There are quite a few bits of paper with really great ideas, but they can't be fleshed out into an article. I thought I'd clean up my file.
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To me your priorities should be (in order form most important to least important): Safety, Sportsmanship, Fun, Improving your skills, Leaning from others and Winning.
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The whole idea of this game is to have fun, right? When this game was conceived Bob Guernsey, Hayes Noel, Lionel Atwill and Charles Gains didn't think it would amount to anything serious. Lionel Atwill describes paintball with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. His emphasis was that the Game was something that was NOT to be taken seriously.
On the recreational level, if players aren't having fun, why do they bother playing?
Tournaments are a whole different kettle of fish. That's the SPORT of paintball, not the Game I play.
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For those of you who think the sport will die if we limit firepower, you need to study up on the history of this game. We have imposed limits to paintball before, and everything turned out fine.
ATSM standards for goggles and paintball weights are limits. 280-300 feet per second maximum velocity is a limit. Rules that prohibit hiding the flag, unsportsmanlike conduct, arguing with field staff, and physical contact between players are limits as well.
EVERY sport has imposed artificial limitations. Nascar restricts cars to a maximum speed. The cars can go faster, but the corners aren't banked high enough. Auto racing technology has advanced so much that the cars can literally go so fast that they'll fly off the track. Did Nascar say, "okay we'll bank the corners higher"?. No, they restricted the top speed of the cars.
The only way this game can survive is to set limits.
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If you can't learn to play paintball well, learn to enjoy playing it poorly. I did.
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Would you need a semi that could fire a hundred rounds a second if you could hit your opponent in the first couple of shots? Someone once said that you miss one hundred per cent of the shots you don't take. Adopt that attitude and you'll miss ninety-nine percent of the shots you DO take.
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It could be that your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
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It never fails to surprise me when a player, who is willing to spend thousands of dollars on equipment, hundreds of dollars on paint and won't shell out a few bucks for a barrel plug. Squeegees are NOT barrel plugs.
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There are players out there called TWiBs, or Tournament Wannabees. The term was coined by the second greatest paintball writer in the world, Rob "Tyger" Rubin. The problem with TWiBs is not that they want to play in tournaments, the problem is they DON'T. (That's what makes them "wannabees, see.)
The TWiBs play on the recreational level. Now I don't have a problem with their gear, or their fancy duds, or the fact that they shoot paint like they're trying to push a car out of a ditch with it. I don't like the attitude. They strut, they argue with the staff, they wipe, they play one, they bunker newbies, and generally make themselves a royal paint in the . . . well, you know. The funny thing is that they have the "tourney attitude" (at least that's what THEY think it is) but they've never played in a tourney. The ones I met wouldn't last past the preliminary rounds in a bush league event.
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Why is it when players see paintball portrayed in a bad light in movies, on television or on the news they write their complaints to a paintball publication or post it on the internet? We KNOW they did bad, why are you telling us? The idea is to write the offending party. It's nice that you took the time to write in and inform the rest of us, but use some of that time, make a copy and send it to the offending movie studio, television or news station.
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What's wrong with having larger playing areas? Most paintball fields have very small "tourney style" fields. I don't think it's very fun starting from your flag station when you can see the other team. All players do is sit and hose. You don't know what you're missing. Individual games have become what my buddy Will calls a "Durty Dan game". (Which means, like me, they're short and ugly). There was a time that the playing area was large enough to have a half hour game and if you grabbed the flag with only five minutes left, you probably didn't have time to bring it back for the win. The smaller fields, some say, bring the "extreme" into paintball. Well fine.
You want an adrenaline rush? Creep through a wooded field where every bush could hide an opponent. Try playing on a paintball field where you really don't know where an opponent is until they shoot at you. Play where you have to use your wits and outsmart, not out-hose your opponent. That, my friends, is extreme.
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