What needs to happen to speedball to keep it relevant?

[Pump Scout]

We have a winner! Focal point is a key to the whole thing. Although, there's ways around it. True, we have no ball, no puck, no central point of focus other than the flag. One option is to have a "live" flag right from the get-go. Game on, one of your guys is carrying a live flag that must reach the other team's start gate. The other way is the NASCAR route, where you have dozens of cameras getting the action by focusing on each player, each hot spot, and a top-notch production crew able to swap between views for the feed.

[fullofpaint]

It'd be fantastic to have gun cams on every player, but the reliability just isn't there yet, plus idk where you'd hide the transmitter...in the tank cover maybe, with a lipstick cam mounted to the feedneck? Plus the costs for the broadcast would go through the roof.

[skibbo]

We have a winner! Focal point is a key to the whole thing. Although, there's ways around it. True, we have no ball, no puck, no central point of focus other than the flag. One option is to have a "live" flag right from the get-go. Game on, one of your guys is carrying a live flag that must reach the other team's start gate. The other way is the NASCAR route, where you have dozens of cameras getting the action by focusing on each player, each hot spot, and a top-notch production crew able to swap between views for the feed.

A live flag would be interesting.

I think for the NASCAR route to work this need cameras on players, as well as side way to are who they're shooting at. That's a decent technological hurdle to get everything working, not to mention expensive.

People complain about having to pay for the event streams ads it is. That points to outside sponsorship, but initially there's going to be some big costs without knowing if there's going to be a return.

I think adding reliable tech to the current broadcasts could turn things around, without the need for sweeping rule changes.

[morolen]

Also guncam footage is rarely compelling, players are playing paintball, not operating a camera. In a perfect world, each player would have a steadicam operator following them around so you have a sense of what the player is seeing and where he is in the environment.

Talk about unreasonable though.

Ok, first please dont share outside of these forums, even though its public and all, its unfinished, ungraded, no audio, flat raw footage. This was ALSO the first time I have really used a steadicam system ever, so it swings all over the place, the headroom changes all the time, etc. But this is what we are doing to try to get people "in the game" with our player, it will be intercut with the drone and the head cam.

[fullofpaint]

I nearly had a heart attack just having the school's fall off a c-stand once, I'd hate to think of steadicam phantoms coming off the field just covered in paint haha.

[PBSteve]

remember, we are a small, very small, slice of paintball, and an even smaller slice of the world at large. we think we have a product to sell, but paintball on TV fails every single time ... why is that?

because it is unwatchable.

And it has nothing to do with the game being too fast.

I have said this many times about the watchablilty(is that a word) and its something we have tried to crack very very often. One of the real hurdles to watchability is that there is no center of action, no ball/puck/widget/whatever. The action can happen anywhere on the field at any time, so where do you point the camera for a live broadcast? Slowing the game down will not change that

Bingo.

Very few players enjoy hunkering down behind bunkers and lob expensive paint at each other for 10 minutes. Very few spectators want to watch it first hand because it's boring. It's worse than watching track. And nobody wants to pay for it.

Edit: the live flag could be incorporated into this pretty easily as well, I think.

First address gameplay then you can worry about webcasts if you want. Just to put some numbers to it:

7 minute time limit elimination (5v5)
15 points for every man left alive on your team
1/4 the number of seconds on the clock's worth of points go to the winning team (so every minute is worth 15 points)
If you want to discourage stalemates, any stalemate results in points cut in half or something along that line.

Alternatively,
The number of seconds on the clock's worth of points with some multiplier for the number of people left on the winning team (1+(n/4), for example).

Hopefully this setup would encourage smart but quick play. Gordon, your point about asymmetric fields is well taken, I think a lot of people on here have wanted more bunkers for a long time and that could help as well.

Speaking of bunkers and costs, who's idea was it to require the bunkers to hold air?

[noclue119]

On the point watch-ability:
Have a hot girl in bikini(or a hot guy) in the middle of the field. Boom focal point.

Not sure how it relates to the game but notice even on the webcast people were commenting on the Revo Pod girl that was on the field in her bikini.

Sex sells viewership sorry but that is the truth.

The game of paintball is hard to watch unless you only give 1 guy a gun(or have some advance display system)

[cockerpunk]

i dont buy the focal point argument. hockey's focal point is so small you cant even see it unless you have HD, and its very watchable. its watchable because an overhead view allows one to quickly understand what is happening. football is pretty similar, esp on running plays, again, you watch the players, not the ball, and how they move, you can tell where the ball is.

also a "focal point" never really works in paintball, because paintball works when you spread the angles out. also, someone from a long ways from the focal point can vastly effect the outcome, so even if you have a flag, the real goal has almost always been to shoot the other team. it is a decentral game. like if in football if you could never run the ball, it would be significantly harder to watch, because there would be people running all over the place. or if a receiver 20 yards away from the ball, could significantly effect the outcome after the ball is caught by another one. doesn't work.

this is why i think geography is a better "focal point" than anything else. a location on the field that one team has, and the other needs. its very clear.

[PBSteve]

i dont buy the focal point argument. hockey's focal point is so small you cant even see it unless you have HD, and its very watchable.

LOL.

also a "focal point" never really works in paintball, because paintball works when you spread the angles out. also, someone from a long ways from the focal point can vastly effect the outcome, so even if you have a flag, the real goal has almost always been to shoot the other team. it is a decentral game. like if in football if you could never run the ball, it would be significantly harder to watch, because there would be people running all over the place. or if a receiver 20 yards away from the ball, could significantly effect the outcome after the ball is caught by another one. doesn't work.

But that is a decent point.

[noclue119]

i dont buy the focal point argument. hockey's focal point is so small you cant even see it unless you have HD, and its very watchable. its watchable because an overhead view allows one to quickly understand what is happening. football is pretty similar, esp on running plays, again, you watch the players, not the ball, and how they move, you can tell where the ball is.

Sorry going to disagree. Ever try to watch a football game where the offense runs the triple option. You have no idea what is going on. To many possible focal point. Hell even the camera man sometimes has no idea who to follow. It is boring as hell to watch(This is coming from a Georgia Tech fan). There might be 3-4 plays all game that is worth watching. This is also why I stopped going to the games.

Hockey is different because people converge on the action (the puck).

Want something really fun to watch in paintball? put the 1 flag one on near the A, you don't have to hang the flag on the other teams' base, just take it back to your own base(or from snake side of the A to the 50 yard Dorito). Watch how the action changes.