What needs to happen to speedball to keep it relevant?

[skibbo]

I almost wonder if the people.thta started playing 10 years ago are going through life changes (marriage, new jobs, college, etc.) which sowsnt allow as much free time. Coupled with a lower new player rate (related but slightly different topic) I
things have declined.

I know thats what is happening in my own life, so I could be off.

[cockerpunk]

i think paintball was the action sport of the 90s and 2000s. now, video games, are the action "sports" of the 2010s.

we need to take a page out of video games books. respawns to keep people in play longer, objectives, ranking and loading modifiers. modifiable bunkers and such. i mean lets face it, fundamentally, we all enjoy paintball because of that feeling. and i love the chess match of air ball as much as anyone, because its the purist form. but i think what video games is clearly telling us, is that purity, is not what customers want. they dont want to play on a map in a video game with random geometrical shapes to hit behind. they want smoke, and debris, and hills and such.

a local fields most popular tournaments, are on there kinda garbage field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE8Okscci2U

and just to brag, pretty sure part 3 has the most of me in it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE8Okscci2U

[PBSteve]

It's interesting, a friend noted that the aesthetic of paintball (including bunker shapes and colors, jerseys, masks, logos etc.) draws almost entirely from the alternative rock culture of the 90's and 2000's, which is also losing popularity.

More flannel and wood panel grips could be good.

[cockerpunk]

It's interesting, a friend noted that the aesthetic of paintball (including bunker shapes and colors, jerseys, masks, logos etc.) draws almost entirely from the alternative rock culture of the 90's and 2000's, which is also losing popularity.

More flannel and wood panel grips could be good.

yeah the 2010s are far more drab in every way than the extremes of the 90s.

what about a deathmatch format? 10 minute game, whichever side kills more than the other side. make sure the field is large enough that one team cannot easily hit the others spawn, possibly a no go past line on each side. constant action, easy to score game, strategy everywhere ... any number of players per team.

thats what most video games are after all. is it really that simple?

[PBSteve]

So the strategy is... get a leg up and hide?

[cockerpunk]

So the strategy is... get a leg up and hide?

sometimes it is that simple ...

though that doesnt happen in video games you notice ...

[vijil]

I'm surprised and have been for a long time that paintball in general hasn't attempted more crossover marketing and formats with gamer culture. It's exactly the same demographic after all.

I always thought the "Bombing Run" gamemode from the Unreal Tournament series would translate well to paintball. It's basically centre-flag with respawns and a flag you can pass/throw. Twice as many points for carrying it into the goal as for throwing it through.

[Davros]

The only one we'd give advanced notice on is our 19th Amendment game. For that one, it's going to be 3-man... but if you've got a female player available, you can field three men and one woman.

I would suggest making the female players feel welcome by calling it a 3-Player format instead of "3-man". In fact I think that should be the case for all games.

Regardless, I encourage your experimentation.

Last year I played a magfed game inside Nova' Scotia's Defienbunker. For those of you who do not live in Canada I will explain that this was a cold war era nuclear fall out shelter for high ranking government and military officials. The military abandoned it and the one here in NS was sold to a private owner who allowed us to play paintball there once. Anyway we had a mission where two of our players were allowed one magazine each. Twenty percent of the rest of the magazines were in an relatively easy to get to room and the rest were in a hard to get to room.

It was very fun.

I played a scenario game in the woods where they had one mission where players only had 50 rounds each (25% of an entire playing day for me) but there were pods of paint all around the woods. You could use the paint inside the pod and returning it to a designated spot scored your team points. This too was much fun.

Speedball may be different but these experiences lead me to believe that you will be able to tweak your hunger games so you will find a very fun format.

[y0da900]

Taking a cue from Gordon's video game inspired suggestion and complicating it a bit.

Randomly scattered "weapon" spawn points that use NFC or some other super short range wireless data transfer method to temporarily alter the firing mode of the marker. The spawn points can randomly cycle through their available modes where some increase your gun's capabilities (higher ROF or ramping) for a defined time period and occasionally cripple their firing modes (billy ball for example). This gives players a risk factor of pursuing the power-ups over staying with their default settings, which would have to be a low enough ROF to make the power-ups feel potentially worth it but high enough to not make people say to hell with it I'm just playing pump. Programming that prevents you from using the same power-up station twice in a row to prevent campers.

Would obviously require dedicated technology inside the gun, but sounds like it could be great fun and really make every game unique.

[pbjosh]

Taking a cue from Gordon's video game inspired suggestion and complicating it a bit.

Randomly scattered "weapon" spawn points that use NFC or some other super short range wireless data transfer method to temporarily alter the firing mode of the marker. The spawn points can randomly cycle through their available modes where some increase your gun's capabilities (higher ROF or ramping) for a defined time period and occasionally cripple their firing modes (billy ball for example). This gives players a risk factor of pursuing the power-ups over staying with their default settings, which would have to be a low enough ROF to make the power-ups feel potentially worth it but high enough to not make people say to hell with it I'm just playing pump. Programming that prevents you from using the same power-up station twice in a row to prevent campers.

Would obviously require dedicated technology inside the gun, but sounds like it could be great fun and really make every game unique.

If you found a manufacturer who would do that, you could setup something very 'HALO-ish'.

What type of trigger for the setting - Bluetooth or related? Say, hit the button, get F/A for 3 minutes? Maybe RFID? An 'EMP' grenade goes off an the guns drop to very limited or Semi for 3 mintues as the 'reboot'? Some guns are low velocity, some are FS with 5-10 rounds in the magazine?

It could be epic.


We are re-doing the board with a few guys (one whom is on here) who might have a way to do that. We are thinking about making it open, so editing it would be easy. I have just the setup for it. It might take a bit, but setting it up with a field and maybe a game launch (HALO 7!) would be kinda badass.