I would say the community is the strongest reason I have stayed in Hattrick for so long. The game too of course. After having trained my players and played in the French Division 2 for a while, I started focusing on training international players to help the Moroccan team. Today 80% of the defense of the Atlas Lions was trained by me!
I play Hattrick because it has become a sort of strange family to me. I've been playing since 2008 and I've met a lot of people here. Very interesting people, very strange people, all kinds of people. I think I'm still playing Hattrick because in this game I have found a lot of friends. Some of them are now very close to me and my family, they have seen my child's birth and Hattrick is still the place where I can find them.
The game concept I like the most is the Special Events system, which allows multiple tactical options that are almost equal in strength. In general I think the Youth Academy is the best feature in the game as it creates a close connection to your own players.
I started playing Hattrick in the summer of 2002 when a friend, who I played "Fantasy Wrestling" with online, told me about Hattrick. I made many mistakes in the beginning. At that time there was no such thing as mentors or beginners' guides. So my very first club was bankrupt after only a few weeks. Luckily, I was able to restart with a new club shortly after that and then I did a lot better.
One of the best parts of Hattrick, for me, is the fact that you can somehow massively relate to a bunch of fictional players with fictional names and treat them like they're real world players.
A long, long time ago, my cousin showed me this game, because he knew I like strategy games, especially if it is about football. :) And this fantastic game fit my expectations perfectly! That’s how I got started.