What was the Last Major Technical Advance in paintball Markers ?

[Hp_lovecraft]

Firststrike is not much different from the Sniperball of the early 90s. The main difference is that when sniperball came out, woodsball and milsim was "uncool". Nobody wanted to support it (ie no mags). But by the mid 00's, milsim was retro again, and companies actually started supporting the idea, and its completely usable now.

But when I think of technilogical advances, I think of things that literally changed the way we play the game.
Like in the 80s, direct feed, and c/a literally changed how we played.
Likewise, in the early 90s, guns got smaller, lighter, and faster. Powered hoppers, nitrogen, etc, made it so you could fire non-stop for an entire game.

Since then, I have not seen any real advances, beyond incremental improvements. The game we played in the early 90s is pretty much the same game we play today. I know the "electro revolution" came, but did not change the game, or how we played. It mostly just added new parts to fail.

Really, the main difference between 2021 and 1994, is guns have become cheaper to make and sell. To put that in context, in 1994, an "entry level" setup would be about $300, close to $550 with inflation. A "high end" gun in 1994 might be $1000 with all the options, which is about $1800 with inflation. Most fields charged $120 a case in 1994, about $200 in todays money.

I know I'm just sounding like a cranky old man... but I am a cranky old man

[Magmoormaster]

If we're talking about changing the way people play, I'll add one no one will think about; speedfeeds. Watching the old Dynasty Dissected videos, it's shocking to listen to them talk about what to do when you have to reload.

[Cunha]

Its so hard to define major, but for me it doesn't seem like anything major has changed in quite some time.

It wouldn't be a bad thing, if the game was growing more robustly. Hard to really get a good feel during corona virus though.

[Seajay]

I'd say just in a general sense magfed gameplay has been a technical achievement. Looking past some of the silliness and gimmicky mess, we now actually have 30 round magazines that feed vertically, essentially breaking paintball physics. Tech has certainly advanced for classic paintball, but magfed has moved past the gimmick and into a viable way to play the game.

[The Inflicted]

Yes, with a few added upgrades like a nicer barrel and ASA.

[Cunha]

It does seem to combine a lot of the minor advancements into something that would have been hands down blowing our socks off awesome if it came out 15 years ago.

[The Inflicted]

Even just the basic Emek would have blown everyone's minds if it came out in 15 years ago.

[The Inflicted]

#19.3
Cyberpyr8 commented
Today, 12:52 PM
I agree that the hopper camera might not be the best angle for watching paintball I think it's more of the concept of adding the tech into the gear. I have 2 gopro's that I mount to my gun and mask. They are both big for paintball. They have been shot because they stick out differently than my normal equipment. Even with sticking up further, I prefer the mask camera angle over the barrel mount. It gets more of my perspective and I don't get blocked by doorways, bunkers or other stuff. I just wish it was tighter to the mask and didn't stick out. Think about the small cameras on the Google Glasses that was integrated into the frame a few years ago. Integrate that into the center of a mask so it doesn't stick out or isn't in the way and I could record or stream and you have a mask I would pay $100 more for.

My point is, there could be cameras mounted in different equipment (whatever type of camera) and deliver realtime video to watch players playing. I think about a field like Orlando Paintball. It is a tourist trap thing for sure, but they have a photographer on the field taking pictures every weekend and then they post them up on social media. If they had equipment with cameras in it they could capture video and shots from everywhere to use later. They could even have monitors inside the shop with live feeds showing gameplay for family and friends not playing. If you have ever been there it's not a far stretch to see how they would use that to help keep people engaged. Even at the NXL events to see what players are seeing and what they are doing from the farside of the field would be great. I really want to see better POV while players are on the field. I think that's one thing that is hard to capture with traditional sports camera setups on the sidelines and GoPro type cameras don't stream over wifi in real time plus they add bulk.

https://youtu.be/YTRu11c7uM8

Two quick things- Speaking from experience, filming most paintball from a first-person perspective requires at least two cameras to yield a satisfactory result- a wide-angled camera on the mask or shoulder and a zoomed-in camera on the gun. As far as gun-cameras go, on or near the hopper is actually the right direction to go because having the view below the barrel will often result in a view that's blocked, depending how the shooter comes around cover. What I don't think works with a hopper-mounted camera is that alignment would be so difficult- If the view is zoomed-in (to a 25-degree FOV, at least) any slight deviation left to right becomes a real issue when tracking the shots.

I just feel like having the camera mounted to the barrel, especially on top of the barrel, is going to work for more people than having it tied to the hopper. What we really need now are better, cheaper, more durable barrel cameras.

As far as live-streaming goes, I think there's potential there but fairly limited potential.
Any excitement that comes from watching paintball videos is in the edit. The game has a LOT of deadtime where the user is looking at nothing and waiting, and their guncam footage is pointed either at the sky or the dirt. If we're talking about site-based footage to get people in the lobby interested, drone or pole-mounted cameras with views over much of the field are going to be way more interesting to most people than unedited first-person footage.

I hate to self-promote too heavily, but compare essentially unedited, single-camera gameplay footage: https://youtu.be/cOU5mHjbXb8

...to more heavily-edited multi-camera footage: https://youtu.be/UPByy4be3sg?t=341

If you want to make this sport interesting to watch, it's all about the editing.

[Cyberpyr8]

That's funny because when I was recording from my barrel mounted camera (right in front of my hopper above the barrel) I ended up getting mostly window and door frames. I tilt my gun depending on where my cover is and you could just hear me firing but couldn't see anything. 🙄 The mask cam on yours from the edited link looks great BTW. I agree that edited video looks much better but even Go Sports and others could use the footage to go back and edit like you did with the close ups on the shots for later viewing or highlights. The live view would be good for live events and coaches. Out of curiosity what do you use to edit?

[Dusty Bottoms]

I don't think anything too major has changed in awhile, and actually this doesn't surprise or bother me at all. The game has become standardized across the board from tourney to recball. We have rules and standards that keep the performance potential of markers reigned in for good reason. If you can't move past .68 roundball, 300 fps, and 10.5 bps, that really limits what you can do. To me that's a good thing. Every major sport does the exact same thing. How much real innovation is happening in golf, or baseball ? What real equipment improvements happen from year to year in major sports? Practically nothing. That's why you can still go out and play a round of golf with a hundred year old clubs if your really feel like it. That's not really the point though, the point is to preserve the game itself, as an institution as well as an industry. To me that's great. It means I can still play the game with markers designed almost thirty years ago, and my son can do the same, and it will always fundamentally be the same game.

[OpusX]

Freak bored restomod brass. Game changer for sure

[The Inflicted]

Cyberpyr8 commented
Yesterday, 04:39 PM
That's funny because when I was recording from my barrel mounted camera (right in front of my hopper above the barrel) I ended up getting mostly window and door frames. I tilt my gun depending on where my cover is and you could just hear me firing but couldn't see anything. 🙄

I'm surprised you would end up with so much occlusion with a camera mounted closely above the barrel. I've tried a number of different orientations- below the barrel is by far the least obstructive from the player's point of view, but above the barrel always yielded the least amount of interference. Ideally I have the camera aimed a few degrees downward to account for the deflection of a paintball's drop at range. For the last video, the zoomed camera was set up like this:

The mask cam on yours from the edited link looks great BTW. I agree that edited video looks much better but even Go Sports and others could use the footage to go back and edit like you did with the close ups on the shots for later viewing or highlights. The live view would be good for live events and coaches. Out of curiosity what do you use to edit?

I use Davinci Resolve 16. It's free with no watermarks, and powerful enough that they use it on stuff like Avatar and The Walking Dead.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/