The Big Bullet has been running a series of teases / announcements regarding a new pump woodsball league that is in the works. While I begrudge no man (or woman) the brand of paintball they want to play--with the exception of the wackiest of the wacko fringe Rambo wannabes. (Oh, how I miss the days when the magazine would get those big bold misspelled letters written in crayon.) I'm wondering if there is a real market for tourney woodsball and from which branches of paintball they will come. Will they be mostly Old Skoolers? Or dissatisfied scenario guys or disenchanted competition ballers?
I'm also curious what this conception of tourney woodsball is gonna look like. There's already the SPPL out there which is more of a scenario lite hybrid and UWL which (at least sounds like) tends more toward the tourney end of the spectrum but I don't really know how it plays out. And now the National Pump League wants to go further back into the past. Kinda.
Another thing I wonder is if the lessons learned in the tourney game in recent years can be undone in a woodsball environment, particularly in a pump game. How will the skill set priorities change? Will they change? And then there are some of the "problems" that were endemic in the woods. Chief among them unbalanced (unfair) fields and the virtual impossibility of reffing as it's come to be understood and largely accepted in the competition realm.
What about current technology? Sure, they can return the game to low tech, low paint but there's lots of peripheral technology out there that could influence games. Stuff like walkie-talkie phones, companies that can provide yours or others GPS coordinates via your phone, tiny radios, Bluetooth, text messaging and who knows what all else.
Aight, enough with the pessimistic vibe. I guess my point is that you can't really go back again. That tourney paintball in the woods was always something less than the Golden Age of paintball, maybe. Or that cherished memories seldom, if ever, recall the refs or the price of paint or that lousy hole-riddled pallet nobody could live behind. Most of the best memories of paintballin' past revolve around moments and friends. Some of elation and others of frustration. If the NPL can recreate a few of those memories all of Paintball will be the better for it.
Friday, November 20, 2009
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16 comments:
I hate to say it, but this sounds fun. I remember when players actually used to start playing with pump guns and then made the jump to semi. Thats where all the fundamental skills are developed. Path of tourny paintball - who knows what the future holds. Unfortunately the sport has had so many chances at TV with 3 different formats and nothing has worked. Will paintball ever be a TV sport - no way unless the players can move the bunkers as they move around the field. Thats the only object large enough for the camera and audience to follow. There goes my million dollar idea.......
There must be a market if their participants span vast age groups. Woodsball has the advantage of low cost of entry and low cost of hosting an event(I can only speculate of course but it seems a safe guess).
I've heard from many people that with the drop in Speedball there has been an increase in Woodsball/Scenario participation. I don't know if the two are necessarily related. If speedball players decided to play more Woods for awhile or more newer players just happened to be introduced to the Woods.
The cost of team management for a woodsball team is significantly lower, as is the gear overall. You can get used BDUs at any Army/Navy surplus store. There is a demand for Woodsball tournaments so the answer is probably yes, we can go back.
Based on the UWL's site, they have some method in tracking kills and player stats, I don't how though. The reffing will always be a problem when a hit player can sink behind tall grass and crawl a hit off or dive into a bush and wipe.
But we won't all go back together. There will always be the players who want to be in the Woodsball leagues and the ones who want to be the Speedball ones.
I think there might be some success in players playing for fun and calling it a "tourney". Friendly rivalries can be built and fun can be had by all...except those that will take it too seriously. Because then all those issues that Baca spoke about above will rear their ugly heads.
But if we're playing pump paintball in the woods for fun, aren't we basically doing that at our field on every Pump Day that we host already? And can't every field do that if there is demand for it?
We'll have to wait and see how it all pans out I guess.
UWL was good times. The only problem I've seen thus far is the extreme difference in skill levels between those coming out of the woods to participate and those going back in to the woods to have fun.
APPA anyone?
Whats the skill difference and how does it apply?
wipe in the woods and win. relive the history.
Well, my mishmash of singular registrants was put up against Matty Marshall, Nicky Cuba, Todd Martinez, Justin Schwartz, Brandon Lambertson, etc.
We didn't do very well. I still had fun, because I'm cool like that.
it is all about the fun and, as we reveal the structure of the league this week and the method(s) for organizing play, you'll find that it emphasizes the fun and allows folks to "play the way they want to" while still participating in the league.
I wish Steve would learn from his previous mistakes. This is not the way to start a new national league unless you have a big pile of money to burn and personal reputation to drive adoption.
Right now, there is no one playing paintball this way. You can't just decree on your own website that people should start playing paintball a different way and expect it to happen. People won't be sure whether it's going to work out or not, you might get a couple small local events to run, and since you've gone and announced it as a new national effort, a year later people are going to think the whole concept is a failure.
The right way would have been to not announce anything. Find 4 or 5 places in the country that can run the format and just get a local thing going there. Then, after a year or two of the format running OK in those spots, add a national circuit/championship. And that way, if it takes more than a year to get going, you have not convinced everyone that the idea is a failure just because you didn't go from zero to national league the first time out.
I disagree that no one is playing paintball in regards to the woods. I think their is room for growth since there are not many woodsball tournaments available to those players who prefer woodsball over speedball.
What makes you think there are many people currently interested in woodsball tournaments? Is it the massive numbers of people playing existing woodsball tournaments?
I know woodsball attendance doesn't compare to speedball tournament attendance, but maybe part of the reason is that they are so few and far between that it isn't ideal for woodsball players to go to. In speedball we have regional and local tournaments to guide players towards the national circuit. I live in South Florida and there is currently not a Woodsball tournament series nearby. I think the closest is the SPPL event in Georgia, but I could be mistaken.
Since there are no introductory leagues for players unfamiliar with woodsball tournaments it is possible that players just don't feel there is much worth in having to travel far for a tournament series they are not familiar with.
See, now you get it.
I have not heard anyone mention lowering the ammount of divisions offered at national events. Lets say for old times sake you go back to pro, am a, and am b. It forces the a thinning of the heard and also lowers the cost and size of running a event.
It would also force most d5,4, and 3 teams to concentrate on the regional series first. I think one of the biggest factors now is the expectations for these newew players to compete on the national level. There should not be an option to do so in my opinion.
I think we need to focus in on the life cylce of our competitive players and look at ways on imporving that. It seems all to often kids play one full season in these lower divisions and quit because of the ammount of money they spent in the previous season. I felt in the past there was more focus on playing in your regional series for 2-4 years and moving your way up the ladder before you even thought to compete on a national scale. Now you have a choice on focusing on regional or attempting to compete nationally.
All in all I doubt this will change but I do feel it is a mistake to open up the national scene to these lower level teams. It drives them out faster then if they were playing in regional series.
Anony above concludes by saying the PSP has caused the very thing (rapid decline in players "moving up" into tournament paintball) they are trying to correct.
Being a fan of government action/intervention only exacerbating problems that government is trying to correct (repeat, repeat, repeat), I'm a fan of this theory.
I vote the PSP declare a complete "do over" and pick up the rule book from 1999 and start the 2010 season from there.
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