A rant......

[Ultimator]

Bunkering someone in the head. That's not something that just happens accidentally, either.

I don't see how you managed not unloading on the moron :)

[dave_p]

on the other side of the coin...

ive gotta say kudos to hogans alley in meriden ct. ive been playing 6 years but never there. i had my brothers bachelor party there yesterday and i must say its a class act. the safety briefings were thorough, you chronoed every time you walked into the playing area, no exceptions. no bunkering(i dont mind bunkering at all, just choose your shot, like load said pack, foot, leg and one shot will do it at point blank, its gonna break). htey did a good job explaining the fields to the newbs(out of fourteen, only 5 had played before) they had woods, hyperball, air and a spool field. the hyperball field rocked. as soon as you called for a paintcheck a ref was there instantly and called the bunker neutral(not allowing anyone to move on you while you were being checked)until you were called out or clean. they did an excellent job of getting the newbs off the field without being overshot. all in all it was the most professional setup ive seen. food and drinks were cheap, as was the paint. they rent impulses so renters can at least not feel out gunned. its a cool place, good well stocked store too.

[pip_999]

Originally posted by Load SM5
the ol' fork in the eye!!

arrg you stole my phrase

[Load SM5]

You stole it from Moe first.

[Timmee]

dave_p please read

You play in Meridan? Where is it located? Close to 95, 91, or any other highway?

[MPC-Tim]

Bunkering

This thread and an e-mail I got today have me very concerned about bunkering and advanced players playing in opens with new or even intermediate players. As a field owner I want everyone to have fun and enjoy their time at my field. This in itself is a dilemma.

Do I turn away advanced players from my open/walk on play because their will be new players there? If I do I lose business.

Do I turn away new players from my advanced opens, who even after warnings, want to play? If I do I lose business.

In the past week I have had complaints from new players that they are being bunkered to often and to hard, as well as complaints from advanced players that after 2 shot bunkers the new players turn around and shoot them. Thank God, no one has been shot in the head like the author of this thread.

Here is what I try to do at Open/Walk on Play Sessions

1. I have several experienced refs on the field.
2. I split up teams and experienced players to even out teams.
3. I talk to the experienced players to make sure they gauge their play to the people in the open.
4. The refs has the power to call players out that over shoot and to ask them to leave the field. I will back their decision all the way.

Here is the other side to this dilemma.

1. The new guy with the automag and warp feed or angel that plays on or over shoots.

I try to make everyone happy, but I had an Intermediate player complain that the other teams firepower was too high. (The other team was 8 semi-auto rentals, a Tippman 98 and a 5 year old Autococker).

As a field owner I don't know what to do to make all of my customers happy, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Load SM5]

Tim,

It sounds like you have the right idea. As I said this is not the field that I normally go to. That field is a well run field that cares for it's customers and has a good number of well-trained refs. The new players and walk-ons are divided up amongst themselves and don't generally play with the experienced or tourney players.

As a new tourney player I still remember when I was new and hated the thought of being on the field with a tourney team and the fear of being lit up and humiliated. To me this would not have been fun. As a more experienced player I would never try to get in on a rec game with a church group because I know I could cause problems just by showing up on the field with a jersey and $2500 dollar marker set-up. So I don't. If we don't have enough new players or experienced player to make their own game then we divide everyone up equally, impliment a no-bunkering 10 ft. rule, and have a strickly enforced overshooting rule. (More than 3 broken balls and you get to go sit down for a while.)

After the new players go off and do their thing, we decided amongst ourselves if we want to allow bunkering or not. More often than not we have no problems with it. We are all used to it and since we are all friends when we do have the opportunity we do it with as much consideration as possible. Especially, against a helpless or unaware opponent, we always aim for a shoe or a pack, and never the head. I understand 3-4 shots to the head can and will happen in a tourney. But a rec game is a different matter, he could have been considerate, and that was what infuriated me. That, and the way the other team and the snot-nosed kid ref, that did not take his resposibilities seriously, did not care to make the experience enjoyable for a father and his 2 sons, who were not there to practice....but to have fun. They did not.

So I would say "as a field owner" you have the right idea as to what to do to make your customers as happy as they can be. Your field sounds like one I would love to come and play at,... with the experienced players, of course.

Thanks,
Jeff

[shartley]

NOTE: It was NOT me who sent him the e-mail and Thread.

Looks like someone stepped in front of my idea, and did what Load had asked NOT be done.. oh well. I probably still have good material for the article here.

I just wanted everyone to know it was NOT me.. thanks.

[Load SM5]

I don't think anyone sent Tim this thread, I think he just found it the same way everyone else did. I just think he recieved another unrelated e-mail and a combination of the two got him concerned.

At least, I hope that's the case.

Keep up the article.

[MPC-Tim]

You are correct Load,

I saw this thread the same day as receiving an e-mail from a concerned player at my field. I hope I will be able to partially solve this issue in the next week. I currently only have one field in my indoor facility, but when my Sup Air comes I will have 2. My thought is I try to push the higher level players to the Sup Air field.

Any thoughts about other ways to control this kind of activity in a 1-2 field facility?

[the JoKeR]

The good of the many outweigh that of the individual. If you have mixed teams, with rentals and high-end players, those high-end players have to turn it down a notch. If they don't, it'd be my expectation that the rental players won't come back and the business won't grow. I know I wouldn't have gone back if the players at my local field would have abused the rentals when I first started playing.

Truth be told, I'm the one who sent Tim the e-mail, to express my concern over some bunkerings in hopes that it doesn't cost him business or lead to other problems. I consider myself somewhere between intermediate and advanced, and I had a problem at the field that I felt needed to be addressed. Luckily, Tim cares enough about the business to be on-line actually checking his mail (unlike many other companies *cough* 32 Degrees *cough*) and more importantly responding to them.

It is my opinion that ANY field owner would be better off pulling the armband of a single player (or more, if needed) if that player is unable to restrain his actions on-field. Translation: if some guy really thinks it's a great idea to come over the top and head-shot bunker a 14 year old kid with a rental, maybe he shouldn't be allowed to play. Yes, he might buy a lot of paint and air, but so do the people that rent the guns. A good reputation is worth it's weight in gold and will bring you more business.

That is the basic information in my e-mail to Tim. He's a good guy and he's got an excellent facility and I want to see his business succeed. This message and my e-mail weren't meant as a rant, but as (hopefully) constructive criticism.

[MPC-Tim]

Thank you Joker for the e-mail.

I'd rather people told me their concerns so I can take the opportunity to make things better. Your e-mail was taken as constructive criticism. I have worked very hard to make MPC one of the better facilities in paintball and through players comments I hope to make it the best.

Another criticism that I have had is our open/walk on play starting late. The problem I have is most players arrive to our opens either 5 minutes before the open starts or 10 minutes late. By the time we get the orientation done and players tech their markers it can be 30+ minutes later. Usually we extend the open to give the players their full time slot, but this really hurts those who show early. Running an orientation every 15 minutes is not really possible either. Do you think a video taped orientation is adequate?

Any help with this issue would be a great help also.

Joker, none of this is aimed at you I think you were there almost an hour early.

Thanks,

[the JoKeR]

I'm on Vince Lombardi time. If I'm 5 minutes early, I'm really 10 minutes late! I HATE being late for anything! I was also very early because I had no idea where your place was:) Maybe instead of saying the game starts at 7:00, say "Orientation starts at 6:45 and the games start after that and run till 10:00". I don't think you'll win that won easily, since some people just can't get there by a specific time. Maybe having orientations every half hour or every 15 minutes to add people as needed? A video might work, but my concern is that people would be sleeping through it. I heard CPX does the video orientation and it's done in a way to keep player interest.
Personally, I'm used to games not starting anywhere near on time. PB Dave's open games can start an hour late. PB Sam's normally start late as well. I'm a big boy and can stay up past 10, so it doesn't bother me much, as long as the people holding up the games are at least making an attempt to get ready quickly. If they're just sitting there talking, screw 'em! Start without 'em!

[RobAGD]

Oh boy, one of my favorite topics.

Having been a ref and tournament play for as long as I have been playing paintball I know what the field owners and experanced players sees on the field.

As a ref I alway watched team to make sure that there were no flatout lopsidedness going on between guys form teh same teams. If I had more then a few teams guys and it was a light walkon day I woudl make them go play amongest them selves and give them a ref if I had an extra. If I had a small walkon crowd and they played I limited the paint they couold play with. I would also not allow them to bunker new players ( and if you cant tell a newb shooting a rental Tippmann and a dude with a Angel or high end gun you shouldn't be playing this game at all )

Being a team player I have never lit up a newb unless they were doing something really stupid like playing on wth a goggle hit, wipping hits ext, and by lighting up I am refering to putting more than 2 balls on them but less than 5.

If I had to bunker out a newb they got shot in the gun, foot, pack.

People that cant do this shouldnt be allowed to play with walk ons.

Ill give you a wonderfull example of what I mean.

A friend and I drive to a field in NJ to play a little walk ons. We drive to fields and just play and have a good time. We get paint and air and they divide up teams and I see an problem. My team with 7 plays are Me, Russ, a girl thats just got her Spyder SE, Her Dad, and what look like 2 renals, and the 7th player I dont recall. The other teams 7 are all what I would call experanced walk ons ( agels, High End Cockers ect ) They have played here a lot and they know each other and I see they are laughing and joking about the teams.

This sets off my prick radar and I tell Russ " We have to Own these guys " Russ has been playing paintball for close to 17 years and I at this point had been playing for about 6 or 7.

Fist game we start out in a classic line, Russ pulls a muscle in his leg and is gimping it. We shoot a few guys on our side and we notice the 4 people to our left are gone. I pull and fill and shoot the rest of the other team. Between Russ and I we shot them out every game the first 4 games.

Now add to this the refs telling them when and where we were coming ( i was going to back door the last player and teh ref told him to turn and shoot, he missed and got 4 in crotch vs his pack :), them playing on after getting hit, running out of bounds then back in. Made for a real fun day. Once other people starting showing up they all went on the other team at the end of the day it was 14 vs 7, and as too be expected we were getting walked all over, getting over shot and in general it sucked. I asked to even out the teams just a tad, 1 or 2 players and the ref laughed and say no, the teams were even.

We were penalized for the fact they sucked :) I'll take my lumps and have over the years because the team I playing on blows and cant work together. I have seen walk ons with no experance whip the crap out of some experanced players because they played as a team together.

Team guys should not be allowed to play walk ons. I would have hated to see what would have happened that day if Russ and I were not good players. That girl I mentioned with the Spyder SE is still playing and is now playing with a tournament team, he had more game than her day that day and played well, but how much fun would she have had if she was just getting rolled time and time again ?

As experanced players we need to foster new players, not beat them into submission for our own personal enjoyment, thats what gimpy teams are for Not walk ons.

As I was saying, I know both sides. I have been both the ref and the player, do you re order teams because 1 team just cant work together ? Do you ruin other people good time and team work by spliting them up ( refering to walk-on rentals types ) ? At my local field I am flat out not allowed to play with ANY of my friend because and 2 of us are worth 5 to 10 walks typically. We don't abuse people, we dont over shoot, we are just very effictive at working down the field and shooting out people.

If a field owner is going to take poeples money he need to take the responcablity to make sure his customers are not going to be abused. And if his experanced players can't control them selves then they need not play walk-on. They really shoudlnt be any way.

-Robert

[hitech]

Originally posted by RobAGD
At my local field I am flat out not allowed to play...

I use to have the same problem. I'd been kicked out of almost every field around. I landed at a friends field because he would let us (me and a buddy of mine) play. A typical day there is 30 or more players on each side. That makes it easy to keep things even and keep newbies from getting over shot. Sometimes the teams are altered slightly every game. If it's not competive, it's not fun.