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There's a fine, microscopic line between Dead Man's Walk, and an Old Man Stroll. The non-chalant, non threatening walk that players of a certain age and build just do, with out trying. They're not intending a planned Dead Man's Walk, that's just how they walk up the field. Been accused of it many times myself. I'm just too damn old and out of shape to be perpetually "on" and "aggressive" when just walking from point A to B. Not my fault if you make a wrong assumption.
Though I did meet the absolute master of the DMW. Young kid, rental 98, rental mask, old surplus BDU jacket. At a big scenario game he'd just walk down the trail, calm as can be. When accosted or a few shots flew past him he's fumble in he pocket and ask the other team "Which way to the respawn?" They'd point, he'd walk that way still fumbling in his pocket for presumably his barrel bag, and when out of sight he'd turn and continue to the other teams base. Made it all the way there, sniped the teams General from cover, after some return fire he stood up, asked which way to respawn (never actually indicating he was hit of course, played totally clean), walked until out of sight, doubled back to some cover, and waited until the General respawned in and sniped him again. Possibly a third time, but it's been a while. Kid got MVP, fired maybe 4 shots the whole game.
But alas, too many people do it wrong. You stand there with both your arms straight up and then start shooting? That's not a DMW, that's playing on after indicating you are out. Same as putting on a barrel bag, pointing your gun straight up above your head, saying any variation of "out" or "hit". Do any of that and you're now just plain OUT, and shooting after is playing on.
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Camo. It's not just for woodsball. Like the level of not even blending as much as not attracting the eye.
Players sometimes wonder why they keep getting shot first when they are wearing fluorescent colors or white. All black is almost as bad, depending on the field.Comment
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Back in the day, you sold an experience. Nowadays, you sell paint. Yes, at first glance paintball fields will try to sell an experience but rentals will soon find out they won't go far with the hundred paintballs they were handed with their basic package. I don't know about the specifics in the U.S. but here (Canada) starting in '90s or so they decided to adopt a business model where the entry or membership fees are very low and instead concentrate on selling paint as the main source of revenue. I can understand the model, but it does show its flaws with the advent of other activities like airsoft or laser tag where the cost of 'munition' is either very low or inexistant, respectively. The high popularity of magfed also highlights a glaring weakness of that model.
If it were up to me, I'd go back to limited paint formats (hopperball always worked well when we played it), playing on larger fields where you can outflank your opponent without having to firefight your way through and instead concentrate on an objective. Eliminating opposite players should be in light of helping you achieve your objective, not be the actual objective itself. Nowadays most objective-themed games end not by actually fulfilling the victory conditions, but by eliminating the entire opposite team.Last edited by The Jayster; 06-05-2026, 11:28 PM."Aren't you getting too old for this??"
"Nope."Comment
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I've pondered a few different game systems for not being solely dependent on paint sales.
First, the hybrid model. You get entry, air, heck even rental if needed, and one bag of 500 rounds of paint for a set price. Say $40. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. Games are hopper ball or 200 rounds max for magfed or 10 round tube reloading (Stock class, semi with stick feed, etc). Heck, have stick feeds available for when people start to run low and want to stretch things. Play as long as you can. When you're fully out of paint, well you're done, unless you buy a second admission. So another $40, another 500 rounds of paint. Now this means those who want to spend more money certainly can, but gain not much of an advantage over the other players. Everyone still has the same maximum 200'ish rounds per game, just Mr. Moneybags doesn't have to conserve as much. The advantage to this model is that the field can really have any field design or game format they want, it's on the players to try and game the system as it were to get the maximum number of games out of the 500 rounds they got. The down side, there will be a certain percentage of players who will think of this model as just $160 per case.
Second, the Free Paint model. This can quickly spiral out of control, so careful observation, and a little player manipulation are needed. You get a fixed price, probably a bit higher than the first, so let's say $60 or $70. You get entry, air, again maybe rental, and a set amount of paint per game. So at the start of a game all the players go to a say a big bowl and fill up their hoppers (and a maximum number of magazines or 10 round tubes of course). Game goes on, and possibly at the end of the game or as players are eliminated they pour out their hoppers back into the bowl. Or maybe they just hang on to their leftovers, means they take less when the next game starts. With this keeping things profitable is solely on the field. Making sure games are long enough that you don't end up with everyone shooting thousands of rounds over a dozen or so games. The down side is players may try to maximize the system to use as much paint as possible to squeeze out as much perceived value as they can, and thus cut into field profits.
Third, the pod model. Fixed price, entry, air, yadda yadda yadda. Maybe in the $60-$80 range, haven't done the math. At the start of each game each player gets a pod of 100 rounds. So first game, everyone has half a hopper. Second game, each player again gets a pod of 100 rounds. Trigger happy Jim who shot all his paint the first game has half a hopper. Newbie Ned who got hit almost immediately so never fired a shot, well he has a full 200 rounds now. Heck, a few bad rounds in a row and you got a few pods to stick in a harness. Though one overly intense game will zero you out so you're back to that half hopper again. So the benefit, you know exactly how much paint per player per game you're going to use, and can price accordingly. Also puts the idea of conserving paint for a later advantage to the players. May lead to some interesting tactics, say going Stock Class for the first few games to bank enough paint for electro use later. Possible downside, needing to find a crap ton of small pods, and paying someone to fill them all day long. Game intensity may be too unpredictable for some field owners, with a few low intensity games in the beginning leading to some high intensity games later on. I'd find that interesting and fun, but not everyone is like me.Comment
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Type III anno.Comment
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Some fields have already started doing this for special events. I think the glowball events at Paintball FIT in TX are unlimited hopperball. I've also seen Defy in Orlando advertising some sort of unlimited paint for a few hours on Thursday nights. It seems like it works pretty well for night-rime streetball events because the time window lets the field control how many games are played. Players don't know if they will be playing a point for less than a minute or 5+ minutes, so any desire to maximize their paint usage goes away because they don't know when to hopper-dump.
I think it could work really well for rental players IF fields can keep players from taking their paint with them between games. Rental kids will definitely open hoppers off-field for hoarding or shenanigans if they can and a lot of parents will defend it "because they paid for the paint."
Fields could have players leave rental markers in a rack when they leave the field after a game. An employee can then go down the line of markers, pop open all of the hoppers, and then top them off with a ball hauler. If the rack has the markers oriented the right way, this could be ridiculously fast. Once every hour or so, top off the air tanks.
This would be a safety improvement since it would eliminate rental players shooting off-field. If the rack is in a "mask on" area, it would also eliminate the need for rental customers to use barrel covers, since they will never carry a marker outside of the nets.
It also might save the field money in some areas. You don't need as large of a rental fleet since you only need enough markers for one max-pop game, instead of one for every player in the parking lot or pits between games. You don't need employees standing by to fill customer tanks whenever they all decide en masse that they want a fill. You'll also probably have to spend less time wrangling players between games since they won't all be wandering off to the parking lot or wherever they stashed their half empty bags of paint (that they store wide open in the sun).
It would take some smart field design though. Fields should try to eliminate prop layouts that encourage players to blow through a ton of paint trying to hit someone 150' away when they have no idea how to aim.Comment
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Wait, that is a really good idea, though - there is an on-field staging area where you show your wristband and that is where you get equipped with the marker, loader, tank, pods, pack, all preloaded, clean, and ready to go. Very video game experience, plus keeps the parking lot as devoid of shit as possible and guns in the cleanest state possible.
All players would take with them are their masks. That also means they're limited on how much paint they can carry, which organically limits their paint usage without making them feel like they have to count ammo and price out their experience based on that. They should have a sufficient amount for the field size, layout, and player count, and running out of paint because of poor impulse control is part of the experience instead of something you feel shorted on.
Fields can ideally have better field layouts which promote the right amount of paint usage to also give them effective margins, and players can pay one flat admission rate plus a fee for number of games.
There are already very very easy systems to set up that involve wristbands which print a QR code that reference a database which populates with what they paid for upon entry (every hospital and theme park uses a version of that). The ref at the entrance to the staging area scans your wristband and can see how many games you have left on the spot.
You can even equip that ref with a card reader to charge for extra games if you're basically already there and down to do just one more to balance things out.
For context, this is also how 100% of successful go kart tracks manage their attendees' experience. It's super clean and frictionless.
You can offer bundles upon entry at a discounted rate, and then a standard per game rate after that. Something like $15-20 per game, $10 per game in bundles of 4 or 5 or more, etc. A membership can be $X per year but offer a Y% discount in turn, or perks like being able to use upgraded components such as a force feed hopper, a CF tank with grippy cover, a nicer mask, yada yada yada. In that effect, you're building a loyalty system and treating the whole thing like a roguelite game.
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