Anyone here play Paintball?

Just wondering i myself have been playing for 4 years now.
Why paintballs a sport: http://www.vimeo.com/4537735
If that's too boring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh1cwzwmoZ0
I'm not expecting many people to even know what it is but maybe I'll be suprised.

 

Wouldn't most people know? I've always wanted to give it a try, but sadly, not yet. Most people do it at least once...some people even do it for company team building exercises :p

 

I have a few friends who often go airsofting. I agree with them that it's often more fun to do than paintball, but it's so expensive that i never started with it. Paintball is alright as well though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airsoft

He used one of his smoke bombs in his garden to show me ... i had tears in my eyes for 5 minutes. If you toss something like that in a small roomless building i can't understand how the enemy would get out alive.

His regular grenades are the cheap refillable kind that doesn't have much force. It does shoot off 150 balls in 3 seconds, but they don't go very far. Still it's good to clear out trenches and stuff.

 

i play airsoft, its kinda like paintball with a mix of reinactment/cosplay

 

I was into paint ballin and then air softer later on in highschool.. Both fun.. Paint balls you can actually see in flight and dodge, which I kind of liked.

 

Frankly i have a passionate hatred of airsoft. The people that play airsoft around here in Mass are the people who couldn't handle paintball. They constantly talk about how bad paintball is and how much more popular airsoft is. Does airsoft have worldwide leagues in which you can win close to 100,000 in an event? Are there paid professional airsoft players? IMO It takes much more skill and athleticism to play paintball in a X-ball format then airsoft will ever have. Yes, paintball is expensive but i like it enough that i work extra so i can pay for it. I understand that its very childlike for me hold this pointless grudge but i just am that way I also know that not all airsofters are like that and most probably aren't like this but i just had to do this rant and get it over with:p

 

1: i dont know about this "loathing" you talk about, never herd an airsofter say anything about paintball like that

i did read about a paintballer loathing aistofting... just now... in the quote... i made it bold

2: airsoft is a newer sport, it takes time to develop publicly

3: airsoft focusses on other fields then paintbal, ever did a paintball event with a couple thousand participants spread over 4 or 5 factions playing out a fictitious international conflict over 6 days with vehicles from light tanks to helicopter droppings to dune buggies

at the moment air soft isnt really competitively focussed, mostly you come with a squad of squad mates and as with empires you join a team and help everyone beat the other guys

 

I can handle, paintball, I've went paintballing tons of times, and sadly, most paintballers I see have terrible tactical sense. Noone talks about how muhc more popular airsoft is. I have never heard anyone say that before. It is commonly accepted that paintball is a lot more popular than airsoft. Airsoft doesn't have leagues in the US, because
1. Airsoft is not competition oriented, cheating is looked down upon, but often everything goes by the honor system. We are out to have shits and giggles, not to win money.
2. Airsoft is not as popular in US as in some Asian countries. In japan, there is a Marui stadium, they have commericals, and I'm sure they have competitions.
3. Being on the honor system makes it very hard to have paid professional due to the conflict of interest. Same goes for paintball. When theres money involved, there will always be people who want to cheat. Its just easier to do so in airsoft.

What skills and athleticism? There are different skills for every sport. Most of it depends on the field you play in. Bigger fields require more endurance, while smaller CQB games require reflexs speed and such. running wth a paintball marker will be the same as running with an airsoft gun. You practice your sport and get better at what you do. Same goes for everything.

Why would cost matter?

I find Airsoft more fun. Its less restricting. Unfortunately I have met a lot of hardcore paintballers who are huge assholes. Part of the reason I like airsoft is that a lot of people are innovative with their loadouts. Sure lots of people have their Special forces or military loadouts, but just recently, someone put together a HL2 rebel load out. All the enthusiastic paintballers Ive seen just have the generic bright blue green and red jumpsuits.

 

Yeh, I've been paintballing a bit, and when I was with just general friends or whatever, they all...suck. No tactical sense whatsoever, And tbh, that vid (2nd) seemed like they were all being retarded, running out like they did, just seemed a really bad idea when they could simply camp and pick off from cover. Probably not as fun but if they're in it to win money, then they should I guess, although when I've been it's been in woods and shit, not a giant bouncy castle.

When I went paintballing with cadets (Army, RAF etc) it was amazing. Everyone had such a better idea of tactics, there was no run out BS. So much coordination and every game was really fucking hard. Above all, none of us were loaded with money, so we had to pick our shots, we couldn't just spray like in those videos. At one point, me and my army mate were sat in the back of this van, last 2 on our team vs 5 of them. We had to protect what was in it, but at the same time stay alive obviously, so shit was really intense. Luckily there was a time limit which forced them to run nublet style at us (like in that vid) and we slotted them from cover. You just don't get stuff like that in most paintballing, it ends up feeling too arcadey. I've never been airsofting, but I don't really know how you'd tell if you got someone apart from "OWW THAT FUCKING HURTS". I suppose that's what you mean by "honour" system. But don't they make paintball BBs?

 

People took my comment much more seriously then intended. I am merely pointing out the people in my area that doesn't reflect on everyone else s and don't worry ive met just as bad and worse paintball players who think they can go out and shoot street signs and do vandalism for fun.

Why would cost matter?
I think thats self-explanatory paintball is MUCH more expensive then airsoft and there is no arguing it. A good case of paint costs about 50 dollars +/- 10 while airsoft pellets cost less for larger numbers the markers or guns are more expensive just getting on a field costs a lot im not sure what you were going for here. If its cheaper it will appeal to a much larger audience.

Blizzerd i can provide a list of scenario events in paintball that attract 1000+ people most popular of which is D-Day. I;ve actually played more scenerio lately because its something different then i normally do, cheaper and less stressful then having to spend 800 dollars to enter an event where if you don't place well your sponsors may drop you.

Fricken Hamster: X-Ball is not the only format played there is a more popular format called woodsball and scenario both of which are played in the woods. I can post some video's of them too if you want.

Trickster:What those players did is called a run through and frankly many times is used as a last resort if your team has gotten people shot of the break or if you lost many players its used as a last stand. And in most games that doesn't happen. Thats all footage just pasted together if you want to see what a normal game looks like then here is a link to a tournament that was in Chicago this past weekend unfortunately my team was unable to attend do to sponsor issues.http://www.pspevents.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=81
And there are also pump games in which like the old days of paintball you have to pump your gun before firing like a bolt action rifle. It adds more challenge and its fun playing against people with auto's But PSP is also adding a division for pump in the future.

I am merely talking about what happens in my area im not biased towards airsoft players by any means I guess i worded it incorrectly but forgive me for this.

 

I know there are different types of paintball, just as there are different types of paintball. I think there is a each type of paintball has similarities and differences with differnt types of airsoft. Outdoor and large areas do support longer, more tactical games and CQB and Xball as you call it, supports shorter and more spontaneous games. However paintball just isn't very tactically oriented. Its in the nature, paintballs move slower and are alot easier to see, especially because you have to lob them. Once you are outside the effective radius, you can dance around without fear of being hit. While airsoft does have a short effective distance in relation to real guns, The bbs are small and hard too see in most situations (unless you have a tac light and shoot a line of bbs in the dark like me and my mate ). You can't watch the bbs to see if they fall before they get near you. Real life example, I went to a popular paintball field where I suppose a lot of new people go. There were some hardcore paintballers with the bright blue spandex. Most people I saw there actually ran out of cover to take a few shots, see where they land and then run back. Even the hardcore pbers ran out of cover to take shots. I stayed only shot when I was leaning from a wall, and never got hit the entire day. It was also harder to kill people because they were dodging paintballs. In a CQB airsoft arena I go to, there are a lot of noobs there. On several occasions, there were a party of 10 year olds for their birthday. Its not the best field, but even the 10 year olds knew not to run out of cover. We only ran to go from cover to cover.anyone who was exposed was quickly eliminated. Even the 10 year olds had better tactical sense than the paintballers I have seen.

I don't think Airsoft should be played for commercial purposes. Fear of dropping a sponsor is not something I or most airsoft I know want to deal with. We airsoft for fun, not money. I see it as a positive over the over commercialization of paintball.

 

i once met a team that had ww1 loadouts, it was awesome they had ftrench gear with them and everything, and they made a sandsack barricade on the spot to mount a small machine gun

and 1 guy i met was a nazi ww2 guy with those nazi smg's

i was even thinking of making a Northern faction rifleman load out, i even designed an airsoft shotty pistol but i need to buy the materials still

 

Ah ok, that makes sense. But what you said @ Fricken Hamster, the Woodsball and Scenario games sound awesome to me, just that xball one seems a little shitty.

 

It is little bit in some senses but i like X-Ball and that's just me. I've seen some pretty interesting setups in terms of guns. For some reason i can't connect to it right now but there is a forum called PbNation which is basically the internet center for paintball. 5th largest forum in the world by the way in terms of active users. And if you go their paintball talk section they have a voided warranty section with tons of interesting modded guns.

Im glad that we've come to a understanding.

 

PAINTBALL NECRO Fuck yeah, awesome sport, anyone else tried it in the meantime?

 

dude that's cause he was playing naked probably, you dont get that much hurt from it.

 

I permanently scarred shitstorm/space oddity whilst paintballing.

 

lol where???

 

His hand. He may kindly take a photograph and post it up. It probably doesn't look so bad now, it was 6 years ago.