what went wrong?

[bound for glory]

a muse for all us old timers(i'm soon to be 42, sigh) out there...what went wrong with paintball? i played my first game in 1985. sold my emag(which i truly regret) in '04. gotta say, i liked it alot better back in the old days. now my boy wants to play, and i told him i'd get him set up this spring, and here it is. but as the late, great, hardcore band "minor threat" has said, "the babys gotten older/ its no longer cute". and for the life of me, i could'nt agree more...getting old sucks

[paullus99]

Just depends on finding a good group of people to play with - there was a time too that I wasn't really interested in playing anymore (between life moving on & general attitude of people on the fields).

I happened to stumble across a good group of players, that tended to attract even more good players with great attitudes. That was about five years ago & I'm still going strong with the team. I hope that we can keep it together long enough for my son to play (but that will be a while).

But I can totally sympathize - in most places, it is a younger man's game.

[XM15]

I do miss the old days but it is still fun to play. My buddies and I have started playing local tourny's again. It's more fun than in the old days because we don't take it as seriously as we did then. Its even more fun to see the reaction when us old guys beat the kids with our old inferior mags. We usually place in the top 4 teams. Thats a heartbreaker too for all the little kids who think they are hardcore but they just got beat by guys as old as thier dads.

[BigEvil]

I have my moods where sometimes I miss the good old days and where sometimes I really dont. There are pluses and minuses for both.

Bottom line to me now is to play with a good group. It really makes things more enjoyable and helps filter out much of the nonsense.

[chafnerjr]

Agreed... it depends on who you used to play with. I come from a "back in the day" where we had our own private field with about 7-15 of our own friends who came to play. Playing at OSG where I tend to hang out now is pretty much the same... but with extra targets if you know what I mean. Let's not forget the good ol' regular wood's ball. We still grab a few people every now and again and we go play out in the woods somewhere.

Remember that "Back-in-the-day" also meant... CO2 and generally crappy markers.I could only have dreamed of buying a cocker or a mag. And when someone heard you played paintball they thought you were either a red-neck or worse. (Though they might have been right about the red-neck part). You had to drive forever to get CO2 or paint if you didn't buy it from 888-paintball.

[Toll]

I like playing with renters. I don't mean because I can hit them easily, I mean because they are relatively unjaded, happy people who just want to play. They don't fuss about gear, they just want to play.

[Empyreal Rogue]

While I'm a wee bit younger than you, I do agree with you. I've been playing the game since the late 90s and I've definitely noticed a gradual change in attitude, behavior, and the goals of todays players. Remember when playing paintball was all about shooting each other? If you won, great! If not, who cares I had fun.

Fortunately for me I work at a paintball park as a referee and for every player I see who is dead set on winning and gets really pissy over the most insignificant of things, I'll see 10-20 players with the older values. But due to the nature of those who are easily upset they not only do stand out amongst the crowd, they like that they stand out. Our park sees absolutely terrific players and I am happy to have worked with so many of them.

I also work with an incredible referee crew who all embody the older player values, playing for fun again. There are still good people out there so don't completely give up. But you may even have to dumb your standards down a bit when coming to terms with your average player today.

[behemoth]

a muse for all us old timers(i'm soon to be 42, sigh) out there...what went wrong with paintball? i played my first game in 1985. sold my emag(which i truly regret) in '04. gotta say, i liked it alot better back in the old days. now my boy wants to play, and i told him i'd get him set up this spring, and here it is. but as the late, great, hardcore band "minor threat" has said, "the babys gotten older/ its no longer cute". and for the life of me, i could'nt agree more...getting old sucks

John, you mug!

Come up to Tunaball in May (if you can fit it into that schedule of yours...)

Its at Topgun in NJ.

I'll be there, we can toss some back.

It'll revive your sense of a good paintball outing, with good people. (maybe. )

-Josh

[Konigballer]

I like playing with renters. I don't mean because I can hit them easily, I mean because they are relatively unjaded, happy people who just want to play. They don't fuss about gear, they just want to play.

Agreed, they don't know what the 'good old days' are, their just excited to play. Also, they show audible and visual fear when their being shot at that vets don't. Very fun to ambush!

[dre1919]

Where paintball went wrong was by not taking care of it's next crop of players time and again. As we all went to fields and played against inferior competition, too many players kept whining about calls, cheating or focusing on equipment and winning at all costs to keep up their ego than leaving new players with a good feeling about the sport. As players became veterans, suddenly they were supposed to be "better" than the newbs (and they should be)...but for a lot of people it became imperative to keep up that ego standard and perceived class. So, fun and friendly competition went out the window. It wasn't acceptable for a seasoned player to get taken out quickly or by a newb so cheating and complaining became the norm, as did lighting up newbs to generate fear and intimidation. People wanted to be good at something, and more than that, they wanted to be seen as good at something. So, anyone they came across they could draw power from by dominating they did. This killed the impression most first timers got and a lot of the folks who just didn't like that walked away. Paintball has always been the haves and the have nots when it comes to equipment, but somewhere that became really important when in reality the person with the $1000 gun can still be taken out of a game by someone with a Brass Eagle gun from 1994. We, as a paintball community, just didn't do enough to foster a sense of good will, acceptance, fun, and longevity into the new players. We reap what we sow.

[SCpoloRicker]

Truth: Play with good people, have fun.

Troll: Ramping / Smart Parts / NPPL infighting / LIEburals caused the death of paintball. Which is dead. Death.

[Hilltop Customs]

egos got in the way

Talk to everyone you enjoyed playing paintball with, tell them to invite anyone who might have the slightest interest out to play. Load up all the gear, a grill, and a big cooler in the back of a pickup, head out to the best rogue woodsball field someone in your crew knows about, and have a great day.

[dave p]

I like playing with renters. I don't mean because I can hit them easily, I mean because they are relatively unjaded, happy people who just want to play. They don't fuss about gear, they just want to play.

amen to that, i like playing with anyone like that, just happy to play. when its just about fun.
when its just as fun to lose as it is to win, as long as you have a story to tell.

[chafnerjr]

egos got in the way

Talk to everyone you enjoyed playing paintball with, tell them to invite anyone who might have the slightest interest out to play. Load up all the gear, a grill, and a big cooler in the back of a pickup, head out to the best rogue woodsball field someone in your crew knows about, and have a great day.

amen brother

[thegrayghost]

a muse for all us old timers(i'm soon to be 42, sigh) out there...what went wrong with paintball? i played my first game in 1985. sold my emag(which i truly regret) in '04. gotta say, i liked it alot better back in the old days. now my boy wants to play, and i told him i'd get him set up this spring, and here it is. but as the late, great, hardcore band "minor threat" has said, "the babys gotten older/ its no longer cute". and for the life of me, i could'nt agree more...getting old sucks

bound for glory, don't get discouraged as you come back into paintball...different times, different guys, but i think the game is still fun....you are way back then and played,...as for family playing, go for it, i still play with my 3 sons off and on.....

oh!ya! about that age of 42, you are still a youngster, have fun and play, i have played this past 8 years now, and will be 66 years old, this september.....go for it, my friend.....my 2 cents worth...

thegrayghost