Has paintball lost it's target audience?

[Fubarius]

Who's better at what is irrelevant in the long term. Or it should be if we want this Game to continue.

Note I said Game. The sport side, well as long as we have a healthy and prosperous Game with many players the sport aspect will take care of itself, it's appearance and format may change, but I don't care about that.

From a game point of view a skilled and talented player is NOT the same thing as a Good player.

A player can win every game, eliminate half the team all on their own, have perfect fundamentals, but if he's a douche, he can completely ruin the game for every other player on the field. He's a bad player. I've known quite a few of these. Heck one or two were teammates. Sure they could improve your team ranking by the end of the season, but I wouldn't invite those losers to a bachelor party group or want them attending the same scenario game as me, not in a million years.

Mean while a player who can't hit the broad side of a barn, can't seem to keep his elbows tucked in, can't read the field, can't seem to find anyone in even the slightest bit of cover, well that player sucks at playing. But if he's fun to be around, adds to the enjoyment of his fellow players, say he always cracks the perfect joke right before start horn, comes up with interesting plans for the more skilled players to implement, never wipes, never plays on, never lifts his mask early or puts his barrel cover on late, calls out his hit right away and congratulates the player who shot him, and jogs back to the dead box with a smile on his face ready for the next game.... That's a Good paintballer.

If an NXL player in the woods "dominates" or not isn't important.
What's important is if I'm sharing a bunker or fallen log, or big bush with an NXL player in the woods, will he be a Good paintballer, or will he be a douche?

[Heavy_D]

When I described this Thread to Google AI and asked it to animate it... haha

[RPP]

Those are some decent paintball markers for AI. I asked one of them months ago and it produced absolute garbage.

[Impactfour]

The sun frowning in the background will be one of those things that makes me randomly laugh to myself for quite a while

[Heavy_D]

Velcor Came to Me Via AI and told me to Spread the Good Word!

[uv_halo]

Awesome!

[cockerpunk]

Typical condescending tone while talking out of your butt. You are clueless.

Instead of making up stuff you can go to pbleagues and check rosters of the recent winning teams in the ICPL pro division and then you will see that only a couple of people here and there are active NXL pro players. To give a specific examples:

-Last year at the Lone Star Open AC Empire beat PB FIT (fresh after winning the pro NXL World Cup) in the finals with just a few active pros on their roster and four older players (~50+).

-At this year's Classic Cup Team Smoke won. How many NXL pros were on their roster of 14? One. That's it. Image got second with two pros on a roster of 13.

ICPL/10-man is very different from NXL, if you've played both you know. But I understand that you are here to talk at people and not with them, so I'm not going to respond to you anymore.

you should look into this history of the players your talking about. they didnt become 50 year old winning players not playing speedball where do you think they came from?

Smoke? old speedball team. Image? old speedball team. those rosters are full of old speedball tournament players. smoke started in 1999 ...

like your data points are a better argument for my point, not yours. lol. also most ICPL is speedball anyway, so mostly we are talking about old pro speedball players versus new pro ones, not an AMATUER woodsball team versus a pro speedball team. which, as detailed, would get fucking dominated by a modern pro team.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Exactly Old speedball teams came back to play 10 man in the woods because it’s more forgiving.

[cockerpunk]

less athletic maybe, but i wouldn't say "more forgiving"

[Fubarius]

not an AMATUER woodsball team versus a pro speedball team. which, as detailed, would get fucking dominated by a modern pro team.

Um, and amateur anything would lose to a pro anything. And it's irrelevant anyways. Nothing about this tells us if they're a douche on the rec field or not.

[cockerpunk]

Um, and amateur anything would lose to a pro anything. And it's irrelevant anyways. Nothing about this tells us if they're a douche on the rec field or not.

im glad you agree.

but his claim was exactly that dumb: " but if you matched a solid NXL team that has only played on airball fields with ramping electros against an amateur ICPL team in the woods with mechs... they would get munched."

yeah, a pro team is going to fucking smoke em dude.

[cockerpunk]

it was his claim, not mine :shrug:

[Fubarius]

No, its simple logic.

You doing ok dude? You used to be better at not making these kinds of mistakes And much better at getting to the point.

If your point is "all formats of paintball share a core set of applicable skills", then congrats, everyone agrees.

If you point is "Speedball is the superior format, and this is very, very important", then that's clearly an opinion and many will disagree.

And more importantly, why do you care? You own stock in sup'air or something? What makes you want to pay to go to a knife thrower's show and shout "it's just the same trick" after every throw? (metaphorically speaking)

[cockerpunk]

no, it was his claim, not mine. if you want to argue with him about, then do that. it was not my claim.

[Refoogee]

I get the idea that, if you break it down, there's a basic meta game that doesn't really change much. But, it would be ridiculous to call all formats of paintball the "same" game, especially when there are some very different strategies, and mechanics, and restrictions. Of course a good speedball player also has to be a good paintball player, but that player may not be the best stock class player, and I do think that sort of nuance does matter here in the discussion.

To get back on point a bit, I have a different sort of view. I don't think paintball "lost" its target audience, I think it never got to develop a proper target audience in the first place before it imploded. If you think about other sports, even more recent sports like skateboarding, that community started in the late 1940's, early 1950's, and was culturally tying itself to surf culture. By the time it really blew up in the late 80's, into the 90's, that was going on 40 years to establish a culture, a cultural expectation, and a backbone to develop a commercial industry around. Other sports have had far longer to develop a passionate scene of public clubs, and other organizations, before big industries formed. Football was played for close to 100 years before the Super Bowl ever happened. If you look at paintball it had, what, 15 years before it exploded in corporate attention? Paintball, at first, was starting to culturally tie itself to outdoorsman activities, like hunting, fishing, etc. It was also tying itself culturally to militarism, surplus collectors, and action movie aficionado's. 15 years later, and paintball was forced, from the top down, to change its culture, while the originators of the sport were still playing it. It was a controversial culture, but it was getting pretty profitable, and the industry was worried about growth. As a result, paintball got a weird split identity. The woodsball/speedball divide, the casual/pro divide. Honestly, I think the airsoft/paintball divide largely exists because of what happened here. It's not that something like speedball culture couldn't have developed on its own over time, it's just that it didn't happen all that naturally, and the aesthetics/nuances of that form of paintball never were embraced by popular culture, or by the majority of paintball players.

As for my big personal gripe, paintball fields pretty much all suck, and the whole business model is completely out of whack. Fields should be making a good chunk of their income from having good concessions, branded merch, and pro services. Paintball fields should be a lot more welcoming of places for people.

[cockerpunk]

I get the idea that, if you break it down, there's a basic meta game that doesn't really change much. But, it would be ridiculous to call all formats of paintball the "same" game, especially when there are some very different strategies, and mechanics, and restrictions. Of course a good speedball player also has to be a good paintball player, but that player may not be the best stock class player, and I do think that sort of nuance does matter here in the discussion.

To get back on point a bit, I have a different sort of view. I don't think paintball "lost" its target audience, I think it never got to develop a proper target audience in the first place before it imploded. If you think about other sports, even more recent sports like skateboarding, that community started in the late 1940's, early 1950's, and was culturally tying itself to surf culture. By the time it really blew up in the late 80's, into the 90's, that was going on 40 years to establish a culture, a cultural expectation, and a backbone to develop a commercial industry around. Other sports have had far longer to develop a passionate scene of public clubs, and other organizations, before big industries formed. Football was played for close to 100 years before the Super Bowl ever happened. If you look at paintball it had, what, 15 years before it exploded in corporate attention? Paintball, at first, was starting to culturally tie itself to outdoorsman activities, like hunting, fishing, etc. It was also tying itself culturally to militarism, surplus collectors, and action movie aficionado's. 15 years later, and paintball was forced, from the top down, to change its culture, while the originators of the sport were still playing it. It was a controversial culture, but it was getting pretty profitable, and the industry was worried about growth. As a result, paintball got a weird split identity. The woodsball/speedball divide, the casual/pro divide. Honestly, I think the airsoft/paintball divide largely exists because of what happened here. It's not that something like speedball culture couldn't have developed on its own over time, it's just that it didn't happen all that naturally, and the aesthetics/nuances of that form of paintball never were embraced by popular culture, or by the majority of paintball players.

As for my big personal gripe, paintball fields pretty much all suck, and the whole business model is completely out of whack. Fields should be making a good chunk of their income from having good concessions, branded merch, and pro services. Paintball fields should be a lot more welcoming of places for people.

this is a good comment.

i kind of agree. there was such this push for legitimacy, for TV, the Olympics, etc, and even at the time i remember being like, guys, i know this is fun, but this seems too fast. and not what the sport needs right now. like watching paintball, pretty boring. so we need to spend some time figuring out, if TV is our goal, how maybe to play, film etc to find something that the layman finds fun to watch about our game before we are paying TV companies to be on TV. cause what we did, was not it. and it cost the sport dearly, and its never really recovered.

racing is re-learning this right now. the reason why racing is fun to watch, is because its has emotional stakes, not cause two cars side by side is exciting. its the drama, its the drivers, its the personalities, its the stakes of what happens on track. its actually not that important what happens on track. its knowing the conquences while you watch.

and i am never a fan of any "split" every sport that splits, nearly dies, and takes a generation to recover. one of the big reasons why i think the speedball/woodsball argument is so dumb and counter productive. its all the same game, played the same way, with the same equipment, like, guys, its the same game. the longer you maintain that split, and get in dick measuring contests about it, the worse it is for the sport.

[Refoogee]

Well, I do disagree with it being the "same" game, for different reasons per se than just strategy. Aesthetics, and goals, are important to the identity of a game, that does matter. Not all paintball these days is the same when you change certain metrics, like forcing stock class. Stock class out in the woods does require a different mindset than having a high BPS electro on an airball field due to the restrictions on fire rate, and shot count. The magfed people out there shooting First Strikes at each other are playing under such different conditions due to the accuracy, range, and round limit, that other strategies form. Same goes for mixed environments, where some are running First Strikes, some roundball, etc.

But, other than strategy, they're different games in consequences. Just the fact that one game will allow some players to run electronic markers that can maintain a steady BPS, and another may not, changes the consequences of engaging with that game. From overall cost, to changes in consequences of a losing situation. It was a lot easier for younger players to take a single shot from a pump, than it was for them to take 15 up the back. A lot of players just wanted to play "their" game, with their restrictions. You're a racing guy, so I bet you could understand the idea of having restrictions in place for certain racing environments, and how certain restrictions/lack thereof can go a long way to giving the various car racing "cultures" their identities. I shoot firearms, and I can say that, despite essentially being the same thing, production competition vs open class competition is very different in feel. So, I can't agree that it's "dumb" for animosity existing, I just see it more as a consequence of how the sport was handled.

As for a divide, I also agree it tends to kill a sport.

[Fubarius]

Filming paintball for a video audience actually shouldn't be too hard, just every attempt has done it wrong.

What's the most interesting aspect of the simple act of firing a paintball, what makes it different than any a gun firing any other projectile?

The SPLAT. Airsoft doesn't splat. Lasertag doesn't splat. Gel ball stuff barely splats and it's clear anyways. Splats are fun to see.

So what do they make the field that's design for filming out of? Stuff paintballs bounce off of. Bad idea for TV/Video

So, easy fix. No more big balloons and giant net walls. Hard bunkers and a clear plexiglass enclosure. Probably in a large warehouse with lots of overhead lighting, lots of places to set up cameras.

But second issue, with the way the bunkers are traditionally laid out most shots miss the bunkers. And even if the outer walls are hard the shot may just hit the ground first.

So the fix is to make sure wherever someone can shoot from or where they can be shot at always has a hard object a few few behind them. That way when a shoot out starts we get to see the flurry of splats going off around the players. So we're talking something like a solid hedge maze, or zig zaggy room to room kind of thing. Takes longer to find your opponent, and you tend to be closer when you do encounter them. So shooting should only occur when there are valid targets. Concentrate cameras there. Before that, maybe an overhead view with some commentators discussing the strategies they see.

Now, the audience has to see EVERY hit a player receives. Preferably in slow motion. Now you can't always catch this no matter how many cameras you got running, so we have to enact the classic game show fix it "Portions of this program not affecting the outcome have been edited/recreated". Just recreate the shot later and edit it in. NEVER change the outcome, we got to have some legitimacy here of course.

Team size will need some experimentation to determine optimal numbers. Too many and it's too much to follow. You can not have anyone getting shot out "offscreen". Too few and things may be over too quickly. There's a Goldilocks number somewhere in the middle. I think 2 or 3 ,but I honestly have no idea here.

Uniforms need to be instantly distinguishable. You have to be instantly able to tell Team Whois from Team Otherguys with just a glance. And my crazy idea for this is everyone needs a unique style. So ONE team gets to wear bright jerseys. One team gets to wear Army Green. One in camo. One in tactical black. One wears jump suits. One wears cowboy shirts. Add a bit of theatrics to it. Not too much, we're not talking WWE here. Just a touch. Let the players express themselves a bit. Force them to express themselves a bit if you have to.

[flyweightnate]

Interesting ideas.

Machining centers often have spinning glass lenses in the door or windshield wipers so you can see through the coolant. A similar idea for all the cameras would be pricey but worth it to keep the camera "in play".

Would it be better to have "misses" splat, or only hits? Soft, but not bouncy, bunkers would keep the mess down without the false positive of the spray. But if you think the splats are the draw, I see your point. Let's make them all of polyethylene so they hose down between points. Maybe a mulch floor so it drains well.

Televised paintball would be an expensive proposition to do this way, but a couple big events a year could do wonders for helping the public understand.


Hmmm...
Woodsball with GPS trackers on a HUD for the audience, then barrel/ helmet cams for the action? It would start to look like the Hunger Games movies. Flags in open areas with better cameras in place.

Marketing vs gameplay experience are two different issues, but good cinematography would be a good way to market.

[Fubarius]

All the splats would be important. Too many times I've had people ask me "what are they shooting at?" when watching the current game. And we may have to implement the good old "all marks bigger than a quarter" rule. It's for a visual medium, anyone running around and shooting with half their lens covered in big splat looks like they should be out, even if they technically didn't get hit.