Paintball

[Meph]

Originally Posted by criticalhammer

May I ask what is "The paintball revolution" ?

Dunno bout him, but my personal outlook at the big picture happening now is like hardware and software. Normally any "revolution" will involve hardware. New method to make processors, multiple cores, or in our case of paintball it was force feed hoppers, electronic markers w/ eyes, etc.

However more rare is the software revolution, the coding. That's what I see happening now. People switching their entire mindset and outlook of paintball without necessarily it being done just by using different gear. Sure some are doing so by buying/using pumps but it's happening with semis just as much. People are mentally changing on how they're looking at the game.

We've gone through years of the Arms race, and faster firepower and new technology has been enough to keep people coming back. But now that technology has peeked and advancements are limited/non-existent everybody's taking a second look at what they've been doing. And it's no longer an arms race but a Culture race. A change in attitude, a change in seeing what they want. Not what they want in equipment but what they want in the people they're playing with.

That's what I'm seeing happening. And on that note I absolutely do agree with CP. It's not about the equipment. It's not about the fields. It's not about BPS or Sponsors. It's about the people, their attitudes, their humble respect to one another. And using divisive ploys to manipulate some people while spurning others isn't a good way to go about it. What does it matter if you play on a field that's 150' x 75' with inflatable bunkers, or a field that's 2000' x 1000' covered in foliage and burnable items? It's not about playing with people who use the same equipment as you. It's about the people you're playing with and how they approach the game.

That's why it doesn't matter what the field layout of a new Pump League is. It doesn't matter. It's all about the character of those you're up against.

[Greenmtnphantom]

Now thats a band wagon I'll gladly hop on

[stevedavidson]

well - here are some draft details. You tell me if "letting folks do what they want and develop their own culture" is in there or not

NPL Draft Outline of League Operations

[VonOrt]

All this revolution talk has made me loose intrest.. I think I will just go out and play some paintball then drink a beer with the guys I just played with.

[Meph]

Just musing in my head on some of those things.

I see limited paint in there, no problem with that on my part honestly. Some like it, some don't, I'm good either way can play limited or unlimited. But if going limited is 450 rounds too much? That's almost an entire bag of paint. I think the most I've shot on a game of 10v10 was 200 rounds, and that was with no time limit and a lot of brush to try and shoot through. Not to use my own playing style and paint consumption as the benchmark to go by, but usually an event will limit paint to curb the style of play where people just dump paint down a lane. To force people to aim and really make their shots count.

But it does depend. What do you want to achieve with the limited paint format?

Hmmm... 300 rounds for mech semis. Semis in a Pump league? Is that there with purpose, or an accident of oversight? Not to knock it, I really don't see a problem with semis, even electros, so long as they have a gravity only hopper. 22bps bolt doesn't matter if hopper feeds only 4bps.

I see there that behind the meatballs is a triple, but no mention of your sister going out with Squeek? And do you have to wear khakis?


Team Classes. I am sitting on the fence with this, not sure if it's great or anti-great. Will it put off some people who think they're going to get rolled because that event might be the 1 a month they participate in and can't afford to practice? Maybe 2 classes, Open and Experienced. Hmmmm... but then like any other event some people will "disband" and get a new team name to sandbag, or replace 1 guy on the roster, or any other type of usual trick. Ya I'm open on this one, can't determine if it'll be a great asset or turn potentials away.

[Mann]

Originally Posted by stevedavidson

?

Ummm, when has the site ever been about traffic?

We have already had this discussion.

[stevedavidson]

Meph,

we're responding to commentary by folks who took the time to comment:

no classes - because this IS about fun first and we know that the only way to get skilled at paintball is to go out and play with and against folks better than you are. We want to instill a 'teaching' mentality on the part of everyone. If you team is inexperienced - go get some.

Note that you do not have to pay large entry fees & etc., to play in a game. Find a local team that can 'school you', set up a game, earn some points for it, have fun and learn some stuff in the meantime.

We've got 20+ years of team classifications and it just doesn't work: the top teams lock themselves in, the bottom teams get raided for their best players and stay on the bottom, etc., etc..

So, we're going to try it this way this time around and see what happens.

(And remember - local play is the vast majority of play in this league - not a series of expensive national events.)

Limited paint - yes, 450 is probably too much, but as you also said, some like it, some don't.

The primary appeal of limited paint for us is that we will be able to publish a MAXIMUM cost for any and all major events. Entry + 450/player/game prelims + air = etc.

I and others think that it is important for long-term budgeting for teams to be able to know what their season is going to cost.

The 450 is there for now for comfort purposes. There is hardly a player out there who expends more than that per game. Later on we'll adjust it: maybe folks will say - I want my games to cost no more than X - or some such. Or maybe we'll end up splitting things up by the limit on the paint.

Mechanical semi-autos: there are a LOT of players who got into tournaments in the woods when the name of the game was Autococker vs Automag (pre-electronics) and many of them have expressed interest in participating, so we're including that style of play as a possibility.

And yes, you noticed the gravity feed only. We here (at the league) are all in agreement that there needs to be some NATURAL brake on marker technology. One of the easiest, perhaps the only, across the board brake is eliminating the use of force feed systems and stick with the force of gravity. This uses physics and puts the max ROF at something about 12-13 bps. With many pump players using auto-triggers capable of firing 11 bps, when we use gravity as the limit we are very, very close to limiting things at the level of natural physical ability of the player. We're not preventing a fast trigger finger from taking advantage of their inherent skills either. And isn't what we want this to be - a game of person-on-person test of wills, mental and physical ability?

(Back in the day with the mechanical semis, all we had were agitating hoppers and everyone seemed to deal with it just fine: all the propeller does is keep balls feeding into the neck, it doesn't force them in faster than gravity allows them to drop the rest of the way into the breech.)

Hope the extra detail helps.

[Tugboater203]

What about pneumatic assist pumps, how will they be treated?

[Phantom Power]

Mmm, I don't quite get the addition of semi-autos now into the National Pump League. Not that I don't think a tournament of old-school semi-autos in the woods wouldn't be fun. But maybe do one thing at a time. All pump league for awhile, and then maybe do a mech-semi division later ?

There's a big difference between a semi-auto and autotriggering even a smooth pump like an S6. The achievable BPS might be close, but the ease of attainability and sustainability are on another level completely with a semi-auto. Not to mention that with a semi-auto there isn't any loss of accuracy like an autotrigger tends to cause.

[VonOrt]

What about A5's and Cyclones? And Q Loaders? Are they banned until sponsorship is aquired? Or are they illegal no matter what?