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 am one of the old users who likes to do my own research to learn how the game works. I like that this is a thing in Hattrick. Not everything should be mentioned in the rules. I also like the federations where you can have some real tight friendships. More than some friends call Hattrick a forum, with a soccer-game attached to it.
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.
My biggest achievement in Hattrick so far is that I have won some titles with my second team in Bahrain and reached the semifinals of the National Cup in Italy, but I hope, a few months from now, that it will be winning the World Cup for the Italian NT.
I play Hattrick because I am a big football fan and I have always liked to play football manager games, like the German game "Anstoss" or "EA Football Manager". I play Hattrick since 2002, even though I had a break because of the birth of my daughter. So Hattrick has been with me for most of my life, you could almost call me "addicted” to Hattrick!
When I registered, I liked that Hattrick has fantasy names instead of real players. That got me hooked. I also liked that all opponents were people of flesh and blood… and also that they turned out to be really helpful, showing me the steps you need to take as a new user to improve your team. Today, I am a good mentor myself.