Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Monday Poll

To make up for the lateness of this posting (it is Tuesday, after all) I'm gonna give some added value by doubling up. Put it all on black. Oh, wait, not that kind of doubling up. (A little Vegas lag.) Not only will this be a Monday Poll but it's also a hot, fresh rumor of the NPPL variety. Yesterday there was an owners meeting in the aftermath (no pun intended) of the Vegas event and one of the rumors that leaked out of that smoke-filled conference room was this: a standardized board rule to reduce gun cheats and the largely subjective decisions from referees about what's a legal gun and what isn't. Here's the idea: a single manufacturer optimizes boards for different brand guns and as long as none of the settings are altered the guns are defacto legal. And a simple check of the board settings can confirm either tampering or no change. (Posing this question and passing on this rumor doesn't constitute a fact. The league may, or may not, follow thru with this idea. Who knows, your votes may influence the outcome. Hey, it could happen.)
Here's the poll question: Is a league certified gun board a ...

Monday Poll in Review
Last week's poll--boy, do you have a short memory--was World Cup losers and in a tedious display of boring sincerity the top 4 losers according to percentage of the vote were ... 50 cal (22%), NPPL (40%), Disney (48%) and--drum roll please--the number one WC loser was all the players and teams not attending the event. Of equal interest--to me--was the dearth of votes that might have been construed as anti-PSP (or protest) votes given the venue and other changes the league made this season. It was also rather sweet to see all those Disney votes as if the monolithic Mouse will ever notice the loss--or didn't precipitate it. For whatever it's worth it would seem the VFTD voters continue to be well disposed toward the PSP.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This standardization of boards is something very formula 1-ish where the cars are carefully scrutinized, before a race, but as long as players get to take the boards home with them they can get around this (not going to get into too many details, but there would be no stopping them).

And if you don't let them take the boards home how can they be expected to optimize the performance of their gun by adjusting FSDO, dwell, and trigger sensitivity which are all necessary and perfectly legal features, which are different on every gun.

Also who would make the boards? If the league places one or two outside companies to make these boards then they are giving a company like virtue the keys to the proverbial city as far as selling illegal software. And we all know Mike Newman knows how to make some good cheater boards.

I know I put way too much thought into answering this poll, but it's just a huge waste of time. Short of making the players shoot standard issue paintball guns provided by the league just for that day of play, semi will never work.

Anonymous said...

I brought this very idea up a few years ago on the p8ntballer.com forums....that sparked several pages of pros and cons discussion. It was eventually deemed to be a much smarter, simpler, cheaper decision to cap the rate of fire, and give refs a method to check it, and thus enforce it. A few months later the PSP put the wheels in motion and now have complete control over the rof of guns.
The NPPL needs to follow suit...pick a cap, give refs pact timers to check it during action, and problem solved.

Reiner Schafer said...

After the first tournament I ever played, I said that they should have a version where everyone is playing with the exact same gun. Then it would be more a true competition of athleticism and talent. Of course I was new and naive. Later I updated the thought to having tournament organizers hand out boards for markers when the games begin.

Difficult to administrate and get everyone to agree to. Probably won't be happening anytime soon.

Anonymous said...

Most likely because you naturally lost because the other guy's equipment was better.... and 5 star restaurants have better food because their pots and pans are better...

Reiner Schafer said...

"Most likely because you naturally lost because the other guy's equipment was better"

No, I think we probably had as good or better equipment than anyone else and I think we were in the middle of the pack somewhere. I remember having a lot of fun, but even then I was always analyzing things and wondering if it could be made better in some way.