More on GI Milsim

Aight, it's time to give all you lazy slackers the answer(s) to the last Cynical VFTD Game, which, to the best of my knowledge, is where the rumor went public. Our friends over at ProPaintball have revived the Richmond Italia buys into Smart Parts rumor (first referenced here in the comments) so I figured I'd let y'all in on what VFTD has. (The demand to know has been deafening. Yeah, right.)

GI Milsim is a trademark of .50 caliber Inc. A company (apparently) located in St. Laurent and registered in Canada.

Gardner Italia Milsim is a trademark of GI Paintball, Inc. This is a separate company also registered in Canada and based in Quebec.

There was no confirmation in the info discovered that identified ownership but if Richmond and the Gardners are partners in these two companies, which appear to have been setup to do GI Milsim business, I remain unconvinced that the relationship extends into ownership of SP. But hey, who knows?

Enlistment for the Week

VFTD would like to announce the formal enlistment of recruit Joran to the DPA. Welcome aboard, Joran. Joran joins us from Singapore and is just the sort of young, avid baller we can disillusion in no time. Live long and prosper, Joran.

As for the rest of you slackers the world isn't conquering itself and VFTD needs recruits. Did I mention the secret handshake and monthly email blasts revealing the secrets of paintball just for members?

UPDATE: BMason takes the plunge! Thanks, Brandon. Keep up the great work. It was the secret handshake that made all the difference, wasn't it? Hey, front and center, recruit.

Technical Difficulties

Have delayed the release of, Ask the Coach; episode 4: The Excuse, but it is in post-production this very minute. So what if I'm over budget? It's art I tell you, art, dammit!

So Last Millennium

On days when you are frustrated with the tournament series you play be grateful it isn't the Millennium Series. Unless, you know, it is--the Millennium Series, in which case, I feel your pain. The Mil kids are working on twofer right now and since they say bad luck comes in threes I'm waiting for another shoe to drop. (How's that for some brutally mixed metaphors? Trust me, it takes a rare talent.)
The MS recently announced the location of the final leg of this year's series (in July for those keeping score at home and, I must say, not unlike a couple of U.S. leagues.) It will be held in a resort area of Turkey. Rumor has it the league is getting a "good deal" for bringing a series event in. One problem is it will apparently be considerably more expensive for some percentage of the players and teams than a typical-from-past-experience Euro location. For some others it won't. Adding to this complication is the locked division issue which obligates the CPL, SPL and D1 teams to show up. Of course they signed on to that deal without knowing the details in advance. But, what choice did they have if they wanted to compete this season? (A circumstance the league regularly takes advantage of--and the teams and players continue to take.) At a minimum the Turkey decision is proving "controversial" but the MS is used to riding out these sorts of storms.
The Paris Open has also produced some interesting fallout. Apparently the original contracts signed by the locked division teams identified the Paris event as an "open" meaning non-mandatory event. That was later amended to being an open format event that was mandatory even though the results wouldn't count toward series points. Got that? Unless you happened to ref it, as it turns out. It seems the D1 teams that reffed Paris have had their lowest event scores replaced with 100 reffing points which has altered the season standings in D1 and put all the non-reffing teams at a disadvantage. (The MS still uses D1 teams to fill their reffing staffs which both reduces the league's expenses and adds to the coffers because 3 "extra" teams pay for a D1 slot.) The upshot is that a mandatory open event where the actual scores don't count has given max points to the reffing teams to be counted toward the final series points standings. And--and, this just gets better and better--the one locked division team that didn't show up got banned for the rest of the season for trashing their hotel room at the prior event. Except they cleaned up the room and paid for the carpet cleaning and the ban wasn't announced until after they didn't show up for the Paris event.
And you were upset 'cus the pit you had to play in was muddy last event? Count your blessings.

Taking a Silly Day

I've decided to take a silly day. There will be no serious posting today. No deep discussions of the problems currently facing Paintball. No Chicken Little Apochalypso--unless we can come up with a catchy tune and turn it into a dance routine. But fear not, it won't be a totally lost posting opportunity. I will be posting the July episode of 'Ask the Coach' sometime today. It's episode #4, The Excuse.
Besides that I want to tell you a silly story today and encourage you to post up silly stories of your own. It's foolish, it's pointless, and with any luck it may even be childish and immature. So relax. Paintball isn't going anywhere (today) and it's time for a bit of fun.

Banned By PBN
(I originally posted this item on P8ntballer (years ago) and happened to run across it again today and found it--and the upshot--hilarious all over again. Though it probably won't endear VFTD to our pals at the Nation, that's okay. Humor impairment is never pretty so try not to stare.)

I thought some of you might find this story amusing and a left-handed blow for justice so--We have a team forum at PBN. It was thought to be a good way to have regular contact with fans, etc. As it has turned out only about three of us post(ed) with any regularity. One of our guys routinely posts "advice" and the swear filter does double duty on occasion. One might have thought that was the filter's purpose yet the poster was warned by a Mod to quit trying to get around the filter. Well, looking at the posts it's plain our guy wasn't trying to get around the filter so much as he was trying to be his own filter. Anyway--in the process--the Mod in question posts a list of all the words PBN filters but the Mod wrote them out in such a way the filter didn't filter them and they were all perfectly legible. At this point I quoted the Mod's list (using the quote function) and noted the irony of threatening our guy about abusing the filter while at the same time doing exactly what our guy was being warned about but wasn't doing intentionally. (It should be noted that at no time did my posts require the filter nor did I post anything attempting to bypass the filter--I only quoted the Mod's list as he wrote it. Oh, and I gave the Mod a bit of a hard time for, A) doing exactly what he warned our guy not to do, and B) for otherwise having such poor judgment as to post elsewhere in the forums the intimate details of a sexual encounter--which apparently isn't against the rules at PBN, and finally, C) for then currying favor with the player he was threatening to ban.) The thread should still be there [it's long gone to the Evidence Archives--which is pretty funny all on its own] to see unless it was deleted but at the moment I don't know, you see, I've been banned. The reason given: purposefully attempting to bypass the filter.
So for all of you who would have liked to get even with the Mods one time or another I thought you'd like to know I've gotten a dose of what you must deal with daily.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. This is where it gets good. After a number of failed attempts to reason with the PBN mods the team took another tack. Instead of taking our punishment like good little boys and promising not to do it ever again our fearless leader refused to knuckle under. (You know how those pro guys are, they're complete jerks.)

He started a thread by laying out a hypothetical situation where it might be possible to unleash all manner of chaos and mayhem on the forums without using any bannable language whatsoever. He then, thinking out loud, offered up how that might work. If, for example, someone had influence over a significant number of members and encouraged them to prepare to violate as many forum rules as possible in obscure places throughout the forums but only upon receiving the "secret" command to do so. The sample command he used was Project Mayhem. He then proceeded to post up innocuous posts using either the word "project" or "mayhem" but never both at the same time. This resulted in a whole new wave of bannings and threats and thread removals. Which we greeted by rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically at the general hysteria on display from the PBN poohbahs.

There was also a semi-serious element to it as well. We felt it was unfair from the beginning and when called on it the mods simply made bigger jackasses of themselves (than they already appeared) and became more heavy-handed in their responses (when they weren't disavowing any responsibility whatsoever.) Which didn't sit particularly well.

And, of course, simply putting the idea of project mayhem out there served to inspire quite a few diligent fans to begin implementing it. That had the mods searching every nook and cranny of the forums looking for artifacts of Project Mayhem and handing out dozens of more bannings, mostly to new accounts set up to carry out Project Mayhem. For a while the mods were all doing double duty and so paranoid they were banning accounts and threads as fast as they could be generated out of fear of another round of Project Mayhem. The whole thing ran its course in just a few days and, of course, we "lost" but it was by far the most entertaining defeat we ever suffered.

All that remains--that I could find still available to public search--are the links below which give an outline to the events recounted above. (Just in case you want to delve a little deeper.)
Stop Closing Hollidays Threads
Words One Cannot Say on PBN
RexFockersGhost

Well, that was fun, kids. First time in years I've thought about any of that. What a hoot.

Baca's Blog

Hey, better late than never. Today's effort is called, Paintball Diversity, and yes, it's a post I originally intended to post here at VFTD. It's undergone a change or two but remains the basic concept it started out as. I finally decided to put it in Baca's Blog--in case you've forgotten already that's over at the Big Bullet--because the competitive element is really incidental to the subject. Even so some of you might find it interesting. Hit the link(s) and check it out.

On Stein's View of Pro Teams & Franchises

I'd like to comment on Jeff Stein's post over at ProPaintball yesterday. (If you haven't read it, check it out first. It's about pro teams from the owner's perspective.) I find nothing objectionable in it but I'd like to piggyback off Jeff's comments. It's less a disagreement and more just a slightly different perspective on what is and will continue to be an issue in competitive paintball. And commenting here let's me ignore the bulk of the comments which were not particularly relevant. (Btw, Faction, if you wish to put your nickel's worth in here please include a link or links to your sources of info on pro sports and teams.)

Jeff focuses on the "value" side of the pro ownership equation and does a good job of laying it all out. The only things I'd add is that the original NXL franchise buy-ins weren't really about the teams. It was an investment in the mainstreamed future of the game. And in that respect it was a more expensive variation on the same 'promise' the NPPL tried trading in. What all of it amounted to was promoting a shared expectation of future value based not on paintball itself but on the ability to sell the game.

While I can (and do) take Jeff's conclusions at face value and understand the sentiment (and frustration) behind the post I don't see a future for his "solution" any more than I see a secure future from the status quo. (I don't actually believe Jeff considers his conclusion a solution either but that's just my opinion.) As long as there has been serious competitive paintball there have been those willing to make what many might reasonably conclude are irrational sacrifices to compete but there is a limit.

A dozen years ago Lockout was able to compete at the pro level on the budget of a broke ass hardcore D2 team frequently driving to national events and stuffing hotel rooms like they were illegal sweat shops. 5 years later some elite pro teams were competing in two or even three international series and operating on six figure budgets. From then until now the sponsor dollars have dried up but the demands placed on a pro level team to be competitive have only increased. (With the modest exception of the PSP roster mandate and the reduction of competition options. It's much cheaper to play pro ball when you're not actually playing. Go figure.) In many respects you can't succeed with just a team anymore, you must have an organization and you must at least come close to matching the time and resources of the richest teams in terms of effective preparation. It's not like riding a bicycle.

A couple of points. The measurable cost of that irrational sacrifice has, over the years, increased so much that what was possible a few years ago isn't possible any more. And the more it costs (forget value, forget return) the fewer owners there will be willing (or able) to pay the price. [If a prospective owner could count on 10K out of pocket every year there would be a lot more willing to pay the price than when the cost is 50K.]
That leaves us with one other group. Those who do receive some return on their investment. Who perceive some value in operating a pro team or teams. That would be PBIndustry and the league(s) running a pro division. Yes, assessing that value is problematic. The factory teams have a commercial as well as a competitive purpose. All sponsors are constantly evaluating and reevaluating the "value" of their sponsorship but they, and the league(s) will need to keep in mind that their teams do not operate in a vacuum. Are the Ironmen the Ironmen if they have no premier league to compete in? And will any national league survive if it's Pro division disappears? The assumption has always been that someone else will always step up to fill a void but if we haven't reached the point where that won't happen we're getting very close to it.

Major League Paintball Held Hostage: Weekly Update

Here it is July and I doubt anybody has much of an idea what comes next--except, hopefully, the rest of this season. For many that includes a hole the size of the PSP's regular fourth event. (I smell another Monday Poll question in there somewhere.) The PSP has leaped the third hurdle without too much seeming amiss. The USPL has yet to put on their second event. The MS has just completed their Open experiment and the Grand Tour may be about to have their biggest event of the season in the middle of July. On the surface the raw numbers seem to tell a tale of slow decline but it's impossible to say with any certainty what comes next. And who knows what, if anything, is going on behind the scenes to respond to the challenges of the future. Something surely, right?

The PSP will probably be fairly quiet for a while though one hopes we'll see the "missing" webcast matches at some point. I wonder if the failures in Chicago will set the whole effort back and I'm beginning to wonder if the new venue can be equipped to make sure WC doesn't repeat the Chicago problems.

The USPL situation just makes me scratch my head. From the beginning I didn't believe that the level of participation the league was projecting would prove accurate (or even plausible) but I wouldn't have predicted such a precipitous drop off either. I was (and am) convinced that xball captured the grassroots throughout most of the country but I didn't expect the apparent collapse of 7-man interest we're seeing. The WCPPL has probably siphoned off some teams but it wasn't that long ago (was it?) when the XPSL and NPPL peacefully and prosperously coexisted with plenty of teams to go around. Is it just a format failure or does it portend something bigger?

I don't know if the MS Paris Open can be considered a success or not. (Comments on this topic most welcome.) It was not a capacity turnout. Did the open format hurt? Will we see a decline in Campaign Cup? I'm wondering if attrition is a concern and if the locked divisions licensing fees have helped stave off possibly greater attrition. (I expect we'll see in the coming off season and/or in D2 and D3 where the option exists to not play. I would, btw, ascribe most losses to the economy.) On a more positive note everything about the event seems to have gone off neatly and the level of play appears to be quite high. Is the core of Euro competitive ballers closing the performance gap?
Let's talk Turkey. (Very lame. I should be ashamed.) The final event location has finally been formally announced but it wasn't exactly a deep dark secret. All indications are it's a prime location with the only questions marked related to the cost to the player.

Over on the Grand Tour the numbers for the Graz event (up to 46) could make it the biggest event of the season for the central European league.

The Monday Poll

This week's Monday Poll is on the controversial (to some) change in venue for this year's World Cup and how you, the readers of VFTD, view that change. As usual please feel free to add some depth to your vote by including comments or suggestions or whatever. This should be an interesting topic for discussion as I doubt there is anybody who doesn't have an opinion on this one. Vote early, vote often. (Okay, you can't and that was a joke. Except for our friends in the Chicago area where it's common practice.)

The Poll In Review
Last week's question: What puts the major in major league tournament series paintball? was, I thought, a very interesting question. Most of you apparently didn't agree or took a look at the results trend and figured it was going the way you expected it to and didn't bother to vote. Regardless, the more votes the better.
Three answers dominated the vote. Industry types opted for the support of industry answer to the tune of approx. 25%. Another 25% thought the scale of participation made for a major league event while 50% thought the participation of Pro teams was the defining factor. In the comments a couple of our industry-related friends also abandoned the "tournament" caveat in the original question by suggesting that strong industry support of any sufficiently large scale event counted. As a competitive paintball guy I'm not so much interested in redefining the poll that way though it might have been useful if I'd also included a 'Draws participants from a national base,' answer option as well.
With the industry answer I'm left wondering at the cause and effect. Is the presence of industry what makes it major league or is the size or opportunity for promotion what draws industry? I'm inclined to think the later. I think the additional option suggested above might have split or even supplanted the scale of participation answer. It would be interesting though to see where peeps who voted that way draw the line. Above 100 teams? 150? 75? Finally the majority of the vote went to Pro participation which seems fairly straightforward to me. And, I think, for the time-being perhaps the best way to make the major, non-major distinction but let me pose a closing question to you. What if the PSP existed as it does today or was even bigger but the Pro game was separate from those events? Would that work?

This Week at VFTD

This week the deck may get reshuffled. If you're not sure what that means, join the club. I'm stalling. Carried over from last week is Another Cynical VFTD Game and I may (or may not) answer the questions posed this week. We'll see what else comes up. The post, Paintball Diversity, will be posted in Baca's Blog later today instead of here at VFTD. I'm also working on some things to do with officiating and I'll be revisiting Classification again soon. It's also time for another episode of Ask the Coach. Anyway, the following schedule is purely hypothetical (and I wouldn't blame you for thinking, like always) so I guess we'll find out together how accurate it proves to be.

Monday: This Week at VFTD, The Monday Poll (The Poll Review), Link to Baca's Blog
Tuesday: MLP Held Hostage Weekly Update
Wednesday: A reffing post?
Thursday: A classification post?
Friday: Enlistment(s) for the Week, No doubt something else terrific

PSP Chicago OTB

Here it is, mostly. I left a couple of minor options out just for the sake of clarity. All the lanes given in blue represent the possibility of a running & gunning (or moving) lane though they needn't be in every situation. The red lanes are essentially fixed position lanes that are shoot, then move.
Starting with the blue and A I'll take the lanes in alphabetical order.

A: Is a step off the board using the pins to block in order to get a quick lane up for a snake runner (or the snake wire temple.)

B: Can be (and often is) the follow-up position for the A lane shooter. Alternatively OTB a deep position can be taken up that allows the shooter to lane the snake side gap while stepping into the B position.

C: Is an alternate cross field contain lane option that does a couple of things. It lets the B position player play wide on the D-side while setting the C (pin) player up to wrap on a home shooter and rotate into the 40 D-side dorito or the X. Additionally, A can shoot the lane and move to C while B shoots wide then switches for cross field lane control.

D: Is a step off the board cross field lane on the D-side break. It's an option that mixes up the angles and shooters and allows for a snake side heavy break while protecting against a strong OTB push D-side. D is also the first step in the progression D, E & F. In that capacity the D shooter can lane inside/outside the snake dorito, into the fingers or wider.

E: Is a gun up holding spot that allows for an extra lane but also allows the shooter to delay, evaluate the opposition's break, and then respond accordingly with the option to feed wide or upfield.

F: Both snake side pins are playable and playing them up tight is a variation on E. If a player can get small the wide pin is well protected from most shooters with the best out of line-of-sight lane being to bounce paint off the inner pin. Otherwise E offers many of the same lanes and if/when heavy pressure holds up movement playing in tight is a very playable option.

G: Is the primary option on effectively laning inside the D-can. This can be a simple sweep the gun up on the horn and/or step up into home while holding the lane. G also gives very quick shots to multiple lanes on both sides of the field but carries the downside of an exposed shooter to any edging gun.

H: Similar to D in terms of the available lanes except H offers a solid lane inside the snake dorito. H is also primarily a hold, shoot (delay) then cut out to a primary option. A good choice for a delayed corner runner or even a delayed snake runner.

I & J: standard home shooting positions and the available lanes.

These OTB lanes leave out straight Run & Gun options but otherwise reflects 90% of all the lanes we used in Chicago and should (hopefully) offer some more ideas for the developing Xball player. (Or else it will show you how clever you already are. And what could be better than that?)

Calling Matty Marshall

Matty, you gotta help me out. As the undisputed Voice of Paintball you have a responsibility. It's a lexical responsibility. I didn't realize it until this morning so please don't take this as criticism. More like begging. When I heard some French guy going on and on doing commentary on the Paris Open and the only English involved was "feast" and "feasting" I knew there was a problem. A feast here, a feast there. It's all good. And I can appreciate the difficulty in trying to keep the commentary fresh but every expression you use is gonna get repeated a thousand fold. Kinda like the agg epidemic. Harmless enough at first until it hits some unexpected critical mass and --boom--we're screwed and there's little agglets overrunning fields around the country like rabbits. All I'm asking, Matty, is that you expand the paintball lingo lexicon. Make it up on the fly. Try different stuff out. Just go for it. Thanks.

World Domination On Hold

Another Friday with no enlistments to the Deadbox Puppet Army. Now I know how the Brain feels with you lot as my collective Pinky. It's a hard row.

Instead I have a few items to share with y'all. A reminder that ProPaintball put the word out that Billy B. has a blog now. I'm following up because, God help me, I like Billy and from the sample posted he can almost spell. That and I got a real kick out of going to his site.

If you truly are a no lifer you can catch the Millennium Paris action on SOP.tv. Keep in mind they're five hours ahead of EST and schedule your day (or night) accordingly.

Here's a promotional gimmick for the PSP and this year's World Cup. (You got three months to work on this.) The Florida Sportsman Challenge to benefit the Childhood Leukemia Foundation. (I know, that sounds kinda cynical and maybe it is but hear me out.) Round up 3-man teams from Florida-based pro sports teams ( the Rays and Marlins) and major universities to play some paintball for charity. You want mainstream media coverage and an opportunity to do a good thing all while promoting paintball as sport? A positive spin and name athletes from established sports portray paintball in a whole new light. Just saying.

Bleg: How many refs are working PSP divisional fields this season and is it the same number as last year? I'm just curious. (No dark, evil ulterior motives--that I'll admit to.)

UPDATE: I'm going to thin out the herd of sidebar references to paintblogs and perhaps sites to reflect those that are reasonably active. If you know of any sites that ought to be added drop me a line or if you update your current site shortly it may keep it on the list. (I'm not a neat freak but it's time for a little housekeeping.)

Paintball By The Numbers

Why is tournament paintball in decline? Is it really in decline? Is rec play down? In raw numbers? Dollars spent? Or both? Is the impact uniform across the country or does it have any regional variations? Are scenarios and Big Games as strong as ever? If so, why? Are they playing with restricted ROF or paint limitations? Is tourney ball seeing a decline because the game is too expensive? Or because fewer new players are entering paintball of any sort? (Meaning we're losing the raw material of future tourney ballers.) Or because high volumes of paint are scaring away those same new players and perhaps keeping some number of would be players away as well?

There sure are a lot of questions. And not a lot of answers. Or so it seems. Wouldn't it be nice to know what's really going on? Other than the fact tournament paintball is at the mercy of an industry that seems incapable of finding its backside with both hands. What the hell is industry doing other than trying to find more efficient ways for the haves to sell to the remaining retail outlets while trying to marginalize the have nots? Here's an idea. How about a model field program that all the Big Boys participate in. If you want to know what's happening at the grass roots try getting down there and see. The basic idea is to operate say, three, fields in diverse markets and see what's working and/or experiment with different ideas and try to find ways to make things work better--for everybody. (I know, I know.) Find answers to some of the questions currently plaguing the game. If everyone in industry participates nobody gets an advantage and everyone gets the benefits of any advances while sharing the cost of making the effort. Make it a PSTA project. If the PSTA could develop a package based on real life experience with proven methods to help make the local field(s) a success it would have actually accomplished something.

Not too keen on that idea? I didn't think so.

Fortuitously Jeff Perlmutter of PMI fame is looking into a variation of the concept. He wants to acquire and then operate as model parks a number of local paintball fields around the country. (See the interview over at the Big Bullet.) His idea is to find a system that produces a positive paintball experience and reproduce it at all his parks. (And perhaps spin if off as a franchise or something similar?) Jeff and his folks could do the work for the industry. Who knows, a little industry support now might reap real dividends in relatively short order.

Still not too keen on the idea? Here's a simpler version that might be worthwhile.

A field owners questionnaire aimed at discovering what's working in different places around the country (or even the world.) I hesitate to even suggest this on the basis that somebody must already be doing something similar, mustn't they? If for no other reason than marketing and sales need some sense of what's happening on the retail front in order to do their job effectively. Right? (For those of you who are field owners [Reiner, Mick] have any of your suppliers ever done anything similar?) Combine the answers from the questionnaire with a sales history and there may be enough data there, when combined with potentially hundreds of others, to begin to understand some of the the things happening in the paintball market, and why.

Of course it isn't as easy as suggesting it ought to be done--even generating a truly effective questionnaire would be a challenge--but maybe it's a place to start thinking about the challenges in a different way. Or not.

Another Cynical VFTD Game

Today's game is company, company, whose got the company? If you missed it in the comments from a few days ago it seems there is a rumor making the rounds that Richmond Italia has bought into Smart Parts. I found this interesting and did a little digging around but being a lazy slacker--much like yourself--I didn't find any confirmation and moved on to other things. But while I was at it I also started looking for GI Milsim and while I didn't find it, one of VFTD's most enterprising correspondents did. (Though I found something else later that makes me question the validity of the Italia buys into SP rumor.)

What is GI Milsim? And who holds the rights to it? And for extra credit try and find DLX Technology.

I'll give you a hint or two to get started. SP and SP Europe are both registered companies with the State of Pennsylvania. The others aren't.

(Because you and I know you're a lazy slacker I will tell you the answers at some point so you needn't play along unless you really, really want to know.)