This is what happens when you pay 1600 for an overmilled amrker (taken from PBN)

[Ninjeff]

Superman dives are for the magazines and cameras. Thats it. They are totally impractical, hurt, and really serve no tactical purpose.

Now the REALLY good players will dive, head first into a snake, but its alot less of a dive, than it is a forward slide. The new PGi has a good shot by shot example of this. When done properly, there should always be some part of your body on the ground, ie:feet, then hands/elbows, then out stretch to a forward sliding motion. The times where some one is actually getting "air" is completely useless.
Other than the fact it looks cool.

Anyhow, on topic.

JackWood, let me say this: Not only is it infinitely cool to see you come over here and have a talk with us, I think it says something about your company. The guys at my field use Egos almost exclusively. ISU Redbirds (national champs!) come to mind. I had never shot one before, but was fortunate to shoot one of the guys Egos while we were closing up the field last week. I have to say, it was impressive.
Still, i always knew they were high quality guns, but just never wanted one because everyone has them. And (a big reason) is because i prefer to support companies that i feel like still have a "connection" to the player base. AGD is a good example. If i NEED something answered i know i can ask Tom and he will give it to me straight, i know that if i have a complaint about AGD (not that i could even think of one) that someone from AGD would listen, intently, to my complaint and talk me through it. I like that in a company. I just never thought Eclipse was like that. However, after seeing you come on here and have a good, honest discussion with us, i must say, i have a whole new opinion on PE. Will i buy a new Ego? heck no, im a poor musician, i cant afford that cost but i tell you what if you ever make an electro around the $3-400.00 range, i will look SERIOUSLY at it.

I think in this age of big fancy pants marketing blitzes and super sponsorships, flashy ads and internet hype some companies forget that sometimes the best way to sell your product is just to talk to the people. Be honest and approchable and avoid all the b.s. we grow accustomed to. You have probably made more people consider an Ego (on here) by just chatting than you ever could have with fancy ads or sponsorships.

[jackwood]

Thanks again guys for the feedback, it seriously means a lot to me. Obviously the company is bigger now than it was back when we made the Eclipse cockers. Back then the design, production, testing and customer support was.........me
Obviously now things had to move on once we stared to do the eblade frame. When that was at it's peak we had me and Steve as the design (mechanical and electronics respectively) and production department, with 2 guys doing the bulk of assembly (us cutting in and helping with big orders) and 1 guy handling goods in and out. I'd call that pretty small. All that was handled in a 800sqft building. The office and our store were in an adjoining similar sized building. Right now we have 4 guys that handle all the assembly of every Ego (all of them have been with us for over 4 years and 2 are the same that set off with E-Blade with us!), with another 3 that mix up testing, fixing and a bit of building. 1 guy handles goods in/out still, and then 1 production manager.
Aside from that there is still me and Steve, this year we took on a graduate designer to work with me on new projects and free up some of my time to work on new stuff, and then 2 guys (mentioned before, actually one guy and one gal) that do graphic design, clothing design, web design, etc and then 2 dedicated customer service guys, one of which is Nicky T and is also responsible for making the manuals and training our techs worldwide and making sure all the events are covered.
But basically those are the workers that are directly involved in producing the stuff you see day to day. Then there is the usual admin roles that are required in running a company. And the 2 bosses, Ledz and Julian.
So overall, I'd say it was a pretty compact unit, certainly when compared to some other companies I have visited
As for our products popularity, well of course we advertise, and of course we sponsor teams, but every company does that. What a lot of you guys don't get to hear about is that some of those Pro teams that play NPPL and NXL and you might call our Poster Boys actually buy their guns. Yep, they would rather pay to use our gun rather than get another gun for free. To me that says we did something right along the line. I think they do that because they get a very light gun that performs just as good as any other gun out there, but they also get a very reliable gun (these guys will but 50,000 shots a month through these guns without cleaning and lubing them ) and at every event they go to they know they get the backup of our techs who are there servicing every PE customer, not just the pro teams.
I don't think the popularity and growth of the gun can be attributed to astute marketing or advertising. We do make a good product. We do back it up. And every person in the company is either currently or has been a player on the tourney scene. And by the way, we make no bones about admitting that is the market our product is aimed at. We never design it to be dragged through a swamp, or to hammer in nails. And for that reason it is not for everyone.

As for making cheeper guns: well, I don't know if it will happen soon. We find it hard to lower the spec or compromise on quality to hit a budget price. It's never been the way we did business and it would require a fundimental change in our ethos as designers and company. Plus the level of support we like to offer cost a huge amount, and the lower you go with your pricing, the less margin is left to concentrate on that side of the product. But, anything is possible, but right now we have our hands full doing what we are doing and are happy where we are.

Sorry for the long post and of course I have what you could call a marketing hat. I work for the company. The difference is I'm not employed to do this. In fact it gets me in more trouble than I would care to mention but I consider myself a person and an enthusiast first and formost. Where I am in terms of what I do and who I do it for is more by accident than any intelligent design or plan

[s1im]

Not only does does this thread show the commitment of jack it also shows the matureity of The members of this forum
Forums can be a dangerious place for manufactures to visit and I'm proud of the inteligent comments and conversation that has been directed to him
Hope fully this means that he would not be wairy of becoming visible in a thread again.

I've had a silly amount of paintball markers and at least 9 PE markers, I have never had any problems with any of these and if any problems were created(mostly due to me fiddling!)
They were fixed and the customer service I had was exemplary!

I've only visited PE once and currently only own 2 "older" markers but I would not hesitate in buying another, based on the previous service and quality I have recieved.

I would not wish PE to make a "cheep" marker, If they made one I know that "financially speaking" it would not be able to have the same quality and finish that I now associate with the PE brand.
The same goes for AGD, would a x-mag be as good as it is if it had to originally retail for sub $500.

Oh and back on the subject, I'm too lazy to dive any how!

[Ninjeff]

Oh dont get me wrong, i can totally understand why they dont make a "low end" marker. I really do, but i cant blow smoke up his bum and say that i'd buy an Ego new. Just wont happen. Fact of the matter is that i just couldnt afford one. No matter HOW much i would want one. $1000.00+ is just too much. For me anyway.

[pmstc]

Oh dont get me wrong, i can totally understand why they dont make a "low end" marker. I really do, but i cant blow smoke up his bum and say that i'd buy an Ego new. Just wont happen. Fact of the matter is that i just couldnt afford one. No matter HOW much i would want one. $1000.00+ is just too much. For me anyway.

Look in to Etek 1s. I bought one brand new for 450, and used I'm pretty sure they can get down to 300. There aren't a whole lot of differences between an etek and an ego6 either. Nice little guns

[spadge67]

Great thread!

I've officially burned off 30 minutes of my work day

[going_home]

Great thread!

I've officially burned off 30 minutes of my work day

Your termination notice is in your email inbox heheh .

[snoopay700]

Wait, PE doesn't design their markers to be able to be used as hammers? And they want how much for them? That's just too much money for that lack of versatility.

Anyway, yeah i wouldn't buy one new either, i mean i definitely would look into a used one or something, but i still just don't know that i'll ever buy one of your guns just because they cost so much. Same thing with the xmag, i love them and want one, but don't really think i'll ever own one.

[68magOwner]

any time there is THAT MANY of anything in circulation, people are going to find a way to screw a few of them up. Im positive if there were still as many mags in circulation as there are egos, there would be the same sort of incidents with mags. You just cant help freak accidents in every few thousand units.

[Chronobreak]

any time there is THAT MANY of anything in circulation, people are going to find a way to screw a few of them up. Im positive if there were still as many mags in circulation as there are egos, there would be the same sort of incidents with mags. You just cant help freak accidents in every few thousand units.

there may be alot in circulation but compared to the mag and alot of other guns they ahve not been in circulation for very long at all.

and as far as freak accident, i think only PE knows how many frames have done this, and doubt they will or are willing to release that info

jack, wether i agree or not as to the reasoning and necesity of the "crumple zone" or "crush" frame i really appreciate you responding maturely and intelligently

[jackwood]

there may be alot in circulation but compared to the mag and alot of other guns they ahve not been in circulation for very long at all.

and as far as freak accident, i think only PE knows how many frames have done this, and doubt they will or are willing to release that info

jack, wether i agree or not as to the reasoning and necesity of the "crumple zone" or "crush" frame i really appreciate you responding maturely and intelligently

No problem. It helps when you are a (reasonably) mature and (reasonably) intelligent person

Jack

[bryceeden]

Said by Jack Wood himself in the PBN thread.

OK, everyone here is alittle history on the "Crash Frame". A player at World Cup bent his Ego 7 frame and took it to PE to be fixed, they told him that it wasn't covered under warrenty because it was his fault he dove like that. The player then litterally thru his Ego away and made a big deal of doing so. He went over to the BLAST venue(which was very near the PE one) and bought a Bob Long Protege and used it the remainder of the cup and spred his PE story all over the place. Bob Long picked up this story and ran with it over on PBN. Jack Wood got on there trying to defend the PE decision not to replace it and asked if BLAST would have replaced the frame. The BLAST guys replyed that firest thier frame wouldn't bend like that and second if it did they would absolutly replace it free. About a week after that PE started to replace the flood of bent EGO 7 frames free and began marketing it as a "crash frame". It was not intentional its just more proof of how good PE is at marketing and hype. THe DM7 and DM8 frames along with some Shocker frames all bend like that, its becaust they are milled so thin to make them lighter. It was not an "intentional safty feature".

[jackwood]

That's utter rubbish, Bryce.

That "incident" was at World Cup 2007 when the Ego7 had been out for over 12 months and we were launching the Ego8.

We had had multiple cases of bent frames on Ego7 and SL74 prior to that incident and every one previous to that had been replaced free of charge, a quick search on PBN will reveal that to you (if you could be bothered to spend the time). It had been company policy to replace bent and broken frames in 05 and 06, well before Ego7 came out. Get your facts straight, and you time-line synched before you spout stuff like this.

You will find that that "incident" was a simple heat-of-the-moment miscommunication between an event-employed tech and an anxious customer. Nothing more.

Jack

[bryceeden]

That's utter rubbish, Bryce.

That "incident" was at World Cup 2007 when the Ego7 had been out for over 12 months and we were launching the Ego8.

We had had multiple cases of bent frames on Ego7 and SL74 prior to that incident and every one previous to that had been replaced free of charge, a quick search on PBN will reveal that to you (if you could be bothered to spend the time). It had been company policy to replace bent and broken frames in 05 and 06, well before Ego7 came out. Get your facts straight, and you time-line synched before you spout stuff like this.

You will find that that "incident" was a simple heat-of-the-moment miscommunication between an event-employed tech and an anxious customer. Nothing more.

Jack

Jack, I support your decision and freely admit that your company has some of the best customer service in the industry. I agree with you that the "crash frame" is much safer than the alternative tank to the face. And I'll even go so far as to say that I don't have a hard time seeing you replacing them free befor the cup. But I believe that your exact quote in the thread was "That is above the call of warrenty. I suppose you would expect your truck fixed for free if you drove it into a tree on the way out of Smokey Bones?" I agree with you there, and applaud you for your policy of replacing it now as it is "above the call of warrenty", but you'll never be able to convince me that the crash frame was intentional and always replaced free unless you can provide something advertising it that predates that statement. Because I believe that Terry's statement "if any player infact falls badly while participating at an event and the same thing happened, he would get a new frame from us, without charge or grief. Surely we'd also be concerned whether he may have hurt themself in the process" had alot to do with the decision to replace it free instead of bending it back. I supported your company back when I owned a Pro shop and still would if I still did, but back when the Ego 7 first came out and up to this insident we are speaking of I never heard or saw the words "Crash Frame" any where. I am out of the industry now, and seldom even get to play anymore so I'll understand if you don't want to provide proof of this and I would searh PBN but as usual there are too many users on now for the search to work. So other than this post I won't perpetuate that story and I'll give you the benafit of the doubt or atleast keep quiet about it in the future.

[jackwood]

Jack, I support your decision and freely admit that your company has some of the best customer service in the industry. I agree with you that the "crash frame" is much safer than the alternative tank to the face. And I'll even go so far as to say that I don't have a hard time seeing you replacing them free befor the cup. But I believe that your exact quote in the thread was "That is above the call of warrenty. I suppose you would expect your truck fixed for free if you drove it into a tree on the way out of Smokey Bones?" I agree with you there, and applaud you for your policy of replacing it now as it is "above the call of warrenty", but you'll never be able to convince me that the crash frame was intentional and always replaced free unless you can provide something advertising it that predates that statement. Because I believe that Terry's statement "if any player infact falls badly while participating at an event and the same thing happened, he would get a new frame from us, without charge or grief. Surely we'd also be concerned whether he may have hurt themself in the process" had alot to do with the decision to replace it free instead of bending it back. I supported your company back when I owned a Pro shop and still would if I still did, but back when the Ego 7 first came out and up to this insident we are speaking of I never heard or saw the words "Crash Frame" any where. I am out of the industry now, and seldom even get to play anymore so I'll understand if you don't want to provide proof of this and I would searh PBN but as usual there are too many users on now for the search to work. So other than this post I won't perpetuate that story and I'll give you the benafit of the doubt or atleast keep quiet about it in the future.

I am not denying that in that incident the temp tech may just have tried to bend it back. But that is not, and has never been our policy.

As for the term "Crash Frame" I have no idea where that came from. It cerainly wasn't from us.

PBN search is working fine, I just went and used it to find the thread you quoted.

I will go and find other threads now that show we always replaced the frame FOC. The only case I can think of where we haven't was at the same Cup where a player came to us and told us he wrapped his gun round a telegraph post after loosing a game. He destroyed the frame, OOPS, board, window, trigger, bearing carrier. All busted. We fixed the gun back up for a fraction of the cost of those parts because he was very polite, apologetic and honest.

I'll be back with those links.

Jack