Paintball

[dextrous]

I figure an event this big for Pump Play warrants a good and thorough review.
I unfortunately was unable to play, which means that my POV was that of an informed spectator. Any Mods who know of a better location for this thread feel free to relocate it.

Timing: This is where my only main gripe will be. The tournament started too late. 11 am is too late of a start for any tournament. I understand that this was at the mercy of the NPPL management Gods, who allowed OSC even to coincide with their tournament, but something should have been done to streamline the process. As a result of the extra games and lag calculating points for the finals, the tournament ran painfully late. The sun was going down during the finals which sent a nasty glare into the faces of the team fighting in the direction of the pier (and undoubtedly gave their opponents a decided advantage). Winning the coin toss and choice of side seemed critical in the later finals.
This may also be attributed to the extra teams added into the roster after the initial invitation registrations were already fulfilled.

Location, location, location: There is a reason why the NPPL hosts their season opener at HB. It was cloudy until midday, but the Sun finally came out after noon and the rest of the day was absolutely beautiful. Got a little chilly as the sun went down though (see previous paragraph).

Field Layout: For want of the proper expletive, the fields were awesome (at least to watch). NPPL field Jedi's made a versatile and aggressive set-up that perfectly showcased the nature of tournament pump play. I mostly hung out on the Chronic field, which had the snake positioned directly in front of the spectators making for some very interesting action. The 50 snake seemed to be the key offensive bunker, with the 40 car-wash as a formidable counter to aggressive snake.

Refs: Referees never get a break, and won't get one here either. Referees were on par with what i'd expect for an OSC tournament, but for the amount of money participant teams were investing in this event, the $500 entry fee, time off of work, travel and other expenses, I would have expected more. The finals folded both referee crews onto the #1 field, but there still didn't seem to be enough coverage for the quick action and run-throughs (a problem I'm sure Talfuchre is still miffed about).

Play Absolutely topnotch, and mostly clean.

Vendors: There were a ton of vendors, especially the smaller ones which i like. Most had their new '08 gear for show. I would have liked CCM to have been there. They probably would have sold a few S6's and a couple pump handles.

Format: Something should be done about the round robin finals. As a buddy pointed out; the best team is still the winner, but it drags out the finals and seems rather anti-climactic to not have one team sweep the field in a final game, followed by the we-won-it-all celebratory dance. Most the other formats have it.

All in all: Good event, in need of more planning and streamlining. Hope it comes back next year, because i wanna play!

Anyone else who watched or was actually able to play, post up your experiences and Feedback.

[aqua_scummm]

Still pretty peeved I had to work

Next year... next year.

[Shiba-Kun]

As far as the timing of the tourney is concerned: The fields the OSC ran on were still being used for the round of 16 divisional play & maybe even elite 8 play. Those games started up at 7:20am I believe. So the 11am start was not something the OSC can be really faulted on imho.

What screwed things up was that Field #1 was basically running on time until 12:30ish but Field #2 was lagging by approximately 3-4 games. When you have the potential of teams needing to appear on seperate fields at nearly similar times, something had to be done. That's when Field #1 was shut down for maintainence, etc.

Also the Barstow Burners didn't show. So while all the teams in their bracket received byes, it again added to time discrepency between the fields that the BB's were supposed to appear at.

[Old Man]

As a player from just one of the many teams some of my views are as follows: The fields that were to be played on should have been posted sooner. We knew we were playing fields 1 and 2 it's just we could not find anybody there who could tell us what field were 1 and 2.We got to the field early Friday morning and no one at the event knew whats fields we were playing on. Saturday Morning nobody could tells us what fields we were playing on. Saturday night no body at infomation,or any of the few refs we talked to knew what fields we were playing on. It would have been nice to walk over to the fields and see how they were being played.

One of the big things that was missing from this event that drew me to pump was the bonding of teams. In every event I've been to be it OSC,OSC afilliant, Northwest pumps meets, or just some of the local stuff, they have always been special because the teams were always hanging out together, milling around talking to each other and just making it fun to be there. There was mostly none of that here. Teams were staged away from each other and there seemed to be that typical I got something to prove Speedball feel to the whole pump event there.

One of the most disturbing things was that there seemed to be an undo anger toward team Hencemen by one of the refs on field 1. For those that do not know, Hencemen were made up of some pros jumping over into pump for a change (which is cool). He birddogged the guys down the snake giving them away and was very aggressive toward players. Talking to a few of the pros it seem to them it was very clear that they were not "a part of the club". It seemed like there was a ponit tring to be made. I don't know if it was that they are pro "speedballers" and not welcome here in pump or what, but it was very unfair and uncalled for. Expecially for who it was coming from..

And a general gripe for the NPPL: They let to many figgin people into the pits!! There were dozens and dozens of people roaming through that were not players or pit people. Some of these people were actually roaming into peoples pits and browing through like all the stuff was theirs. In our we actually had a group of " friends of a player" come into our pit area, start moving stuff around, split beer all over our talbe and then was using our micro-fibres to wipe it up. WTF!!!!

In general I had a great time.. Got to hookup with the guys and go out to dinner with Total Grief friday.Been waiting for a year to do that. What a great bunch of guys. Had a great time playing. In general good sportsmanship was par as you would expect from pump players. And it was spring break and Huntington beach with good friends!!! What more could you ask for??

And for who every it was that made off with our case of Dynasty Gap. I hope you car blew the hell up out in the middle of nowhere and you got raped by angry coyotes when walking for help.

There is more than likely more I wanted to say, but I just got home and am tired..

[wanderlustre]

Not to mention Field #1 was playing Capture the Flag the first two games or so and had to scramble to find an alternate way to place the center flag (First a folding chair, then a bucket) while the Field #2 flag was placed in a handle for one of the bunkers.
I felt the games were pretty smooth and well run. I didn't like how you could see the shadows of opposing players in the snake on Field #1 though, but it was the same deal for the car washes on field two.
I did stay until the end and saw Pumpenstein's last fatal game. Didn't look like the refs were prepared at all for the run-through that the opposing team excuted (Assassin's 8?).
Had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people nonetheless.

Hey Shiba, which players were you hanging out with at the event? Wish I could've met you.

[Hard8Mike]

Kristen posted which fields would be used on the OSC forum in early March. She listed fields 5 and 6 then later clarified that they would be the Chronic and Eclipse fields.

As to the bonding issues, I don't know. I didn't get the feeling that people were being stand-offish. The 2-field setup, separate player paddocks, energy sapping sand, and large team list may've kept things a little less personal. I only went to the player paddocks once (to go find my wife after the prelims were over to see how her team did). I know there were a couple of teams that I normally talk with that I barely saw off the fields.

Shiba-Kun was hanging out with the Hitmen, Hendschmen, and Hard Eight.

In regards to the round-robin format, I thought it worked out pretty well. The final game between the Hitmen and Blowfish was for first place. I know it was a bit of luck to have had it work out that way, but it wasn't anticlimactic, was it? I may be a little biased about the finish, though.

[mxmtl]

I was really disappointed that they did not get a chance to play on the center stage. It felt like the pump players were not really part of the whole tournament, just some side show. We wanted to stay to the very end, but it ran way too late for us.

The run throughs by the teams who made it to the finals were awesome. Those teams are the ones who made it very entertaining to watch. The Chronic field was where we stayed and watched, with a lot of action snake side of the Chronic field along with a dance performance by Talfuchre to Will Smith's Miami.

[Old Man]

Oh something else I did not understand. While waiting for our game to come up everything was put on hold for a bit while waiting for Pumpenstine to show for a game. They were given a call, then a 2nd call, and then a time to show. Then when they did not show for that, instead of DQ'ing and going on. They switched teams around so they could play a few games later. And no Pumpenstine did not just come off the other field according to the ref standing there.

A team on the other field earlier in the day was DQ'd for showing late. Guess it was maybe just part of the bugs that will have to be worked out. Getting everybody on the same page on what will happen in those events..

But once again let me say. It was a privledge to play and over I had a blast!!!

[Talfuchre]

Please understand that much of this is based on my personal opinions and are HEAVILY biased by our style of play and our preferences as a team.

Fields:

The fields we VERY well set up, very clean, very mirrored, and very well maintained. The turf was awesome, playing over the sand was nice, and all was well. The bunkers are HUGE (perhaps too huge) and too close together for OSC play. But that is the price you pay to play on a field designed for FAST FAST guns.

I would have liked to see this on a 5 man field. It would have fit our play a lot more and been a bit more exciting. BUT - this a price we all knew was to be paid.

Refs: Did a fine job all day. The run through on our teams was sketchy at best - but it was the only goofy stuff that went on all day and frankly it was the LAST game of the day with the sun going down and the refs exhausted. All of that is bridge under the water and frankly only bumped us from a possible third to fourth.

Teams: Awesome. I was SO FRIGGIN' cool to meet people I only knew of or talked to on line. Everyone was so very nice, so cool, so helpful and GREAT, GREAT, players.

One Caveat: A guy named Carter from some liberal state in the north east was an *******. Honestly, these guys played us so hard for a throw together team I did not want to let them EVER EVER practice together for any length of time. It was a honor to meet you Carter - I am very serious.

As far as the rest of the teams - we did not have much time to bond - but no one treated me poorly - everyone was very nice and very cool. I wish we had another day just to play rec ball.

The Location. Come on. It is Huntington Beach in Spring. The weather was damned nice. The only problem is walking through all the damned sand and getting it all over you gear - but no real major problems.

The NPPL Treated us like second class citizens, gave us no press, gave us no ability to play on the main stage, kept making promises and then changing them, and basically got in our way. They did however allow us to make this first step. I am hoping for more later.

The OSC Organization. Worked their asses off and did, I think, their very best. Mostly they were constrained by the NPPL for many things - but I think they are great hearted people that worked hard.

The Paint:

We shot a couple types of paint. The Chronic (we are sponsored) - shot GREAT!

My Dancing: HOT!

TF

[Talfuchre]

Originally Posted by Old Man

Oh something else I did not understand. While waiting for our game to come up everything was put on hold for a bit while waiting for Pumpenstine to show for a game. They were given a call, then a 2nd call, and then a time to show. Then when they did not show for that, instead of DQ'ing and going on. They switched teams around so they could play a few games later. And no Pumpenstine did not just come off the other field according to the ref standing there.

A team on the other field earlier in the day was DQ'd for showing late. Guess it was maybe just part of the bugs that will have to be worked out. Getting everybody on the same page on what will happen in those events..

But once again let me say. It was a privledge to play and over I had a blast!!!

Odd. We were never called over the PA although other teams were called over the PA. I can't even remember being told we were late. However, you must understand the the Chronic field was about 45 minutes ahead and the Eclipse field was a little behind at one point.

In my opinion though that is that small and that cordial should wait for teams...

TF