Oh... You want to go to that field?

[Havoc]

This post is about fields that get a bad reputation for one reason or another, no names please just the story this isn't about bashing the field.

So the one field close to me I've only played at a few times because long ago the town would not grant permission to make an expansion. they needed to do some excavation so with out approval they brought in an excavator and hit a main sewer line, and that's why I never wanted to play at the poo poo field.

P.s. it is a good field very well run but that is always in the back of my mind

[Axel]

Our group knows of an excellent local field, in that the grounds are just beautiful, the themes and cover are varied, and my favorite feature is that they are all individually netted, so you can walk between fields with mask off (I wear glasses, this luxury is golden). Unfortunately, safety standards are so lax that a group of maskless renters blasting off their extra paint at the chronograph station--with dubious barrel cover practice to boot--warrants no reaction from management. And yes, we spoke up about it. We like the field, but we're essentially waiting for an incident to shut it down

[Flounder]

That is a very nice but poorly run facility

[JonM]

Is that place still open? I think I may have heard that they shut down around the time of the COVID lockdowns.

[DocsMachine]

First field I ever played at, was just a chunk of woods near the operator's house. The "neutral zone" not only overlooked the field, so we could see the action, but the somewhat 'elastic' boundaries (there was no tape or string) often led to players moving around said neutral zone.

The one saving grace- if you can call it that- was the little zone was protected on two sides by extremely dense brush. Far too dense to shoot through, let alone for players to try to hide in or shoot out of.

This was back in the pump days, and so of course nobody was strafing randomly- and by grace and luck, there were never any injuries.

Of course, the guy also never used a scale for fills, only brought out a chronograph exactly once in the two years I played there, and I'm not sure anyone had even heard of a barrel plug, let alone owned one.

And speaking of 'elastic boundaries', years later, I played with an outlaw group who had apparently gotten permission to use a local "fitness trail", which wound through some actually very dense woods. It was actually a great deal of fun, except for three things: First, the devil's club thornbushes, second, it soon became clear to me that nobody seemed to have bothered telling the other trail users we were playing there, and there were no agreed-on boundaries.

The elastic boundaries kept getting wider and wider- players on both sides started going further and further out to the sides in an attempt to 'flank' the other guys.

I'm pretty sure it got to the point that on "go", half of each team ran straight backward for half a mile, caught a cab or possibly chartered a small plane, reinserted five miles behind enemy lines, and spent the next two hours sneaking their way back up to the flag station.

After seeing this, a couple of my teammates and I waited about three minutes after "go", walked casually straight up the center- you know, where the trails were- grabbed their flag and walked it back. Never fired a shot, never saw anybody, never heard a shot. I'd wager when we pulled their flag, there wasn't another player within 200 yards.

Oh, and portions of the same group, a year or to later, playing on a private field- as in a literal overgrown field behind some guy's house. This one had actual boundaries- a wood and/or wire fence around the entire property. The only problem being, the entire property was some 50 acres, and heavily overgrown and brushy in spots, if not actually wooded. And there was only about 20 of us in total.

First game, I had a Bushmaster 2000, which had a game timer screen in the back of the tray. The standard setup was the timer would start when you fired your first shot. I fired a shot when we heard the air horn, and me and two or three other guys went skulking about in the bushes.

According to the timer, it was over thirty minutes later when we heard the first shot, somewhere across the field.

After about another ten of not finding anyone, not being shot at, not hearing any other action, etc. we made our way back to the parking area to get a drink. Forty-five minutes later, the first two guys came walking in. They weren't out either- they, too, got tired of waiting and came in.

I think what happened was every single player spread out in groups of no more than two, each with a zone of about two or three acres to himself, and mushroomed.

Oh, those were the days...

Doc.

[Ecapnation]

2000+ people and the "reballs incident"

A vendor was selling off cases of reballs which was advertised as for teching and training mind you. However the reballs were cheaper than a case of field paint and the clientele of this field is notoriously troublesome.

Eventually about 50 cases of reballs made it out onto the field being shot at 300 fps during the big beach landing battle. Yeaaaaaah.

Same field. They have zero efs to give about homemade sir cannons... I had one that somebody poorly made explode a few feet Infront of me sending a 20 oz tank screaming past my head

[Moodog]

Serious question - do reballs weigh the same as normal paintballs? I've never held one before so I don't know if this incident resulted in more hurt or just a gigantic mess.

[Ecapnation]

Moo....

Same weight however they don't break on impact so more oomf behind them at 300.

[Araphel]

ah, that field. I thought the "reball incident" was actually attributed to a single individual (from a team named after the chemical used to gas Jews in the Holocaust) and were actually riot balls/ nylon ball bearings. That place definitely attracts some classy people.

[Tinybear]

Wow In my 20+ years I have not had any truly BAD experiences at fields.

Only once my marker went down (stripped out the crappy plastic velocity adjuster on my tippmann Pro/Carbine) while playing at sgt splatters indoor (very early on before I had a back up or back ups for my back up lol). So I rented a marker. Was some cheap STBB. My god that thing needed some love. Could not hit the broad side of the barn with that thing. BUT that miserable experience was the reason I ended up with my first of many Automags. I went into the pro shop that afternoon and splurged on my first 68 Automag. I probly never would have spent that much as I was cheap and back the. Everything was about fixing up my project Truck and saving $$ for a house. But I was so frustrated and that Mag was so slim and sleek, it just spoke to me. And I guess it was a good call because I still have and still LOVE that Automag. Also still have and love that carbine (now with a steel velocity adjuster) 20+ years latter.

[NONOBLITUS]

Ok so there is this Renegade field in Rhode Island and this guy there that wears a kilt and a member on here. If you happen to find yourself there you will be forced to have fun with no drama and leave with new friends . Who wants that ? If for some reason you meet up with guys from a certain stock class group they will force generous offers on you and just in general be way too nice. So I mean if you want to have fun I guess you can chance going here. Don’t say you were not warned.

[Jonnydread]

What happens in West Greenwich stays in West Greenwich.

[Havoc]

Oh that's just the worst!

[AnarchicArctic]

If you’re lucky you can even leave with itchy, weeping sores!

[Jonnydread]

and that's why I never wanted to play at the poo poo field.

Long live the poo poo!

[Jonnydread]

There is a semi-local field that I will occasionally go to for events. This field primarily caters to the speedball crew and is the practice/tourney grounds for a lot of teams in the area. In addition to the airball fields they have a neat city field, some woodsball and some hyperball.

I have never seen more egregious safety violations in my life. Giant holes in netting, people lifting masks on the field, no chrono OR velocity checks, rampant cheating and blind-firing... just mind blowing how bad it is. The owner only really makes money from the speedball folks so he provides lip service, but doesn't actually give a shit.

I keep going because I want to play paintball and I'll go where the games are, but I exercise extreme personal caution while I'm there and I do my best to keep an eye out for rental mistakes and other beginner faux-pas.

I am very surprised that the field hasn't gotten shut down or involved in a massive lawsuit.

[Toestr]

This field has a bit of everything I've read in others.

The fields themselves are great. There's a great variety of size and terrain to them. Unfortunately, that's about it.

Paint here is somewhat known for being expensive. Pricing is pretty much on par with other local fields; but over the past few years especially, quality has been awful. Last time I was there I was sold big box store quality paint - at 3x the price. And wasn't EVERY single ball dimpled/misshapen. This probably has something to do with it sitting during the pandemic, and what GI is choosing to sell to fields, but that's where you adjust the price.

I have a real disdain for the clientele here. It's mostly comprised of a) rental groups from a fairly local major city, or b) macho men who want to have a TV paintball 'war' experience. Quite a bit, English isn't the first language of the rental groups, which often leads to them not understanding the rules. And say what you want about tourney players, but I've seen far more renters get lit up by casual players rocking an upgraded Tippmann or a low-mid end electro because they're out to play 'war'. I've seen players here decide to light up trees/garbage cans in the safe zone, and when you tell them off, they look at you like you're stupid.

Management aren't players themselves, and know nothing about the game, or what makes it appealing. As far as they're concerned, people just come out to shoot the shit out of friends/strangers. You can tell it's nothing but a paycheck for them.

Other than that it's pretty basic stuff. Rentals barely function, fields are in various states of disrepair, some holes in the netting. Chronoing is only done once at the beginning of the day, and even then, the it's easy to slip through or the chrono doesn't work.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[Jonnydread]

That's the worst when the fields has so much potential, but the execution and upkeep kills them.

[euangelion]

Company X purchased an old 9 hole golf course but did not have the $$ or staff support to build it up.

One field consisted of the golf courses leftover and rusted maintenance equipment (mowers etc) that just had tarps thrown over them. (I can only imagine the lawsuit should a patron have sliced themselves open on something).

Another field that didn't quite make it to even being used was being constructed using old Broadway play sets that a local warehouse was selling off. Long story short these items were not meant to get wet and literally dissolved into pools of stinky goo.

The only available facilities were also porta johns that kept getting blown over as they were for whatever reason placed fully exposed on a hill.

[Jonnydread]

Gives a whole new meaning to the term poo poo field.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I stay away from a few fields. One has the worst paint I have ever seen sold. They buy the crap paint others reject and sell it for top dollar. I’m talking golf ball like dimples and rollouts out of a reball inserts for $80 a case. $60 if you want a few bags. + entry. I remember it being just under $100 for the day with 2 bags of paint I ended up throwing out it was so bad.

Another beats on new players and talks down to them. I still play xball there but I won’t play rec even tho they have a nice field good prices and decent paint.

But reality is many fields that run like this can’t operate long like this without support from large city populations or the dirty money getting processed threw em so they are few and far between.

[Cyberpyr8]

Good and bad story. The field I might be playing at currently used to be horrible.

The Bad: The first time I went they searched my gear (while I was up at the window paying and left it with my 12 year old son at the time) to be sure we didn't bring in paint from somewhere else. Then that day there were these guys drinking beer and playing. By the afternoon they were so drunk they were accidently shooting everyone. They left beers out on the field and were a mess. They used to have these 12 year old refs out there that didn't have a clue how to run games. They would stack the teams electrics vs rentals all the time. The older brothers of these refs who were playing would tell them how to setup the teams and what fields to go play. It was always terrible going there. I drove 45 minutes further to play every week just to not go there. The final straw for me was an incident where a group of renters needed a towel to clean a mask full of paint off and the ref ignored the kids asking nicely. My son heard them and went over and cleaned all their masks with water and a towel to help them out. I overheard the refs talking about that group later on and it was terrible what they said. I swore I wasn't going to ever go back there and I didn't for 6 years. I should have talked to the ownership but I thought they heard them from behind the counter and I felt like they weren't going to do anything about it either.

The Good: So I recently went back one day because everything else was closed (something to do with a pandemic or some such nonsense) and it was a much better experience. Those old refs are gone and they are organized now, don't search your gear and have refs that know what they're doing and act a lot more professional. I drive an hour to go play there about every week (I moved since the time I lived very close to them). They have a timer running games every 6 minutes from the end of the prior game and they do a much better job of balancing teams. They also take safety a lot more seriously and I feel better playing out there. The whole experience has gotten better. Thing like bad refs can ruin everything.

My other field was so bad that I went to complain to the owner one night and walked away managing the field. I did that for about 3 months to get them turned around. Just as they became profitable I handed it off and they then proceeded to shut down the business and closed the field and the trampoline park they had. They were ridiculous owners too.

[Arthur]

One of my fav fields in Oregon is totally great except for the poison-oak and hornet nests. I remember walking away from being stung, going up a hill, and looking back down on a group of unwitting players who happened to congregate where I was previously. I could see the hornets zipping through the sunlit canopy, still tagging people, dozens lol.