My thoughts after playing X-ball

[tremis]

Well, on the 20th of July, the team I play for ( Misfit Toys) participated in an X-ball trial at our homefield Paintball Adventure Park in Taneytown MD, set up by Diablo.

Diablo supplied us with 20 cases of paint and sent down the refs that will be reffing the Nations Cup to ref us.
Opie of Trauma ran everything. It ran very smoothly, I was suprised at how well it ran. We didn't have the scoreboard in use that they will have in Pitt. But everything was displayed on Opie's laptop and he verbally kept us up on the times and scores.

The refs seemed on top of things. They had to make up a few penalties for us, as we don't push the grey area very much. They wanted to see how well it worked having guys come out of the penalty box in mid game. I must say, it worked much better than I thought it would.

Everybody that I discussed it with on my team loved playing this.
It took about 2 hours to play one complete game. Talk about exhausting! There were times we were back on the field like 6 or 7 minutes after we came off the field. You'd have to be an olympic athlete to play this way all the time. I dont see x-ball ever overshadowing the current format for this reason. But it was very fun and a new format like this is a sure fire way to escape burnout.

The only problem they encountered was the coaching from the sidelines. I'm not exactly sure what they didn't like about it. My theory is that it was sometimes too difficult to make a good move since there was always a set of eyes that could see what you did and then convey that to the other teams. I thought it slowed the game down a bit and made players a bit more cautious, and thats totally opposite of what they are trying to do with the x-ball format. From what I can tell, the sideline coaching is still up in the air and may or may not be going on at the nations cup.

I dont remember what the score was at the end of four quarters, but it was tied and we had to do a sudden death overtime quarter. Well that didn't go so well for my squad as it came down to 5 on me. Yeah, you guessed it, we lost by one point.

I must say our captian Eric Holland did a fantastic job for us. Not only did he get us involved with this, but he managed to get enough of our guys out there to field four 5 man squads, two coaches and a handful of support people to fill guppies and tanks between games. I'm sure everybody here recognizes the herculean task in getting that many people together and running smoothly.

On a lighter note, Graham Easton was one of the refs and every single time he spoke on the field, I just stood there, I had no idea what he was saying.:) He must be the designated ref to handle the English team. If they all talk like that nobody else will understand them. They invented the stinking language, how come they don't speak it? :D

Well thats about covers it, if anybody has any questions about how it ran that I didn't answer, I'll be glad to scour the old memory :)

Tremis

[LittleJP]

from what you say it seems like Xball has accomplished its main goal of making paintball mroe spectator friendly. Cool.

[Troy]

I didn't care for the X-Ball idea when it was called USPL.

[tremis]

Maybe it gets better when you remove Steve Davidson from the mix :) Nah, I'm just kidding, Steve seems to be a good guy.

I couldn't see myself playing in an Xball league or anything, But I could see playing it once or twice a year. Its so much faster paced, I couldn't keep up. We played like 6 or 7 games in a 10 minute period. It definatly puts the focus on Physical fitness, reliable equiptment and being prepared. You just dont have time to be slow,catch your breath, fix a gun, or look for 9 volts or some such stuff.

I am interested to see how its played at the nations cup. They are going to have 40+ bunkers on a 5 man field. The thought being that it will make it easier to move and thats what they want, more movement.

Again, my opinion is that as something different to play its fun, but not enough to replace the standard format.

Tremis

[Mega Man]

guess I've bee out of it, WHAT'S X-BALL!?!?!?!?:confused:

[felony]

sounds like fun. i read a short article in my 2xtreme magazine.

i think it is goin to be on TV? i may have just made that up to appease myself :], but i think it is goin to be on ESPN2?? hopefully anyway.

any ideas about that?

dan

[Lone Brain Cell]

On a lighter note, Graham Easton was one of the refs and every single time he spoke on the field, I just stood there, I had no idea what he was saying. He must be the designated ref to handle the English team. If they all talk like that nobody else will understand them. They invented the stinking language, how come they don't speak it?

They invented a heap of games as well Cricket, Rugby Union, Rugby league, soccer....They cant play those as well LOL:D

[Vegeta]

"Diablo supplied us with 20 cases of paint"
"supplied us with 20 cases of paint"
"us with 20 cases of"
"with 20 cases"
"20 cases"

[Vegeta]

*Vegeta thinks that is a lot of paint (by his standards)

[Mossman]

Sam agrees. But 4 five man squads means a case a person. Not too much. Lots of paint, but not too much :)

[manike]

We still speak English over here, it's just been corrupted by those we kicked off our shores :D


Originally posted by Lone Brain Cell
They invented a heap of games as well Cricket, Rugby Union, Rugby league, soccer....They cant play those as well LOL:D

Strange, we are currently beating India at Cricket, Made the quarter finals in football (soccer) as did America, I might add... where were Australia? The great British Rugby League Team and the English rugby union team are both forces to reckon with in their sports...

manike

[Lone Brain Cell]

OK....we are no good at Soccer!
But u guys are still no good at Rugby Union, League and My Grandmother could beat India at Cricket:D :p

I'm only havin a lend of the Poms Mate;)

[Scutty]

Ok buddy, I can't just sit here and take that kinda abuse!!
England's Rugby Team is currently the best Northern hempisphere team bar none and most of the Southern teams have lost to us frequently over the last 3 years! As for League we sre still in the top 5 in the world (although it is a northern whippet/flat cap loving sport!). And as Manike pointed out we are currently ripping India a new *** and India are one of the best teams in the world at the moment!!

Feel free to come back and flame me, I'm English and I can take it. :D

[manike]

Hey Scutty Welcome :) Nice to see you over here!

Just be aware they aren't happy about any cussing over here (even when it gets *'d out). It's more 'family' orientated than the other forums and flame fests are not the usual order of the day :)

Everyone, Scutty is a UK player for Amateur Team Campaign Power who have been doing very well in the Millennium series lately.

I've also been teasing him with my C&C extreme ;)

manike

[Scutty]

Tease away mate, I am packing for Sweden and fly out tonight!! Haha!! ;O)

[manike]

Good luck, wish the guys the best from me!

[bigsarge72]

Ok, for those of us that have been out of the mainstream for various reasons, like say, doing a 6 month tour in Bosnia, what is X-Ball.
I keep hearing about it, but I have no idea what it is. Is there an article I can read on it somewhere?

sarge

[Scutty]

For all of you looking for details of X=Ball, look here:

http://207.236.192.237

[tremis]

Thanks Scutty for the link, I coudn't remember it.

As for the sports that the english either do or dont suck at (depending on whos side of the story you listen to) I must say, does it really matter? I watch sportscenter every morning and never see these sports covered. They must not be too imortant. I guess they just dont rate high on the scale of global imortance. Now if we were to talk about Formula One I'd have nothing but total respect for England. Even if currently an Italian car with a German driver is dominant. But either way they struggle with their own language:)

As for the paint, It did look like a lot. We pooled all of our guppies and our pit crew kept them filled and in some of those zap paint coolers. Everytime we went off the field we opened a cooler got more paint and left our empties. It wasn't until the end of the day that I found out how much we actually used. We had been told that it was "all the paint you could shoot" which just happened to be 20 cases. It was nice to play an entire day at absolutly no cost.

Tremis

[sniper1rfa]

cool, but i can see a MAJOR problem. with 4.5k and the new 5k tanks, people are going to be filling very high pressures very fast during the "pit stop" deal...

now, i dunno about you, but that scares the hell out of me, as 5000 psi is nothing to screw around with. if that tank gets too how, its coming off the reg and going ballistic.

[manike]

Originally posted by sniper1rfa
cool, but i can see a MAJOR problem. with 4.5k and the new 5k tanks, people are going to be filling very high pressures very fast during the "pit stop" deal...

now, i dunno about you, but that scares the hell out of me, as 5000 psi is nothing to screw around with. if that tank gets too how, its coming off the reg and going ballistic.

I don't think it will be much of a problem really. A 4500 fill at a decent station usually only takes 30 seconds or so...

Maybe at some point the players will have spare guns with identical set ups so they can just pick up their other gun and go.

I'm working my behind off to get a ticket out to go and support the UK team... still not sure if I will make it though :(

manike

[Jonno06]

2000 x 20 = alot of paint....

that X-ball thing looks very fun...great exercise too

[felony]

sounds fun.

i hope it goes big.

would definatly like to see it some day in person. it would really bring out the athlete in paintball. that is what paintball needs as well. i think people will respect the sport more if we can be considered athletes rather then gun bearing idiots. (just the opinion of some of my friends. i exaggerated it a bit, but you get the idea). :rolleyes:


dan

[graycie]

Originally posted by manike
I'm working my behind off to get a ticket out to go and support the UK team... still not sure if I will make it though :(

don't get me wrong i would love to see you state side, but its next week. isn't that cutting it a wee bit close?

[manike]

Originally posted by graycie
don't get me wrong i would love to see you state side, but its next week. isn't that cutting it a wee bit close?

Yep :D I'm hoping for a call tomorrow morning to find out if it's gonna happen or not.

If I do come out can I play with you? and some paintball ;)

manike

[graycie]

sure, but no drinking games ok? i'll sorely lose

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Lone Brain Cell
They invented a heap of games as well Cricket, Rugby Union, Rugby league, soccer....They cant play those as well LOL:D



Hmmmmmmmm, appropriately named I see :)

[Pand0ra]

Oh nooooo, not him on this forum ! ;)

[Jonno06]

Originally posted by manike


Yep :D I'm hoping for a call tomorrow morning to find out if it's gonna happen or not.

If I do come out can I play with you? and some paintball ;)

manike

ok,see...that was wrong.

yea,you better hurry up and call...

[Kaiser Bob]

Hmm seems like NW tank quick disconnects would come in handy for this format game, swap to a filled tank in 2 sec and have someone fill the emptys during the game, that would free up some of the precious interim between games.

[Sooky]

Oh nooooo, not him on this forum !
:eek:

LOL!!! j/k :D Robbo's da man!! :D


Is there going to be a video of the Nations Cup made?? That would be awesome to watch!!

[Lone Brain Cell]

AWWW come on guys:) As I said I'm only havin a lend of Ya!
No insults intended;)
What happend to that Pommie sence of humur:confused: :D

[manike]

Originally posted by Lone Brain Cell
What happend to that Pommie sence of humur:confused: :D

We sent it on a boat to Australia...

:D

manike

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Sooky
:eek: LOL!!! j/k :D Robbo's da man!! :D
Is there going to be a video of the Nations Cup made?? That would be awesome to watch!!


I heard that a TV company of sorts was going to cover the event but to what extent, remains to be seen.
Richmond may well commission a Vid / DVD but once again, I'm not too sure.
Mind you, if I were Richmond, I would most definitely get one done, just imagine the response of the chicks of America finally being able to get their hands on a video of the greatest sex symbol the universe has ever encountered.
Mark my words, it would sell zillions !!!!!!
Ok, now I'm off to my daily counselling session :)

Robbo

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Lone Brain Cell
AWWW come on guys:) As I said I'm only havin a lend of Ya! No insults intended;)
What happend to that Pommie sence of humur:confused: :D

LBC, don't be confused mate, the sense of humour that you feel has deserted us, is alive and well and in the company of your local English spelling tutor.
If you go along there one day, you might see it :)
Hee hee

Robbo

[P4ULuk]

Originally posted by Robbo




Mind you, if I were Richmond, I would most definitely get one done, just imagine the response of the chicks of America finally being able to get their hands on a video of the greatest sex symbol the universe has ever encountered.
Mark my words, it would sell zillions !!!!!!


Robbo

:confused: But I'm not in the Xball squad!

Paul Collier.

[tremis]

Robbo, you must not have read my post correctly. I said we were in an X ball trial not the actual Nations Cup. Nobody filmed it, so the chicks of America dont get to see me in a video. ;)

Also could you let LBC know who your spelling tutor was? He'll want to avoid that one like the plague. ( Its greAtest not gretest) :D

Tremis

[Robbo]

Originally posted by tremis
Robbo, you must not have read my post correctly. I said we were in an X ball trial not the actual Nations Cup. Nobody filmed it, so the chicks of America dont get to see me in a video. ;)
Also could you let LBC know who your spelling tutor was? He'll want to avoid that one like the plague. ( Its greAtest not gretest) :D
Tremis

Hey Trem, whatever do you mean ?
I have checked the aforementioned post and found no such mistake :)
Anyway, that was a typo and not misspelled, a subtle difference I know but that's what I'm hanging on to :)

And as for you even daring to suggest you may be the greatest sex symbol when residing on the same planet as I.....excuse me mate, take some reality pills or alternatively, invest in a mirror, it will save you great embarrassment when frequenting bars and the like :)

Robbo

[tremis]

Allright Allright. I checked with the mirror. The verdict was split. It told me that you might have a more appealing physique to members of the female species. But the same mirror also told me I have much nicer hair :)
I guess we could use personalities as a tie breaker but we both have pretty bad tempers so that would probably be a draw also.
So I tell you what, if any mobs of women in Pitt see you as they are looking for me, you can go ahead and keep them. But wait, aren't you "off the market" now? Hmmm I guess I'll just have to take them all. It all works out in the end I guess.

Tremis

[Sooky]

But the same mirror also told me I have much nicer hair

LOL

[Lone Brain Cell]

LOL.....now hang on lets see........you sent us all on a boat to Australia as a punishment???? right now I am looking out the window and it is BLUE sky 25degrees c - 77F and it is in the middle of WINTER LOL:D

However this sport in this country sux cos of our gun laws, So i envy all of u ppl:(

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Lone Brain Cell
LOL.....now hang on lets see........you sent us all on a boat to Australia as a punishment???? right now I am looking out the window and it is BLUE sky 25degrees c - 77F and it is in the middle of WINTER LOL......

......attracting the highest incidence of skin cancer of any country in the world.......
Not so funny now is it ?
Nah, I'd rather have a bit of rain any day than one of them brown melanoma thingy's straddling my body !!!

But, I will readily concede you have a damn fine sports regime out there that on occasion knocks us into a cocked hat but it is ironic that in the Commonwealth Games that is going on at present over here, we had an Australian swimming coach for the English team and we just got the best ever results against you lot.
We also had an Australian coach for the English women's hockey team and they just beat, once again, the Australians.
It's a funny ole world :)
Robbo

[Lone Brain Cell]

Twenty years ago we were garbage in just about everything, God in one olimpics even New Zealand won more gold medals than we did:eek:

Then we started to put money back into sport.

Now we want some of that money to help promote paintball here or the sport will die......Painfully. we are going backwards because of our laws!:mad:

I dont agree about the sun & cancer though, sunscreen & hat fixes that. Rather be warm:D