for minimum stat requirements from players, and it helped us a lot in recruiting good players. The clan was growing, growing in numbers and experience. Though there was nothing but random battles and trainings back then. No companies and no CW meant we could focus on trainings and recruiting. We did just that for the time being, not knowing if there would be a competition in the near future.

As things were starting to become a bit boring, the Beta became open, and we got the US tank tree (OP T-32 of awesomeness, remember that?). Shortly after that, WG announced a new competition: The Battle League. 3 divisions: absolute (10/140), champion (8/90) and junior (6/60). This time the prizes were much higher – something like 20k gold for each player in 1st place - and WG had learned from the mistakes of the previous tournament. Teams were allowed to use tanks from different nations and the Russian S-51 wasn't the only tier 6 arty anymore. This gave teams many different choices to play with and to try out new tactics. We were not going to settle for 3rd place this time; we went full in, knowing we could win.

In a short time we divided into 2 teams. A mix of players from the first tournament with some new additions formed the English speaking "Henry Morgan"(HM) team. A polish speaking team was formed in the same way, with the name: "Francis Drake"(FD). No team had the label of being better than the other; it was just easier this way, as everyone understood each other better. The fact that we had 2 teams was a huge advantage for us, since it meant we could train against each other almost every day. Although at first it seemed like we couldn’t get the teams together to train, most people were missing trainings and the signup date was getting closer.

This was one of the many times, PTS came close to ending. It happened again at the start of each big competition, and in hindsight, it made us take matches and trainings much more seriously. Somehow we managed to save the ships though, and started focusing on the game. We signed up for 2 of the 3 divisions of the league: Champion (8/90) and Junior (6/60). With each team playing both divisions, which meant we had to think tactics for both tank sets. The battle league consisted of 2 stages: a group stage and knock-outs. The map changed every time we played a different team, making trainings paramount as we had to figure out tactics for a new map from week to week. Again, having 2 teams was great for this.

The league started and the group stage was first, the top 2 from each group would go forward to the knock-outs and if memory serves the best 3rd still had chances. Each team had to coordinate with the opponent the day and time of the match (within the time constraints set by WG), when agreed, a training room would be set up and the match was played. After the match, screenshots with the results were posted on the forum, and the defeated team’s captain had to confirm so that WG could update the results on the tournament page. Looking back, we’ve come a long way since then.

Again, as in the previous tournament, the peak of stress came just before the start, but in the same way as before, it dissipated when we started playing together. The group stage was calm, and both teams made it through, even though HM was defeated in Murovanka by a 1PAD team (we got 2nd place in the group). The quality of gameplay was great and each match, we faced better teams, making each round that much important and unforgettable. The maps kept changing and we kept winning, Lakeville, Mines (which was called Pagorky or Pagurky I can’t remember, back then), Prokhorovka and Karelia, we won every time. Both teams were advancing in both divisions, and PTS was starting to show what it could do (kick ass). Luck, would give us a great chance, by putting our teams in different brackets of the tournaments, which meant we wouldn’t face our own team until the final for each division.

The Semi-Finals arrived, and with them, the chance for payback in all fronts. HM faced Red-Tide in Erlenberg on the 8/90 division and 1PAD (the winner of the 1st tournament) in Abbey on the 6/60 division. FD faced Red-Tide and 1SBP accordingly. The stage was set for us, a better combination couldn’t be asked, we could win against the best clans in WOT at the moment, get payback for Red-Tide beating us in the previous tournament (this time we would have the chance to eliminate them twice, one for each division) and take not only 1st place but 2nd place also. So we trained, a LOT. When the day came, we were ready as we would ever be.

Henry Morgan beat the 1PAD vk360-konisch setup with incredibly precise artillery fire, as our M6s and KV-3s would get ripped apart from the rapid firing VKs. The match was one of the closest matches we would ever have, as the first round was a draw, the winner of the 2nd would be the finalist. The round started and after some skirmishes, we were down to 2 heavy’s and our arty, 1PAD was closing in with their last 2 VKs on one of our heavy’s, but then a stroke of genius by Baine in the S-51: 2VKs 1 SHELL. An impossible shot over the mountain side of abbey, which hit the VKs as they went out of cover for 1 second, sealing the result of the round in our favor. And as FD had won their match, that meant that in the 6/60 division pirates were 1st and 2nd already.

In the 8/90 division, HM won against RT in the 3rd round, after both teams had won one respectively. A close game, a nerve destroying, kurwa promoting, sweat inducing awesome game, against a great opponent. And there’s video:

 

Round 1:

 

Round 2:

 

Round3:

(special note for the 3rd round: Listen at 4:30 to MadCow yell: GUYS, GUYS CHILL OUT! And then the SHUT THE FUCK UP that followed, ahh good times)

FD won their game as well, and pirates became the only clan that got its 2 teams to the top of both tournaments. Eliminating Europe’s best, and showing that we were serious and ready for more. And as the coming months would show, that “more” would become URAL STEEL and MOSCOW… but that’s for the third part.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

Laughter [EU] part I

 

 

I joined Pirates back in November 2010 after leaving my previous clan Britannia, I didn’t know much about it apart from what my clan leader had told me – ‘most promising clan in Europe’; so I thought what the hell I might aswell try.

Back then to join the clan you had to fight a few battles with a couple of its members - I was assigned Halfik and Psycroptic one being the clan leader and the other being a well-known member (I never had it the easy way). The tank I chose to trial with was the newly released T32; with its imba bugged frontal armour (30% more armour than the listed stat), I was new to heavy tanks having played over 1000 battles in my ISU-152 so I wasn’t expecting to do well but after getting Ensk 6 times in a row and achieving top gun 5 times (back when it was 7 kills) they excitedly let me in.

The clan at the time consisted of 70% Polish guys with little to poor English skills and 30% other nations; obviously this caused a split in the clan with the Poles in one channel and the other guys in another channel – but don’t be mistaken nobody cared as long as we won tournaments.

Our ‘dedication’ to tournaments was a common trait amongst all the top clans back then (1SBP, 1PAD, Red Tide) simply because there was nothing else to do: No clan wars, no company battles, no game modes, no events – nothing, not to mention the game was even further away from being polished than it is now. The upcoming tournament of the time was Battle League (December – January 2010) – 3 divisions: Absolute (tier 10), champion (tier and junior (tier 6), we entered a total of four teams; 2 for champion and 2 for junior and their now infamous names: Francis Drake and Henry Morgan, the players were the same for both divisions – the Poles in Francis Drake and the rest and some Poles in Henry Morgan. Henry Morgan won the champions division with Francis Drake taking second but in the champions division Francis Drake won and Henry Morgan came second – the best result we could hope for. This was one of the more exciting videos from the Junior division:

 

 

 

 

However the dust never really settled – to this day World of Tanks Europe is still affected by that tournament not necessarily because of the actual battles but because of the forum drama that ensued – the first of its kind.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

Laugher [EU] Part II

 

As I mentioned in my previous article the Polish players in Pirates roughly equalled 70% of our total players and although not quite as extreme the number of Polish players on the server was far above that of any other nation; you only have to look at the dominant clans at the time: 1SBP and 1PAD both Polish speaking clans and of course Pirates under the guise of being an international clan but consisted of predominantly Polish players. Now you may be wondering why I am explaining the cultural make-up of the server – but this plays a key part in the rest of the article, as Halfik once told me “Polish people enjoy flaming each other.” And that’s exactly what they did. After the tournament had finished the infamously hostile Polish section of the boards spilled over or I should say tidal waved over onto the English section for the first time, here is one (albeit the main thread) of the many flame threads:

http://forum.worldofta...lute-division-discussion/

If you’re looking to brush up on your flaming skills I would reference this as recommended reading. I’m not entirely sure if the moderators cleaned that thread of the worst offences but it is what it is; basically a fight between Polish clans, Czech clans and Pirates, from what I can remember the issue was CS army had won a previous tournament(US open) which no good team had entered a team for so they came into Battle League expecting to do very well but instead they were removed from the tournament for what was essentially getting cocky and throwing his weight around flaming the developers for organisational errors. Other noteworthy drama in that thread include accusations of teamspeak hacking which at the time seemed obscured but in the upcoming tournaments we quickly realised clans were willing to stoop even lower; but that story will be explained in another of my articles, here is that teamspeak drama:

http://forum.worldofta...page__st__680#entry355204

The reason why I consider this flaming so important is this marked the beginning of all subsequent clan related forum rivalry, something I have pondered over since the first time I encountered it on the cess pit people clan the WoW / arena junkies forums, I have concluded that as long as people don’t go too far (racism, person insults etc) and there isn’t a constant stream of flame threads then intra clan rivalry’s only benefit the community as it gives people a sense of purpose, a feeling of belonging to your tribe – which is only natural considering its ingrained in our very genetic code, and you’ll be dammed if those boons from X clan will flame you and your buddies on the boards. In Pirates history nothing good as ever come out of these forum wars and that’s why you’ll rarely see an old Pirates member get involved let alone seriously involved in these thread, something I look at when my need to flame builds up:

[Folterknecht 2,257]

These articels were posted first in autum 2012 on odemmortis.net

 

Back then [PTS] was a member of the OM-Community, which isnt the case any longer. OM-C consisted of [PTS], [OM-V] and [OM-X]. The old [OM] was inactive at that time.

 

 

My own comments:

 

Back in the end of 2011 PTS was nearly dead. Together with [ODV] (R.I.P.) and the old [OM] they had controlled the entire middle east on the EU-CW map for ages (Sandblasted Allience I). A running gag back than was that WG should rename Maysan LZ to Tortuga. Beside some trips to Europe to club some Smurfs [CSA]+friends and plunder Hessen, which resulted in a few of the best troll threads in the official forum, nothing was really going on, especially after WG got their retarded idea with the no landing rule. So at some point at the end of 2011 activity was very low.

This lead to a merge with [OM] and the number of german tankers in [PTS] was at an all time high.

 

PTS Arti party - they were really fun - replay from early 2012

 

The merge brought in enough active players to get things going again. At some point in 2012 a subclan was founded, to get all the potential recruits in - [MUMMY]. In the long run that didnt work out though and [MUMMY] now [OMNI] went its own ways in 2013.

 

On the CW side 2012 was dominated mostly by 2 big blobs fighting it out on the european part of the map, more than 40 clans going at each other. As far as I remember [PTS] didnt take much interest in it only paying short visits - no gold to make there.

 

Before the 1st campaign mid 2013, [PTS] made one of their Europe Tours, starting in GB and resulting in one of the last great forum troll wars, which is best illustrated by the following video:

 

credits to "Panzerstranski" for his mad photoshop skillz and "sirzorn"

 

After trolling around in europe [PTS] left the OM-Community, which had developed into Sandblasted Alliance II and moved its main base of operation to Turkey/Thrace region.The reasons are best explained in the following video - also made by "Sirzorn". Pictures from an other Round Table troll festival:

 

 

 

In the the 1st campaingn we formed an alliance with [KAZNA], [EXNOM], [EFE] and [EFE-X]. To quote our recruitment thread: "This alliance has made a clean sweep of the victors' medals from all four campaign stages and the main clans (EFE-X, being a subclan, graciously stepped back for their own subclan to grab the M60, sacrificing a place in the top 5) scooped the top 4 places in overall ranking. Of course all five clans have also received the special tank for this campaign, the M60 Patton. PTS itself has taken second place in the campaign along with first place in the fourth and most hotly contested stage of the campaign."

 

Shortly after the 1st campaign WG-EU in all its limited wisdom, decided to shut down the "Round Table" only leaving us with the General Clan Discussion and threads like "CW Battle Mechanis for landings", "Are clan war tanks only tier 10?" or "Recruiting pm and no reply". Thx WG-EU - but if I want to read about the bowel movements of the avg EU-tomato, I can just open up the general ingame chat or the corresponding forum section.

 

 

At the moment (september 2013) we are fighting off [sBP] incl. subclans, [bABA] and [PMHC] and are doing well. They seem to be of the opinion, that we re making to much gold (subtle hint: there never is a "to much gold" if Pirates are involved).

[Folterknecht 2,257]

[PTS] tournaments achievments - we gave up counting the amount of cw gold long time ago I think.

 

1st WoT Championships (32 teams)

• Team "Pirates" - 3rd place

"Champions" Division Battle League (58 teams)

• Team "Francis Drake - 1st place
• Team "Henry Morgan" - 2nd place

"Junior" Division Battle League (32 teams)

• Team "Henry Morgan" - 1st place
• Team "Francis Drake - 2nd place

International WoT Championship EU

• 6/60 - Team "Blackbeard" - 3rd place (38 teams)
• 8/90 - Team "Henry Morgan" - 1st place (64 teams)
• 10/140 - Team "Francis Drake" - 3rd place

The Drill Training Camp (5/60) (211 teams)

• Team "Francis Drake" - 3rd place
• Team "Henry Morgan" - DQ in 1/4 against 1st PAD Poraszka argrinA (1:1 in 5 rounds)
• Team "Blackbeard" - knock out in 1/64

Ural Steel - Moscow Grand Finals (4 teams)

• 8/90 - Team "Henry Morgan" - 2nd place

The Drill: Field Workout (8/42) (7vs7) (512 teams)

• Team "Henry Morgan" I - 2nd place
• Team "Barbarossa" II - 3rd place
• Team "Francis Drake" II - knock out in 1/4
• Team "Barbarossa" I - knock out in 1/32
• Team "Henry Morgan" II - knock out in 1/64
• Team "Francis Drake" I - knock out in 1/128 against "Henry Morgan" II

[Folterknecht 2,257]

place holder

[Bridgeburner 336]

Thank you very much, looks like interesting reading. Been wanting to read about EU server for a long time

Have all my +1s

[ViktorKitov 1,444]

Still waiting for the "Moscow" part.

 

Yohoho

[akaFuel 1]

Fantastic read: thank you for sharing this compelling story, Folterknecht!

[psyopus 0]

Is KK3K, halfik, and other old pts folks here?

[Folterknecht 2,257]

Is KK3K, halfik, and other old pts folks here?

What do you mean with here? In that WoT-Labs forum??? Havnt seen an other Pirate here yet.

That aside:

Halfik is in a retirement home in Tortuga and KK3K visits from time to time our TS. There are still a few oldtimers in the clan though (Baine, Incu, Lucas, Fabse ... )

[psyopus 0]

Still waiting for the "Moscow" part.

 

Yohoho

 

Yeah, I was almost unable to come back home because the EO was so fucked up. I didn't bring enough money to buy my flight ticket back from Moscow. Lucky me the plane was delayed but still they asked me to pay $100. Kurwa mac

 

What do you mean with here? In that WoT-Labs forum??? Havnt seen an other Pirate here yet.

That aside:

Halfik is in a retirement home in Tortuga and KK3K visits from time to time our TS. There are still a few oldtimers in the clan though (Baine, Incu, Lucas, Fabse ... )

 

Halfik retired? Why? He's the only good leader and a private polish language teacher at the same time I knew..   

[A_Hardy_Buck 401]

Said I'd do this ages ago and separate the Dakillzor drama lama away from the history of PTS , and I finally got around to it 

[Xen 805]

Isn't backstabbing and being dicks a major part of PTS' history?

[lisiate 40]

Cheers for the split, I enjoyed reading the history part. The drama stuff bored me.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

fixed some dead links

[Pocktio 730]

Tl;dr pirates are filthy teamspeak haxorrerers.

[Atrevir 5]

Always love reading up about this stuff. Back in that time I was mostly a red bob anyhow so I kinda missed out on everything. All I knew back then was that PTS was that one badass clan and was practically the first EU topclan if you can call it that? But yeah then I got good but PTS was only filled with rerolls and all that. And now I'm part of Lucas his PTS after the whole ship got cleaned up from what I know. Although I do know it's not the same as Halfik's PTS

[NiemandXL 45]

Wow, a nice read about how things were before my time.

[arthurwellsley 132]

The corpse rises again.

What is this, the 6th time now, or have I lost count?

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/578602-ptspirates-are-back/

 

@Folterknecht are players like BomBer_The_SaltShaker and Fenix_xD from the 2010 version, or did they come to it later?

[Folterknecht 2,257]

WilliamDrake is Lukas - he been in PTS since 2012?! not sure

Fenix_xd might be Dark_Fenix (name change) - Dark Fenix was from the original PTS crew around Halfik afaik

No idea who that Bomber guy is - again maybe a name change

 

You would have to find me a working site that shows name changes/player history

 

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

1 hour ago, Folterknecht said:

WilliamDrake is Lukas - he been in PTS since 2012?! not sure

Fenix_xd might be Dark_Fenix (name change) - Dark Fenix was from the original PTS crew around Halfik afaik

No idea who that Bomber guy is - again maybe a name change

 

You would have to find me a working site that shows name changes/player history

 

Fenix has a super low ID number ( 500007515 ) so i guess hes one of the original members

There used to be a website where you could check name changes, but i forgot which, all you need is the ID (which you can see on WG website) 

ps: im not talking about duckandcover, that one doesnt work half the time (they stopped updating it i think)

[no_name_cro 2,034]

Following the wisdom of @H4NI - They let Hitman in the clan, let's us watch as it crashes into the reef and sinks.

As much as I'd like to see more good clans on EU, this doesn't seem like it's gonna last. Also, can they stop beating a dead horse already?

[H4NI 138]

yeah, i'm sure this time will be for real.

there is no point of making a new clan in 2016...

Spoiler

or reviving dead one.