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**iamthelazerviking** · 06-04-2024, 02:06 PM

Super cool. And I wish a paintball camp was around when I was first starting that sounds amazing. It's awesome you're in a position to financially help grow the game.

Wish I could help others out money wise, but my "grow the sport" comes in the form of how I carry myself and interact with others, especially first timers and newer players. I give tips, answer questions, help put fears aside, and do what I can to make them feel more comfortable and not scared of being mixed in with experienced players.

A group of out of towners, 4 dudes in their 20s, were in the area and stopped in for paintball. They gave it a good shot but a couple of them were more reserved and scared, so asked refs I'd they'd be able to play with just their group. I had a pump and they invited me in which was cool. So it was me and one vs 3 and they'd switch off being teamed up with me. It was a blast honestly, one balling from across the field lol but they were very appreciative.

**Melrosejedi** · 06-04-2024, 03:19 PM

I’ll use a line from the song “ fight the good fight” by triumph. “ the good book says it’s been to give than to receive,I do my best to do my part”. Well done sir,your a true ambassador of the sport and a great human being. In this day and age of insanity, it’s nice to have a little refresher on the future that’s positive to the human spirit. Thank you.

**Cdn_Cuda** · 06-04-2024, 03:48 PM

Good topic!

On the field:

While I get little field time, when I do play I go out of my way to talk to and interest with renters. Asking how they’re going, given them tips, making them feel welcome. I’ve also lent soft goods to some renters, like gloves, to make their experience a little better.

I’ve also helped gun owners fix their equipment when they needed some help.

I’ve also handed my Emek with a full hopper to a kid celebrating their birthday jjust as they were heading into to the fuels for a game. Both the kid and his dad were thrilled and very appreciative. I’ve also offered to let renters (and refs) shoot some of my markers, especially the neat and unusual ones.

On occasion I have given people free markers as well. There were two guys renting and played most the day. As I was wrapping up a walked over and handed them an Azodin Chaos with a hopper. Turned out it was the guy’s birthday and was very happy. Last time out there was a large group of young guys that were renting. I owed Trbo323 a Walzmas promise so I threw a 98 Custom in the middle of their table and said winner of the next round gets it. They were all extremely appreciative.

Off field:

I fix up and sell a fairly good amount of markers, mostly locally. I make sure the markers are fully functional and ready for use, and if they have trouble to let me know and I can fix them. Helps ensure that beginners get good quality gear that works, which makes them happy. I frequently run into players I’ve sold markers to at the field. If people are nice I like to add in bonus items like soft goods etc.

Just the other day I had a visit from
my daughter’s friend’s older brother who was interested in paintball and wants to try and play some time. I spend two hours going over everything showing him different equipment and letting him shoot pretty much anything he wanted. He shot pumps, mechs, pistols and was really excited to learn. I’ll find a time to take him
out to the field hopefully this month or next month. It was especially good as the kid has been having a bit of a tough year at school socially, so these kind of things help build some confidence.

I want to do a private rental this summer get get a bunch of first timers out and give them a good introduction to the sport in a more controlled environment than walk-on. I’ve had times at my local field I’ve called it a day due to thankfully rare idiots, so don’t want a chance encounter.

Online:
This is one where I see MCBbas a whole does an excellent job at being ambassadors for the sport. Helping people out with problems, adding expertise, generally providing a positive and friendly environment to learn about paintball. I know many of you are also active on Reddit and helping people a lot on that platform.

I try to positively add to MCB by creating content to help players in the future with breakdown threads of various markers. Often I get help from more knowledgeable members that add further insight and knowledge that is greatly appreciated. As well as helping players, I want it to help MCB draw in more people and grow. I still hear people say MCB is dead after the last hack. They are just clueless. That’s why I’m out sporting MCB jerseys with pride.

I have also received a huge amount of help from MCB members and have made many friendships with fellow players. I certainly appreciate it.

**drewkroeker** · 06-05-2024, 11:49 PM

This thread makes me smile

Here's how I contribute to a great paintball experience:

1) Safety - This comes partly from the field staff and partly from the players. Any time a player lifts their mask up in the playing area somebody will get in their face right quick. Not in a rude/aggressive manner but with VOLUME and URGENCY. I was this player last weekend, telling little dude to always keep his mask on and exit the field if he needs to take it off. Same thing when someone exits without affixing their barrel bag, the staff or the regulars will remind them loudly. There is an easily accessible chrono station and shooting range. The staff do a thorough orientation for all new players. You can tell that they care about you having fun but also being safe.

2) Drew's armory - At this point I have more markers than I can use. Now when I buy something I buy it with the idea of loaning it out. I have a Milwaukee packout full of markers, tanks, rotors, o-rings, parts, tools and my own chrono. I have five masks in a couple different models. If there are rental players brave enough to join the equipment owners, I will ask if they want something with more firepower than the tippmann FT12 they are using. The emek is clutch. "Here is the safety, push this button and then your trigger is live." It's just that simple. An emek with rotor and small carbon fiber tank is way lighter and easier to maneuver than a tippmann, especially for the younger players. I keep the rotors topped up with GI 3-star or whatever is the highest grade available. I also give them a quick shooting lesson when we go on the field: tank to your shoulder, back of the gun at your nose, tip the hopper inwards behind cover. Depending on how many renters there are I might also switch markers with them. They get a taste of the good life shooting a geo and I get to see if I can make any hits with an FT12 that has been rode hard and put away wet lol. One kid who borrowed an emek last year was like "this is WAY better!" And I'm like "Damn right! Any time you play here, if I'm here come say hi, I'll hook you up. Look for the green shirt!" When they come off the field excited about getting eliminations, I get the same warm feeling a dad gets when his kid learns to ride a bike. At least I think it's close, I don't have any kids of my own.

Loaning gear to my buddies - I really like having primo stuff to lend out when I bring my friends. Some of them have played years ago but don't have their own stuff. They can borrow mine and still have a fighting chance against the speedballers. After using my geo my friend said "This is the nicest paintball gun I've ever seen" and I'm like "Damn right!"

If someone is having marker problems I ask them if they want to borrow one of mine. Depending on what marker it is I might make an attempt to fix it. For some reason there is no field close to me that stocks DSR parts so I picked some up when I had the chance.

I will let people shoot with my marker in between games and tell them they are welcome to try it out if they want.

3) Chill vibes - This goes back to the overall culture of the field and the player base. The guys I play with know that this is just for fun. Nobody feels the need to wipe. There's only been a couple instances of any kind of overshooting that I've witnessed over years of playing here. We divy ourselves up with roughly the same number of speedballers and milsim dudes and renters on each team. Sometimes there will be one renter left and the "sharks" will close in. The kid is sitting at a back bunker, he knows he's outnumbered and outgunned. Either the ref calls GAME OVER or at worst the kid gets one-balled from 20 yards away. We always ask rental groups if they want to join us but we are super lowkey, if they want to play their own games that's perfectly fine. Sometimes the offer of borrowing Drew's markers makes them brave enough to join us which is awesome.

And one last thing I thought of: safety pins. Sometimes the strap on a renter's mask is old and losing it's stretchiness. You can tell because the mask is sliding down their face and is only held on by the top strap (thank God!) I'll get them back to the staging area and help them get their mask tightened up. It makes a world of difference for them and it's four small pins that cost maybe $0.78 total.

**Riot** · 06-06-2024, 09:54 AM

I saw a picture from a game this past weekend of a bunch of dudes on a stage having a wedgie contest with each other…
honestly, maybe we just let the sport die, eh?

**JeeperCreeper** · 06-07-2024, 08:56 AM

Last weekend at Riot's Pumpapalooza Pirate pistol game, a dad brought his kid to the local field. He quickly recognized our group of stock class players, and started talking to us. He wanted his kid to play with some classy players, so I let the kid rock my favorite Phantom. He was not new to paintball at all, but had never tried stock class before. I tell you, that kid had a smile on his face the whole time.

Otherwise, it's the usual, I call my hits, don't start drama, and just try to keep an upbeat and happy vibe with all my interactions on the field and in the parking lot.

I've also started recording. I want to show these positive games and silly shenanigans to the world. All you typically see is clips of speedball, people holding lanes and missing their reloads, cheating and aggressive behavior. I want to do my part to change that. So Like and Subscribe to Creeper Custom Paintball on YouTube 😆 (#shameless_plug) and also Pump Kings (@pumpkingsboston) for upbeat, positive paintball content.

**Chappy** · 06-10-2024, 08:18 AM

I put together a loaner fleet of about 6’procarbs, masks and tanks. Yesterday my 15 yo daughter invited 6 friends over to play, a mix of first timers andomce or twice players. I also invited a few buddies and mcbrs. The kids all wanted to play together on the same team. Normally I think we would have split them up to make sure the teams were even but they were all about it. They wanted to play together and even though we were generally beating them handily, they kept gaining confidence and wanted to keep trying. I was very impressed. Especially when my daughter double tapped me in the chest from 20 or so feet. Proud dad moment there.
One of the first timer girls was having trouble shooting the first game so I showed her a little more about how to point and shoot. Next game she shot my buddy Rocky in the face, and went on to have a great day with a few more eliminations Watching these kids excitedly talking about the games brought so much joy.. And it’s a Really great feeling sharing something that has brought me so much positivity in my life with my daughter and her friends. Whether they stick with it or not remains to be seen, but those memories will be with them for a long time.
Edit oh and thanks again to COB , Araphel, Justin , Parker, & Rocky for being the kind of players you want to invite to these sorts of games.

**Cyberpyr8** · 06-10-2024, 04:13 PM

These are great stories! I love our community in paintball.

I have decided (since I will never do video reviews) to make my WalkTheField.com site about growing the sport and sharing stories. I have linked back to this thread as part of that.

If you can check out my site let me know if you find any errors or issues that would be great. I will continue to help and publish stories. I would encourage any of you to do the same either here or sent to me to add.

Current URL: https://10f9135.netsolhost.com/
I am trying to get my WalkTheField URL to go there but it's taking a while for DNS to update.

Steve

Edit: www.walkthefield.com is working. I have linked back to this thread as well. Thanks for the stories and keep them coming!

**Drunkscriblerian** · 06-14-2024, 12:41 AM

Honestly? More communities like this should be public, so people know this exists.

I've come back to the sport after being absent since 2000, and goddamn...this community both reminds me of what paintball used to be like and is what I wish all of paintball was. It reminds me of the good old days and I am dead sure more young kids would join if they knew a community like this awaited them.

**MrBarraclough** · 06-14-2024, 03:02 PM

Every time I go to the field, I bring a bright red reusable shopping bag with me full of gloves. Just cheap, brown, jersey knit utility/work gloves that are $5 per 10 pack at Harbor Freight, like you'd buy for a landscaping crew. I keep about two dozen pair in this bag with the fingers cut to half length for a universal fit. I stenciled "GLOVES free to use, return to mesh bag" in big letters on the red bag. The field staff screwed a hook into an exterior wall of the shop where I can hang the red bag and a white mesh laundry bag. At the end of the safety brief, the head ref announces that there are gloves for anyone's use hanging up in the bag that they can return to the mesh laundry bag when done (or keep if they like). I also stop by groups of renters at the staging area tables and let them know about the gloves, and explain that getting popped on the knuckles is unpleasant. At the end of the day, I bring them home and wash them. Every few months, I'll pick up a few more packs of gloves to replace any depleted stock. I do this because when I was about 13, I took a nasty hit between the base of my right ring finger and first knuckle that tore the skin open in two little arcs. Hurt like hell and took weeks to heal. I have never played without gloves ever since, and I don't want anyone to have a bad experience because of a bare knuckle shot. I think the gesture of providing gloves also just improves the atmosphere at a field.

Last fall, I created a visual guide to common, known bad masks: Masks that turn up in Amazon searches for "paintball mask" that don't actually comply with ASTM F1776. I shared a digital version here on MCB, and had a few copies printed in color and laminated that I gave to my home field to use as references for new staff. I noticed a kid with one of these cheap Amazon masks a couple of months back and stopped him from trying to wear it on the field. Loaned him one of my Proshields for the day and even bought the cheap mask off him for $20 that he could put towards a real paintball mask. With the staff's permission, I strung the cheap mask up at the chrono range to demonstrate how dangerously inadequate non-compliant masks are. It was obliterated within a couple weeks.

I have gotten away from bringing a lot of loaner equipment to the field just because it became a hassle to keep up with and I hate missing games to wrench on markers. But I'll still at least toss a couple of spare motorized hoppers in the car and help out someone who is struggling with jams due to a cheap gravity fed.

There are so many little things that we can each easily do to make the sport welcoming and help newer players have a good time. Carry a microfiber and wipe off some kid's lens as he bumbles his way back to the respawn point. Swab a barrel for the renter who just chopped paint. That sort of thing.

**Daniel Tiger** · 06-14-2024, 06:31 PM

Like many of us here, I have a hoard of 98s and spyders that came in lot where I wanted something else. I fix them and hand them out to birthday kids or kids that are around asking questions.

on the field, if I’m shot I’ll go coach some of the kids still that are trying to roll out of their bunker for each shot. I like the idea of printing out some mask guides but I think I will print tips for gun fighting and movement (just like the standard stuff we tell folks when they come in asking for advice)

**Cyberpyr8** · 06-17-2024, 09:39 AM

I updated the info on my site but for the TLDR version, I let a 13 year old kid use my LV2 setup all day. He had a great time. I lent my Emek out all day too. The guys who used it all had a lot of fun with the better experience and accuracy. It was a fun day and I got to spread the love of the sport with 3-4 more people. I got to talk to a lot of players and it was a great day overall.

**Grendel** · 06-17-2024, 01:21 PM

On open rec days I have fun playing and try to make it fun for the other players. I like to talk to new players/renters going on and off the field especially if I can comment on something they or their friend did. Include new players in the comradery of being a paintball player. Give coaching/encouragement while on the field and call out "good shot" with a wave especially if you can make eye contact with the shooter. At the end of the day I usually give my excess paint away too new players who look like they are really trying to play and having fun trying.

**Cyberpyr8** · 07-06-2024, 09:43 PM

I played today and found the kid who had the Sabre. He had a new mini! He had bought one himself. I told him I was going to give him one but his is a newer version. He understood. So I'm looking for someone else to gift it to. I'll find someone.

There were 2 kids and 2 moms that came to the field that I could tell were new to paintball. I came over and asked them if they were playing rec and they were. I lent them my axe and Emek along with my tanks and hoppers. They had a great day. The youngest kid (11) wants to come back. The older boy did really well and enjoyed his day.

I let my buddy use my LV2 and 170r. I also let one kid use my 170r a game I sat out while I was eating.

I sold my 170r at the field at the end of the day so it's gone but I really did like the way it shot.

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