AGD at a crossroad.. where do you want it to go?

[Lurker27]

The problem is that AGD gave up on the tournament market, which is the Halo market, really. And then they blamed hype for doing it to them. They can keep the blow forward design, but it needs some tweaking.

Efficiency. Probably have to raise pressure and devolumize, but even the freestyle now gets better efficiency than a mag.

Move the reg. I know this will create some problems with on/off placement and such, but AGD needs to make a reg in the foregrip, for familiarity if nothing else.

No external hoses. They're hideous, and a gas through rail? Not hard at all to do.

Ditch level 10. You heard me, no one cares.

Get eyes. Proactive solution to chopping. Can queue shots.

Make it a spyder style sear tripper with ULT. Provide proprietary rechargable battery in the grip frame.

Make an attractive body. Anyone of Nicad's would work. Mags have never had any milling, so they haven't sold. People don't want to shoot an ugly gun, no matter what.

AGD's intrinsic problem has ALWAYS been that they are somehow "right" and everyone else is wrong.

And their markers have been getting hammered in sales for years because of it. Not only that, They've doggedly stuck by LX, the COPS of mags.

You guys know its true. A mag could be produced for $300 that would own most everything. Hell, give it a 15bps capped board that queues shots from the eyes, use those 16bps classic valves, give it some milling, foregrip, and a gasthrough rail, and watch it destroy WGP's Trilogy.

[JoshK]

There is a problem with no lvl 10...they are developing things like the hair trigger that arnt eyes compatable, and they will still have mech guns...they cant just get rid of lvl10...that is blasphemy.

[eric1337]

they need 2 make a spyder clone with a light trigger that new players will pick over spyders,tippys and clones thats basically it the greatest market for guns is new players that why kingman does so well u need 2 make an affordable gun period

[White_Noise]

i have to agree with rogue and say that i disagree with basically everything that taz-nz and most others have said.

taz said something about scenario not being a big part of the market? for every tourney player out there, there are atleast 10-15 rec/scenario ballers out there. tournament level paintball is the minority. it may get the most coverage, but it is a small percentage of the market. the tac one offers an upgrade path for those looking to step away from their spyders and tippmans.

and for the most part of what taz said in his previous post, he described what you can already purchase from agd, with the exception of having a different foregrip and different rail.

ball detent at the bottom of the breech? i can see some problem with this one already, especailly considering you dont want a modular rail/body, nor a modular breech.

from what everyone else has been saying, it seems like you want agd to become like every other marker on the market, and just offer new looks monthly instead of waiting off a bit for useful, worthwhile, and performance enhancing parts.

others of you just want a sear tripper, to you i say go buy a spyder then and stop trying to down grade the mag.

like i said before, if i were in charge of agd, id do exactly what tom was doing, putting up the bullet proof shields, and waiting for the smoke to clear before releasing anything new in terms of electros etc. tom knew what he was doing when he decided to wait this stuff out, and i hope that dave will too.

[Bear_Claw]

Although the high end markers are more presitges its the bread and butter mid range line that makes the money. As nice a Ford GT (New GT40) is its the Ford Mustag that will Make more money.

So in other words FIRST build on your Basic markers and put them on the store selfs THEN appeal to the Big spenders with a Pro gun that derives from that same gun.

You dont need a NEW desin to do this but rather just refine the one you have. A 68 Mag will sell if its priced right advertised right and is there to buy.

I may be new to AGDs markers but am a LONG time owner of Tippmanns a VERY succsess full company in a differant feild of the same game. They have a Marker for the masses and then have there upper class line. There failure is that there two guns are not very compatiable with each other MAGS could come up large here. Why not?

[Wc Keep]

taz a lot of what you said made sense, but was not right. the rt ule custom costs 350ish with a single trigger and can be got in all black. and last time i checked you could just toss a hopper and tank on that gun and go out and play. hmmmmmmmmm...........


the level 10 is a great invention, its actually better than eyes. you guys are over here saying eyes yet how many times do you see eyes get dirty?? the other day every gun at the field had dirty eye problems. and these problems made havoc for the guns. they can do a lvl 10 and an eye system but they have to figure out a way to make the gun more efficient.

[REDRT]

I think AGD has done a fine job to this point. There could be some improvement. With the passing of the Emag/Xmag We haven't had an electro marker for some time. Kids I see go nuts for the electro spyders at Wal-Mart and soon after that they find DM4, matrix, timmys . Kids like flash, bling and speed. Parents are spending big money for these kids. I think a new e-marker with a high rate of fire is going to sell big time. How ever a mechanical mag that is like an electro both in speed and light trigger pull has marit. I think that would be widely popular in the rec ball senerio games. Though I love the look of Mags, maybe a face lift is in order. Karta bodies are hot. I suggest Deadlywind and AGD hash things out. A little of both makes for a hell of a mag. Insted of piecing them together lets have a factory built one. Some wild colors and a new name like d-day mag or something. Kingman does it. The mag name is a paintball Icon, LEAVE THE NAME MAG. The Mag bad rap has got to go! Most kids don't know anything about mag til someone says, "there a blender" to them. People tried them years ago and they where blenders. Now they are flawless, but the people don't know this do to NO advertising. Here is the deal.

1. A faster new electro marker
2. A mechanical marker more like an electro
3. facelift: Factory wild bodies and colors example Deadlywind/AGD
4. Marketing big time

[Athius]

taz a lot of what you said made sense, but was not right. the rt ule custom costs 350ish with a single trigger and can be got in all black. and last time i checked you could just toss a hopper and tank on that gun and go out and play. hmmmmmmmmm...........


the level 10 is a great invention, its actually better than eyes. you guys are over here saying eyes yet how many times do you see eyes get dirty?? the other day every gun at the field had dirty eye problems. and these problems made havoc for the guns. they can do a lvl 10 and an eye system but they have to figure out a way to make the gun more efficient.

About eficiency i think that problem can be fixed by putting a hpr as a foregrip and in the AIR/X valve where the HPR is convert it into an LPR.

[Mike Smith]

Ok... It appears everyone agrees that the Mag is an excellent mech marker.

I want a Tac-1 in a woodland camo pattern with a matching hopper and tank.

{Tap... tap... tap... tap....}
How long do I have to wait?

Mike Smith

[Arson51]

i have to agree with rogue and say that i disagree with basically everything that taz-nz and most others have said.

taz said something about scenario not being a big part of the market? for every tourney player out there, there are atleast 10-15 rec/scenario ballers out there. tournament level paintball is the minority. it may get the most coverage, but it is a small percentage of the market. the tac one offers an upgrade path for those looking to step away from their spyders and tippmans.

from what everyone else has been saying, it seems like you want agd to become like every other marker on the market, and just offer new looks monthly instead of waiting off a bit for useful, worthwhile, and performance enhancing parts.

others of you just want a sear tripper, to you i say go buy a spyder then and stop trying to down grade the mag.

like i said before, if i were in charge of agd, id do exactly what tom was doing, putting up the bullet proof shields, and waiting for the smoke to clear before releasing anything new in terms of electros etc. tom knew what he was doing when he decided to wait this stuff out, and i hope that dave will too.

there are more recreational players out there that like the minimalistic, spartan look of milsim markers. thats a fact, go to d-day and you cant deny it. but these guys are out to have some fun, not be the top of the game. tournament ball on the other hand is fiercly competitive and players want the best to play their best. they are also willing to pay anything to ensure their chances of winning. the recreational players arent trying their hardest to win, so why would they need a top of the line gun? i think there isnt really a market for the tac one in scenario ballers.

the tournamet scene does get most of the glorious coverage. people see these winners and they want to be a bit like them, to try to win like them. ever baller that starts off and reads about the victories of dynasty or russian legion wants to know what equipment they use etc.

why do mags have to be diffrent? how does being diffrent help mags sell? this "diffrence" comes at a cost. the major gun styles in the market are generaly the same i think: they are beauitful, light, fast, very accurate/effecient, on yeah they are ELECTRONIC. these are the markers the best of the best use beacuse they are good guns. whats wrong with trying to be just as good as these markers? being diffrent dosent help sell guns.

oh and you know as well as i do that the emag is a hybrid electro, a fancy sear tripper with a switch to make it mech.

[taz-nz]

lets clear a few thinks up

Ok maybe I shouldn't have written that second post at 1:00-2:00am last night. So let me try to make things a little clearer without it turning into a rant.

First off making major changes to the MAG design will cost money, big money & lots of time. All my suggestions are for quick easy things AGD could do to help things moving in the right direction.

Ok so I shouldn't have call the RT ULE Custom rubbish, but look at the picture of it on the website. RT ULE Custom , Now look at look at what Smartparts offers 03 Shocker colours Which would you choose, the marker with mismatched colours, and what the hell is that there for, or the super sleek, just pick a colour marker.

Here is another example of what's wrong with the RT ULT custom, Old shocker new shocker All smartparts did here was make their old marker look bad and the new one look good. They made the old maker black and boring, gave it a longer barrel a taller feed neck and a bigger HPA system, all just to make it look big and ugly and then put the new brightly coloured new model in front of it, with a shorter barrel and small HPA.
AGD could do the same thing put an old RT-MAG, with a high rise feed, in mismatched colours, a single trigger frame, a huge ugly barrel and a big old school Air-America HPA system. (the RT ULE Custom image is half way there) now put a blue ULE body mag with a wingless body rail and a nice 10" barrel and a intelliframe with blade trigger, a nice small 45/45 HPA system, all colour matched, in front of in it to show how far the mag has come. (You could go so far as to show paint dripping from the barrel of the RT.)

Smartparts do well because they know how to market their product. AGD need to make available a simple clean ULE-MAG ready to go (now I know I've said that before), in 4 or 5 different matching colours. Not a custom MAG you can only order off the website, where you have to choose which body, barrel, grip frame, trigger, valve, bolt, foregrip, bodyrail, you want and in which colour you want each one. People need to say "WOW, cool looking marker, I want the Red one". Not send a hour learning what each option offers over the other.

There is nothing wrong with RT ULE Custom as a marker, it just wrong for first and even second time buys. Most people here have probably owned 3-4 markers and know what they want out of there next one, but lots of options just confuses first time buyers. (Trust me I sell computers for a living. K.I.S.S is the golden rule with first time buyers) And that's the thing, AGD needs to target first or second time buyers with a good mid range marker.

The TAC-ONE isn't all bad, but it's got it purpose built into it looks & design. A first time buyer doesn't know they just want to play scenario, they may just play rec ball, or maybe get in the tournament scene. The TAC-ONE says I'm a scenario game marker all over it, It says it should never be seen on a speedball field or at a tournament, should the owner be shamed for life for been seen there with one. I think a single trigger and a pump kit style foregrip, would be more in keeping with the scenario game real gun look. Also for the price difference I think it needs something to make it stand out againest a Tippmann, and as it's all aluminum a matt finish camo anodizing job sound like the simplest option.

Moving the REG to the front of the marker.
Oh well here we goes. Anyone suggest this can't have ever looked at how the RT/Retro/X-Valve works. Page 4 of this PDF is a good place to start. The valve and the reg in the RT System are one unit they can't be separated.
Well you could but it would eliminates the very reason for the RT-Design, fast recharge.
Why? Because the gas would have to pass though the Reg seat, then travel all the along the body to the dump chamber and back along the body to the Reg piston to keep the RT System intact, It just wouldn't work well if at all, and it would cost a huge amount of money to design and would cost too much extra to make.

Changing to low pressure or changing the dump chamber in size.
The dump chamber size is probably no longer tuned to the design of the current valve/reg and bolt it's been used with. But changing it would mean starting all over again with the design of the marker, not something I think AGD can afford to do right now, along with the changes to the chamber there would be changes needed to the body, body rail, sear, and even possibly the grip frame. This makes a good long term goal, if they can improve gas efficiency, but it's not something they are likely to do anytime soon.

New Electronic mag
This is something I think AGD needs to help raise their profile, i.e. get back into the tournament scene in a big way. But I think it should be more of a long term goal, development would be costly and there are a dozen other good electronic marker out there to competie with for a relatively small part of the paintball dollar. (Flagship products get you noticed, mid range products make you money.) If they want to get a new E-MAG out quickly they need to follow the simplest route, copy someone elses idea and do it better. A Desert fox sytle valve (Check out the desert fox to see what I mean.) and a sear tripper grip frame, would allow for a clean design with complete compatiblity with the currenty body, reg, and bolt, making for an easy upgrade path like the E-blade, and best of all no ugly battery pack. Anti-Chop eyes etc, seem pointless when AGD have probably the only anti-chop bolt on the market that works.

Custom or Limited run MAG
This is a must, it's easy to do and it works, dozens of paintball companies have done it and it's a proven winner. It also helps sell the standard version of the maker, Joe Newbie see the ultra cool milled body mag with the amazing anodizing job and dreams of owning one, but they can't afford it, so he buys the next best thing, the maker it's based on with nearly the same performance and feel.

One piece body/body rail and other big changes
A one piece body is probably a long term thing it but could have a lot of benefits, lighter overall marker, tighter tolerances for the sear alignment, and it makes a good time to give the marker a face lift at the same time. I'd personal like to see the ball detent moved to the bottom of the breach ProLite style, to give the marker a clean look at the same time. (after all who wants a bolt head sicking out the side of their marker)

Warp feed (This bit turned into an all out rant so I left it out.)
Insert I don't like Warp feeds in a long winded way.

Long term AGD probably needs the E-MAG II or the HAIR trigger to make a big splash again, but in the mean time they need to make the best of the great products they've got.
They can start by taking their web designer and marketing manager out back and shooting them both.
I think as "Lurker27" put it "AGD's intrinsic problem has ALWAYS been that they are somehow "right" and everyone else is wrong. " Could have some truth to it too.

I'm not a fan boy of any one marker or company. I've got a Tippmann Prolite, a Palmers Pursuit Shop Typhoon, a Eclipse Automag (along with pump kit and autoresponse trigger frame to go with it) a Rainmaker is my current tinker project, and I have a one of a kind Autococker-Sovereign crossbreed being custom built form scratch. The MAG has always has had one of the best designs as far as I'm concerned, and I'd hate for it to become just another piece of paintball history due to little more than what seems to me as bad marketing.

Hopefully I've got my ideas across more clearly this time. I'm not saying any type of paintball player is less important that any other, or that AGD doesn't need to change their design some, I'm just saying they need rethink the way the use what they've already got and how they market it first.

Lets just hope AGD takes on some of what everyone has said and comes up with the goods.

[JoshK]

WOW!!! i now need to read that all

[cledford]

Show me some statistics!

I keep hearing about how many scenario players there are out there - and have even been guilty of making similar statements myself - but what HARD DATA are we really making these assuptions based on? The funny thing is that EVERY paintball mag I see (except for crossfire) is nothing BUT tourny players and play. So what direction is paintball really moving?

-Calvin

[JoshK]

wow...took me 6 minutes...ya...a lot better stated this time.

[JoshK]

i posted a poll to see what kind of paintballers we need to majorly market to...even though its only on this forum...i guess it might help ....i wanna be a help