will this sport ever not suck?

[rjvemt1]

all fields need to start treating 'reffing' more like a real job.i see refs dry fireing w/o a barrel plug in the staging areas, your fired! if i have to tell someone in the group you are reffing to put their goggles on or barrel plug in ill wright you up, two wright-ups and then your fired! i continually get complaints about you(to much time between games, coaching, un-even teams) well do some re-training, maybe a reffing workshop, if this doesnt help your performance, yup you guessed it YOUR FIRED!txpb has a couple of young men and women who are excellent reffs

They can be the coolest people until you go against them or you get on there bad side.

they sound like a team of spoiled little brats

[Jack_Dubious]

Originally posted by rjvemt1
all fields need to start treating 'reffing' more like a real job.i see refs dry fireing w/o a barrel plug in the staging areas, your fired! if i have to tell someone in the group you are reffing to put their goggles on or barrel plug in ill wright you up, two wright-ups and then your fired! i continually get complaints about you(to much time between games, coaching, un-even teams) well do some re-training, maybe a reffing workshop, if this doesnt help your performance, yup you guessed it YOUR FIRED!

Hey that sounds like how a professionally run business would act...theres no room for that in paintball!!

rjyemt1 has the right idea.

JDub

[DarkRipper]

/marks GRC off his list of fields to play tournies at

DR

[cphilip]

Professional refs are truely the answer. Professional refs must not play for a team ANYWHERE. And be held accountable and graded. Until we get this acomplished we will be open to this kind of problem.

[magc68]

team diluted is a diablo sponsored team none the less.

[giblit]

at my last tournament i almost got in a fight because the refs sucked so much. i bunkered some guy i thought he was the last guy left so i run up bunkered him shot him 2 times on the top of the head and he said some cuss words then he called hit so i was running the flag and he shot me something like 15 shots in my back and i guess they didnt break but he called hit and thats why i didnt keep shootin so i got pulled and he got to stay in, i was mad i approached him after the game and my teammates had to pull me off of him i was so pissed

[raehl]

It's just sad....

That tournament paintball has this crap reputation and people stay away from it because they assume it's the same everywhere. It's also sad that anyone under 20 gets painted with the wide brush.

I know it's going to sound like I'm doing advertising here (ok, so I am, heh) but tournament paintball doesn't HAVE to be like that, and it ISN'T always like that. College tournaments certainly arn't - they're more like a buncha recplayers on a concept field keeping score. We don't have wipers, the refs arn't involved in the league, and people just have good attitudes - because bad attitudes arn't tolerated. One of the better teams had a problem with a bad attitude player which ended up severely costing them at Nationals and thus ruining their season standings, and you can sure as hell bet that problem won't be repeated. It's culture too - when everyone plays straight-up ball, you don't want to be the one guy who doesn't. People watch the games, people will know if you're playing "the grey area", and they won't appreciate it - and the teams are good enough that they'll spank you whether you cheat or not anyway.

It's not just us though - I had hthe privilege of going to a Polar Bear tournament over at PGI in Wisconsin last weekend, I'd have to say I've never seen a better run, NICER tournament. The refs were on the ball and there were 48 teams there having a good time.

Maybe it's too late for most of tournament ball though - one thing the NCPA and the Polar Bear circuit have going for them is their players are new. I'd say 80% of our players are kids who start playing recball with their college club and then join the team and play OUR tournaments first, so they don't see the BS that's common in regular tourny ball so they don't learn to do it. Part of the problem in "regular" ball is people set a bad example and treat new players poorly, so the only people who stick around to keep playing are the dicks who think being a dick is ok - compounding the problem. Same effect is at work in Polar Bear - they're in MN and Northern WI, where before they got started, pretty much no one played tournament paintball - so when they did get started, all their players were new, didn't play outside the area, and again - never learned that playing like a dick was ok. If people play their first few tournaments without seeing bad behavior, when they DO encounter bad behavior they'll be able to know that it's not PAINTBALL they're watching, but immature players.


But you know, none of you have to take it. There are plenty of field owners out there who are sick of the crap, and most of them don't run tournaments precisely because they don't want to deal with a buncha whining tournament babies. Find one of them, talk to them, and run some tournaments. Don't offer prizes, make the rules really harsh on anyone who can't play clean ball, and keep at it. You'll probably start slow, but the teams who play good ball will stick around, and because your retention rate will be much better, you'll get more and more teams. I know we do 200-300% growth per year, Polar Bear has gone from something like 5 teams to 50-75 in 2-3 years. I think the "play clean ball" niche of tournament paintball, while small now, is REALLY where the people/money is. Look at all those rec-scenario players out there - it's not that they don't like to compete (they're playing paintball!), they just don't like to spend money to deal with BS. Most promoters arn't picking up on that, which is sad, because that's where the money is. Not those whining pricks who want everything handed to them - they don't even buy anything.


- Chris

[DarkRipper]

High quality statement, there Chris. Now we just need to make the niche mainstream. We won't do that as long as the Pros think it's OK to cheat to win for their sponsors, and as long as the industry pimps the Pros to sell their products.

DR

[cphilip]

I think I can vouch for Chris when he says that the College paintball tourney scene is very clean and fun. All I have seen has been so far.

[raehl]

Well, actually...

I think there's some movement away from supporting the whole pro team mentality. The people who run paintball companies are being replaced on the field by a younger crowd, which removes some of their personal involvement in play. The businesses themselves are maturing, and paintball companies are starting to notice that you can't really sell product through sponsoring a team that most of your customers dislike. It's not just that 80-90% of paintball players don't even play tournament ball, but many of the HATE anything to do with tournament paintball because of a lot of the BS. It's becoming harder and harder for companies to justify devoting so much of their sponsorship dollars to a handful of proam teams when all of their money comes from rec players.

It's actually kinda funny if you've grown up in paintball in the college scene to look at the big wall between rec and tournament ball in the rest of the industry that people just assume is a natural part of the game, because we don't have it. In fact, we think it's rather strange, because merging recreational and tournament ball is essential to us - virtually all of our tournament players are recruited through recreational clubs, our tournament players organize recreational events and even run scenario games as fund raisers. Recreational ball isn't just important for getting new players into the game and onto your teams, they're the bread and butter of funding and sponsorship - your college doesn't care what the record of your 5-man team is if there are 200 students in your club, you'll get student activities funding because you're an activity for 200 students. You're a DRAW for students looking at attending the school, and the school is willing to reimburse you for that value. Your local field doesn't care if you're first or last at the college tournament or even ever play one if you're bringing 50 players a month out to the field to spend their money. Everywhere else tournament and rec ball seem to be entirely separate while for us they're inseprable.

That's not to say there arn't a few schools who just have tournament teams, but they don't last very long. There's just no way a 5-man team can compete against a program of hundreds of players fielding a 5-man team in the long run.

- Chris

[Ityl]

Yes there are way more rec players, but you have to remember that tournament players account for more sales.

I'd like to say that GRC isn't all bad. I've had tons of good times there. But a couple bad times usually outweigh a bunch of good ones.

[raehl]

More sales of what?

High end $1000+ markers MAYBE. Everything else, not even close. Paint, pads, pods, packs, squeegees, markers, hoppers, tanks, et al. rec sales dwarf tournament sales. For every tournament player you see on the field there are 50 playing in their backyards. Go to a store which is affiliated with a field and ask them how much equipment and paint they sell to players they never see at commercial fields at all.

- Chris

[FutureMagOwner]

i dont get why these people bias against others and get so heated over the fact that they get their *** kicked by a better team. never had never will. i can see getting pissed a a ref being a jerk though but theres no reason they should be. this one ref really tee'd me off one time because right before we went to recycle she said "i really do hate this sport..." so im already pissed when we get to the base we are already getting shot at and gets pissed when i run off AFTER she told us we could go after we touched a bunker. she pulled me back because i was 2 inches from the thing(i was practically touching it) and i went to play because the guy right behind me just got ailed in the side of the head. she then called me out for a hit from an old game that has been dry for abot 3 hours.

[paintbattler]

no it will never suck

[Patron God of Pirates]

As it stands, Paintball is a great game, and an awful sport.