Hello all! I hope you find yourself well in this cold snowpocalypse month of January. (for us northerners at least eh?......I had to get at least one Canadian reference in here). I figured I'd drop a few lines about my experience here with the camp thus far and hopefully this will help some new comers that might be curious about what goes on behind the velvety ropes of the camp. First of all, there is a rigorous initiation process that takes over 20 hours to complete where you have to spell every camp members name in pig Latin and write a short biography about them (/sarcasm 100). It's been about 5 weeks now since I joined the discord server (link: https://discord.gg/9Jyu7Wes ). Shoutout to Inchon (aka Disappointed Dad....don't worry Dad, we will make you proud of us some day soon) for helping me find the camp. I have to be honest, at first I was a little intimidated and shy. I had only played HLL for about 100 hours and I'm in a channel with all of these people that I don't know who have played hundreds or thousands of hours. I didn't want them to think I was stupid or didn't know what I was doing because I wanted to look smart and fit in. After playing with this group for a short amount of time, this all went away. The fears, the nerves, the shyness was all gone and they made me feel like a part of their community almost instantaneously. The kind of experiences I've had with the camp have been awesome and I've learned a ton in the process. I could only dream of having times like these before the camp when playing the game by myself in a public server. You might get 1 or 2 guys that would talk using squad chat if you are lucky and our squad was so unorganized we would be lucky to have one garrison to spawn on and get wiped in the first 30 minutes. One of the best parts of the camp to me is that there are no commitments. There is no 'you have to be on this day and that day for practice or you will be kicked from the group kind of stuff'. We all have lives outside of the internet so this is a big deal for most of us. You can hop onto the discord, play a game or two and leave. If you want to play in an event, you sign up and play. If something comes up to where you can't make it then no big deal. There will be somebody else in the reserves to take your place. I've played with a ton of competitive teams and this is not how it usually goes. Of course the camp is much deeper than just jumping in PTT-01 and playing a round of HLL. I really enjoy the comradery, the friendship, the joy in knowing that you have found a group of people that you have something in common with. I enjoy talking with the other members of the camp as much as I do playing with them. We have so many different people located throughout the world and it is interesting learning about their cultures and way of life. If you've made it this far then I hope I didn't bore into a stupor but I apologize if I did. I wrote this primarily for the new members that might be curious what this place is all about but I also wrote it for the old timers who have been in the camp for months or years. Keep doing what you are doing because I am living proof that it is working! If you are a curious lad and wanting to know more, give me or any of the other members a shout on discord and we will be glad to talk. -Easton
