Disliking the way paintball is going

[LudavicoSoldier]

As long as...

field owners cater to both woodsballers AND speedballers, then there will be no problem. I had better not see fields around here not running games in the woods anymore just because all the n00bs to the sport go straight to the speedball field as soon as they can. I love Global Paintball in Abington, MA, as they have some EXCELLENT woods fields, as well as hyperball, fort, barrels, etc..

I think the bottom line is that there needs to be continued support for woodballers, even in this hype driven speedball climate.

[Python14]

Originally posted by davidnj
I like both game types. Just as long as Im playing paintball, I'm usually happy.

My thoughts exactly.

I like woods because it's just more relaxing. I can sit down and look around, and have fun. If I want to get in a gun fight, I can. But I want to sneek around and stuff, I can too. Plus, I don't have to spend a buttload of money on paint. I can go all day on only 2 bags of paint and an airfill. With speedball though, I get to get a real workout. It keeps me on my feet and makes me work for my wins.

[rathbaster]

Originally posted by Albinonewt
In order for sports to catch on people have to be able to watch them and get interested. If you can't watch it never catches your fancy.

Paintball is like golf, to get interested in it you have to play it. Watching paintball (like watching golf) is boring. (Some people must enjoy it, but they probably already have the interest.) I want to play, not watch. :)

JEDI said:
Want woods? Play scenario.

Scenario seems to be the growing end of the sport right now. There are scenario only teams and now products being produced for scenario players. (And AO just happens to have one of the best Scenario forums around.) My experience with scenarios have me hooked on them. If you haven't tried one, play a big MXS scenario.

davidnj said:
I like both game types. Just as long as Im playing paintball, I'm usually happy.

My attitude exactly. I play paintball. I have formats I prefer (woods, scenario) but if circumstances lead me to a speedball field, that's fun to.

[Crazy]

if NPPL gave everyone a surprise and brought in woods fields, everyone would give NPPL a surprise and NOT PLAY.

[Albinonewt]

Originally posted by rathbaster
Paintball is like golf, to get interested in it you have to play it. Watching paintball (like watching golf) is boring. (Some people must enjoy it, but they probably already have the interest.) I want to play, not watch. :)

If only paintball were like golf. Since tens of millions of dollars are spent on broadcasting golf tournaments each years, thousands of people go to watch, and million of people watch it on TV.

But then again, I guess golf is so boring that nobody watches it.

[LaW]

Originally posted by Albinonewt
Woods tournaments would be tough for basically how Goat says. It's simply not possible to have a thousand people in the stands watching woodsball because, well, um, there are trees in the way. In order for sports to catch on people have to be able to watch them and get interested. If you can't watch it never catches your fancy.

And the other point about mother nature not exactly growing the forests in a balanced way is valid to. I haven't seen too many symetrical woods, have you?

But tournaments dont always have to be there to draw people in, the more emphasis they put on that the less of a "fun" factor the actual tournaments will have.

As far as fields not being symetrical is bogus to me. I think that would be a good thing. Teams rely on a coin toss to decide what side to start on and you may have an edge or not. Kind of like football, where you can decide to play into or with the wind... This is how tournaments were done in the mid to late 90's... even the IAO was woodsball up until (cant remember exactly) a few years ago.

When I started playing it was all woodsball, then they introduced these concept fields. SOMETHING NEW! It was just great to go out and play something completely different then what I was used to. After getting used to that, you go back to playing some woodsball and it is a nice break from time to time. People that are getting sick of the concept fields and tourny scene I would suggest they play more scenario games, I have begun to do so. It is a really nice break from tournament play.

Bottomline to me is that airball fields shouldn't be used primarily because its easier to get a crowd in there to spectate. It really shouldn't be as large of a focus as some people make it out to be. The sport will continue to grow, but what would be wrong with having a few tournaments with mixed fields? Having played a few tournaments in the woods, it is a different experience and still fun.

[Albinonewt]

Agreed, that a focus on spectaturs can take away from the focus on the fun, BUT, the tournament organizers aren't there for us to have fun. They're there so we can compete and they can make money on our competition. So I think that in order to grow the competition (for them to make more money) they need to enahnce the spectators, viewship, and sponsorship. And that leaves casual tournament players up the creek.

We'll see where this new style leads us though. There are a lot of paths still open to the sport. I can't wait to see where the next few years takes us.

[LaW]

Originally posted by Albinonewt
Agreed, that a focus on spectaturs can take away from the focus on the fun, BUT, the tournament organizers aren't there for us to have fun. They're there so we can compete and they can make money on our competition. So I think that in order to grow the competition (for them to make more money) they need to enahnce the spectators, viewship, and sponsorship. And that leaves casual tournament players up the creek.

We'll see where this new style leads us though. There are a lot of paths still open to the sport. I can't wait to see where the next few years takes us.

Yup, agreed on the above. Definately cant wait to see where we are in the next few years. So many directions to go as you said.

I play maybe 1 nppl a year and not really interested in psp events so I guess my argument isn't primarily the focus of those tournament organizations. Perhaps more on a local level, where everyon tournament now HAS to be airball or hyperball or some sort of speedball field.

Kind of off subject but looking at some other newcomers to the sport, they are all young and only really focus on the "speedball" aspect of the sport with a very close-minded attitude when it comes to woodsball in general. I am just taking this from what I have seen in the local scene, and it may be too judgemental to whats actually going on.

And it is so sad that many of these young kids might NEVER play paintball using a pump marker it makes me cry... haha

[Albinonewt]

I think the attitude really depends on where you are. At the field I ref at the people actually throw things at me if I try to take them to the speedball fields (they're usually the only ones open since nobody will go to them). I think that if you have nice woods fields and focus on them the newbs will just follow you out there.

As for tournaments in woods. I think for most fields it just cheaper to put the tourney players on the smaller speedball fields and keep the larger woods fields for their rec players. That way they can do tourney and rec at the same time.

[FallNAngel]

Originally posted by Python14
I can go all day on only 2 bags of paint and an airfill. With speedball though, I get to get a real workout. It keeps me on my feet and makes me work for my wins.

Odd.. I shoot much more paint in woodsball than I do in speedball. I remember one of the last woodsball games I was in I went through a hopper and 3-4 pods, that was with a mech trigger too. In speedball I've been going through about a hopper and a pod or two.. and that's with my new Worrblade.

I know different people play differently, but for the most part, all I've seen of woodsball is players hiding behind bunkers made of logs and dense brush, sticking their barrel through it and shooting. Which basically means, no one ever comes out of hiding, so no one can hit anyone. That's the reason I generally don't like woodsball.

[rabidchihauhau]

The main reason that tournaments are no longer held in the woods is not because of field balance or lack of spectating - its because woodsball is virtually impossible to referee effectively.

I agree with the sentiment that players these days lack a lot of skills on the field because they've never played against a tree; its no surprise that the captains and vast majority of high-profile players on the name teams out there are all woodsball refugees (think about that one...)

Field balance is possible if you know what you're doing.

Spectating is possible as well.

What you can't prevent is the inability of refs to cover a wide enough area of ground, thick bushes players can hide in, and of course, woodsball fields are necessarily larger than speedball fields.