"The reasons I perfer Airsoft over Paintball"

[lather]

I played Airsoft with some friends who are really into it, (its popular here in Hawaii). Its different and kinda fun, though I prefer the viseral feeling of getting hit or hitting someone with a paintball. At times Airsoft felt like a spitball fight with fancy straws.

There is a sizable group of Airsoft enthusiasts here, and the maturity level is much greater than in paintball in general. Though Im sure after a while there will be those in Airsoft pushing for it to become more mainstream, accepted and on TV, then shortly afterwards the maturity level of Airsoft will match paintball.

[slade]

why i play paintball:

i dont give a crap about milsim. in fact generally, the farther i am from it, the better. paintball is more of a sport, and thats what i want. airsoft doesnt have a speedball/xball equivalent.

paintball has many more fields and tournaments.

paint for me is $25 a case, $35 for premium... thats still more expensive than airsoft, but thats fine with me.

i love the markers, working on them, cleaning them, thinking of ways to improve them. i dont know much about higher end airsoft guns, but i have no interest in any of the ones ive seen.

im staying the heck out of the woods. except for this sunday.

[Faddy]

We went out to play paintball one day. When we got to the field (where I live, no real paintball fields, unless I want to buy a $500 plane ticket or take a 3 day boat ride) there were some airsoft players out there. We decided to trade off use of the field. We'd play a game, they'd take a break, they'd play a game, we'd take a break, etc. Out of curiosity, I went out on the field when they were playing to see what it was like. I get out there, watch for a couple minutes and I hear, verbatim:

Airsoft player 1: Hey, I hit you!
Airsoft player 2: No you didn't. *shoots more at ASP1*
ASP1: You're out, you can't shoot me!
ASP2: You never hit me! *shoots some more at ASP1*

And that continued for a good 90 seconds until player 1 decided to just leave the field because he was frustrated. Reminded me of my days as a 6 year old playing war in the woods. "Bang bang, you're dead!" "No I'm not! You are!" "No, you're dead!"

More mature? Maybe I was unlucky. At least it's harder to fake being shot in paintball.

[drg]

Although I own an airsoft gun for kicks, I have never gotten into airsoft. I have always dug paintball from the get-go for one because the guns are just so much more rugged. They aren't glorified toys, they are designed for hard use. They make no compromises for a certain "look". In the end those compromises mean airsoft is difficult to ever take "seriously" ... it's more about roleplaying than actual game playing.

And of course the paintball "pucker factor" just can't be matched.

[Recon by Fire]

Who cares if you like paintball, airsoft, or both. Sorry, I cannot say the "milsim" idea ever attracted me to playing paintball. I never once considered it a close substitute for simultaedmilitary action. In fact these games (including airsoft) are the farthest things possible from "the real thing". I get a bit laugh out of those weekend warriors looking for the milsim effect anyway, go join the military if you want some "real-sim".

I tend to avoid the players in any game that try to carry themselves as militaristic. I have had only one experience with airsoft players, they were playing at the paintball field I was at one day. The had the milsim thing going, that's fine for them, and I talked with them and checked some of their gear out. I have no problem with them and i'm sure it is fun to play as any GAME is. But I did not care for the personality of one young player there; while I was asking about some of the basic game differences with them he shot at me an indignent remark insinuating that ALL paintball players are cheaters. I was a bit pissed at the punks comment but one of his own players slapped him and told him to shut up. I pushed it a bit further though and asked him if he knew the difference between the BDU's he was wearing and mine (I was playing woods that day); He answered that his were winter issue while mine were summer; I replied "no, kid. My combat badges were earned, yours were bought". The kid wisen uo a bit and did not say another word to me the rest of the day, which was just fine with me.

I don't care if we are playing airsoft, paintball, or yard darts, be a stan up player

[Drew Perkins]

Ya Airsoft is a nice excuse to go outside and just play a quick game or just shoot targets if anyone wants to try out the game I sell airsoft guns as low as $6.00 our next shippment is coming soon within 2 weeks

www.PUREAIRSOFT.com

[AGDlover]

OK I dont care about little tactical airsoft ppl they can go have fun where they do and do their little misions and w/e I'm gonna go play paintball and mind my own buisness. If airsoft ppl dont like me I dont care.

[TheTramp]

I get a bit laugh out of those weekend warriors looking for the milsim effect anyway, go join the military if you want some "real-sim".

[MoneyShot]

i dont like airsoft, i like paintball hee

[Evil Bob]

Its easy enough to find bad examples in any sport. What airsoft has going for it is that it doesn't have wide main stream exposure, right now its a very small niche element that's playing, much like paintball was 15-20 years ago when honor was everything. In time I suspect it will fall prey to either legislation (being banned for having guns that look too realistic) or mainstreaming in which it'll either vanish or run into the very same problems we have in paintball today with the ever increasing moron factor.

-Evil Bob

[automikey]

Is there lead in his water supply?

Wow, so many nice markers. Lots of great Palmers. There were a number of guns I expected to see (Phantom, other mags) before someone would retire that weren't there.

Hold on- aren't Airsoft guns made of plastic?

You're telling me someone said "I don't want to play with this nice Palmer Stroker, a custom gun crafted by an actual player who has been here since the beginning. Give me something cheap and plastic instead, designed for profit, preferably mass-produced in a factory that probably used to make toys for gumball machines.".

Ok, I'm going to get it now. Maybe I should look into airsoft more. Am I missing something?

Isn't it about the game, not the gear? You don't get graded on how good you look. It's about finding and eliminating your opponent, right?

To those of you who have fired actual weapons, do you like Airsoft or Paintball?

[FSU_Paintball]

I've played both.

Airsoft is nice because of the honor system, the range of the guns, and the lowered cost of playing.

However, the big airsoft game I was at had just as much cheating as the majority of paintball scenarios I'd been at. The gun clips can jam on most guns. You might correlate an older crowd with a more mature one, but most of those guys take themeselves WAY too seriously. They're strapping on all sorts of ridiculous tactical stuff, to the point where there's no way they'd feel it if they got shot.

[Archangel Zer0]

Eddie makes some good points, there. Want to make your own scenario? Type a few paragraphs of "background story" and steal the name off of a movie. Have a huge walk on contingent, but act like the 3 squads of guys from scenario groups are doing anything. Charge too much for paint. Make sure to only get one port-a-potty per 300 players. Make sure to have that one ref that's way too drunk/stupid/pissed off to be on the field. Make the field speed 280fps but don't enforce it when people are shooting 350+.

Paintball or airsoft, the only time you won't have cheaters running rampant is if you're playing in small groups with people you trust. If you play with cheaters you shouldn't be surprised when they cheat.

Some of those airsoft guns are really nice pieces of work and craftsmanship. Go to http://shortyusa.com/index.html and watch some of the videos. I couldn't stop laughing.

[Carbon]

Airsoft is advanced LARPing.

no diss.

[Conversekidz]

Hold on- aren't Airsoft guns made of plastic?

Cheap ones are made of plastic, just like cheap paintball guns I.E the talon.

If you really are into spending money on airsoft you can get full metal guns that are 1:1 scale, and they have the same weight as their real counter parts. I have looked at airsoft guns in the 600-1000 dollar range, it all depends on how realistic you want your gun to be.

But I do have to agree with the one comment, airsoft is just larping, just like paintball was larping when it first started out.